The Spectator

Sorry

‘Couldn’t you just have said, “Sorry, mate, was that your pint? Here, let me get you another one.”?’

Letters | 30 April 2015

An instinctive Tory faith Sir: For once Bruce Anderson does not exaggerate: David Cameron did indeed win golden opinions for his ‘high intellect and low cunning’ at the 1992 election (‘The boy David’, 25 April), putting him among the most brilliant products of the Conservative Research Department over its long history. He contributed magnificently to

Portrait of the week | 30 April 2015

Home The British economy grew by 0.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2015, the slowest quarterly growth for two years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out many absurdities in party election promises, noting that most people would see tax and benefit changes that reduced their income; it said that the Conservative and

Barometer | 30 April 2015

One-way stretch A study at Louisville University in Kentucky concluded that collisions are twice as likely in one-way streets as in similar streets with two-way traffic. — The one-way street is an older concept than many might imagine. Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire of London began in 1666, was one of the world’s first

The right choice

When election day dawns, it’s worth bearing in mind that two million more people will be going to work than when David Cameron came to power. On an average day in Britain, there are 1,500 fewer reported crimes than there were before Theresa May was made Home Secretary. Some 2.2 million pupils now attend independent schools

The Spectator at war: The thin khaki line

From ‘The Military Situation’, The Spectator, 1 May 1915: EXCEPT for the terrible death-roll, there is nothing to disquiet us in the second battle of Ypres, the embers of which are glowing as we write. The Germans have once more made a determined attempt to break our line and to reach Dunkirk and Calais, and

An empire for Islam

From ‘The Khalifate’, The Spectator, 1 May 1915: It seems that the Ottoman Empire is likely to crumble away, and in that event, whether it happens soon or late, the question of the Khalifate will cause many searchings of heart to the Mohammedan world. In an intimate and most important sense Britain is concerned in this matter.

Vote Tory | 30 April 2015

Andrew Roberts  Biographer The Cameron ministry of 2010-15 will go down in history as having made Britain as the most successful economy in the developed world, despite it having inherited a near-bankrupt nation from a Labour party that spent money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Ordinarily that should be enough to have it

Heathrow Hub’s case for London airport expansion

Britain’s airport wars are still ongoing. After the election, the Davies Commission is expected to announce how to expand capacity. The main options are new runway at Heathrow, at Gatwick, or ‘Heathrow Hub’ (extending Heathrow’s runway). Each of them is keen to get their case across to Spectator readers – so much so that they have each

The Spectator at war: Cabinet responsibility

From ‘Cabinet Responsibility’, The Spectator, 1 May 1915: The maintenance of Cabinet responsibility, that is, the responsibility of the Cabinet as a whole for the acts of individual Ministers, is of the utmost importance for the welfare of the nation. It is only through such Cabinet responsibility that the country can hope to obtain a

The Spectator at war: Small beer and large taxation

From ‘News of the Week,’ The Spectator, 1 May 1915: The Government plans for dealing with the liquor problem have ended, as we feared, in “a moist relentment” of small beer and large taxation. Mr. Lloyd George, whom we must entirely exempt from our condemnation of the Government’s cowardly opportunism, evidently failed to induce his

The Spectator at war: Deadly Gases

From ‘News of the Week‘, The Spectator, 1 May 1915: SINCE our last issue the western extremity of the western theatre of the war has been the scene of furious fighting in which the French, Belgians, and British have been engaged. The special feature of this second battle of Ypres, one of the greatest of

In memory of Richard West, 1930-2015

Dick West, a foreign correspondent and longtime contributor to The Spectator, has died. Here’s a profile we ran about him in 1989.  One side of Richard West’s character is his contrariness. At a time when others fear salmonella he refuses to have his breakfast eggs kept in the refrigerator. At the height of the Band Aid

The Spectator at war: Stuck in Holland

In 1914 some 1,500 men from ‘Churchill’s Little Army’, the First Royal Naval Brigade, retreated from the defence of Antwerp to the Netherlands. As a neutral country the Netherlands was obliged to intern any soliders from warring armies that crossed its borders to stop them re-joining the fight. The men were put in the ‘English Camp’ (or ‘HMS