Society

Let’s face it. Whatever Pope Francis actually means when his head is in the clouds during those in-flight press conferences of his, we Europeans need to breed like rabbits if we want to preserve Europe. That is not why I have bred like a rabbit, but it is the brutal truth. I have five children aged 11 down to three — because until the age of 40 I thought I was infertile and did not think I could breed at all, let alone like a rabbit; and because though I am a devout agnostic, I am married to Carla, a devout Catholic, who is much younger than me and refuses

With The Spectator and Coffee House you are already used to getting the very best gossip and news. Can I interest you in the perfect accompaniment?It is a new service called CapX. I’m its editor and we have been trialling the site since last summer. The new version, looking rather nice we hope, launched today. Fraser Nelson, the editor of The Spectator, kindly thought that readers of Coffee House might like to be introduced to what we’re doing. Our editors based in London scour tens of thousands of sources such as blogs, academic research and newspapers around the world to locate smart stories on markets, politics, economics and ideas. We also

The V&A has recently decided to remove an historic image of the Prophet Mohammed from its website. The image remains in the collection and will be made available to scholars and researchers by appointment. I am not sure it is a very uplifting example, this censorship of the past, but they are certainly not alone in doing this.  Indeed over the last generation, a slow but efficient iconoclasm has been at work in Britain pruning images of the Prophet from published books, not just about the life of the Prophet but also illustrated surveys of Islamic Art.  It is extraordinary how successful this campaign has been, based not on any physical threat but on a deluge

Trinity Mirror have admitted that they published 71 stories which were enabled by phone-hacking. Now eight cases are due to come before Mr Justice Mann at the beginning of March, with a two-week trial scheduled. Those they concern include Alan Yentob, Sadie Frost and Paul Gascoigne. Steerpike is curious to see what coverage the trial will get in the papers and from the BBC. Both the corporation and the Guardian have taken glee in the past at resting the phone hacking crimes firmly in Rupert Murdoch’s court. Giving the impression, of course, that the sin of hacking came straight from the blackness of Murdoch’s heart – rather than a sin that was spread right across an

The Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has called Syriza’s leader Alexis Tsipras to concede defeat. But n European Chancelleries, they will be holding their breath and hoping that Syriza do not manage to win an overall majority—the latest official projection has them just one seat short. If Syriza have to form a coalition, the German government, the European Central Bank and the European Commission will be hoping that it is with Potami, who would moderate Syriza’s demands. But if Syrzia wins a majority or forms a coalition with another party that wants to renegotiate the terms of the Greek bailout deal, then the Eurozone crisis will move into a new

In 1899, Churchill headed to South Africa as a journalist for the Morning Post to cover the Boer War. He was captured in an ambush of an armored train but escaped with £75 and four slabs of chocolate in his pocket in hopes of finding the Delagoa Bay Railway.  This from our archives, 30 December 1899 (link here).  The Morning Post of Wednesday contained a characteristic telegram from their correspondent, Mr. Winston Churchill, describing his escape from Pretoria. Mr. Churchill, who had been taken prisoner after showing great gallantry in the armoured train action near Chieveley on November 15th, was confined at Pretoria. Despairing of his application for release (on the disputable ground