[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_24_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Dan Hodges and Marcus Roberts debate the state of Milibandism” startat=47] Listen [/audioplayer]If the opinion polls and bookmakers are to be believed, some time during the morning of Friday 8 May next year a small group of men and women will appear out of the of the Derby Gate entrance of the old
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_24_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Dan Hodges and Marcus Roberts debate the state of Milibandism” startat=47] Listen [/audioplayer]A cruel new joke is doing the rounds about Ed Miliband: that the Labour leader is like a plastic bag stuck in a tree. No one is sure how he got up there, but no one can be bothered to take
For the past decade, I have lived — literally — between a church and a synagogue; as metaphors go, I would get laughed out of town if I stuck it in a novel. I left my church (not the one next door) when a ten-year-old child (not just a random passer-by, but a regular attendant)
‘Sometimes when I’m down here,’ says Harry, ‘I get them to stop the train in the middle of a tunnel. Just for a minute or two, so I can savour the peace.’ Harry Huskisson is press officer for the British Postal Museum and Archive. He’s showing me the ‘Mail Rail’, the GPO’s underground train system,
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_24_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”John Rick MacArthur and Freddy Gray discuss Clinton vs Bush” startat=929] Listen [/audioplayer]America is much less threatened by right-wing extremists than by the oligarchic rule of the two major political parties. The mainstream right, however, is wedded to the absurd notion that the Democrats are a party of the ‘left’ that is in
It’s easy to see why until recently Africa has been a hard sell. It is still regarded as a place for charity rather than investment. But that view is out of date: much of the continent is booming now and investors are wising up. The economy of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow by 6
Three years after The Spectator called on the Chancellor to ‘stop treating pensioners like babies’, his Budget this year gave everyone greater choice about how we enjoy our life savings. While more column inches have been expended on the outside chance that some pensioners might blow the lot on a Lamborghini, less has been said
Here is a paradox. Study the photographs of the flats and houses being sold in London’s prime property boom and you see one minimalist interior after another. The huge, empty sweeps of marble and limestone, broken only by a solitary painting, might give you the impression that it is fashionable to declutter your life. One
As I looked out of the window of my hotel bedroom, studying the view of central Damascus, the mobile phone rang. Peter Walwyn was on the line. I have not seen Mr Walwyn, who was twice British champion racehorse trainer and trained Grundy to win the Derby in 1975, for several years. I reminded him
Ever since the Berlin Wall came down, I’ve been pottering around eastern Germany, where my father’s family came from, and fled from at the end of the second world war. I thought my interest would fade as my father’s fatherland was absorbed by the Bundesrepublik — but for me, this strange hinterland grows more intriguing
