Spectator

On this week’s episode, we reflect on the tragic events in Manchester and what can be done to prevent similar attacks in the future. We also look at the emergence of political courts in America, Russia, France and beyond, and tip which constituencies to have a flutter on in next month’s election. First, we took a moment to consider the terrorist attack that struck Manchester on Monday evening. With scores dead and injured, including children as young as 8, what can be done to stop another atrocity like this taking place? Douglas Murray says, in this week’s Spectator cover piece, that we have long understood the Islamist worldview, but failed to tackle its ideology.

The latest challenge was to submit a Dear John letter, in prose or verse, in the style of a well-known author. My, you were good this week — good enough to make being jilted seem quite the thing. Even that most maddening of break-up clichés ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ has a certain charm when filtered (courtesy of Chris O’Carroll) through the whimsical lens of Ogden Nash. Robert Schechter’s Andrew Marvell kept it brief: Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, Lady, were no crime, But since there’s not enough of either I think we ought to take a breather. Douglas G. Brown, Paul Freeman, Martin Parker, R.M

The call for a response from Coleridge’s Wedding-Guest attracted a bumper entry with lots of clever nods to his ballad of sin and atonement. Some of you were more charitable than others to the gimlet-eyed seadog with verbal diarrhoea. In a hotly contested week, Brian Allgar, Chris O’Carroll, Max Gutmann, Graham King and Mike Morrison came close to glory but were pipped by the winners, below, who take £25 each. Basil Ransome-Davies nabs £30. Basil Ransome-Davies My mates and me were larging it, As pissed as several newts. Three wedding guests, we was all dressed In Jasper Conran suits. This geezer came up — ponged a bit, Well hairy, bleedin’

Luis Dominguez was born in the UK to the family of an Argentine diplomat and spent most of his childhood in the US, having relocated there during World War II.  I first met him at Portsmouth Priory, a small boarding school in Rhode Island, not far from Newport. My memory is of him dressed in whites for the tennis team. My next crossing of Luis’s trail was at Rollins, a small college in Winter Park, Florida. Here he was once again dressed in whites as leader of the triumphant tennis team. After graduation, we met in New York for lunch at the Racquet and Tennis Club. Luis worked for House

When I saw an email from Lucy, the lady who has the unenviable task of editing my copy each week, I knew something was wrong. And sure enough it was. The bad news was that my first editor at my beloved Spectator had died. Forty years, gone in a jiffy. It was back in 1977, and I had gone to Turin to pick up a new car on my way to Paris. Back then one had to drive the first thousand miles slowly, while breaking in the engine. (Yes, I know: a bit like wearing spats and a monocle, but that’s how it was in those prehistoric days.) Driving a

From ‘Engage the enemy more closely!’, The Spectator, 30 December 1916: Britain was never more vigorous than she is now: She has renewed her youth, and we may look forward to many years, possibly to many generations, of potent life. Still, we cannot conceal from ourselves that the destiny of these little islands in the Northern Sea must in the last resort be to lose their relative importance… To us the thought of our decline, inevitable, though it may be long postponed, brings no sense of hopelessness or misery as it did to the Roman. We can feel, and do feel, that in the bright new worlds of the West

The Spectator hosted its annual carol concert at St Bride’s Church on Fleet Street, earlier this month. Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth, Rod Liddle and Low Life columnist, Jeremy Clarke, were among those who gave readings at the event, which was held in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. As well as getting the chance to mingle with familiar faces from the magazine, Spectator readers were also treated to mince pies and mulled wine after the service. Here is a selection of photos from the event:        

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New York   The only thing worse than a sore loser, I suppose, is a sore winner, but thank God we don’t run into too many of those. Thirty years ago, The Spectator and I lost a libel case that cost the then proprietor and yours truly a small fortune. As it turned out, after the plaintiff had gone to that sauna-like place below, everything that I had written was the truth and nothing but. (The hubby of the woman who sued me came clean after her death, but a lot of good that did the Speccie and me.) The sainted editor at the time was Charles Moore, and in