Politicians are increasingly asked to function as cultural icons ✍️ Maximillian Garely bit.ly/4eFFdyi

No one in Britain is seriously advocating reopening the question of a hard border ✍️ Patrick Gibbons bit.ly/4vRaKmP

Will Trump’s emphasis on virility and manhood be able to disguise his own physical decline? ✍️ Jacob Heilbrunn bit.ly/4vMrxao

Sweden is a useful terrarium of immigration; the good, the bad and the ugly ✍️ Atbin Moayedi bit.ly/3QkG6Tu

Milat took his victims into the forest bound, terrified and subjected them to unspeakably sadistic torture ✍️ Terry Barnes bit.ly/4e9VcVf

South Africa might be the biggest mass migration story you have never heard of ✍️ Robert King bit.ly/4elpmDP

This is a move that smacks of managerial timidity, scrubbing the name of a great individual and his achievement in favour of something numbingly bland and sterile ✍️ John Reeks bit.ly/445NJR1

'Elon Musk is a real-life Bond villain' ran the headline in the Financial Times. But the idea that Musk’s financial wealth makes us poorer is a mistake ✍️ Druin Burch spectator.com/article/why-ca…

I had a culinary revelation this week. I like to think I'm an egalitarian when it comes to food – I like beautiful, fancy restaurant stuff and home-cooked one-pot dishes, I like punchy, in-your-face flavour, and subtle, softer flavours. I love trying new-to-me dishes from around the world, and I love the comfort of eating suppers my grandma would make. You can put virtually anything in front of me and I'll be thrilled. But as I contemplated this week's recipe subject, I realised that I avoid foods that ooze. Doughnuts splurging out their jam, uncontainable ice-cream sandwiches, croissants or Danish pastries with custards or compotes that blob onto my clothes. Even really juicy stone fruit or a particularly ripe soft cheese makes me nervous. My name is Olivia Potts, and I have an aversion to squidge. ✍️ Olivia Potts Article | spectator.com/article/embrac…

The MCB simply does not represent British Muslims ✍️ Andrew Gilligan spectator.com/article/the-mu…

Lewis Hamilton has a long history of acting like both a princeling and a drag queen in terms of entitlement and drama, while also liking to present himself as the underdog ✍️ Julie Burchill spectator.com/article/kim-ka…

This is only one of a number of scandals that are putting the Royal Navy’s crewmen and women’s lives needlessly at risk ✍️ Mark Piesing spectator.com/article/the-ai…

Donald Trump, caricatured before his presidency as a warmonger, is nothing of the kind ✍️ Jonathan Spyer spectator.com/article/iran-w…

The question I find myself asking along with a lot of other football fans is: What are we doing? What are we doing to these players? ✍️ Scarlet Katz Roberts spectator.com/article/despit…

London was not merely a refuge; for a time, it was a temporary Polish capital. Poles have never forgotten it ✍️ Piotr Wilczek spectator.com/article/how-lo…

Pessimism about the United Kingdom’s position in the world has a long pedigree. But the talk of our decline is overblown ✍️ Brendan Simms spectator.com/article/britai…

We're only a few months – perhaps years at most ­– away from the first political assassination by a drone'. That was the chilling verdict delivered by Francis Dearnley on this week's episode of The Edition podcast from The Spectator. The host of the award-winning Ukraine: The Latest podcast was speaking as Russia's war in Ukraine reached a grim milestone: it has now gone on longer than the first world war. That Ukraine has been able to fiercely resist Russia for so long is due, in no small part, to advances in drone technology. ✍️ Patrick Gibbons Article | spectator.com/article/were-o…

This is not the end, but it's well past the beginning of the end, or even the middle of the end. It feels, with six days until the Makerfield by-election is expected to return Andy Burnham to Parliament, that we are at the beginning of the end of the end. It is also well past the point of no return for Britain's credibility on the world stage. Like the clockwork toy which goes off just as you have drifted off to sleep, Keir Starmer weathered an interview with the BBC on the departure of two ministers from the Ministry of Defence (and two ministerial aides) only to get an Exocet in the guts from the Americans. ✍️ Tim Shipman Article | spectator.com/article/starme…

If you've ever lived in Marseille – where the habit of exaggeration is imbibed with mothers' milk – you've heard about the sardine that blocked the port. But that's nothing compared to the pistachio that took over the world. In late 2023, Dubai chocolate, a new kind of chocolate bar filled with pistachio cream, tahini and crunchy, toasted phyllo pastry, went viral. Chocolate brands, bakeries and purveyors of fine foods were quick to jump on the trend. Coffee chains began offering pistachio chocolate drinks (iced Dubai-chocolate matcha, anyone?) and delectable pistachio bomboloni – soft donuts filled with pistachio cream – came back on the menu in Italian restaurants. Meanwhile, pâtissiers seized on the craze with spinoffs such as the pistachio and raspberry dessert by Montreal's Farine & Cacao: yogurt mousse, raspberry confit and whipped pistachio ganache nestled atop a pistachio biscuit, crowned with fresh raspberries and pistachio praline. ✍️ Jane Stannus Article | spectator.com/article/stands…

Since Donald Trump retook office in January 2025, Washington has experienced significant upheaval in its institutions. The United States Institute of Peace underwent a DoGE takeover that involved federal police occupying the building, taking over its board of directors and seizing control of its assets and operations. The majority of people who had worked there prior was fired or nudged toward resignation – with their severance conditional on a promise not to sue their old employer. It was renamed the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. ✍️ Cockburn Article | spectator.com/article/the-fu…