11 Oct 2014

Who's hacking now?

Columnists

Why are the Lib Dems duffing up the Tories? To ensure another coalition

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_9_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss Lib Dem tactics” startat=782] Listen [/audioplayer]The last Liberal Democrat conference before the general election has been dominated by denunciations of the ‘nasty’ Tories. Lib Dems claim they are shocked to find George Osborne proposing a freeze in working age benefits. But can they really be so very

Mary Wakefield

Why there’s no such thing as an Etonian

Finally, just in the last few years I’d say, we’ve all begun to accept the role of nature in the great nature/nurture debate. Though we’ve squirmed and baulked, we mostly now do accept that genes inform (to a greater or lesser extent) not just our height and eye-colour, but our personalities: our intelligence, our disposition.

James Delingpole

Stop “Stoptober”! It’s another insidious attack on liberty and free will

Say what you like about the French Revolutionaries but at least they had a poetic imagination. When they wanted a new name for October, they anticipated Keats and named the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness ‘Brumaire’, meaning ‘foggy’. Which is a lot more evocative, I think we can agree, than its current incarnation under

Rod Liddle

Who are Ukip’s new voters? The kind of people who decide elections

An opinion poll to be published next week will reveal that Labour leader Ed Miliband is slightly less popular with the public than the vibrant Islamic State commander ‘Jihadi John’ and the late BBC disc jockey Jimmy Savile, and only two points more popular than His Infernal Majesty, Satan. The same poll will also put

Any other business

Martin Vander Weyer

Yes, Wonga lent at shocking rates – but it was customers who lied

‘Payday Lady is not trading at this time,’ says her website, sounding a little like La Dame aux camélias. Indeed (since I could not find her anywhere) the message may indicate that Payday Lady is not just temporarily indisposed, but has given up the game altogether. I’ll be glad to hear from her if she hasn’t.