I feel a certain disappointment with myself at the moment. On the big question of the day, ‘How worried should we be about inequality?’, I find myself miserably unable to give a simple answer. In the last few months, I’ve had a chance to speak to two notable economists on the topic, representing opposite extremes
There was a time, not that long ago, when financial advisers as we know them today didn’t really exist. Pension and tax advice came from accountants. If you bought shares you bought them via a stockbroker (who gave you advice along the way). Unit trusts came directly — you responded to advertisements or perhaps got
A strange language is spoken on Planet Finance. It often seems designed to baffle the average investor, and save the richest pickings for the professionals. Take, for example, ‘investment trusts’ — they’re investments, certainly, but they are not trusts. And since blind faith is the last thing to invest in any money-making exercise, the two
Teenagers have never exactly been short of things to complain about to their parents. You didn’t give them enough support, sent them to the wrong schools, stopped them going to the right parties, or didn’t get them the latest iPhone. But Generation Rent, perhaps stirred up by too much time spent reading Ed Miliband’s Twitter
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_15_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Nicholas Wade discusses what we’ve learnt from decoding the human genome” startat=44] Listen [/audioplayer]Ever since Darwin published his uncomforting theory, people have been trying to exempt themselves from one or another of its unwelcome consequences. Today’s equivalents of the 19th century’s outraged clerics include the many social scientists, economists and historians who insist
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_15_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Haras Rafiq discuss how Mo Ansar came to prominence” startat=1154] Listen [/audioplayer]If a curious stranger asked you to name a British Muslim commentator, I guess you would name Mo Ansar. So omnipresent has he become, he seems at times to be Britain’s only Muslim commentator. ‘Mo Ansar: Open for business,’
One afternoon in 1942, Kenneth Clark and his wife Jane called on two young painters for tea. The artists were John Craxton and Lucian Freud, then both around 20 and sharing a house in St John’s Wood. The visit was a success, as Craxton told me many years later, but not without its awkward moments.
What is worse: Iran with the Bomb or bombing Iran? This is a question we must reconsider as diplomats return to Vienna this week to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme. Of course, we all hope that the negotiations will result in a lasting diplomatic accord that resolves the Iranian nuclear challenge once and for all. The
As I came into Parliament last Thursday, I swung by the newspaper stand to take a brief look at the headlines. ‘Oxford Union president, 21, arrested on suspicion of rape and attempted rape,’ said one. My heart sank. A photo of the beaming Oxford Union president, Ben Sullivan, dominated the front page in his swanky
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_8_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Delingpole and Daniel Knowles discuss the gilded generation” startat=42] Listen [/audioplayer]No one likes being told they’ve never had it so good. When Lord Young of Graffham tried it three years ago, he was quickly forced out of his job as David Cameron’s enterprise adviser. And rightly so, you might think, for it
For years, George Osborne cut a rather lonely figure on the European stage. He was portrayed as the only major statesman who advocated austerity. But finally he has some company. Another European leader has burst away from the pack and is promising to freeze all welfare benefits for a year, cut health spending, cut taxes
So what, exactly, does Vladimir Putin want? ‘To start World War Three,’ according to the embattled Ukrainian prime minister Arseny Yatseniuk. ‘To rule as president for life with powers on par with the tsars,’ according to Alexei Navalny, leader of Russia’s tiny opposition. To ‘force a major change of boundaries on Europe… and break the
One way or another, we’re going to be seeing quite a lot of Helena Bonham Carter and Carey Mulligan in ankle-length coats with pale faces this season. They’re in the film Suffragette, which has been shooting in the House of Commons in recent weeks. The suffrage campaign was not only successful, it was successful to
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_8_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Cosmo Landesman and Lara Prendergast debate if the bores have taken over” startat=1297] Listen [/audioplayer]I can remember back in the 1970s when a girlfriend of mine, sensing my lack of interest in her very long and very detailed analysis of the lyrics of Bob Dylan suddenly said, ‘Am I boring you?’ Of course
Fifteen years ago, Sugata Mitra, a scientist from Calcutta, conceived of an interesting experiment. He went to a slum in Delhi, installed a computer into a public wall in the manner of a cash machine, then he waited to see what would happen. As he had expected, the local children crowded round and began to
It is October 2012 and my ovarian cancer is back. As we wait to see the consultant I say to my best friend, ‘We are going to Mexico this weekend to get that stuff so I can kill myself. We’ll probably get killed by drug barons.’ My consultant says I have three years. I agree
If somebody invented a pill that could cure a disease that kills five million people a year worldwide, 100,000 of them in this country, the medical powers that be would surely encourage it, pay for it, perhaps even make it compulsory. They certainly would not stand in its way. A relentless stream of data from
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_1_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Diane Abbott and Isabel Hardman discuss the crisis of the British male” startat=48] Listen [/audioplayer]Last week saw another victory in the battle for equal pay. Workers in Swansea are now looking forward to receiving around £750,000 in back pay after the university that employs them decided to close the gender pay gap. Vive
The bishopric of Bath and Wells comes with more bear-traps than most. For one thing, there’s the baby-eating. Ever since Blackadder told Baldrick he was being chased for a debt by the ‘baby–eating Bishop of Bath and Wells’, the image has stuck. When the last incumbent, Peter Price, made his first visit to the House
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_1_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and Freddy Gray whether Beyoncé is a conservative icon” startat=1050] Listen [/audioplayer]When Time pictured an underwear-clad pop star on its cover, hailing her as one of the world’s most influential people, it looked like a crass sales ploy. But in Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, they had more of a point than they seemed
