We already knew that most economists are quite bad at economic policy. Unfortunately, foreign policy appears not to be much of a strength either. Indeed, it appears most financial experts may not even know the difference, based on their criticism of Donald Trump’s recent tariff threats against Mexico, Canada and China. Of course, a nation
Kim Leadbeater has described her assisted suicide bill as ‘potentially one of the most important changes in legislation that we will ever see’. For Leadbeater and her allies, it is an attempt to make the law merciful: to give relief to those who want to control the manner of their death. But there is another,
Many of us will remember, misty-eyed, how things changed around the turn of the century. How Britain ceased to be a nation brutalised by rationing and rissoles and instead blossomed into a utopia of celebrity chefs, endless food TV and a population seemingly willing and able to eat out most nights of the week. We
M y husband earns more than me. A lot more. I am, of course, extremely fortunate to be in such a position and am extremely grateful, especially when a large bill arrives on the doormat. So what, I hear you say. And you’re right – this is hardly a newsflash. According to the Office for
How safe will this country be under Labour? The Strategic Defence Review (SDR) is supposed to provide the answers. It hasn’t been published yet, but may already be out of date. It’s expected to make the case for defence spending to rise from 2.3 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent – but that
Agnes Callard is a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago and she lives with her current husband and her ex-husband. At the same time, yes. They raised the kids together as well (two from her first marriage, now 21 and 16, then one from her second, now 11). I mention this not as
Two months ago, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) upheld a complaint against The Spectator for referring to Juno Dawson, a transgender author, as ‘a man who claims to be a woman’. It may have struck some as unfathomable. I was less surprised. As I read the news, it took me back six years to
I was touched but not surprised that, despite his illness, the King attended the 80th anniversary of the ‘liberation’ of Auschwitz-Birkenau this week. His paternal grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was a rescuer. She hid the Cohen family in her house in Athens and is honoured as a ‘righteous’ gentile at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem,
The muddle about who’s to be the next British ambassador in Washington has been only a small part of the grandiose confusion which surrounds Donald Trump’s assumption of power. Sir Keir Starmer announced that Lord Peter Mandelson would bring ‘unrivalled experience to the role and take [the Anglo-American] partnership from strength to strength’, apparently without
How many people live in Britain? You would think there would be a straightforward answer, but it eludes some of the nation’s brightest statistical minds. The problem of undercounting has worsened in recent years, largely because of high post-Brexit migration This week the Office for National Statistics (ONS) projected that our population will grow by
My beavers have been kidnapped. A few months ago there were five of them living on my family’s farm on Bodmin Moor. Now there are none. I know where they are and I have received proof of life from their kidnapper, but he will not release them back to me or allow me to collect
‘Don’t use our real names,’ says the teenage gypsy. ‘Other gypsies will laugh at us.’ Even in a tracksuit, the girl is crazy beautiful, and strangely remote. She is talking to me because her mother, whom I call Susan, has been ordered to remove her caravans from a council site in the West Country. If
Ottawa For the past fortnight, Canada’s parliament has been empty. When Justin Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader, he announced a prorogation so his party could focus on a two-month succession battle rather than the business of governing. Excited Tories see the empty assembly as symbolic of the void in national leadership. They are confident their
‘Sorry sir, the rules clearly state that all single men must be accompanied by a woman.’ As the frustrated guest is ushered off the premises, my female companion and I are welcomed into a grand reception room where the organised sex party is being held. A barmaid offers us some complimentary condoms and a handful
For an 88-year-old man who has spent only five days in the United States and doesn’t speak English, Pope Francis is a surprisingly partisan observer of American politics. For most of his life he was, like a typical Argentinian, viscerally but vaguely anti-American. Robert McElroy’s nickname among Catholic conservatives is ‘the wicked witch of the
The special relationship is dead, long live the special relationship. On Friday, at a ‘Stars and Stripes & Union Jack Celebration’, British and American right-wingers mingled gladly atop the Hay-Adams hotel, which overlooks the White House. Nigel Farage and co smoked cigarettes with their Republican brethren and shared Trump war stories. Dolled-up American girls took
The French sociologist Alain Touraine coined the term ‘post-industrial society’ in 1969. By the 1980s it had become shorthand for the kind of services-based, individualistic economies most major developed nations had created. Today, the UK is moving its economy beyond that. We are creating what might be called a ‘zero-industrial society’. Climate change targets, soaring
The ceramics industry of Stoke-on-Trent is one of the great survivors of the Victorian era. At its height, some 70,000 people were employed by the likes of Wedgwood and Spode to work in the potteries. Despite the Clean Air Act of 1956 – which banned coal-fired kilns – the deindustrialisation of the 1980s and the
Charity no longer begins at home. It starts with a thunderous denunciation of western sins, promotes an excoriation of this country’s past and then advocates the dismantling of white privilege – all paid for by you. Welcome to the charity industrial complex, the money-guzzling, taxpayer-subsidised assault on common sense that has turned the impulse to
At around five weeks into my pregnancy my phone found out about it, and from that point on I was subjected to a barrage of social media content about how much children suck. The first was a video by a woman with the username @childfreemillennial, who filmed herself walking through the children’s clothing aisle at
