During the eurozone crisis, southern European states had to go cap in hand to Germany to stave off national bankruptcy. A decade on and it is Berlin doing the begging. Europe has reluctantly agreed a 15 per cent cut in gas use this winter in the hope that German factories can stay open and German
Home In a television debate between the two contenders for the leadership of the Conservative party (and hence the prime ministership), Rishi Sunak said it would be irresponsible to put the country in even more debt by cutting taxes and Liz Truss said that the tax rises he approved would put Britain into a recession.
Two and a half years ago I joined the Tory party to vote for Boris, then unjoined as soon as I could. I’ve never been a Tory voter but I believed in Boris and never thought of him as a cliquey, old-school Conservative. Now I’d like to rejoin to keep Liz Truss out. She seems
The battle to be PM raises the question: in a functioning democracy, how should arguments be won? Surely, by persuasion. But for ancient Greeks, too often it seemed to be by flattery. The Greek for ‘flatterer’ was kolax, and a comedian described a kolax’s lifestyle as follows: he would dress up in his best cloak,
The longest heatwave How did the recent heatwave compare with that of 1976? That year, the temperature peaked at 35.9˚C at Cheltenham on 3 July. This did not even break the UK temperature record at the time – 36.7˚C recorded in Northamptonshire on 9 August 1911. No recording from 1976 currently features on the list
Get fracking Sir: All credit to The Spectator for grabbing the cancelled Tory leadership debate slot (‘The final three’, 23 July) and for quizzing the contenders on the massive cost of net zero. Rishi Sunak’s response was particularly disappointing. Here is a man who has financial acumen and who has spent his entire cabinet career
