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Gareth Roberts

Gareth Roberts

The Spectator

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Why can’t Stonewall’s ex-boss come clean about its trans obsession?

The few days since the publication of the Cass report – the probe into ‘gender identity’ services for young people – have been a...

tuesday 7

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

The Tories deserve our contempt

The Telegraph reported at the weekend that the Conservative party appears to be attempting, in its selection process for parliamentary candidates, to...

09.04.2024 30

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Why I quit Working for the Royal Mail sounded like an ideal job. But I discovered it’s falling apart, just like its vans

For most of my life, I worked in the media. In early 2023 I returned from a job abroad, and it had been intense: six weeks in a remote mountain...

08.04.2024 300

The Guardian

Gareth Roberts

Anti-Israel virtue signallers should leave Eurovision alone

The 2024 Eurovision Song Contest – the final of which will be held in Malmö on 11 May – is the latest peculiar target of pompous virtue...

02.04.2024 5

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Let’s kick ‘racial justice’ out of the Church of England

Holy Week is the most important part of the year for many Christians, but it will come as little surprise that some members of the Church of England...

26.03.2024 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Steve Harley was no one-hit wonder

Celebrity deaths range from the ‘tragically young’ (Amy Winehouse) to the ‘I thought they’d gone years ago’ (Peregrine Worsthorne) and...

19.03.2024 4

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Blame Prince William, not Kate, for the Royal photo blunder

The Princess of Wales has owned up. In a statement on X/ Twitter, she revealed that she was the phantom photoshopper: ‘Like many amateur...

12.03.2024 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Rishi Sunak can’t save Britain

The Tories have hit an all-time low: an Ipsos poll shows the party on a dismal twenty per cent, with the percentage of under-35s intending to vote for...

05.03.2024 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

The middle-class obsession with the miners’ strike

The miners’ strike has struck again. It’s the fortieth anniversary of the protracted dispute of 1984-85, which means that you have to be about my...

27.02.2024 3

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

The truth about John Lewis’s trans takeover

John Lewis is, to most people, a department store that exists to sell toasters, cushions and lamps. But it turns out we have been labouring under a...

20.02.2024 5

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Why progressives don’t face any real consequences

One of the most tedious and repetitive observations made in the often tedious and repetitive discourse around cancel culture is the notion that...

13.02.2024 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Why Trump loves The Smiths

Donald Trump and The Smiths make, you would think, very unlikely bedfellows. Recently a mini-kerfuffle broke out over a Smiths song – ‘Please...

09.02.2024 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Why can’t Peter Tatchell leave Cliff Richard alone?

Leave Cliff alone! Peter Tatchell has weighed in on Cliff Richard’s refusal to declare his sexual orientation. Tatchell was spurred on by the...

06.02.2024 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Why is Michael Gove gaslighting himself about the Tories’ achievements?

Michael Gove has written a staunch defence of the government’s 14 years of ‘achievements’ for Conservative Home. ‘Do we really want to go back...

30.01.2024 4

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

The best place to see art? Twitter of course

We hear a lot these days about how social media causes many of our ills. You may have heard some of that from me. And I was right. But I’ve recently...

29.01.2024 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Falling apart / The age of outrage has arrived

It’s an outrage! The dictionary definition of ‘outrage’ in this sense is ‘something that is grossly offensive to decency, morality or good...

23.01.2024 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Taking the rap / Nadia Whittome is deluded about drill music

Nadia Whittome, no longer Britain’s youngest MP but still quite possibly its daftest, has a new bee in her bonnet. Writing on Nottingham’s...

16.01.2024 7

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

TV trigger warnings are out of control

The warnings on what we now call ‘content’ (i.e. what we used to know as films and TV shows) are getting ever more ludicrous. Almost everything...

09.01.2024 6

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

How progressive ideology hijacked the festive season

Fireworks at New Year are the purest distillation of the spirit of frippery. All Sadiq Khan had to do was give ‘em the old razzle dazzle. There is...

02.01.2024 7

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

The trouble with Boxing Day

You are bloated and binged. Your bloodstream is 35 per cent blood, 60 per cent a mix of Nurofen Plus, Gaviscon and acetaldehyde and 5 per cent Quality...

26.12.2023 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Christmas hits / Bring back schmaltzy songs

Christmas pop song lyrics play by different rules. Children, food and family togetherness are never mentioned in pop songs from January through...

19.12.2023 7

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Why Nigel Farage failed on ‘I’m a Celebrity…’

The coronation of Sam Thompson, Scrappy Doo in human form, as King of the Jungle in this year’s I’m A Celebrity… was an inevitability. It was...

11.12.2023 7

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Make drag innocent again!

One of the most regrettable things about the last decade of general cultural awfulness has been the politicisation and sexualisation of drag. The...

07.12.2023 8

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Why Nella Rose was booted from I’m a Celeb

Farewell Nella Rose, second to be voted out of the jungle on the 2023 series of I’m A Celebrity…  As always, it’s hard (at least for a...

05.12.2023 2

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Final chapter / I’ve finally given up on physical books

When I first heard about ebooks, I was horrified. Something deep within me flinched. Surely, I thought – my surface brain trying to rationalise this...

04.12.2023 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

I’m a Celebrity has revealed the boring truth about Nigel Farage

When Nigel Farage entered the jungle on I’m A Celebrity… there was much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. ‘I feel a little bit...

28.11.2023 8

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

The mad cult of Doctor Who

When Doctor Who returned to wild acclaim in 2005, after 16 years off-air and about a generation of being regarded as an embarrassment, I remember...

26.11.2023 20

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

David Cameron and the triumph of fence-sitting politicians

David Cameron is the king of the wishy-washy compromise. Cameron has never looked happier than when he appeared in the Downing Street Rose Garden in...

21.11.2023 3

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Suella Braverman’s downfall is nothing to celebrate

Rishi Sunak’s decision to recall David Cameron from his shepherd’s hut has been hailed as a triumph by centrist dads. They’re convinced that...

14.11.2023 8

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

What did we really learn from Dominic Cummings’s leaked WhatsApps?

It’ll be years before the Covid inquiry reports back on what we can learn from the pandemic, but already there is one key lesson for us all: don’t...

07.11.2023 3

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

When did we change our minds about Little Britain?

Little Britain is ‘explicitly racist and outdated’. That’s the verdict of viewers asked by Ofcom to watch a 2003 sketch from the hit BBC show....

01.11.2023 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Israel, Palestine and the troubling silence of Britain’s anti-racists

There’s no room for racism in Britain, we’re told. EDI (equality, diversion and inclusion) initiatives and anti-racism strategies are everywhere....

31.10.2023 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Life lessons / My favourite, ferocious teacher

In 1979, I was 11 years old, and I had a quite remarkable teacher. Don’t worry, though – this isn’t going to be one of those anodyne paeans to...

27.10.2023 4

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Israel’s plight exposes the truth about virtue signalling ‘values’

Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, recently took a pop at immigrants who she accused of failing to ‘embrace British values’. But these...

24.10.2023 5

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

The return of rational fear

17.10.2023 10

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Holly Willoughby / The trivial narcissism of television

Sometimes, the amazing crassness of television can still take your breath away, even from the longest-in-the-tooth viewer. Sky News has a...

11.10.2023 1

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

How Big Brother lost touch with reality

Big Brother is back – again. The show was axed by Channel 5 in 2018 but ITV has dragged it out of the grave. Watching the show’s opening episode...

09.10.2023 3

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Is Keir Starmer going to blow it?

When Boris Johnson won his eighty-seat majority, Labour looked to be destined to spend a decade or so in the political wilderness. But...

03.10.2023 6

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Culture clash / What happened when the Bully XL protesters met the ‘Rejoiners’?

London was swamped with protesters this weekend but not all of them saw eye to eye. Bully XL dog owners and ‘Rejoiners’ who want Brexit to be...

25.09.2023 3

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Are we heading for a Sunak and Starmer podcast?

Theresa May always had a camp appeal. The clumsiness, the dancing, the incredible squareness. Mrs Thatcher never took that crown – she had too...

18.09.2023 8

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

Liz Truss is wrong – the ‘global left’ isn’t to blame for her downfall

Liz Truss is back and she’s got a book to plug. ‘It will set out what we must do to counter the disastrous ideas of the global left,’ she...

12.09.2023 20

The Spectator

Gareth Roberts

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