Poor Kate Middleton. In the royal tradition of artistic and literary representation, what defines her at this moment in time? The creepy feature on her wardrobe statistics in February’s Vogue? Or Paul Emsley’s even creepier official portrait revealed last week? Emsley’s Vaseline lens ‘Gaussian girl’ take on the future consort would have been appropriate had
Anyone remember Mary Fitzpatrick? She was the BBC’s ‘Diversity Czar’ back in the middle of the last decade, paid £90,000 p.a by the licence payer to spout egregious pc bollocks. From a quick Google she now appears to be coining it for doing precisely the same job for the UK Film Council. Nice work, etc.
David Cameron told journalists before Christmas that he had a ‘tantric’ approach to his European policy speech: that it would be all the better when it eventually came. So today he decided to continue tantalising his party and the media by popping up on the Today programme a whole week before he’s due to give
An interesting if depressing edition of Any Questions on Friday. Interesting because of Sir Malcolm Rifkind and occasionally because of Simon Hughes. Depressing because of one person: Harriet Harman. There is a theory that the Republicans lost the recent US election in part because the wind they thought they had behind them — the economy
The Spectator is proud to announce it has a new Shiva Naipaul Memorial prize winner — Tara Isabella Burton. Tara’s dazzling travel essay about the town of Tbilisi greatly impressed the judges, which this year included Colin Thubron and Joanna Kavenna. Tara’s piece, which you can read here, was published in our Christmas issue. We
The Europe debate is raging in the Sunday papers ahead of Cameron’s speech on the matter. There’s mounting concern among Tory Cabinet Ministers that the speech will not go far enough and will simply inflame the situation. One told me, ‘It would be better to make no speech than to disappoint.’ But I suspect that
Refusing to publish your 2015 manifesto at the start of 2013 is, obviously, a sensible one. However uncomfortable Labour frontbenchers have felt over the past two and a half years about not being able to respond to the jeers of ‘well, what would you do then?’ from ministers at departmental questions, writing another one of
David Cameron has today confirmed that UK troops will offer logistical “assistance” to those of France now fighting Islamic insurgents in northern Mali. The below briefing outlines developments there so far. 1) The Basics · Mali is a landlocked West African former colony of France, with a population of 14.5 million, half of whom live below
For a man cutting the military budget so much, David Cameron does seem to like using the Armed Forces. His personal conviction to act in Libya played a major part in deposing Col Gadaffi – after Afghanistan, his second war. And tonight, it looks like there may be a third. He has just offered the
A very good article indeed by Charles Moore in today’s Torygraph, regarding Operation Yewtree and the astonishing news that Jimmy Savile nonced the entire country. You can read it here. There is a middle way, surely, between not believing anyone who says that they were sexually abused 40 years ago by Savile and believing, utterly, everyone who makes such an allegation. As Charles
If you didn’t like New Labour much, then you have something in common with Ed Miliband — who appears to have loathed it. He’s just given his first speech of the year to the Fabian Society, the torch-bearers of an older type of socialism, and his audience was left in no doubt that if elected,
Ed Miliband’s speech to the Fabians is being rather over-shadowed today by Lord Heseltine’s attack on David Cameron’s EU policy; the political media like nothing more than a ‘Tories split on Europe’ story. I suspect, though, that Labour won’t mind this too much. Heseltine’s criticisms make the Tories look divided and allow Labour to claim
Whenever I give lectures on my book on censorship – Whaddya mean you haven’t read it? Buy it here at a recession-beating price – I discuss the great issues of the wealthy to silence critics, the conflict between religion and freedom of thought and the determination of dictators to persecute dissenters. These themes have animated
David Cameron started his times as Prime Minister by saying that ‘the days of big government are over’. But he is still missing a major trick with the internet. The Times has highlighted(£) some of the ludicrous policy consultations undertaken by the coalition, many of which have received no responses at all: ‘Another consultation into Cornish
News of 800 job losses at Honda’s Swindon factory are making the headlines — factory closures always do. They can leave scars that never quite heal, and for those affected it will be no comfort at all to know that there are today more people working in the UK economy than ever before. But it’s
Strong words in the Lords today about the media and the government’s stance on Leveson, but what are the discussions like between the three parties behind the scenes? Though they started off with some similarly stern words, the cross-party talks on the response to the Leveson report have, all sides agree, been progressing well. Far
Only in politics could you get someone appointed to a top job with zero experience. Quite often, you hear laments about how the UK has a defence secretary who has never fought, a Chancellor who has never run anything bigger than a raffle, a health secretary who has only ever been a user of the
I’m doing Radio 4’s ‘Any Questions?’ tonight with Harriet Harman and Simon Hughes. It’s a strange news week, in which almost anything could come up. But I wondered if Spectator readers had any ideas, points or questions they think should be put to my fellow guests?
Peers are spending today debating the Leveson report. They’ve been at it for an hour and a half, and will continue debating until 5pm, but the first few speeches have yielded some interesting points to chew on. Labour’s Baroness Jones of Whitchurch devoted a great deal of her speech to the damage that the ‘dark
In the series of radio programmes on culture, a guest of Melvyn Bragg’s declared that the distinction between high and low culture was never strict, as a Wagner opera was first performed in a music hall. This is to suggest that music halls always offered acrobats and performing dogs. But the Liverpool Music Hall, for