The Spectator

The attack on Charlie Hebdo is an attack on freedom

The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo lambasts, attacks and lampoons absolutely everybody. Its targets include all religions, all identity groups, minorities and majorities. In recent years it has been most prominent for its refusal to apply different treatment to Islam. It knew that carrying on with satire, in the name of free expression, carried a

The Spectator at war: The German mentality

From News of the Week, The Spectator, 9 January 1915: The Report of the French Commission appointed to investigate the acts committed in violation of international law by Germany appears in the Journal Officiel of Friday. The Commission declares that “the terrible sufferings witnessed surpass in horror all that the imagination can conceive.” Not only

From the archives | 8 January 2015

From ‘Lord Curzon’s speech’, The Spectator, 9 January 1915: We are glad to record, though in no way surprised to find, that Lord Curzon takes a very serious and very clearly defined view of the duties of the Opposition during a period of national crisis. He recognised that part of these duties in war time

The Spectator at war: Efficiency and blundering

From ‘The Threat of Grand Admiral von Tirpitz’, The Spectator, 9 January 1915: THE Manchester Guardian of Tuesday published the text of the interview with Grand Admiral von Tirpitz which appear last week in the New York Sun. This was the interview in which Admiral von Tirpitz seriously proposed that German submarines might declare war on all enemy

The Spectator at war: A flying visit

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 2 January 1915: The first German aeroplanes which have visited us since the beginning of the war appeared on Thursday and Friday of last week. On Thursday week, about eleven o’clock in the morning, an aeroplane circled over Dover and dropped a bomb, which fell in a garden