Best of the Spectator The Edition: Weimar Britain, the war on science & are you a competitive reader?
Sep 19, 2025
Michael Gove, a senior politician and editor of The Spectator, discusses striking parallels between Weimar Germany and contemporary Britain, highlighting issues like political discontent and media distrust. He proposes FDR-style action as a path to hope. Biologist Matt Ridley critiques the 'cultification of science,' revealing how ideological battles have infiltrated academia, even affecting mathematics. Plus, Emily Hill explores the trend of competitive reading on social media, questioning whether it promotes genuine interest in books or simply status display.
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Parallels Between Weimar And Modern Britain
- Michael Gove sees echoes of 1920s Germany in Britain: politics shifting from parliament to the streets and rising polarisation.
- He warns these parallels include inflation, cultural venom and rising antisemitism but are not exact replicas of Weimar's fate.
Make Government Work To Repair Trust
- Use government as an engine for visible, practical improvement to restore faith in institutions.
- Michael Gove points to Franklin D. Roosevelt-style leadership delivering tangible change for working people as a model.
Street Politics Is A Western Trend
- The phenomenon of street protest and political disillusionment is common across Western democracies, not unique to Britain.
- Gove notes France's gilets jaunes and German polarisation as parallel symptoms of institutional impotence.
