Charles Moore

Charles Moore

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.

Charles Moore’s notes: People want revenge on energy companies

Friends of mine called Georgiana and Mouse Campbell recently bought a new house. In the period between completion and moving in, Mouse arranged for British Gas, who supplied the electricity, to switch the account to his name. British Gas said that this involved changing it from a business account to a residential one. While this

Charles Moore’s notes: At last! Reds under the beds again

 Manchester For those of us of a certain age, Ed Miliband’s speech last week was exhilaratingly nostalgic. His promise to freeze energy prices reminded us of happy times when Labour policies were patently, shamelessly idiotic. At last, after a generation of loss, we began to hope to find reds under the bed again. In its

Sixteen-year-olds don’t pay tax. Why should they vote?

No doubt it will happen, because the Tories will not dare oppose it, but is there any conceivable good reason why 16-year-olds should have the vote, as first Alex Salmond, then the Liberals, and this week Ed Miliband have promised? The argument is that giving people the vote makes them feel empowered. But the sad

Charles Moore

Why should 16 year olds get the vote? They don’t pay tax.

No doubt it will happen, because the Tories will not dare oppose it, but is there any conceivable good reason why 16-year-olds should have the vote, as first Alex Salmond, then the Liberals, and this week Ed Miliband have promised? The argument is that giving people the vote makes them feel empowered. But the sad

Charles Moore

Andrew Mitchell is still waiting for justice

A week ago next Thursday marks the first anniversary of the Curious Incident of the Chief Whip in the Night-time. The chief whip, Andrew Mitchell, did nothing — or very little — in the night-time. That was the curious incident. There is not the slightest evidence that he called the policemen on the gates of

The Spectator’s Notes | 5 September 2013

David Cameron says that he will not come back to the House of Commons again about the question of Syria because Parliament has spoken. Obviously, having sought its opinion, he cannot now try to override it. But no one can know how the issue will now play out, and it may well be that new

Jeremy Hunt’s letter a day to keep NHS myths away

Attending the funeral of Margaret Thatcher in April, the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, was much impressed by the bit in the sermon by the Bishop of London about how Mrs Thatcher had replied personally to so many letters. He went back to his department, and asked it to give him each day one letter from

The Spectator’s notes | 11 July 2013

Andrew Mitchell was forced to resign as the Tory Chief Whip last autumn because he called policemen at the Downing Street gates ‘plebs’. Then it turned out, as this column suggested at the time, that he had not done so. It emerged that there was a conspiracy — quite how deep has not yet been

Why not marry your dog?

Looking forward, as one always must, I wonder if the law will eventually be changed to allow one to marry one’s dog. Until now, this would have been considered disgusting, since marriage has been a law revolving around sexual behaviour, and sexual acts with animals are still, I believe, illegal. But, as this column has

The system for MPs’ pay is an undemocratic absurdity

MPs are incomparable. This may seem an odd thing to say in the current climate of opinion, but I mean it exactly: they cannot be compared with others. Now that a big rise is being suggested by Ipsa, the ‘independent’ body which sets their pay, people say they should be compared with local authority chief

Charles Moore: Why not marry a dog?

MPs are incomparable. This may seem an odd thing to say in the current climate of opinion, but I mean it exactly: they cannot be compared with others. Now that a big rise is being suggested by Ipsa, the ‘independent’ body which sets their pay, people say they should be compared with local authority chief