[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_5_Feb_2015_v4.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman and Fraser Nelson discuss the plans for 50+ new free schools” startat=1694] Listen [/audioplayer]For those who assumed that the removal of Michael Gove as Education Secretary marked the end of the Conservatives’ scholastic reforms, this month may hold a surprise. More free schools are coming, The Spectator understands: at least 50
Home MPs voted by 382 to 128 to make Britain the only country to allow genetic modification of embryos to prevent mitochondrial flaws: this could be done by the removal of the nucleus of a donor’s fertilised ovum and its replacement by the nucleus of two parents’ fertilised ovum, thus giving a child three parents.
An excellent test of character is a person’s response to being offered an Oldie of the Year Award. There have always been those to whom the word ‘oldie’ is in itself an embarrassment. When Richard Ingrams founded the Oldie magazine in 1992, he was warned by many that it would fail because of its name.
Important as the Magna Carta (ad 1215) has been as a founding myth for everything we hold dear about law and liberty, it was already hopelessly behind the times. Greeks and Romans had got there long before. Our political system derives from monarchs advised by a private council: first, the Anglo-Saxon ‘Witan’, and from 1066
Right Boot, left Boot What would Jesse Boot, who built Britain’s largest chemist chain from his father’s herbal shops, made of the spat between Labour and Stefano Pessina, chief executive of the firm? — Boot was a lifelong Liberal, but then he was already 50 years old when the Labour party was formed. He was
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 6 February 1915: Germany proclaims a paper blockade of all the British coast, to be carried out, when possible, by submarines! This new act of war is really too childish for discussion. It means no fresh development whatever. The Germans, as before, will try to destroy our ships
In defence of Oxfam Sir: Mary Wakefield rightly praises Médecins sans Frontières but makes many misinformed claims about Oxfam and aid in general (31 January). Contrary to her suggestion, money donated to Oxfam and other charities’ emergency appeals must be spent solely on that crisis. This is stipulated by the Charity Commission and confirmed by
