Q. For the past two New Year’s Eves we have ducked an annual party given by some acquaintances, who are very nice although the husband is a bore. His wife has recently been unwell and they have decided to corral us New Year refuseniks for a curry supper, date to be confirmed when all are
Near Victoria Station in London they began to build a tower-block advertised as ‘The Peak’. I expected it to resemble Mont Blanc. After a few floors, it was finished, and the top of the façade projected like the peak of a baseball cap. I felt cheated. Peak is a vogue word that itself has gone
For years, I’ve wondered why so many clever people go to Davos to discuss topics as meaningless as ‘the new global context’ or ‘shared norms for the new reality’. It has always struck me like a massive game of Just A Minute, in which contestants compete on how long they can talk about a theme
David Cameron wants to get the European Union referendum over with quickly — and understandably so. Things are still going well for him, and his political opposition is in disarray. The ‘in’ campaign will draw heavily upon his personal authority and the public is not (yet) fed up with him. Ideally, he wants to start
Each of eleven clues contains a misprinted letter in the definition part. Corrections of misprints spell the source (three words) of a message reported by a 23 whose surname is an unclued light. The message in question (eighteen words, in ODQ) occupies the perimeter – reading clockwise from the top left corner – and two
Each partial answer indicated by a clue in italics is KNOCKED INTO A COCKED HAT (5 39). Resulting entries at 1D, 4. 25 and 30 (in which the hats are lum, terai, lid and tile) are defined by 3, 24, 11 and 32. First prize Peter Wood, Heanor, Derbyshire Runners-up P. Taylor-Mansfield, Worcester; John Light,
In 2007 Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of EDF’s UK arm, made the now-infamous promise that by Christmas 2017 we would be cooking our turkeys using energy generated at Hinkley C nuclear power station. That has already been put back to well into the 2020s. But if you are making plans for Christmas 2025 it
You can tell when Michael Gove is driving all over another one of the policies of his predecessor Chris Grayling purely by the volume of incredibly polite language and fulsome praise that he deploys when doing so. In a written ministerial statement published today, the Justice Secretary announces that he will not be going ahead with
If I was in charge of the Home Office I’d employ someone whose sole area of expertise was Hitler’s Germany and whose only job was to keep an eye out for any vague echoes of Nazism, however fatuous, in the working practices of the government or its contractors. This would have avoided Monday’s controversy over asylum
Oh dear. It’s not turning out to be a great week for staff at the Treasury. After George Osborne declared that a £130m tax settlement they had reached with Google was a ‘major success’, he faced a cross-party backlash as it was pointed out that the internet giant had only paid a tax rate of three
Fifteen months ago Philip Hammond talked about treason. In an exchange with Conservative backbencher Philip Hollobone in the House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary declared: ‘We have seen people declaring that they have sworn personal allegiance to the so-called Islamic State. That does raise questions about their loyalty and allegiance to this country and about
Haven’t had a chance to follow the day’s political events and interviews? Then don’t worry: here, The Spectator, brings you the best of today’s audio clips in one place for you to listen to. David Cameron defended the Government over its handling of the Syrian refugee crisis after being criticised for refusing to accept 3,000
It’s easy to get carried away about televised political debates. But tonight’s Fox News/Google Republican Party showdown really could be a significant moment in American history. By ducking the debate, and picking a fight with Fox, Donald Trump appears ingeniously to have sucked all the media oxygen out of the event. All the headlines continue
Once the Independent‘s star columnist, Johann Hari experienced a dramatic fall from grace when he was suspended by the paper on grounds of plagiarism. It was then revealed that as well as lifting quotes from interviews and books, Hari had also found time to amend the Wikipedia pages of his rival journalists. Happily, it seems none
The latest incarnation of the Saatchi Bill – a piece of legislation properly known as the Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill – has its report stage in the Commons tomorrow. I’ve written before about the problems with this Bill, which is now being taken through Parliament by Tory MP Chris Heaton-Harris, and it now
Although David Cameron has said he will allow ministers a free vote on the EU referendum, only a handful of cabinet ministers have so far taken the plunge and declared themselves to be ‘Outers’. While Boris Johnson had at one point been tipped to lead the Out campaign, the Mayor of London has remained rather quiet on the
GDP growth accelerated to 0.5 per cent the final three months of last year, compared with 0.4 per cent in the previous quarter. Based on this preliminary estimate, the economy grew by 2.2 per cent last year, a little shy of the OBR’s November forecast of 2.4 per cent, and down on 2014’s expansion of 2.9 per
There will have been gales of laughter in Downing Street and the In campaign this morning as they read Sam Coates’s account of the attempted coup in the No campaign. This Eurosceptic infighting is a huge gift to David Cameron for three reasons. 1). It will deter serious people from politics and business getting involved with
David Cameron wants to get the European Union referendum over with quickly — and understandably so. Things are still going well for him, and his political opposition is in disarray. The ‘in’ campaign will draw heavily upon his personal authority and the public is not (yet) fed up with him. Ideally, he wants to start
In this week’s issue, Melanie Phillips writes on the issue of gender. She argues that not all children are gender fluid and that it can be dangerous to try and persuade them otherwise. On this week’s podcast, Isabel Hardman is joined by Melanie and trans activist and civil servant Jacqui Gavin to discuss whether we
