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…

John Healey's cash cow may have nothing more to give. The latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show that the businesses Labour is rumoured to want to take aim at in the coming Budget for the third year in a row are already experiencing a lack of demand. Retail sales volumes fell by 0.4 per cent in September, four times the 0.1 per cent dip economists had pencilled in. Annual growth slowed to 0.8 per cent, from 2.4 per cent in August. Reduced sales are evident across the board, so this isn't a story of a dying high street. From August to September, supermarket volumes fell by 0.4 per cent to below June levels, and no, customers weren't swapping out their staples for materialistic luxuries elsewhere. ✍️ Joanna Marchong Article | spectator.com/article/john-h…

Imagine if the City of London were full of largely unmanned office blocks, and that this had occurred not because their former occupants were working from home but because they were not working at all. There are a few people wandering around, technicians mainly, who are checking things as the computers purr away. Then go a short step further and imagine that the spaces occupied by the large banks are reduced to a few boardrooms and a handful of offices, while most of the computers are relocated to an industrial estate in Enfield or to Malaysia. ✍️ Ross Clark Article | spectator.com/article/who-ca… | @RossjournoClark

Inflation rises, France burns and the Pope calls Putin. Article | spectator.com/article/portra…

The Prius, a magnificent hybrid, is not mad and, with very few exceptions, I don't want a mad car. I want a safe and enviable car. The Prius is very reliable, and Japanese. It is built by robots for realists, neither of which make mistakes. Toyota is so careful it even asked American focus groups whether they thought the plural of Prius should be Prii or Priuses, Priora being already taken by a Lada; despite this courtesy, everyone calls them Priuses anyway. ✍️ Tanya Gold Article | spectator.com/article/what-d… | @TanyaGold1

There have been a lot of bad takes about the Sally Rooney controversy after the Irish author withdrew her novels from sale in the United Kingdom due to her decision to pledge her royalties to Palestine Action (PA). (Given PA is now a proscribed terrorist group in Britain, giving money to it is illegal.) But likening her to Salman Rushdie? That really takes the biscotti. If I were Supreme Leader, I'd issue a fatwa against such fatuous comparisons. The New Statesman (NS) has published an open letter railing against the 'censorship' of Rooney 'on the basis of ill-conceived and draconian anti-terror legislation'. ✍️ Tom Slater Article | spectator.com/article/compar…

Rather than do what might seem sensible in a historic city such as Oxford and simply ban private vehicles from the centre altogether, it is now possible, with a certain degree of application, to drive to your destination, albeit in a far more circuitous, roundabout way than usual, avoiding the usual irritants of students, political protesters and otherworldly academics and writers in the process. If this comes across like a British version of Grand Theft Auto for the unfortunate drivers, albeit with less shooting and nudity but just as much swearing, then that is the fault of Oxford City Council, an organisation that seems to exist purely to aggravate those who have to live in the place that they keep coming up with not-so-bright ideas about. ✍️ Alexander Larman Article | spectator.com/article/oxford… | @alexlarman

What a difference a month makes. From September 28 to October 6, Paris thrilled to the spectacle of their annual fashion week showing clothes for Spring/Summer 2027. Many stars were there; even the 'radical' ones, such as Dua Lipa at Chanel. Naomi Campbell got around on a Lime bike – followed by a bodyguard minding her £85,000 handbag on a second one, an image which sums up the hypocritical elitism of the occasion beautifully. Paris Fashion Week overlapped slightly with the first peaceful protests in the French capital about such issues as teacher shortages. ✍️ Julie Burchill Article | spectator.com/article/fashio… | @BoozeAndFagz

On this week's Quite Right podcast: Napoleon was one of history's greatest military commanders – but was his downfall ultimately of his own making? Michael Gove and Madeline Grant are joined by historian Andrew Roberts, Lord Roberts of Belgravia, to discuss his new book on Napoleon's 26 marshals: the extraordinary men who helped build his empire, and whose rivalries, betrayals and personal ambitions contributed to its collapse. Listen | spectator.com/podcast/andrew… | @michaelgove @Madz_Grant

On this week's The Edition podcast: For this week's Edition, Lara Prendergast is joined by the Spectator's economics editor Michael Simmons, writer Louis Sarkozy and broadcaster Sir Loyd Grossman. This week: is France heading for revolution? As protests and unrest grip the country, Louis argues that France faces overlapping political, economic, demographic and security crises – and warns that the turmoil is likely to have consequences for next year's presidential election. Is Macron losing control? Could Marine Le Pen finally take power? And to what extent are the violent riots uniquely French, or part of a wider European unrest? Listen | spectator.com/podcast/could-… @napsarkozy

Britain is to have a sovereign oil fund similar to Norway's, Chancellor John Healey announced yesterday. The Energy Wealth Fund will have an initial £2 billion, housed in the overall National Wealth Fund. The aim is to create something similar to Norway's fund, worth $2.3 trillion, which is often praised as a model of financial foresightedness. The announcement excited all the alternative historians who are broadcasting their counterfactuals. What if Margaret Thatcher had used the proceeds from North Sea oil to set up a wealth fund instead of making tax cuts? ✍️ Sam McPhail Article | spectator.com/article/would-…

A couple of days ago the Tories lost a Greater London Assembly Member (AM). Andrew Boff, an AM since 2008, had applied to be the party's mayoral candidate, but was turned down because he openly rejected the party policy of ECHR withdrawal, painstakingly established by Kemi Badenoch a year ago. He resigned in protest, and will now sit as an independent. This is being spun as a courageous assertion of principle over dogma, of moderation over a Conservative party that is still a group of zealots in thrall to right-wing extremism. ✍️ Andrew Tettenborn Article | spectator.com/article/the-to… | @Seatradelawyer

Expectations are ramping up for John Healey’s statement next week. But with Treasury officials briefing that the Budget will be more of a process than an event, it may well not be the great crunch moment for this government than some were predicting. Instead, Andy Burnham’s ‘Ten Year Plan’ is assuming an increasing importance in the mind of Whitehall planners. To that end, a familiar face in Labour circles has been brought in to help the drafting of the Prime Minister’s agenda. ✍️ James Heale Article | spectator.com/article/blair-… | @JAHeale

On today's Coffee House Shots podcast: On today's Coffee House Shots, James Heale reports back after spending 24 hours with Reform leader Nigel Farage. It's a fascinating time to get access to Reform HQ: the party has been rocked by a succession of sting operations, they await the verdict on the £5 million gift from Christopher Harborne, and Farage's favourability ratings are in the doldrums. How is Farage holding up? And does he still have the zeal for campaigning? Also today, Michael Simmons and Tim Shipman have written The Spectator's definitive guide to next week's Budget. What should we expect from the Chancellor? Listen | spectator.com/podcast/24-hou… @JAHeale @Simmons__

'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