On Wednesday night in the televised Labour leadership hustings, Yvette Cooper channeled Margaret Thatcher, saying: ‘I’m not standing because I want to be something, but because I want to do something.’ So is she trying to pose as Labour’s Iron Lady? After all, it was Thatcher who originally said that: ‘It used to be about trying
From ‘How to Use Our Home Guard Volunteers’, The Spectator, 19 June 1915: There is a technical objection which for the moment seems to raise an insuperable barrier against the military authorities getting what, in many cases, they so eagerly desire, and against the Volunteers rendering the aid which they are equally anxious to render.
‘Here’s our list of things we must pledge never to do again.’
‘Is it because I’m white pretending to be black?’
‘Why couldn’t he hang himself out to dry?’
‘I’ve gone for the countryside look.’
‘Yes, I’ve seen a few changes.’
‘We’ve been on a journey.’
‘My work is selfie-explanatory.’
‘I’ve got to go. I’m needed urgently on Twitter.’
Dropping the Clangers The Clangers made a comeback on BBC television. Some Clanger facts: — The actors doing the voices worked from a script in English, even though they were playing seemingly unintelligible noises on the swanee whistle. It was a good job the young viewers didn’t understand Clanger-language, because the creatures were known to
Growing congregations Sir: I would like to take issue with Damian Thompson (‘Crisis of faith’, 13 June) and his assertions that England’s churches are in deep trouble. Last Saturday 250 Christians ranging in age from zero to 80, from two independent and orthodox local churches in Lancaster and Morecambe, met in a school to sing,
The campaign to keep Greece in the euro has resulted in five years of groundhog days. The unfortunate country seems to be forever approaching a day of repayments it cannot afford. Ministers and diplomats assemble to thrash out a deal. Meetings collapse in bad temper, and markets sink. Then, at the eleventh hour, a deal
Home Talha Asmal, aged 17, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, died in a suicide bomb attack on forces near an oil refinery near Baiji in Iraq, having assumed the name Abu Yusuf al-Britani. A man from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, Thomas Evans, 25, who had changed his name to Abdul Hakim, was killed in Kenya while fighting for
From ‘Chatter About Peace’, The Spectator, 19 June 1915: THE student of foreign telegrams will not have failed to notice that during the past week there have been a good many hints as to the possibilities of peace, and the willingness of the Germans to end the war on what they consider would be reasonable
From ‘Literature and Soldiers’, The Spectator, 19 June 1915: In this war some of the most moving poetry has been written by young soldiers. The most vivid accounts of fighting have been extracted from soldiers’ letters. These were certainly not written without a close companionship with letters. We wonder how many torn and thumbed copies of