28 Jun 2014

Religion is the new politics

Columnists

George Osborne’s been playing politics since he was 12. Now, finally, he’s winning

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_26_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman discuss Osborne’s rising fortunes” startat=934] Listen [/audioplayer]George Osborne’s first taste of political leadership came aged 12. At his prep school, Colet Court, he took charge of a party for school election in 1983. The Chancellor’s chosen party (as the forthcoming schools guide will discuss) was not the Conservatives,

Rod Liddle

Rebekah Brooks takes her place in a perfect picture of modern Britain

What image comes to mind when we think of Britain today? I was moved to contemplate this question after reading the Prime Minister’s inspiring treatise on British values, which seemed to involve ‘being quite nice’ and not referring to other people as kaffir and then trying to blow them up. Fair enough. I suppose —

Hugo Rifkind

I may not know much about khat, but I know banning it is crazy

Khat is a leafy stimulant chewed mainly, I gather, by Somalis. This week the government banned its possession and sale. And, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why. Not being a Somali (or, indeed, a Russian murderer, whatever the sketch above might suggest) I can’t pretend that my life will now have

Matthew Parris

Ed Miliband’s problem isn’t his image. It’s us

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_26_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman discuss whether Labour should let Miliband be Miliband” startat=934] Listen [/audioplayer]That bacon bap earlier this month was not the cause of Ed Miliband’s unpopularity. Ed Miliband’s unpopularity was the cause of the bacon bap. Scant comfort this will give the Labour leader and his fabled ‘advisers’, but they

The Spectator's Notes

Charles Moore

Radek Sikorski: a Spectator foreign correspondent made good

Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, is undoubtedly one of the most dashing figures on the world stage. I first met him in the mid-1980s, possibly when I was a guest of the Oxford Union and Radek who, I seem to remember, was wearing white tie and tails, was on the standing committee. At that

Any other business

Martin Vander Weyer

George Osborne’s cynical grab for northern votes (and why I’m for it)

When John Prescott used to wax garrulous about a ‘superhighway’ from Hull to Liverpool, everyone assumed it was a wheeze to spray southern taxpayers’ money across the region he saw as his power base. When George Osborne decided to ‘start a conversation’ this week about a super-city along the same route, an English equivalent of