The day after my arrival in Harare I attended Evensong at St Mary Magdalene’s Anglican church. The congregation was in a state of shock. Almost every church in Harare had been raided by riot police that morning. In some cases the police blocked worshippers from entering as they arrived, beating up those who tried to
These are bad times for Conservatives fighting the tightest marginal seats. About a year ago they were given generous resources to help them campaign, to promote their candidates and to rubbish Labour in general. Now, the cash is drying up. Unofficially, these target seats are being designated as ‘in the bag’ and the money instead
‘Progress prevails’: thus did the Guardian’s editorial on Wednesday celebrate the defeat of amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have reduced the upper limit of 24 weeks for abortion and ensured that IVF clinics would need at least to consider the need for ‘supportive parenting and a father or male role
Thatcher’s champion Sir: The Spectator may have been Margaret Thatcher’s first press champion as Fraser Nelson notes (‘Labour’s best hope’, 17 May), but its support was not unwavering. At the end of 1974 it was unduly impressed by the efforts of Heath’s allies to brand her a food-hoarder when she sensibly encouraged pensioners to stock
