It’s tough being a vigilante, as Michael Widen in St Mary Bourne village has discovered to his cost. Mr Widen has been monitoring drivers with his own speed camera, and then reporting them to police. People in the local pub have started calling him a speed Nazi and there are mutterings in the village that
Action on Sugar, the bastard offspring of Consensus Action on Salt, has noticed that dried fruit contains sugar. As with every utterance from the pressure group, the BBC thinks this is newsworthy. Based on an unpublished undergraduate research project, Action on Sugar says that 85 per cent of fruit snacks’ contain more sugar than 100
David Cameron has to walk two tightropes on Europe, and at the same time too. The first is to negotiate a deal with other European leaders that satisfies the bulk of his Euro-sceptic party. If this was not difficult enough, simultaneously Cameron has to show voters that the European question isn’t consuming all of his government’s
Yvette Cooper may lack some of Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall’s momentum but she remains a formidable opponent in the Labour leadership contest. On the Andrew Marr Show this morning, Cooper was quizzed on how enthusiastic she is for the job, given her late entry to the contest: ‘I want to make sure that Labour leads
From ‘A Besieged Empire‘, The Spectator, 29 May 1915: All that can be seen at the present moment is that the Germans seem to be capable of supplying themselves with all essential requisites in spite of the almost complete blockade maintained by their enemies. There is, however, one consideration which points clearly to their final
I spotted the Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Tim Farron in a pub on Whitehall, enjoying half a pint of lager and nachos with fellow party activists after marching in defence of the Human Rights Act. He kindly agreed to speak to The Spectator and you can watch above what we discussed. As part of his leadership campaign, Farron,
How pleasing that the sleazebags at Fifa are finally getting their comeuppance. We have all known what has been going on for years: dodgy deals in hotels, backhanders to secure votes. Who could disagree with the judgement of Greg Dyke, chairman of the FA when he suggested: ‘There is no way of rebuilding trust in Fifa
How very tiresome it already is to hear arguments over the European Referendum campaign based not on numbers and facts, but on emotion, intuition, and partisanship. I would have thought that after Dan Hodges’s worst nightmare, politicos would be a bit more cautious about their predictions. Ukip’s former treasurer, Stuart Wheeler, doesn’t seem to have
The attempt to implicate Cardinal George Pell in the Ballarat child abuse scandal is a virtuoso display of score-settling by Australia’s left-leaning journalists, who have hated Pell for many years. This morning, however, The Australian broke ranks by publishing a column by Gerard Henderson that helps set the record straight. I’m simply going to quote extracts from
The poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s failure to pen a poem commemorating the birth of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge prompted us to invite you to do it instead. You stepped into the breach with gusto: sonnets, odes and haikus poured in. The entry was diverse, full of charm and a pleasure to judge. I was
Matthew Parris, in a characteristically elegant essay in this week’s magazine, complains about the rubbish quality of the arguments against gay marriage in the wake of the Irish Referendum; so very different from the kind of intellectually coherent Christian discourse that we used to get from the likes of Malcolm Muggeridge, C.S. Lewis et al.
Now that Ireland has voted Yes to same-sex marriage, it will be widely believed that this trend is unstoppable and those who oppose it will end up looking like people who supported the slave trade. It is possible. But in fact history has many examples of admired ideas which look like the future for a
Alan Bennett’s Lady in the Van tells the story of a homeless woman called Miss Shepherd who moved her van into the playwright’s drive temporarily and ended up staying there for 15 years. Speaking about the film adaptation, which stars Maggie Smith, at Hay, Bennett claimed that Miss Shepherd would not be given the same welcome by
From ‘The National Government‘, The Spectator, 29 May 1915: We have got our backs to the wall. There is no alternative to the present Ministry. If they fail us, there is nothing left. This thought should not lead to dread or anxiety, but to the very opposite. They are Englishmen, and they are not going
The Home Office has today published a bill banning a number of ‘legal highs’ such as laughing gas, poppers, and so on. There is a big debate about whether this sort of legislation is worth it, and so on, but one particular substance may cause a rather different row. ‘Poppers’, which can apparently be bought
On election night, between the exit poll suggesting the Conservatives would be back in a coalition government and the slow realisation that they were heading for a majority, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon was heard remarking to colleagues that the UK might just end up maintaining defence spending at 2 per cent of GDP after all.
Of all the talks he will have with European leaders about his plans to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Europe, David Cameron was always likely to enjoy his meeting with Angela Merkel the most. And she doesn’t seem to have disappointed him, saying treaty change was not ‘impossible’ and that ‘we would like to be a
It is probably safe to say that the negotiations with Iran aren’t going very well. As the 30 June deadline for a final agreement looms America’s top negotiator Wendy Sherman has just announced that she will resign shortly after, telling the New York Times that it has been ‘two long years’ in that position. Meanwhile the
This week’s New Statesman, guest-edited by Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer, is titled ‘Saying the unsayable’. It promises to ‘address the ideas of censorship, taboos, offence and free speech’. The magazine has Stephen Fry revealing two opinions that will get him in ‘trouble’, as well as Rowan Williams writing on ‘Why religion needs blasphemy’. It was also supposed
‘The art of politics is not to lie,’ claimed Alex Salmond on last night’s This Week. A noble sentiment for sure, but Mr S feels it’s his duty to remind readers of a story that broke in October 2013. The Telegraph reported that ‘Alex Salmond spent almost £20,000 of taxpayers’ money to keep secret legal