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Leading article

The Spectator

It’s time to stop the omnishambles – and send Lynton Crosby to No. 10

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_10_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman on Maria Miller’s resignation” startat=1057] Listen [/audioplayer]Yet again, the Conservative party has reminded us that it is quite capable of losing the next election. The events leading up to Maria Miller’s resignation are entirely consistent with a party that is so gauche, so accident-prone, so surprised by basic

Portrait of the week

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 10 April 2014

Home Maria Miller resigned as Culture Secretary after a week of being the centre of a game of hunt-the-issue. She had paid back expenses, but only the £5,800 requested by the Commons standards committee, not the £45,000 suggested by the parliamentary commissioner for standards; she had apologised in the Commons, but her apology lasted only

Diary

Jan Moir

Jan Moir’s diary

Sunday afternoon brings the bomb squad to South Kensington. From my third-floor window, I see them fan out through the garden square, scrutinising leaf and bud, lamppost and compost bin. Drains are peered into, postboxes eyed suspiciously. Although Windsor Castle is 23 miles to the west, the Queen’s state banquet for the Irish President Michael

Ancient and modern

Peter Jones

Socrates on Maria Miller

Our former culture secretary, Maria Miller, is still apparently baffled at the fuss created by her fighting to the last to prevent her expenses being examined. It was a mere ‘legalistic’ transgression; that’s what MPs do. So that’s OK, then. Socrates once discussed with the young Euthydemus the question of going into politics. Euthydemus’ assumptions

Barometer

The Spectator

The rise and fall of the Red Road flats

Flat pack Some facts about Glasgow’s Red Road Flats, built in 1968, which are to be demolished as part of the opening ceremony for the Commonwealth Games. — The original plans were for four-storey maisonettes rather than tower blocks. — At 31 storeys and 292 feet, the first blocks were the highest residential buildings in

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