Society

The Lake District is, to my mind, the most relaxing place in England. I think it’s the good walking, sheep gambolling on the fell-side and exceptional food that makes it so very therapeutic. At any rate, I think we can all agree that there are few things better in life than a day’s walking on the fells punctuated by a Huntsman’s pie and a pint of Hawkshead bitter. I spent countless childhood holidays in the lakes, swimming in the Duddon and climbing mountains, fuelled by that same Kendal Mint Cake that propelled Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing to the top of Everest. But I only realised recently, since my parents have

This was our cover piece 50 years ago today, celebrating the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral built following the bombing of the previous Cathedral during the Second World War. The great barn, Kenneth J Robinson, 25 May 1962 As I stood just inside the glazed ‘west’ wall of Coventry Cathedral, beneath John Hutton’s gaily engraved angels — running, jumping and standing still — I was stunned by the richness of John Piper’s baptistery window, the absolute rightness of the Sutherland tapestry which fills the whole wall behind the altar and the simplicity and serenity of the ‘great barn’ itself — Sir Basil Spence’s own words — in which, from

If you want to know why the great Labour-NHS argument about healthcare is wrong, read today’s National Audit Office report on the provision of diabetes care in England. Diabetes is one of this country’s biggest health problems and it is getting worse. There are currently over three million people with diabetes here today, and, on some estimates, by 2020 there will be nearly four. In the last 15 years the number of people with the condition in England has more than doubled. Yet according to the NAO, the treatment they receive from the NHS is little short of shocking. There are nine main standards for proper diabetes care, laid down

Brace yourselves for a new crime wave sweeping across the country — the government is doing away with ASBOs. Or, rather, don’t. The truth about ASBOs is that they were rather less significant than Labour would have you believe. As reports such as this one from Policy Exchange suggest, they’ve probably cropped up more frequently in newspaper articles than they have in real life. Only 20,335 ASBOs have been issued to date, covering less than one per cent of all incidences of anti-social behaviour. What’s more, there’s little evidence to suggest that those ASBOs that were issued made much difference. As the graph below shows, 57 per cent of all

The report which Fraser mentioned last week, from the 2020 Tax Commission, has just been published – you can download the summary here and full report here. Allister Heath, chairman of the commission and a contributing editor of The Spectator, says more here:- It is time for Britain to make a vital choice. Our economy is stagnant, crippled by excessively high public spending, high levels of leverage, a mismanaged and inefficient public sector, an extraordinarily complex and punitive tax system and a public mood that has become increasingly anti-capitalist. There are two options. We can either decide to tweak the status quo – try and keep a lid on public spending, reform bits of