The Week

Leading article

Budget battles

For the past couple of months, government business has been bogged down in the detail of taxation policy. Higher personal tax allowances, a lower top rate, more stamp duty for £2 million mansions, a tycoon tax — all have been batted across the coalition ping-pong table at dizzying speed. While engaged in this game the

Portrait of the week

Portrait of the week | 24 March 2012

Home In the Budget, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, raised the threshold for workers to start paying income tax at standard rate to £9,205 and announced a gradual reduction of the rate for those earning more than £150,000 from 50 per cent. He imposed a higher level of stamp duty on houses costing

Diary

Diary – 24 March 2012

Asked to write a diary for The Spectator, my first reaction was: ‘Why me?’ To sit down at my laptop and write — rather than read a script — feels a bit strange. I am still getting used to people wanting to know about me. A mere nine weeks ago I was anonymous, now I

Barometer

Barometer | 24 March 2012

The Chicago school David Cameron has called for the building of a new generation of ‘garden cities’. In Britain the term is most associated with Letchworth, founded in 1903 by Ebenezer Howard, who formed the Garden City Association in 1899. His concept was for a series of towns with populations of up to 32,000, spread

Letters

Letters | 24 March 2012

Unmentionable question Sir: Peter Hitchens is no doubt right that the collapse of marriage among heterosexuals is a more serious matter than extending marriage to same-sex couples (‘The gay marriage trap’, 17 March). The damage to the family started with the removal of stigma from having children out of wedlock and divorce on demand; and