The October 12 edition of The Spectator has gone to press, featuring:

⭐️@andrewmcockburn
⭐️@default_friend
⭐️@mattwridley
⭐️@geoffrey_cain
⭐️@mk_skehan
⭐️@margekmitchell
⭐️Christopher Caldwell

@ivodelingpole We ran a brilliant interview by @MaxJeffery_ with him in @TheSpectator earlier this year. spectator.com/article/inside…

Brontë Parsonage Museum, the registered charity which manages the family’s old rural rectory home, is currently pretending Jane Eyre is not about love in the time of communism, but love in the time of colonialism.

✍️ Steven Tucker

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Walking into Cheesecake Factory on a Thursday night is much like you’d expect. Low-lit, with a vaguely Asian flair. There’s the giant kitchen needed to turn out the food from the novel-sized menu. If reading isn’t your thing, there are TVs on the wall that show a rotation of the on offer.

They tried to serve us bread and butter which looks delicious but at a place like this it’s a sucker’s move. I’m not sure why they offer it other than to show their commitment to gluttony. Save your calories.

✍️ @zackchristenson

Article: spectator.com/article/my-nig…

Given its corpulent government and inexplicably entitled populace, I’ve long been in awe of the fact that France functions at all. In the past four weeks, the verdict is belatedly in: it doesn’t.

✍️ Lionel Shriver

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Understandably, many Israelis held Netanyahu responsible for the security failure. Even before October 7, they felt Netanyahu had probably outlived his political usefulness.

✍️ Tom Gross

Article: trib.al/nEe2v7r

Two versions of the “unrest” have emerged. For the left-wing press, “mostly peaceful” minors protesting poor educational provision were joined by “mostly peaceful” adults protesting the cost of living – who were then infiltrated by masked outside “agitators” of totally unknown set stuff on fire.

Version two, shared by Donald Trump and J.D. Vance: the violence is wholly down to immigrants. The proposition that these ructions are all about class sizes, teacher absences and missing ceiling tiles is a joke.

The truth seems a mix of both. Clearly the usual Islamo-left alliance is at work, along with numerous #MeToo types who just want in on the fun. But as the disorder spreads beyond France, consider why this is happening and what it’s achieved.

✍️ Lionel Shriver

spectator.com/article/can-we…

Kushner has quickly and adamantly rejected Cole’s allegations as “completely insane,” “categorically false” and “outrageous.” His lawyer Chad Mizelle has said: “There are no bank accounts. They don’t exist.”

✍️ Freddy Gray

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Cockburn is not au fait with the social conventions of this country’s rich Somali communities, though he’s fairly sure sibling marriage is frowned upon under sharia law.

Article: trib.al/fDfVC7Z

There is little doubt that Trumpworld’s intricate ties to the mega-billions of the sheikhs on the Gulf Cooperation Council will be at the heart of the national and probably Democrat-led conversation from November 3 onward.

✍️ Freddy Gray

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A Minneapolis-based Somali blogger told the Daily Mail in 2020 that Ilhan had introduced Elmi as her “brother from London” to community members in Minnesota. The blogger described Elmi as “a very effeminate young guy.” “He would wear light lipstick and pink clothes and very, very mer. People started whispering about him,” the blogger said. The implication being that her brother is, gasp, British.

✍️ Cockburn

Article: spectator.com/article/omar-f…

A must-read analysis of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s "revolutionary guard," via @napsarkozy in @TheSpectator. spectator.com/article/whos-w…

With the midterms upon us and a Democratic majority in Congress beckoning, we’re about to have what could be a far more explosive sequel. My working title is Gulfgate: This Time It’s Serious!

Yesterday, Vanity Fair published what appears to be a huge story about Jared Kushner, in-law. It is an excerpt from Matthew Cole’s new book, Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East.

It’s got some thrilling spy-film elements – including Dutch intelligence agents somehow getting hold of Kushner’s telephone records from a Russian spook who had been turned. And the central allegation is that Kushner had access to secret foreign bank accounts funded by the two most powerful Arab Gulf states, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, amounting to around $2 billion. A slush fund, if you will. There was, it is claimed, an “Alpha” account, held by First Abu Dhabi Bank and run by the brother of UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed, aka MbZ. There was also a “Beta” one, with the Bank of Israel, containing $1 billion which MbZ apparently funneled through Azerbaijan. Unnamed sources claim that, in return for access to the money, Kushner promised MbZ he would “push their agenda with Trump.”

Now, no doubt Cole is a hard-working and truth-seeking journalist, but it’s always worth keeping a level head when reading such sensational claims.

✍️ @Freddygray31

spectator.com/article/brace-…

Even the ordinary give and take of a relationship, something that’s only ever been subject to a loose double-entry, has become warped beyond recognition.

Boyfriend having a hard time? Perhaps he’s lost his job and you’re having to be extra nice – well, that’s “mankeeping,” and et if you aren’t accurately recompensed for every single “investment” of physical and “emotional labor” you make.

✒️ @Babygravy9

Read more: spectator.com/article/the-ri…

What started in mid-September as a peaceful demonstration against the government for its failure to invest in schools and stop the upward spiral of fuel prices has turned into weeks of riots and street fights.

✍️ Philip Delves Broughton

Article: trib.al/994R5yM

One masked rioter, asked by a television reporter why he was there, replied: “Revolt!” “Against what?” asked the reporter. “The state, politics!”

✍️ Nicholas Farrell

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Again, Vivek has shown us who he is: less a candidate than a farrago of bad instincts, rank unpleasantry and Dickensian megalomania.

✍️ Cockburn

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The wonderful thing about electric bikes, if you are fighting with French riot police, is the way they burn.

✍️ Philip Delves Broughton

Article: trib.al/zZ0QVHs

The rioters had apparently decided to descend on Milan and devastate the city center after the call went out on social media platforms such as TikTok and WhatsApp.

✍️ Nicholas Farrell

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Cockburn wonders what, exactly, Ramaswamy or his campaign expected to come from this ad. Like a dime-store firework, it has backfired as predictably and explosively as you would expect.

Article: trib.al/6JvUgKb

The French riots have many causes. But among those burning France down are people the French allowed to come into their country. It isn’t that the French somehow failed to give them enough nice things or were racist. They simply invited in people who hated them.

What makes the different that it hasn’t happened here? Only that the match has not yet been struck.

✍️ @DouglasKMurray

Article: spectator.com/article/france…