Revolting France: The riots are driving the country’s politics to its extremes, writes Philip Delves Broughton 🔸 Douglas Murray: France is a warning – our civilisation is not immortal 🔸 George Osborne: My night with Maya Jama 🔸 Tim Shipman and Michael Simmons: What to expect from Burnham’s first Budget 🔸 Madeline Grant: The perils of baby names spectator.com

'For young men in particular, there is an attraction in being involved in a riot.' As France recovers from several days of serious unrest, Michael and Maddie relfect on the 'thugish elements' that hijacked what was originally a peaceful protest organised by students. Watch in full | youtu.be/qQD0ZF_5dPE @Madz_Grant @michaelgove

Andy Burnham’s first Budget as Prime Minister is approaching – but higher borrowing costs have already made the sums more difficult. Andy Haldane, former Bank of England chief economist, explains how rising bond yields have blown a hole in the Budget arithmetic. Watch in full | youtu.be/EqV00gm1z34 @Simmons__

Don't tell John Healey this is a boring Budget. 'We have to get people out of this frame of mind that the only way to judge a Budget's significance is the size of its tax line,' complains one Treasury official of what is being billed as a 'steady as she goes' statement by the Chancellor next Wednesday. With green shoots of growth finally showing themselves after back-to-back Budgets by Rachel Reeves, which hiked tax by £75 billion, Healey's team is making a virtue of fiscal minimalism. ✍️ Tim Shipman and Michael Simmons Article | spectator.com/article/boring…

Author Sally Rooney’s books are leaving shelves over her support for Palestine Action. Is this censorship, or performance art? Michael speaks about his first encounter with the group when he was in government. Watch in full | youtu.be/qQD0ZF_5dPE @Madz_Grant @michaelgove

Whenever a government minister cites the advent of artificial intelligence as the justification for a policy, you can be certain that there has been an absence of actual intelligence in the reasoning behind it. Nowhere is that clearer than in the Education Secretary's embrace of 'oracy' as the new priority for our schools. 'With AI on the rise,' Lucy Powell asserted, 'we need to go harder on the skills that make us human, like oracy.' Ms Powell refrained from explaining what it is about large language models that requires a different approach to language teaching in our schools. ✍️ Lara Brown Article | spectator.com/article/lucy-p… | @lara_e_brown

The full-scale war in Ukraine began with fast, armoured advances that covered hundreds of miles in weeks. Then drones began finding tanks and other vehicles in their hideouts, destroying them before offensives could get going. By 2024, both sides had largely given up on armoured warfare. A 19-mile-wide ‘kill zone’ now straddles the front line, with drones spotting and striking anything that moves. The front line has barely shifted. Ukraine recently found a way to get tanks back into the fight, raising the prospect of a new phase in the conflict. ✍️ Ash Bhardwaj Article | spectator.com/article/ukrain… @Ash Bhardwaj

'These riots, sadly, will be a big part of what Macron is remembered for.' Michael and Madeline discuss the impact of the French riots on the future of politics in France. Watch in full | youtu.be/qQD0ZF_5dPE @Madz_Grant @michaelgove

Vivek Ramaswamy is unpopular. Particularly so this week, over a malicious attack ad against his Democratic opponent for the Ohio governorship, Amy Acton. The ad, which surfaced online on Monday before eventually being claimed by the campaign, features Acton's estranged mother, Dorothy, decrying her daughter as a liar and mentally unwell. It was already a matter of public record that Acton and her younger brother have been estranged from their mother after Acton was allegedly raped by her stepfather at age 12. ✍️ Cockburn Article | spectator.com/article/ramasw… | @Cockburn_DC

On today's Reality Check podcast: Andy Burnham's first Budget as Prime Minister is approaching – but higher borrowing costs have already made the sums more difficult. Former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane joins Michael Simmons to warn that Britain has little room left to borrow more. For this episode of Reality Check, Andy tells Michael what could be in next week's Budget, why devolution alone is not a growth strategy and why he appears to have praised Kemi Badenoch's economic policies this week. Listen | spectator.com/podcast/devolu…

The Resolution Foundation will have to scrap its plans for higher capital gains tax, the Institute for Fiscal Studies will have to redraft the arguments for an exit tax, and the Fabian Society will have to stop thinking about ways to tax dividends more heavily. The left-wing think tanks may have been hoping for a Budget that would be packed with all their pet schemes for raising more revenue from 'the rich', but it seems they will be disappointed. Apparently the Chancellor John Healey is planning a 'budget for entrepreneurs'. ✍️ Matthew Lynn Article | spectator.com/article/what-l… | @mattlynnwriter

Proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist group was probably the most contentious action Yvette Cooper ever took as home secretary. Thousands were arrested for showing support for the group, the ban was appealed by Palestine Action's co-founder, and its future rests with the Supreme Court. Now, an open letter signed by various artistic and public figures and published in the New Statesman has sought to highlight the 'repressive absurdity' of the government's stance. ✍️ Robin Simcox Article | spectator.com/article/the-ne…

Facciamo come in Francia!' shouted the masked and hooded rioters on Sunday in Milan and other major Italian cities, notably Turin and Bologna. 'Let's do like in France!'. By far the worst violence was in Milan around the Duomo where about 3,000 rioters fought running battles with police and sacked and looted countless high-end shops. Most of the 200 rioters arrested in Milan on Sunday, plus the 70 odd on Saturday during similar though less destructive scenes, were Italian citizens who are the children of immigrants, according to media reports. They are known in Italian as 'di seconda generazione'. ✍️ Nicholas Farrell Article | spectator.com/article/why-do… | @NichFarrell

'Either you’re literally getting away with murder… or we put you in prison for wearing the wrong T-shirt.' Michael Gove and Madeline Grant discuss the discrepancy in policy between the 'ISIS killer roaming the streets of Windsor', and arresting old ladies for waving a Palestine Action banner. Watch Quite Right in full | youtu.be/qQD0ZF_5dPE @Madz_Grant @michaelgove

Andy Haldane, former Bank of England Chief Economist, accuses the Bank of being too slow to tackle the latest wave of inflation, and warns that five years of missed targets 'does beg the question in markets' minds: are they serious?' Watch Reality Check in full | youtu.be/EqV00gm1z34 @Simmons__

Nobody likes being asked for their ID once they are over the age of 25, unless they flatter themselves that it's because they genuinely look younger than they are. For many years, unless going abroad, I've simply stopped carrying ID. I'm over the age of 18, don't carry a wallet and frequent the same pubs in Westminster sufficiently regularly that the prospect of being turned away for failing to produce a driving licence has rarely seemed worth worrying about. But there are always some overzealous watchmen. A few weeks back, I found myself in Northallerton at a bar named The Potting Shed, where a bouncer seemed determined to establish whether I was legally entitled to drink. ✍️ Matthew Bowles Article | spectator.com/article/nights… | @Matthew__Bowles

Another week and another PMQs: Mr Burnham and Mrs Badenoch haven’t really had any major zingers yet, preferring a sort of boring pas de deux. One gets the sense they’re still sizing each other up. Mrs Badenoch decided to lead with congratulations for the Prime Minister as the government finally approved the Jackdaw oil field after years of politically expedient dithering and judicial meddling. It was a surreal moment. The Tories cheered the announcement of a government policy, while the Labour benches were muted. Lucy Powell would have looked happier had she trodden in dog muck. ✍️ Madeline Grant Article | spectator.com/article/the-co…

Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff has been in St Petersburg, meeting with Vladimir Putin to discuss American-led proposals for ending the Russian president's invasion of Ukraine. Central to the plan put forward by Witkoff is reportedly a suggestion for a trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelensky at some undisclosed point in the future to negotiate terms for ending the war. The beginning of the three-hour meeting between Putin and Witkoff was open to the press. ✍️ Lisa Haseldine Article | spectator.com/article/is-vla… | @lisahaseldine

On Monday night, with the glass still being swept up from the latest événements, French viewers were offered a spectacle almost as compelling as the riots. A young, blonde, radical left-wing woman appeared on France’s La Grande Confrontation TV show and gave a performance mixing, in equal parts, conviction, narcissism, privilege, contempt and, at best, a highly selective grasp of history. And all delivered from a face of transfixing beauty. Her name is Lola-Fleur Whittaker. She is 23, and a Sciences Po student who stood for Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise in the Paris municipals this spring. Facing shopkeepers in the TV studio, whose premises had been looted, she excused the rioters and condescendingly explained to the traders: “Vos boutiques, c’est bien mignon.” Literally: oh your shops, how sweet. ✍️ Sean Thomas Article | spectator.com/article/lola-f…

Donald Trump, who has decided not to allow the televising of the spectacle of a soldier being executed by firing squad, has clearly been reading Seneca the Younger, as he would. After all, Seneca was one of Nero's advisors. In a letter to his friend Lucilius, to which the modern title 'On Crowds' has been added, Seneca gives an account of his day at the gladiatorial games. In between the slaughter of animals (in the morning) and of other gladiators (in the afternoon), there was a midday interval which Seneca decided to attend in the hope of finding amusing and witty entertainment of some sort. Far from it. ✍️ Peter Jones Article | spectator.com/article/trump-…

As if our hospitality industry hadn't experienced enough government abuse, last month saw yet another blow: permission for cities to levy a tourist tax on hotel stays. But not quite so fast. Such a tax need not be bad news: it depends on how you levy it. Done cleverly, a tax on hotel rooms could boost revenues for the classier end of the hotel industry. And I have a few ideas on how to do it. ✍️ Rory Sutherland Article | spectator.com/article/there-… | @rorysutherland