The Spectator

Letters | 14 May 2015

Scotland’s silent majority Sir: Hugo Rifkind’s article (‘Scotland’s nasty party’, 9 May) is a first for the media. It expresses the dismay, disbelief and incomprehension felt at the rise of the SNP by least one — and I suspect many — of the silent majority in Scotland. When will the media confront Nicola Sturgeon’s claim

Barometer | 14 May 2015

Plagued by stigma The World Health Organisation told doctors to stop naming diseases after people, places and animals so as not to stigmatise them. But are diseases even really associated with things that gave them their name? — Spanish flu. First identified in an army hospital in Kansas in March 1918. It gained its name

Portrait of the week | 14 May 2015

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, soon got used to the surprise of the Conservatives being returned in the general election with a majority of 12. He retained George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer and made him First Secretary of State too. Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon and Iain Duncan Smith also stayed

A war crime – and a president’s dilemma

From ‘Germany and the United States’, The Spectator, 15 May 1915: The text of President Wilson’s Note to Germany on the sinking of the Lusitania has not been published at the time when we write, but there is no doubt that the unofficial summaries convey its sense accurately enough. It asks that some assurance shall be

The Spectator at war: Will Germany change her ways?

From ‘Germany and the United States’, The Spectator, 15 May 1915: The questions that concern us now to the exclusion of all others are: What will the German answer be to Mr. Wilson? and To what action by the United States will Mr. Wilson’s Note lead? We take it for granted that Germany will not

The Spectator at war: The sinking of the Lusitania

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 15 May 1915: SINCE our last issue every day has been to packed with incident and emotion that it is difficult to see events in their right perspective. The diabolical crime of sinking the ‘Lusitania’ is, from a military point of view, of course much lees important than