39 min listen
This week: Miliband’s empty energy promises. Ed Miliband has written a public letter confirming that Labour plans to decarbonise the electricity system by 2030. The problem with this, though, is that he doesn’t have the first idea about how to do it. The grid doesn’t have the capacity to transmit the required energy, Ross Clark
43 min listen
Katy Balls, The Spectator’s political editor, writes about the return of Tory sleaze. She’s joined by Jill Rutter, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government, to discuss the problems piling up for Rishi Sunak and the Tories. (00:50) Also this week, security expert Mark Galeotti writes about why Europe has been reluctant to give Ukraine
Last week, while the Mayor of London (pop. 7.8 million) was visiting China, the Deputy Mayor of Pitcairn (pop. 50) was visiting London. I met Simon Young for afternoon tea in a riverside restaurant near the Tower of London. Both he, and a fellow member of the Pitcairn Council, Mrs Melva Evans, had travelled thousands
I first visited the Peloponnese in the spring of 1959, at the beginning of my gap year. I was 18. Having been accepted for university as a classicist, I decided I might as well combine business and pleasure by visiting the great sites of the Mycenaean era before going on to my studies. It was
I went to Sherborne in January 1954. The first view I had of my housemaster was at the TC inspection parade held on the first day of every term. TC stood for tinea cruris or ‘crotch-worm’, an infection which boys were thought to be prone to during the holidays. Col H.F.W. ‘Hughie’ Holmes moved down the line of boys,
Years — actually decades — ago, a gentleman from the British civil service, interviewing me as a potential candidate for a job in the European Commission, explained that ‘all the important decisions in Brussels are prepared by the chefs’. As he spoke, I had a vision of men in tall white hats stirring dishes on
Stanley Johnson was a volcano victim — stranded in Spain with thousands of other British holidaymakers. Fortunately, the Royal Navy was on hand to bring him home in style Last week was quite extraordinary. My wife Jenny and I landed at Madrid airport on Monday afternoon, having flown overnight from Ecuador. We should have had
Stanley Johnson is adjusting to his new constitutional position in the life of London: not least deciding which clubs to avoid at lunchtime in order to dodge Boris’s journalist foes Last July, soon after Boris had announced he would be a candidate for the post of mayor of London, the editor of The Spectator very
To reach Sir Christopher Ondaatje’s Glenthorne estate you have to drive down a three-mile track which drops 1,000 feet to the only piece of flat land between Porlock and Lynmouth. Here, in 1831, the Reverend Walter S. Halliday built a substantial house, hemmed in behind by the towering Devon cliffs but enjoying an uninterrupted view
For the last few days they have been putting the flags and bunting up in the streets of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in preparation for the nationwide celebrations which will mark the Lunar New Year or Tet. Forty years ago, on the night of 30–31 January 1968, the Liberation Army, as it is
I first went to Antarctica in the (Antarctic) summer of 1984 on board the John Biscoe, a research and supply ship belonging to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). Over a period of several weeks we visited various BAS stations on the Antarctic peninsula, including a small station known as Faraday at which vital measurements of
At the beginning of 1984 — more than 23 years ago — I was lucky enough to be invited by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) to join its research and supply vessel, the John Biscoe, on a six-week trip to Antarctica. At the beginning of 1984 — more than 23 years ago — I was
Stanley Johnson says that his son is no buffoon, that his ability to make people laugh doesn’t mean he’s a lightweight, and that he should not get bogged down in ‘consultation’ Boris was born in New York on 19 June 1964. I missed the birth since I had slipped outside for a moment to buy a
