The Spectator

Letters | 11 June 2015

The long arm of the FBI Sir: The White House may be less willing than it was to play the role of the world’s policeman in international affairs, but the FBI seems eager to be the world’s cop. No doubt, as Martin Vander Weyer has noted (Any other business, 6 May), the US Attorney General

A lot to ask

David Cameron is now facing the biggest challenge of his leadership: how to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the EU without destroying his party. His dilemma mirrors the situation of Harold Wilson 40 years ago this month. So far, the old Labour man looks the better strategist. Wilson, who had a majority of three, avoided mass

Portrait of the week | 11 June 2015

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said of the EU referendum: ‘If you want to be part of the government, you have to take the view that we are engaged in an exercise of renegotiation to have a referendum and that will lead to a successful outcome.’ This caused a certain amount of uproar, with

The Spectator at war: Paying for the politicians we want

From ‘Cabinet Salaries and Cabinet Pensions’, The Spectator, 12 June 1915: THE National Government have very wisely taken a step which we strongly urged upon the late Government on February 28th, 1914, and again on July 4th of the same year. They are going to pool their salaries just as we then recommended, and make

Against profiteering

From ‘The Essential Need’, The Spectator, 12 June 1915: Just as wages must be ‘stabilised’ for the men at existing rates, so all additional profits due to war contracts must be credited, not to the individual employer, but to the state. The principle of no war rise in wages must be strictly applied to profits. Upon

The Spectator at war: Defending international law

From ‘The United States and Germany’, The Spectator, 12 June 1915: THE resignation of Mr. Bryan, the powerful American Secretary of State, which took the United States by surprise, must of course affect considerably the methods by which the American Cabinet will conduct their negotiations with Germany. Mr. Bryan, as he has in effect told

The Spectator at war: A magnificent man and his flying machine

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 12 June 1915: A MAGNIFICENT feat of airmanship was performed at three o’clock on Monday morning by Flight-Sub-Lieutenant R. A. J. Warneford, R.N., who single-handed attacked a Zeppelin between Ghent and Brussels and destroyed it. He dropped six bombs on the Zeppelin, and had come so close to

The Spectator at war: An Englishman’s creed

From ‘Latent Creeds’, The Spectator, 5 June 1915: Has it not sometimes occurred to habitual church-goers to think how intensely interesting it would be if, when the congregation turned to the east, each man, instead of repeating after the choir, proclaimed aloud the creed of his soul? It would not perhaps be a bad spiritual

The Spectator at war: Husbands, sons and brothers

From ‘Husbands, Sons and Brothers’, The Spectator, 5 June 1915: AT the beginning of the war it was proposed by a group of well-known Englishwomen that mourning should not be worn for those killed in battle. The motive was excellent—the spirit of the Roman mother who did not count lost a life given for the