An article published in The Spectator on 11 August 2018, Root out ragwort!, stated that the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 obliges landowners to stop ragwort spreading to adjacent grazing land. In fact, orders to stop ragwort spreading may be made under the Weeds Act 1959. We also said that the RSPCA ‘will prosecute’ the
Even the most fervent Brexiteer would have to admit to being impressed at the cohesion and chutzpah of the European Union negotiating team. Michel Barnier talks as if it is the UK that most needs a deal, while the rest of the EU could carry on just as well as before, or better, without one,
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, returned from a trip to Brussels and Dublin and hurried to the Commons to ask for more time to do something or other about the Irish backstop. The much-kicked Brexit can was expected to land in the parliamentary road again on 27 February, though the government envisaged no ‘meaningful
‘You OK?’ was the message I sent to Luciana Berger last week. As I scroll back through our previous WhatsApp chats I can see that I’ve sent this same message painfully frequently. I’ve sent it each time someone is jailed or charged in court for abusing her and threatening her for being Jewish. I’ve sent
Last week, in an effort to understand what that left-wing hero Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela, must be suffering, Hieron, tyrant of Syracuse, explained to his court poet Simonides why the life of a tyrant was such a misery. Simonides here spells out how Hieron can turn the situation round. Simonides began by making a
Places in Hell President Donald Tusk said there must be a ‘special place in Hell reserved for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely’. Yet there are a number of places, as defined by Dante, where many on either side of the Brexit debate
We need a generosity report Sir: Your leading article bemoaning the lack of charitable giving in Britain misses the mark (‘The power of giving’, 9 February). It is not a lack of generosity that’s the problem, but a lack of acknowledgement. Our lifeboats and air ambulances are kept in operation by charitable donations. In 2016/17
