Tv 7
‘I can’t stand Labour party electioneering. What’s on ITV?’
The Spectator
Thursday
Magnet
Fridge magnet
Romance
Proposals
‘Oh, Malcolm — is this a raft of proposals?’
Hello 2
Addicted
‘We’re worried he may be addicted to online porn.’
Death Threat
‘We must remember to send the Johnsons a death threat.’
Earthlings
‘Do you ever wonder just what Earthlings look like?’
Oil 2
‘You’re right — oil on canvas.’
Smartphones
‘The problems started when we both lost our smartphones and had to talk to each other.’
Letters | 23 April 2015
Enemies within Sir: I thought Matthew Parris was typically incisive in his last column, but perhaps not quite as much as the person who wrote its online headline, ‘Scotland knows the power of a common enemy. We English don’t’ (18 April). It is true that ‘the wish to be the underdog’ is a defining urge
Barometer | 23 April 2015
Any answers? Nigel Farage accused the audience in the BBC opposition leaders’ debate of being left-wing. Need insulting an audience destroy a political career? — Former US Vice President Dan Quayle did it on a number of occasions, telling an audience of American Samoans in 1989: ‘You all look like happy campers to me.’ Two
Portrait of the week | 23 April 2015
Home The prospect of a parliamentary alliance between Labour and the Scottish National Party injected an element of fear into the election campaign. The SNP manifesto promised to increase spending and to find a way to stop the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent. Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, said she wanted to make Labour
The other union
The election campaign is becoming increasingly dominated by a small party whose raison d’être is to preach independence from membership of a union it claims is hindering national ambition. But the party is not Ukip, which had been expected to play a big role in this election. It is the Scottish National Party, which seems
Books and arts – 23 April 2015
The Spectator at war: Soldiers of Italy
From ‘Soldiers of Italy’, The Spectator, 24 April 1915: It is winter in Florence. The sun shines, but snow lies low on Monte Morello, and the tramontana blows cold as ice, out of a piercingly blue sky. The streets and squares are crowded. Bells are ringing, bands playing, troops marching. The soldiers are coming back from
Florence weeps
From ‘Soldiers of Italy’, The Spectator, 24 April 1915: It is winter in Florence. The sun shines, but snow lies low on Monte Morello, and the tramontana blows cold as ice, out of a piercingly blue sky. The streets and squares are crowded. Bells are ringing, bands playing, troops marching. The soldiers are coming back from Tripoli. There
Wednesday
Watch live: Spectator wealth debate with Owen Jones, Jack Monroe, Toby Young and Fraser Nelson
The Spectator will host a debate at 7.00pm this evening on whether ‘Politicians should leave the wealthy alone, because they already contribute more than their fair share’. Fraser Nelson, Toby Young and William Cash will go head-to-head with Owen Jones, Jack Monroe and Molly Scott Cato, with Andrew Neil chairing the debate. The debate has now sold out, but
The Spectator at war: The menace of drink
From ‘The Menace of Drink’, The Spectator, 24 April 1915: Some depressing influence is at work among the very poor which is not poverty, something which makes the full effort after the highest civilization attainable to them seem not worth while. That depressing influence is, as we believe, drink. “Oh, hold your tongue!” we hear