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…

Can a pop song cause mental illness? If you're old enough to remember the Crazy Frog, there's a strong chance you'll reply in the affirmative. But I mean that question seriously. Can a pop song cause mental illness? In recent weeks, I've become convinced that one song in particular, a song called "Labour" by Paris Paloma, is having a detrimental effect on the sanity of young women across the Western world, especially in America. In August, the song was the soundtrack to a hundred-thousand TikTok and Instagram reels about the Lindsay Clancy case, each one vying with all the others to make the most lurid and sensational claims about the victimization of women, the unfairness of modern society and the "obvious" guilt of a man whose wife freely admitted she killed her three children with a set of exercise bands while he was out running errands. ✍️ Charles Cornish-Dale Article | spectator.com/article/the-ri…

There is nothing more aggravating in the workplace than the suspicion that someone sitting at the next desk might be paid more than you for no obvious reason. It is taken as a given that salaries are based on skills and performance rather than something that is beyond your control, like the colour of your skin. Such an outcome turns on its head the basic principle that fair pay is applied to all, regardless of race, sexuality or gender. ✍️ Jawad Iqbal Article | spectator.com/article/is-oxf…

Why does Napoleon still loom so large over French politics and culture? Louis Sarkozy, son of the former President of France, reveals how obsessive the emporer was about communication, writing more letters than Donald Trump posted tweets in his first term. Watch in full | youtu.be/Z44ZraRn35w | @napsarkozy

Louis Sarkozy, son of the former President of France, explains why the protests gripping his country are so hard to read, and so dangerous for Emmanuel Macron. Watch in full | youtu.be/Z44ZraRn35w | @napsarkozy

Leftie teachers are shocked that they might soon be prevented from wearing Palestine badges in the classroom. Spare a thought for the rest of us who are shocked that you were doing that in the first place. You taught kids, including Jewish kids, while adorned in the colours under which more than a thousand Jews were massacred by Islamo-fascists just three years ago? What the hell is wrong with you? ✍️ Brendan O’Neill Article | spectator.com/article/the-gr… | @spikedonline

The news, when it broke last night, was undeniably eye-catching. Thomas Markle, the estranged father of Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, was reported to have been in the possession of thousands of images of child sexual abuse, which were discovered at his home in the Philippines. His son, the imaginatively named Thomas Markle Jr., told the British newspaper The Sun that "When I found this material, I was horrified and I had no option but to report my dad. I have supported, cared for him and helped him for years – but that stops now. ✍️ Alexander Larman Article | spectator.com/article/what-i… | @alexlarman

It is starting to look very likely that the government will drop the complete ban on the sale of petrol cars after 2035 and ease up on the targets for the transition to battery-powered vehicles (EVs). The industry is not ready for it, the infrastructure does not seem to be in place, and it is all costing too much money. But will watering down government targets for how many EVs the industry sells actually solve any of these problems? The charging networks will need compensation, while it will take a lot of money to rebuild the domestic industry. ✍️ Matthew Lynn Article | spectator.com/article/britai… | @mattlynnwriter

'France is a very violent country. No great reform has been done in modern French history without the street.' Louis Sarkozy, the son of the former President of France, explains the historical precedent of the French riots. Watch in full | youtu.be/Z44ZraRn35w @napsarkozy

France is preparing for a new wave of violent protests ahead of demonstrations planned for this Saturday. Michael and Maddie ask whether we should be worried and if the same fault lines run through British society. Watch in full youtube.com/watch?v=qQD0ZF_5… @michaelgove @madz_grant

Louis Sarkozy, the son of the former President of France, says those who took part in the rioting and looting at the weekend have done more to boost Marine Le Pen's election chances than her own campaign staff, and that her strategy is to let France disintegrate. Watch in full | youtu.be/Z44ZraRn35w @napsarkozy

On today's Coffee House Shots podcast 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__

Recently a landlord, Mr Cao, attempted to increase the rent on his central Manchester flat by £50 a month from £1,650 to £1,700. The tenant, Ms Nau, brought the increase to a tribunal under the Renters’ Rights Act, which only allows rent increases once a year and only in line with the open market rent. Ultimately, the tribunal decided to cut the rent by £200, as they believed it had already exceeded the open market rent. This is rent control by the backdoor; shortages and reduced quality of housing will inevitably follow. ✍️ Charles Amos Article | spectator.com/article/the-re…

Is Andy Burnham's obsession with the small things that annoy voters really going to pay off? Sure, cracking down on loud music on buses, rip-off parking charges and sneaky extra charges by airlines make great talking points, but do they make the Prime Minister seem trivial and powerless over the big things? Kemi Badenoch certainly wants to suggest that, joking this week that 'the Prime Minister is worrying about loud music on trains' which was, in her view 'not serious'. ✍️ Isabel Hardman Article | spectator.com/article/will-b… | @IsabelHardman

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