Home Harriet Harman, the acting leader of the Labour party, said that 3,000 people had had any votes they cast in the Labour leadership contest set aside. Voters for the contest had been reduced from 610,000 to 553,954, mostly because people could not be found on the electoral register, but 1,900 alleged sympathisers with the
When George Osborne visited Sweden, Finland and Denmark the stock markets of each country promptly fell by about 5 per cent. As soon as he left, they recovered. A coincidence, of course: Osborne’s tour coincided with stock-market jitters, but this nonetheless forced him to look over the precipice — and panic. Britain, he warned, was
From ‘A Converted Peace-Man’, The Spectator, 28 August 1915: We have brought the present war upon ourselves in a great measure by the obstinate refusal of the great mass of English politicians to recognise that Europe is a fact, and a very momentous fact, and that to ignore it as they did was a piece of
‘When did we stop getting the yogurt with friendly bacteria?’
‘Don’t even think about it.’
‘Due to some unwise financial investments, you’re no longer a rich bastard, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m having second thoughts about our leadership selection process.’
‘OK, road’s clear ...Go!’
Munch’s ohmigod!
‘It’s not back-firing properly.’
‘You start off wanting to be Tintin but end up as Captain Haddock...’
The morality of the A bomb Sir: In questioning whether we should celebrate VJ Day (Diary, 15 August), A.N. Wilson is confusing ‘why’ with ‘how’. The debate on the rights or wrongs of the nuclear attack will continue probably until long after the grandchildren of the last survivors have passed on. What should not be
Home Andrew Burnham described calls from Yvette Cooper, a rival candidate for the Labour leadership, for him to withdraw from the contest as ‘quite strange’. The problem was how to prevent Jeremy Corbyn, a left-winger, from being elected by the alternative vote system by 610,000 party members and registered supporters. Gordon Brown, the former disastrous
Over the past week, the government has finally made a decisive move to kickstart a fracking industry in Britain. Licences have been issued for shale gas exploration and the planning process streamlined so that in future, if local councils fail to make decisions within 16 weeks, the communities secretary will step in and adjudicate. It’s
