Monday Our new Expenses Helpline is completely jammed. We’re not even scratching the surface of the demand. Had an MP on this morning hysterical about his Sky subscription. Something about ‘buxom babes’ and ‘essential research into Broken Britain’. Another backbencher demanding to know what to do about his hunting fees — ‘Are they saying I
As the true depth of the recession emerges, and fury increases against bankers for the massive bonuses they have demanded, effectively from the taxpayer, for creating it, Roman generals might set an unexpected example. Manubiae, probably derived from manus ‘hand’ and habere ‘to have’, meant the booty which a general could claim as his own,
The Labour government has been spinning aggressively that British troops are withdrawing from Iraq because the job is done. Major General Andy Salmon, the British Commander, has even made the rather dubious claim that Basra is now safer than Manchester. It is true that the progress made in recent months has been remarkable: there have
We at The Spectator would like to say sorry to the Prime Minister. When he declared in October that the world needed a ‘new Bretton Woods’ — a reference to the 1944 conference that established the global financial system — we took him at his word. And when he swore that the G20 summit in
Bloody rude Sir: Michael Portillo (‘The view from Basra’, 28 March) accuses the British army of arrogance and, effectively, of incompetence. He says we’ve been humiliated. This may accord with his new television persona, but it is still disingenuous, apart from being bloody rude. It is his own political class that has been shown up
