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Home Tim Davie, the director-general of the BBC, resigned, as did Deborah Turness, the CEO of BBC News. Samir Shah, the chairman of the BBC, apologised for an ‘error of judgment’ in the editing by Panorama of a speech by President Donald Trump that made it look as though he was urging people to attack
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Minimum requirement Sir: Some of Charles Moore’s observations about the minimum wage are pertinent (Notes, 1 November). However, what many also lose sight of (most of all our Chancellor) is that by government raising the minimum wage, those employees who were just above it usually seek pay rises to stay ahead of it, or employers
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Austere environment Who introduced the word ‘austerity’ into the political lexicon? While chiefly associated with attacks on the Conservatives, and subsequently Reform UK, by Labour and other left-wing parties, it was David Cameron who brought the word back into common parlance. In a speech to the Conservative party forum on 26 April 2009 he declared:
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The eight unclued lights comprise four symmetrically placed ‘cycling pairs’, as cryptically hinted at by the title. First prize Abi Williams, Newton Abbot Runners-up Richard Warren, Coventry; Pam Bealby, Stockton on Tees
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The New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was that rare figure in politics – a progressive who followed the facts. The contrast between his grown-up moral clarity and the adolescent ideological posturing of New York City’s latest Democrat darling, Zohran Mamdani, could not be starker. Moynihan was a welfare reformer who knew that incentivising work,
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Home The King ‘initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew’, who is now known as Mr Andrew Mountbatten Windsor; his lease on Royal Lodge, Windsor, was relinquished and he made a private arrangement with the King to live on the Sandringham estate. His former wife, Sarah Ferguson, will
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Philip Hensher I have a theory that Mick Herron’s Slow Horses novels are an ingenious variation on Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays. If, in a future episode, River Cartwright ascends to his kingdom renouncing Jackson Lamb, and if Catherine tells us of Jackson/Falstaff’s death offstage, don’t be surprised. In any case, Clown Town (Baskerville, £22) is
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Watch Freddy Gray, The Spectator’s deputy editor and host of the Americano podcast, and special guests Ann Coulter and Peter Hitchens go head-to-head on the highs and lows of Trump’s first year back in the White House, via livestream. Has Trump 2.0 lived up to its promise – or fallen short of the ‘Golden Age’? Is he reinvigorating American
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Future proof Sir: Douglas Murray asks why Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech understated the problems (‘Imagine what Enoch Powell might have said’, 25 October). The simple answer is that it couldn’t have said everything, but many of the omissions cited are referred to in Powell’s later speeches. During the 1970 general election campaign in
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The WORD-BUILDING series is: eat (40A), tare (8D), cater (37A), recant (11A), certain (27A), canister (2D), nectaries (3D), transience (19D), incinerates (1A). First prize Christine Rees, Cowlinge, Suffolk Runners-up Mark Humble, Beercrocombe, Taunton; Graham Westmore, Sibsey, Lincs
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Javier Milei’s election in 2023 was a repudiation of decades of Peronist turmoil, corruption and inflation. Milei offered shock therapy, delivered with an Austin Powers haircut and chainsaws. This is a man who had worked as a tantric sex coach and claims to speak not just with animals but also with God himself. Eyebrows were
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Home An Iranian man who arrived on a small boat and was deported to France on 19 September under the one in, one out scheme returned to England on another small boat. Hadush Kebatu, the migrant whose arrest for sexual assault sparked weeks of protests outside the Bell hotel in Epping where he was living,
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So as to not leave any marks on the freshly emulsioned walls by leaning the metal stepladder against them, and to save me the groan of starting next morning by heaving it up off the floorboards and lugging it into position, I stand it upright, dead centre of the empty lounge overnight, clothe the rungs
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Antony Beevor In Captives and Companions (Allen Lane, £35), Justin Marozzi has brought together a scholarly yet vivid history of slavery in the Islamic world in all its varied forms. Everything is covered, from the former slaves recruited by the Prophet, who achieved immense influence, to agricultural slavery, military conscription with Mamluks and Janissaries, the
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Watch Bernard Cornwell in conversation with The Spectator’s associate editor Toby Young as they discuss Cornwell’s new book, Sharpe’s Storm, and delve into his remarkable life and career via livestream, exclusively for Spectator subscribers. Author of more than 50 international bestselling novels, including The Last Kingdom and much-loved Sharpe series, Cornwell will discuss the real history behind his riveting tales of war and heroism, and the enduring appeal
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SEN and sensibility Sir: As a former teacher and long-standing chair of governors in a local school, I share Rosie Lewis’s frustration at the parlous situation regarding special educational needs (‘Fare play’, 18 October). I also sit on a weekly area admissions committee and many schools in our area are full, often with long waiting
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Home Prince Andrew said he would no longer use his titles, including as Duke of York, or his honours; his former wife will be known as Sarah Ferguson and no longer Duchess of York. The posthumous memoirs of Virginia Giuffre repeated her allegations of sexual abuse against him, which he has denied. George Abaraonye, who
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Unclued lights are pairs of words as referred to in the UK and US: 1A/28, 10/26D, 14/40, 24/41 and 36/7. First prize Jeremiah Carter, Cambridge Runners-up Geoffrey Goddard, Hastingwood, Essex; Lucy Robinson, Oxford
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Louvre incursion Jewellery once belonging to Napoleon’s family was sprung from the Louvre. In 1911 the ‘Mona Lisa’ was stolen by an Italian glazier, Vincenzo Peruggia, who worked there and who managed to slip the painting under his smock. Two years later he was caught when trying to sell it to an antiques dealer in
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In Silicon Valley there is a simple mantra that drives innovation: You Can Just Do Things. Wait for permission from the system, the bureaucrats or, worst of all, your lawyers, and nothing ever happens. Incumbents want inertia not challenge. Progress depends on movement. Nowhere does the PM seem so adrift than in the area he