Boris
The Spectator
Thursday
Predictions
Down And Out
‘I was once very rich, but nobody liked me, so I gave my money away – only to find that nobody likes you when you’re down an’ out, either.’
Boats
Portrait of the week | 13 September 2012
Home George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said the autumn statement would be on 5 December, and commentators said he would confront the dwindling chance of meeting debt targets set for 2015. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, said the government would set up a ‘business bank’ to lend to companies. The Commons Public Accounts
Letters | 13 September 2012
For richer, for poorer? Sir: Liza Mundy (‘The richer sex’, 8 September) concludes that ‘history has shown that human beings are above all adaptable’, and should therefore adapt to women earning more than men. Her article appears to be mostly about women who are already married and I think this is probably true of married
Barometer | 13 September 2012
The start of the tape Business secretary Vince Cable announced another crackdown on red tape. But where did red tape come from? It seems to have been a product of the Holy Roman Empire. — Spanish officials in the reign of Charles V (1516-56) would tie up documents relating to issues which had to be
Books and Arts – 13 September 2012
What Barroso should have said
José Manuel Barroso gave his annual ‘State of the Union’ address in Strasbourg yesterday. If you are a glutton for punishment, you can read the full speech here, but in this week’s Spectator, Quentin Letts offers the president of the European Commission a transcript for the speech he should have given. Here is a snippet
The Universal Credit crunch
Exactly three years ago, The Spectator devoted its cover to a revolutionary proposal for welfare reform. The proposed Universal Credit seemed, then, to be one of those ideas too sensible actually to be implemented. It proposed replacing the rotten, complex layers of benefits with a single system that paved the way to work rather than