Camilla Swift

‘Look at how fantastic Kate looks on her tour of Australia and New Zealand’, everyone exclaims. ‘And she only gave birth 9 months ago!’ Yes, the Duchess of Cambridge certainly does looks lovely. But surely even more credit is due to Zara Phillips, who this weekend rode in the Symm International Horse Trials in Hambledon,

A cute puppy is natural front-page fodder, as the birth of Britain’s first cloned puppy last week proved. When it was announced that Rebecca Smith, from London, had won a competition to clone her miniature dachshund, Winnie – and that the procedure had been successful – the papers were full of puppy pics. The science of

The funeral of Clarissa Dickson Wright: cook, television personality, countryside campaigner and, at the time, the youngest woman ever to be called to the Bar, was held in Edinburgh this afternoon. Best known for her eccentric and amusing Two Fat Ladies cookery programme with Jennifer Paterson, her life also encompassed law, alcoholism (and subsequent recovery),

Channel 4 have gone all out with their coverage of today’s Grand National (sponsored, for the first time, by Crabbie’s). As well as the race itself, the channel boasts of having devoted 20 hours of related programming. This included Jockey School – an insight into the Northern Racing College in Doncaster, and what they describe as the

As I’m sure many of you will be aware, today is a very important day: National Tweed Day. To be honest, I don’t quite understand why they chose the first day of Aintree rather than some time during Cheltenham, but hey ho. The 3rd April it is. Tweed might be seen as a bit of

What do I want from the budget, I was asked. So I had a think. One plea was for no more pasty taxes, which I argued distracted from the more serious changes that would actually affect most people. So Osborne decided to cut the Bingo Tax, and we ended up with #bingogate. Someone obviously hadn’t

Every year the Budget comes and goes, amid a flurry of live blogging and urgent blog posts at The Spectator. And almost every year, the papers are full of the minutiae which make for entertaining headlines. So this year, I say: Please, no more pasty taxes.  They just lead to days and days of stupid headlines,

To cull or not to cull: that is – once again – the question. This time it’s not badgers, deer, or even goats that are being discussed, but wild boar. Locals in the Forest of Dean have complained that these giant pigs are attacking their dogs, spooking the horses, causing car accidents, and tearing up

The jewel in the crown of the Cheltenham Festival – the Gold Cup – starts this afternoon at 3.20. And, unsurprisingly, today is also one of the biggest betting days of the year, with both bookies and punters hoping to recoup their losses – or improve on their winnings. We asked some of our experts

The Cheltenham Festival kicks off today, and this year marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Arkle’s winning streak of 3 consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cups, from 1964-1966. Here he is winning in both ’64 and ’65: Known to many racing fans simply as ‘Himself’, no other horse has even come close to beating his

Imagine you’re a dog with a long, silky tail that you like to wag. The problem is, you spend your days running across moorland, through prickly undergrowth, which makes your tail hurt and bleed. Might you wish that someone had made it a little bit shorter when you were a puppy? Many people – and

How can we encourage children to be closer to nature, when 80% of Britons live in urban areas? This is the question that Michael Gove attempts to answer in his contribution to a recent pamphlet entitled ‘What the Environment means to Conservatives’. He writes, ‘One way we all interact with the natural world is through

Is David Cameron’s new gameplan to look to the northern states for allies? Fraser Nelson is joined on the podcast by Stephen Booth of Open Europe, to discuss the influence that people such as the Dutch PM Mark Rutte – who has a clear and impressive reform plan – and Angela Merkel are having on our PM. Could Cameron

Gavin Grant, the CEO of the RSPCA, is stepping down from his role after just over two years in the job because there are ‘concerns about his health’, the charity announced today. The announcement will be met with a mixture of delight and dismay; delight from those who believed that his influence was shifting the

‘Kool-Aid conservationists’ are on the rise, and they’re part of the reason why Britain is still covered in water. So says Melissa Kite in this week’s Spectator, as she highlights all of the weird and wonderful creatures whose existence prevented the Environment Agency from improving flood defences. As Melissa puts it: ‘The river Thames was

The Winter Olympics have been going on for over a week now, and we’ve been treated to a good ten hours of winter sports per day by the BBC. But they have a very odd way of choosing what we’re allowed to watch; mainly, it seems, curling and skating. Brits have every reason to be

All this talk about dredging is well and good; but could the humble beaver in fact be the solution to the nation’s floods? Well, as far as the Mammal Society are concerned, yes. The animal has been extinct in the UK since the sixteenth century, but in recent years people have been pushing for its