The Spectator

Letters | 5 November 2015

The power of creativity Sir: A rounded education should encourage creativity as well as maths, English, science and history if Britain is to compete in the modern world. Toby Young’s claim that the arts world is exaggerating the decline of arts in secondary schools therefore deserves to be challenged (Status anxiety, 24 October). In spite

Portrait of the week | 5 November 2015

Home The all-party Foreign Affairs Committee urged David Cameron, the Prime Minister, not to press ahead with a Commons vote on British air strikes against Islamic State positions in Syria. At its conference, Scottish Labour adopted a policy of opposition to Trident renewal, though Kezia Dugdale, its leader, remained in favour, while the Labour party

Hot air summit

The delegates who will gather for the star-studded Paris climate summit include celebrities, presidents and perhaps even the Pope. Among other things, they will be asked to consider the formation of an ‘International Tribunal of Climate Justice’, which developed countries would be hauled before for breaching agreed limits on greenhouse gas emissions. That the proposed

Barometer | 5 November 2015

Family business Justin Trudeau, son of Pierre Trudeau, was elected to his father’s old job as Prime Minister of Canada. Other descendants of former leaders currently in power: — The maternal grandfather of Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, held the same job between 1957 and 1960. — Park Geun-hye, president of South Korea, is

The fall of a king

From ‘News of the week’, The Spectator, 6 November 1915: We greatly regret to record a serious accident to the King. When His Majesty was reviewing troops of the First Army on the Western front the cheers of the men startled the mare he was riding. She reared up so far that, she fell and partly

Laptop

‘Call me old-fashioned, but I insist on the family sitting down at the table together via Skype.’