How do you contrive a link between Oasis and Keir Starmer? Not easy. The Gallagher brothers have never been more popular – selling out stadiums the nation over and rekindling nostalgia for the late 90s when Britain felt like a place on the up.
Keir Starmer? Not so much. After a year in power, his ratings are through the floor and any comparison with the first year of the last great Labour landslide, under Tony Blair, is laughable. Some might say. Why is a link necessary? Because this week we have – amongst a plethora of brilliant articles – two that stand out as potential covers.
Pete Paphides has written a simply majestic essay on Oasis. It’s accompanied by an exclusive set of photographs from the brilliant Kevin Cummins. I did a Google search of Oasis content and it won’t surprise you to hear that there’s quite a bit of it out there. More than 8,000 articles in fact. So when you’ve got the best, not maybe, definitely, you want to stick it on the cover.
Then there’s Tom Baldwin – Keir Starmer’s biographer and the journalist who knows him best – writing exclusively for us on how Starmer can put a lousy first year behind him and reconnect with Labour voters. It’s a frank and honest article – the kind of conversation only real friends have when you need to hear something you might not want to hear.
What links them? Comebacks. Oasis have made one. Starmer needs one. Hence our two-in-one cover this week, as creative director Martin Nicholls described it, channelling Select magazine, circa 1994.
Sonia Sodha doesn’t pull any punches. “Lurid rubbish” is how she describes Matthew Goodwin’s daft theory that Britain’s diversity is the root cause of its supposed decline. It’s true that if you only ever read The Spectator, you’d be afraid to walk out of your front door. But, as Sonia points out, just because Goodwin’s pseudo-anthropology is baloney doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem. The challenges of ethnic integration are real. Sonia’s piece is everything we try to be in this new world: factual, challenging, thoughtful.
And speaking of The Spectator, what happened when its editor Michael Gove (remember him? Bloke who helped f*** up Britain with Brexit?) and his ex-wife Sarah Vine went on stage to discuss “Living With A Politician”? We sent our Rats In A Sack correspondent, whose report of the evening is everything you’d fear it to be.
Suggested Reading
My picks of the week: Gaza, Glastonbury and understanding Giorgia Meloni
Matthew d’Ancona brings us up to speed with the quite extraordinary worldview of one of the most influential people you may never have heard of: Peter Thiel. The fact that this multi-multi-billionaire is super-influential is very relevant since Thiel, who has the ear of Trump and to whom all of Silicon Valley bends a knee, also happens to be a believer in the Antichrist. Worse still, he believes the Antichrist is alive and well and its name might just be… Greta Thunberg. If that all sounds a bit scary and mad (you can imagine the editorial conference when Matt pitched the idea), then click here – it’s even madder and scarier than you thought.
And John Kampfner writes from Berlin where he has had the ordeal of reviewing Mein Kampf on the centenary of its publication. It is an assignment he found, by his own admission, a real struggle. It’s a brilliant, if depressing, analysis, as John discovers how the themes at the heart of Hitler’s odious tome are being refashioned for our times.
Elsewhere, John Bleasdale gives you a rundown of his top films of the 21st century so far. To my shame, I haven’t seen three in his top ten – so that’s my weekend viewing sorted. And Marie Le Conte wonders what has happened to her ability to focus.
Now… where was I? Ah yes, a final word for our letter writers. You can always judge the quality of a magazine or newspaper by the quality of its letters page. Ours is up there with the best. I take particular interest in it this week as the first letters are in response to my piece last week, Meanwhile, In Gaza. To those of you who wrote in support and to those of you who wrote in opposition, I say thank you. There is nothing more important than the expression of honestly held opinion and the willingness to listen to it. Without that, none of us move forward.
