Losing the plot Sir: Your leading article ‘Blight on the land’ (23 November) is right to call out the hypocrisy and vindictiveness of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Agricultural Property Relief cuts. Sadly, this is just one part of the Labour government’s multi-pronged attack on farmers, in sharp contrast to the promises they made before the general
What is the Confederation of British Industry for? Indeed, who is it for? The soi-disant voice of British business held its conference this week. As one might expect, the organisation’s chief executive, Rain Newton-Smith, lamented the tax increases levied on employers in the Budget. She issued a plea to the Chancellor for the CBI to be
Home A white paper outlined measures to counter economic inactivity (which had risen by September to 41.2 per cent among those aged 16 to 24): everyone aged 18 to 21 would be offered an apprenticeship, training, education or help to find a job; Jobcentres would be rebranded as the National Jobs and Careers Service. Rachel
The unclued lights are brands of CHOCOLATE. First prize T. Darch, London NW8 Runners-up Nicole O’Keeffe, London W11; Andrew Durham, Cooroy, Queensland, Australia
Sign of the times A petition for an immediate general election gathered 2.7 million signatures in five days. What are the other most popular petitions on the UK parliament website this week? — Introduce 16 as the minimum age to have social media (112,500 signed). — Don’t change inheritance tax relief for working farms (85,600).
The last straw Farmers are threatening to strike over the government’s changes to inheritance tax in what is being described as a first in Britain. Besides France, where farmers regularly protest, India witnessed a farmers’ strike in 2020, which was eventually settled after the government dropped proposed new laws. But one of the earliest farmers’
Life support Sir: If the Terminally Ill (End of Life) Bill is passed into law we will have crossed the Rubicon. As the second reading vote on 29 November approaches, it is astonishing that we are hearing less debate than on the loss of the winter fuel payment. There should be the mother of all
The unclued lights are four female winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature. First prize Angela Robinson, Brighton, East Sussex Runners-up Elizabeth Knights, Walton Highway, Wisbech; Andrew Vernalls, Milton Common, Thame, Oxon
The Chancellor of the Exchequer found time this week to edit her own page on the social media site LinkedIn. She had, it appeared, fallen into error by saying that she had worked as an economist for the Bank of Scotland. Her role had in fact been humbler. No one should be criticised for seeking
Home Thousands of farmers protested in Westminster against inheritance tax on farms. Tesco, Amazon, Greggs and 76 other chains belonging to the British Retail Consortium said that costs introduced by October’s Budget ‘will make job losses inevitable and higher prices a certainty’. The annual rate of inflation rose to 2.3 per cent from 1.7 a
The 14 unclued lights can be constructed using only the letters in ‘THE SPECTATOR’, as indicated in the preamble. First prize Belinda Bridgen, London NW8 Runners-up J. Bielawski, Southport; Hugh Green, Petersfield, Hampshire
Those in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill insist they’ve addressed critics’ principal concerns and that ‘stringent safeguards’ are in place. But it is impossible to see how this could be the case. If suicide is institutionalised as a form of medical treatment it is inevitable that vulnerable people will feel
Home Justin Welby resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury, after not reporting to the authorities what he knew in 2013 of the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth QC (who ran Christian summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s and died in 2018). An independent review by Keith Makin found last week that Smyth abused more than
I arrived in Lhasa by train in freezing weather. From what I’d heard, my father would be there. Outside the gaping entrance all was dark,snow falling quietly like owls’ feathers. In the bustling concourse, doubling as a market, just as I’d feared, my errant father was nowhere to be seen. I knew he was dead
Arch rivals Justin Welby served longer as Archbishop of Canterbury than any of his four immediate predecessors, but others have served far longer. The longest since the Reformation was Randall Davidson, who held the position between 1903 and 1928, when he retired aged 80 – becoming the first not to die in post. Before the
Unhealthy debate Sir: Matthew Parris is absolutely right to say that the time has come for facing populists with honest argument (‘In defence of the liberal elite’, 9 November). This call would be all the more persuasive if it were not embedded within the rotten foundations of current lamentable public discourse. Honest argument presupposes the
The unclued lights reveal phrases beginning (or, with 8, ending) with the numbers 1 to 10. The red and yellow squares reveal two members of LES SIX, the solution at 45 Across. First prize Jenny Mitchell, Wells, Somerset Runners-up Sean Smith, Southport; Rupert Cousens, Oxford
This has been the year of ejection elections. Across the democratic world, incumbents have been thrown out and insurgents have triumphed. And nowhere has the establishment been so humbled, the insurgency so resurgent, as in the US – still the world’s greatest democracy. For Democrats, it is mourning again in America. Just as in 2016,
Home Kemi Badenoch, the new leader of the Conservative party, appointed a shadow cabinet. She made Robert Jenrick, whom she beat for the leadership, shadow justice secretary; Dame Priti Patel, shadow foreign secretary; Chris Philp, shadow home secretary; Mel Stride, shadow chancellor. Alex Burghart was given Northern Ireland and the Cabinet Office, with Laura Trott
The beach magician’s vanished, gone home. Now it’s my sleeping cousins’ turn to disappear. Out of the creaking depths of old deckchairs their teenage spirits rise, drift down to the shore. The mackerel are in. Helen’s in blue, Cat in her yellow dress. The harbour’s a pond, the moored boats nailed to their