Badenoch’s achievement in bringing the Tories to 21 per cent may seem small beer at the moment, but in a year’s time the difference may be as dramatic as this year is from last. ✍️ Stephen Pollard spectator.com/article/how-ke…

I watched The Sound of Music and fell as hopelessly in love with it as any other viewer who doesn’t possess a heart of stone. It’s The Great Escape for women, down to the villains and the alacrity with which millions of families up and down the country pick it as their annual postprandial Christmas viewing. The people who love it really love it. They dance their first dance to ‘Something Good’; they quote ‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen’ while up in court; when they list their favourite things, there is no doubt which movie they put at the top. As soon as I posted on Instagram about my travel plans, my Instagram DMs were flooded by female friends suggesting that I was living their dreams. There’s a first time for everything. ✍️ William Atkinson spectator.com/article/salzbu…

‘In two-tier Britain, some protests are more equal than others.’ ✍️ Laurie Wastell spectator.com/article/why-th…

Earl Spencer, the brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, said in a book that the King had told him after her death: ‘We’ll forget her soon enough.’ Buckingham Palace responded: ‘The pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss.’ Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, flew off to New York, where he told President Donald Trump that Britain would defend the Falklands, but agreed to look again at the Chagos agreement, which Mr Trump declared ‘terrible’. The Christian Democrats did very badly in regional elections in Germany: Alternative für Deutschland topped the poll in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where the CDU failed to poll enough for a parliamentary presence; and in Berlin the greatest share of the vote went to the Marxist party called Die Linke. ✍️ The Spectator Article | spectator.com/article/portra…

1972 was a watershed year for the Rolling Stones. On the face of it they should have been riding high: they had released Exile on Main Street to great critical acclaim and healthy sales – nearly a million copies in the first week alone – and undertook a lucrative US tour that became as famous for its off-stage excesses as for the music. The Tucson Citizen described one of the shows thus: "Outrageous. Picaresque. Jaunty. Flagitious. Taunting, teasing, tempting… an hour and a half of bad influence on your daughter and exquisite bacchanal rock from Mick Jagger and his band." I'm sure the others would have had something to say about the Stones being Mick's band, but it represented an apotheosis of the group's carefully cultivated bad-boy, "anti-Beatles" image, initially crafted by one-time manager Andrew Loog Oldham. ✍️ Robert Ryan Article | spectator.com/article/one-lo…

It has to go down as one of the strangest public encounters between a senior British politician and, well, a nobody who is apparently big on social media. Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, was stopped in the street in New York by an influencer, Feroz Khan, in a brief and seemingly spontaneous interaction – one that just happened to be filmed and then posted all over social media. Miliband was there for the UN general assembly but apparently more than happy to chew the fat with a perfect stranger. ✍️ Jawad Iqbal Article | spectator.com/article/ed-mil…

On today's Coffee House Shots podcast: Andy Burnham pitched Britain to the UN this week as an 'honest broker' on artificial intelligence, only for Washington to ask OpenAI and Anthropic to make Britain's AI Security Institute wait its turn. Michael Simmons is joined by James Heale and Tim Shipman to discuss James's column on the backlash, data centres and whether Burnham's Makerfield test will make room for AI innovation. Listen | spectator.com/podcast/is-the… | @JAHeale | @ShippersUnbound

On this week's Quite Right Q&A: should Britain follow Giorgia Meloni and ban the burqa in schools? Michael says that head teachers should set uniform policy free of pressure from outside the school gates – but would he go as far as Reform's proposed ban on face coverings in public? Maddie asks why progressive feminists have so little to say on the subject. Listen | spectator.com/podcast/should… | @michaelgove | @madz_grant

The Conservatives have had a change of fortune of late. With the latest YouGov polls suggesting that the Tories have pulled neck-and-neck with Reform, even the most sceptical must acknowledge there has been a ‘Kemi bounce’. PMQs is often touted by SW1ers as a cause of this, but having Starmer, and now Burnham, it is hard to suggest Badenoch's shooting at anything but an open goal. ✍️ Matthew Bowles Article | spectator.com/article/the-pr… | @Matthew__Bowles

Zack Polanski was heckled by furious residents of Holborn and St Pancras at a Jewish community hustings. The former breast-enhancer was met with boos and jeers as he repeated his claim that the war in Gaza amounts to a 'genocide' – and accused those in the room who disagreed of 'making themselves less safe'. ✍️ Steerpike Article | spectator.com/article/watch-… | @MrSteerpike

It has emerged that the Australian government’s healthcare scheme Medicare was hacked by an autonomous agent from one of the world's largest AI companies, Open AI. OpenAI says ‘our models took actions we did not intend’. The firm told the Australian government that the hack was unintentional, and there is no reason to doubt its assertion. But Albanese is furious, and it is hard to blame him. Besides the hacking of a secure and highly sensitive database are the circumstances. The hack happened three months ago. OpenAI became aware in August. ✍️ Terry Barnes Article | spectator.com/article/austra… | @TerryBarnes5

On Monday a 'connectivity issue' at the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) centre in Prestwick caused flight delays and more than 150 cancellations. It came just two weeks after a systems failure at Nats's Swanwick control centre caused more than 2,000 cancellations over two days. The latest failure happened despite robust 'mitigation plans' put in place in September – and the implementation (by Nats, airlines and airports) of 34 recommendations from the CAA after a Nats software problem three years ago saw 1,600 flights delayed and 700,000 passengers affected by delays or cancellations. ✍️ John O'Neill Article | spectator.com/article/does-b…

Earlier this month, Germany took the unprecedented step of publicly naming Moscow as being responsible for a spate of drone attacks against Leipzig airport in August, during which an explosive-laden drone was discovered next to a Ukrainian cargo plane. What makes Russia's supposed plan to use Gerbera drones against France, Spain or Italy particularly alarming is their size. While the drones used in Leipzig, for example, were small remote-controlled drones the size of a microwave oven, Gerbera drones are considerably larger. While still much lighter, they are only just smaller than the haunting Shahed and Geran drones that Russia regularly sends into Ukraine. ✍️ Lisa Haseldine Article | spectator.com/article/was-pu… | @lisahaseldine

What is fiscal ‘headroom’ – and why does it matter? In this week's episode of Reality Check, Economics Editor Michael Simmons explains how Britain’s fiscal rules really work, why changes in borrowing costs can wipe billions off the Chancellor’s buffer, and why losing headroom does not automatically mean another round of tax rises. Watch Reality Check in full | piped.video/watch?v=mhQFAXWa… | @Simmons__

There's a well-worn joke that the shortest book ever published is 'Great Jewish Sporting Heroes'. We Jews are known for various attributes – a penchant for Nobel prizes, for example – but sporting prowess isn't really one of them. And if that's true generally, the book of British Jewish sports stars is even thinner. There's racing driver Stirling Moss and Harold Abrahams, of Chariots of Fire fame. Or football manager David Pleat. Then it starts to get a bit more difficult. But all those jokes need to be torn up now that Wayne Rooney has revealed that he's Jewish. Properly Jewish, not just 'I love bagels' Jewish. ✍️ Stephen Pollard Article | spectator.com/article/is-way… | @stephenpollard

This year's UN General Assembly was a hotbed of dissent and disagreement. World leaders tore into their enemies from the podium, while pious diplomats reverted to their usual displays of virtue signalling – staging walkouts and delivering relentless rants about Gaza. Yet amid all the acrimony came one unlikely act of solidarity between enemy states. Or at least an attempt at one. ✍️ Steerpike Article | spectator.com/article/watch-… | @MrSteerpike

Does Macklemore really want to 'Save Gaza' or save his own lame career from the dungheap of history? Yesterday, the self-styled cancelled rapper – he's bloody noisy for someone who's been silenced – announced that he's going on tour. It's called the 'Free Palestine' tour. Of course it is. There's no speedier shortcut to the moral highground for a has-been half-celeb than on the Gaza bandwagon. Macklemore became the Palestine movement's holiest martyr when he was dumped from Ed Sheeran's US tour after yelping 'Free Palestine' at 90,000 Sheeran fans in New Jersey. Ivy League leftists idolise him. He's the patron saint of the keffiyeh cult. 'He's been crucified by the Epstein classes! ✍️ Brendan O’Neill Article | spectator.com/article/spare-… | @spikedonline

Moments before President Xi Jinping climbed down the steps of his aircraft to be greeted by Donald Trump, US marines were filmed on their hands and knees smoothing out the red carpet, Chinese officials looking down from the top of the steps. It was an uncomfortable image, ridiculed on social media for the symbolism of kowtowing to the emperor. But it set the tone for a summit which so far has been heavy on pomp and ceremony, rich in platitudes, but with very little in the way of substance. ✍️ Ian Williams Article | spectator.com/article/whats-…

Since 2014, Oxford University Press has been tracking the Children's Word of the Year, and the results reveal interesting truths about the emotional landscape young people are growing up in. Children do not choose toys, trends, celebratory events like the Olympics, or, well, anything remotely childish. Instead, they choose weighty words associated with current affairs and adult concerns: refugee, Trump, plastic, Brexit, coronavirus, anxiety, queen, climate change, kindness and peace. Many of the runner-up words – AI, war, conflict, chaos, challenging – also hardly encapsulate childlike wonder and joy. ✍️ Kristina Murkett Article | spectator.com/article/its-a-…

Lambeth Palace has withdrawn an award presented by the Archbishop of Canterbury to a Pakistani cleric, after it emerged he backed an honorary title for Osama bin Laden. Did Sarah Mullally's handling of the ceremony undermine everything her appointment as Archbishop was supposed to stand for? Watch in full | piped.video/watch?v=hWTqqvuK… | @michaelgove | @madz_grant