Charles Moore is The Spectator’s chairman.
He is a former editor of the magazine, as well as the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph. He became a non-affiliated peer in July 2020.
From our UK edition
Commentators have complained about this referendum — its ‘lies’, bad manners, bitterness. Without exactly disagreeing, I would nevertheless argue that it has performed at least one of the roles intended, which is to encourage people to consider the issue. If you are actively engaged in political debate, as candidate, activist, journalist etc, you believe (often
From our UK edition
Commentators have complained about this referendum — its ‘lies’, bad manners, bitterness. Without exactly disagreeing, I would nevertheless argue that it has performed at least one of the roles intended, which is to encourage people to consider the issue. If you are actively engaged in political debate, as candidate, activist, journalist etc, you believe (often
From our UK edition
The Remain campaign takes as its model the ‘No’ one in the 2014 Scottish referendum. First and last — hence the Osborne/Darling fantasy horror Budget on Wednesday — inspire fear. Second, late in the day, leave it all to Labour and get Gordon Brown to make a passionate speech (Mr Brown took this too literally
From our UK edition
I keep telling myself that the polls showing Leave ahead are too good to be true. But then I see Remain’s latest efforts and feel reassured. One of its earliest campaigners was the self-important businessman Sir Mike Rake who, I wrote at the time, is pure gold for Leave. This week he pops up again,
From our UK edition
One of the most influential and learned figures in the British European debate is Rodney Leach. In the 1990s, he helped lead those of his fellow businessmen who became convinced that the abolition of the pound would be a disaster. He was a moving spirit in Business for Sterling and then in the ‘No’ campaign
From our UK edition
One of the most influential and learned figures in the British European debate is Rodney Leach. In the 1990s, he helped lead those of his fellow businessmen who became convinced that the abolition of the pound would be a disaster. He was a moving spirit in Business for Sterling and then in the ‘No’ campaign
From our UK edition
According to a recent law report in the Times, the Court of Appeal has just forbidden a mother to name her daughter Cyanide. The child was born to a schizophrenic woman, as the result of a rape. The girl is in local authority care. The mother’s lawyers argued that it is a statutory duty to
From our UK edition
‘No one can seriously deny that European integration brought an end to Franco-German conflict and has settled the German question for good,’ wrote Niall Ferguson in the latest Sunday Times. I hesitate when confronted by such an assertion by such a learned professor. But I think I would seriously deny it, or at least seriously
From our UK edition
Obviously there is no such thing as ‘Cameronism’, as there is ‘Thatcherism’; but once upon a time, David Cameron did have a project. It was called Tory modernisation, and his most imaginative adviser on the subject was Steve Hilton. At Policy Exchange, on Wednesday, Mr Hilton spoke, Mark Antony-like, over the dead body of Tory
From our UK edition
John Preston has just published a gripping account of the Jeremy Thorpe case, A Very English Scandal (Penguin). Sometimes the details make one laugh out loud or gasp with amazement at the tale of the shooting of Rinka, the Alsatian dog, and all that followed. But although I was completely carried along by the narrative,
From our UK edition
One of the many problems with David Cameron’s threat that leaving the European Union could plunge us into war is that it sits so strangely with how he spoke about the EU before he called a referendum. In those days, he was studiedly cool about the union: he had no sentimental attachment to it, he
From our UK edition
I am no tax expert, but when 300 economists, particularly if led by Jeffrey Sachs and Thomas Piketty, all agree about something — as 364 did that Mrs Thatcher, in 1981, was messing things up — one can be confident they are mistaken. The 300 want this week’s global anti-corruption meeting to clamp down on tax
From our UK edition
The comparison between the referendum questions — that asked in 1975 and the one which we shall be asked on 23 June — is interesting. In 1975, the question was ‘Do you think that the United Kingdom should remain part of the European Community (Common Market)?’ (Answer: Yes/No). Today, the question will be ‘Should the United Kingdom
From our UK edition
Last week, I wrote about the fevered state of mind of the Financial Times as British voters threaten to throw off their EU chains. Here is another example. Martin Wolf, usually the best columnist in the paper, wrote a column giving ten reasons to remain. He said: ‘Above all, those promoting departure ignore what the
From our UK edition
The comparison between the referendum questions — that asked in 1975 and the one which we shall be asked on 23 June — is interesting. In 1975, the question was ‘Do you think that the United Kingdom should remain part of the European Community (Common Market)?’ (Answer: Yes/No). Today, the question will be ‘Should the United Kingdom
From our UK edition
Possibly Sir Philip Green has behaved disgracefully in the matter of BHS. It does not follow that he should be stripped of his knighthood. Think of the consequences. At present, the promise of a knighthood can keep people who might otherwise be independent in line. But once a knighthood has been granted, it can hardly
From our UK edition
‘England in effect is insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her interactions, her markets and her supply lines to the most diverse and often the most distant countries; she pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities, and only slight agricultural ones. She has, in all her doings, very marked and very original habits and
From our UK edition
‘England in effect is insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her interactions, her markets and her supply lines to the most diverse and often the most distant countries; she pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities, and only slight agricultural ones. She has, in all her doings, very marked and very original habits and
From our UK edition
An enjoyable aspect of the EU referendum campaign is the nervous condition of the Financial Times. Unable to maintain its usual pretence at judicious balance under the strain, it has become the Daily Mail of the Europhile global elites, warning of the Seven Plagues which will afflict us if we vote to leave. Rather as
From our UK edition
In last Saturday’s Daily Telegraph, I mentioned how outside candidates for civil service and public appointments feel ill-used by the system. My piece prompted more correspondents. One tells me that little effort was made, when he applied for a permanent secretaryship, to give him the information about the post which was available to insiders but
