The Spectator 18 April 2026

When Britons go to the polls next month, the results will likely reveal just how un-United the Kingdom has become. Separatist parties are poised to win in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The established parties of government – Labour and Conservative – are likely to sustain losses. The former may be deserved, and the latter unjust, given Kemi Badenoch has been vigorously effective in holding the Prime Minister to account. Even so, the polarising dynamics of our splintered nation will hit both historic parties hard. In a polity that is split by geography, attitude and income, one division is particularly striking: age. Intergenerational tensions are one of Britain’s most salient divisions. A YouGov poll following the Gorton and Denton by-election found almost half of 18-to 24-year-olds back Zack Polanski’s Greens…

Last week our cookery writer Olivia Potts scooped the world by revealing that AB World Foods was to cease production of Gentleman’s Relish – on the eve of the 200th anniversary of the anchovy paste first gracing our dinner tables. For The Spectator, itself approaching its 200th anniversary, this was a loss that could scarcely be borne. But, thanks to quiet diplomacy between this magazine and the owners of Gentleman’s Relish, negotiations are now advancing to secure the future of Patum Peperium. More details will follow, but in the meantime, the chairman of Associated British Foods has released one of the last existing consignments of Gentleman’s Relish to The Spectator. We will outline plans for the distribution of this emergency supply next week.…

Robert Hardman is the author of Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. The Inside Story. On p7, he wonders how the late Queen would have celebrated turning 100. John Bew, who on p24 writes about Britain’s armed forces, was foreign policy adviser to prime ministers Johnson, Truss, Sunak and Starmer. Horatio Clare, who writes about the meaning of cormorants on p32, is the author of A Single Swallow, Orison For A Curlew and We Came By Sea. Anna Aslanyan is a writer, translator and author of Dancing on Ropes: Translators and the Balance of History. She writes about book goofs on p34. Tom Knowles, who discusses the quest for godlike AI on p36, is a former technology correspondent for the Times.…

Home Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the former secretary general of Nato, said: ‘We are under attack. We are not safe... Britain’s national security and safety is in peril.’ The government ran out of time to pass legislation to give the Chagos Islands to Mauritius before the end of the current session of parliament. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, visited Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar. He said in the Guardian that renewable energy would give Britain resilience in an unstable world. The IMF forecast that the Iran war would hit Britain’s economy the hardest, among G7 countries, reducing its estimate for growth this year to 0.8 per cent, from the 1.3 per cent predicted in January. Three Russian submarines conducted a covert operation over cables and pipelines…

Elizabeth II was never particularly enthusiastic about birthdays. They were a good excuse for a parade or an honours list, but not a patch on a major wedding anniversary, let alone a jubilee. Those were a celebration of true dedication, not of mere longevity. Even so, were she still with us, the late Queen would have acknowledged that her centenary on Tuesday is a big deal. It would also have created a delightful conundrum for the Buckingham Palace anniversaries office, the department that sends out 100th-birthday congratulations from the sovereign. At the start of her reign, she was sending 385 of those each year across all her realms (by telegram). By the end, it was over 16,000 (by card). When her own mother reached 100 in the summer of 2000,…

When John Healey was asked, on stage at the London Defence Conference, whether the armed forces were ‘ready’ for war, the Defence Secretary replied: ‘Yes.’ One of those present says: ‘That was greeted with near incredulity in the room.’ Another attendee compared Healey’s plight to someone ‘playing French cricket’, with critics from all sides hurling balls at his ankles while he tried to bat them away. ‘You can’t score any runs in French cricket.’ George Robertson, Healey’s most respected Labour predecessor and a former secretary general of Nato, was not present; he was in Scotland celebrating his 80th birthday. But he returned to give a withering interview to the FT and a speech. Having co-written the government’s strategic defence review, he warned that, because of the government’s ‘corrosive complacency’ over…