Anyone mulling how the government can save a tidy sum of money could do a lot worse than to sift through the slew of data released this week by the Cabinet Office on how much government services cost. It sounds a bit techy, but the breakdown of costs underlines how important the ‘Digital by Default’ approach
Maybe it’s the unconscious effect of the Sabbath, but here in Tel Aviv a soporific atmosphere hangs over next week’s Israeli elections. Among the Israelis I have spoken to (mostly secular Tel Avivians), apathy prevails. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going to win whatever happens, it seems, and he is going to have to come
I fear that we are all going to have to learn a lot about Mali and the Sahel—and fast. It is rapidly becoming the latest front in the war on terror. Or, to be more precise, the West’s attempt to prevent the emergence of ungoverned spaces that can be exploited by Al Qaeda and its
Superb piece of journalism on the BBC News from Lyse Doucet. A horrible story, of some appalling mass murder in Syria – told calmly and bravely; unpartisan, questioning and undoubtedly exposing the team to danger, for our benefit. The very best of journalism. You can see it here. Actually, the piece which followed Doucet’s wasn’t
Back from the Kingdom and the Gulf, where I’m delighted to find Senator John McCain (Republican, Arizona) who never fails to disappoint. Opening his remarks at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, he quipped that he had come from the US where support for Congress had now reached a point
For three months now, we have been operating without a paywall throughout the website. It has, as we had hoped, brought thousands more people to The Spectator who have discovered the most entertaining and best-written magazine in the English language. From now, we’re offering a limited number of free magazine pieces per month and asking
Lance Armstrong could yet manage to emerge a hero. ‘What’s the crime?’ is all he needs to ask. ‘Who died?’ On one side, a lot of people interested in the somewhat esoteric topic of who can make a bicycle go fastest were conned. On the other, more than half a billion dollars raised to fight
Is there really war in Whitehall? Tensions between ministers and civil servants have certainly spilled over at some departments, but there has, as you might expect, been a backlash over the past few days to the Times investigation into the civil service. Former civil service head Lord O’Donnell and Telegraph columnist Sue Cameron have both,
Another week, another former Tory cabinet minister working a room. Last week I brought you news of Liam Fox entertaining the great and good of the Tory party. Now I hear that Andrew Mitchell has been making an extra special effort to be nice to absolutely everyone. The former chief whip was being very friendly
A visibly tired David Cameron has just completed his statement to the House of Commons on the hostage situation in Algeria. What was striking about it was the starkness of the language that the Prime Minister used. He talked about Al Qaeda in the Maghreb and other North African terrorists groups posing a ‘large and
It’s Friday at 10am in a remote field in Fife. John Burnside is taking his morning walk, whilst simultaneously attempting to conduct a conversation with me down a dodgy telephone line. Within seconds he’s speaking about a concept of happiness— or lack of it— that goes back to philosophers such as Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. ‘I’m
It’s an odd thing. I had been a little nervous of writing (subscribe here) about the Suzanne Moore twitter business because, much though I like and respect Moore and Burchill and the excellent Julie Bindel, it seemed to me to be a Crouch End dispute of negligible wider importance. And here we were with Algeria on
By the time the Prime Minister cancelled his Europe speech yesterday evening, extracts had already been briefed to journalists. A new date has yet to be announced, but here are the extracts that have been released: Britain should play an active part in Europe: ‘I want to speak to you today with urgency and frankness
David Cameron had no choice but to postpone today’s speech: while it would have been a relief to get the darned thing over and done with, a navel-gazing address on Conservative Europe policy would have done him no favours in the long-term when the Algerian hostage crisis is still going on. The Prime Minister will
Just before the London Classic, Magnus Carlsen and Judith Polgar contested a four-game match under speed and blindfold conditions as part of the Gran Fiesta of chess at UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico) in Mexico City. Supported by the enterprising Mexican Chess Federation, the festival’s highlight was this clash between the top-ranked player and
Black to play. This is from Carlsen-Polgar, Mexico City 2012. Black’s minor pieces seem to be locked out of the game but Polgar’s next move showed that this was not the case and it led to an easily winning position. What did she play? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 22 January or
Last November Lutfur Rahman, the independent Mayor of Tower Hamlets, confirmed that the borough intended to sell a Henry Moore sculpture entitled ‘Draped Seated Woman’ (1958–9) that had been historically sited in the borough. Rahman’s reasoning was twofold: the sculpture was too expensive for the council to insure and the money raised from the work’s
One of the pleasures of the critic’s life is to review exhibitions of work by artists who have been forgotten or overlooked, and to recommend them for general attention. I know some arts editors are only interested in fashionable or mainstream artists, but I’m happy to say that The Spectator’s editorial policy is altogether more
Aid waste Sir: In Andrew Mitchell’s response to my article ‘The Great Aid Mystery’ (5 January), he asks ‘what about the 11 million children in school who wouldn’t be there’ if it weren’t for DFID’s aid efforts. It would be hard to come up with a more representative example of the dishonest marketing rhetoric that
Gstaad The sub-primate level of conversation, as prevalent as the snow up here in the Alps, took a turn for the better last week while a select few celebrated Prince Nicolas Romanoff’s 90th birthday. Yes, most people who live up here are illiterate, but they sure know how to count, some even up to ten