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From ‘A Possible Compromise’, The Spectator, 10 April 1915: If the Government have not the courage to adopt total prohibition, then we reluctantly suggest the following plan. Let the Cabinet adopt the policy of the suspension of the sale of all intoxicants for three months—say from April 20th till July 20th. Such suspension would cover
A GP called Malcolm Kendrick has written a book about politically correct manipulation of medical data – and has cropped up in the Independent highlighting the medical profession’s unwillingness to share research suggesting that being a bit fat makes you live longer. Here are two key paragraphs: Despite the fact that study after study has demonstrated quite
One of the trendy things to worry about these days is political disengagement among young people. A think tank called the Institute for Public Policy Research is so worried it’s suggested people be forced to vote in the first election after their 18th birthday. They say political apathy among the young is undermining democracy, but
Medieval medicine doesn’t have a great reputation, it’s fair to say. But one of its recipes may help us tackle the great curse of 21st-century disease control – the growing ineffectiveness of antibiotics. In April 2014, the World Health Organisation warned that we were entering a ‘post-antibiotic era’, an age in which drug resistance could render
In a close campaign, you would normally expect the smaller parties to get squeezed as voters decided that is really a choice between Labour and the Tories. But this time, thing might be different. Why, because the general expectation is that there will be another hung parliament and the coverage of the campaign is being
Nigel Farage has had a torrid few days – exactly as he’d planned. He had all six of his fellow contestants in the TV debate ganging up on him over immigration, just as he’d hoped. He’s provoked the Liberal Metropolitan Elite into attacking him over his comments about health tourism and HIV, just as he’d
The three main parties are having a fight about tax today. It’s the day the rise in the personal allowance comes into effect, and David Cameron will give a speech describing what is to most people the Easter Bank Holiday as ‘Money-Back Monday’ (which sounds a bit like a gameshow in a pound shop) and
From school places to behaviour to teacher training, the teaching unions have excelled themselves with their doom and gloom pronouncements at their conferences this weekend about the state of our schools. We shouldn’t be surprised, there is, afterall, an election coming up and we all know where the union leaderships’ loyalty lies. But these conferences have
There’s something Ed Miliband isn’t telling us. He’d spend more, he says, and tackle the deficit. But how? Almost every tax rise he has announced is intended to raise cash for still more spending – so how would he cope with the fact that the government still needs to borrow 12p for every £1 that it
On Thursday night, David Cameron didn’t eviscerate the competition. But nor did he suffer any damage and that, to Tory high command, meant that it was job done. The Tory leadership didn’t want any debates at all, they’d rather not have taken the risk. So, to get through this one debate with the dynamics of
Nigel Farage’s career is on the brink. Aside from his solid performance in the TV debate last week, the Ukip leader isn’t focusing on the party’s national standing. All that matters to Farage now is South Thanet and making sure he is elected as the constituency’s first Ukip MP. But the seat is not a
So who is talking more nonsense about the housing market: George Osborne or Ed Miliband? From today’s newspapers, it’s hard to tell. The problem: the era of low interest rates has fuelled an asset boom. Perhaps an asset bubble. Property prices are soaring to ridiculous levels, unaffordable for anyone without money in their family. This
BBC Scotland’s James Cook caught up with Nicola Sturgeon today and asked her about the Telegraph‘s leaked memo. But he also told her that the story chimes with what he has been told by senior SNP figures – that it suits their wider purpose to have a Tory Prime Minister because it rallies support for independence. His
If elections are job interviews, as party leaders like to say, then this interview has so far failed to assess applicants on the one part of the job description that most have no experience in – foreign policy and security. This absence was at its most conspicuous this week when the TV debate didn’t spare
With just five weeks to go till polling day, one happy voter in Bedford has had enough. Mr S suspects that it’s for the best if Patrick Hall, the Labour candidate for Bedford and Kempston, doesn’t pay a personal visit to this address.
After 15 hours of fascinating and – let’s face it – fairly exciting developments in l’affaire Sturgeon, here’s where I think we are, and I’ll try to stick as much as possible to incontrovertible facts, not political bluster: If this was all a grand misunderstanding, I think the various parties would have come together by
I have never been impressed by round robin letters, so if Ed Miliband had shrugged off the letter to the Daily Telegraph this week signed by 103 businessmen with the words: ‘if they have got something to say why can’t they speak for themselves rather than bleating like a flock of sheep’ he would have
I’ve been away, in the north, free from Wifi and mobile phone reception, mercifully. I watched Thursday’s debate in a noisy pub so heard none of it and was forced to rely on ITV’s subtitles. I was greatly attracted to the Ukip cause by Nigel Farage’s bold assertion that “Britain needs plain-speaking partridges.” Yes indeed. I
I’m intrigued by this recent study suggesting that intellectual gifts and learning disabilities, far from lying on opposite ends of a spectrum of intelligence, sometimes go hand in hand. Intrigued, but not surprised. Very bright people can be odd – we all know that. The eccentric genius is one of the clichés of history and fiction.
The more I think about the debate on Thursday night, the more I think it was a disgrace that there was no question on either defence or Britain’s role in the world. This country might want a holiday from history. But, sadly, we don’t look like getting one on. On Europe’s Eastern border, the Russians
As the election season finally gets its boots on, office-seeking motor-mouths of every creed and colour would do well to remember the tale of William Henry Harrison, ninth president of the United States of America, who died on this day in 1841, exactly one month after taking office. The ‘pneumonia of the lower lobe of
So who does Nicola Sturgeon really want as Prime Minister? Her official line is that she’d put in anyone but the wicked Tories – indeed, Alex Salmond told me last week that “the SNP approach to a Cameron minority government will be to bring it down”. But that’s not what Strugeon has been saying in
They won’t do that again. Seven leaders lined up like skittles all nervously fingering their plastic lecterns. In charge was Julie Etchingham who’d spent many hours in wardrobe creating a fetishistic look. Severe blonde hair. A spotless high-necked tunic as white as sharks fangs. Heavy black-rimmed specs. She looked like the gorgeous physics genius who
So who won? That’s the question, isn’t it? Well, not really. This debate, like most such affairs, is not a horserace in which the winner is easily determined. Because not everyone was racing to be across the line “first”. That’s not actually the nature of the game. The question is not who was crowned the
After Alex Salmond was outed as ordering pink champagne in not one but two interviews last week, naysayers were quick to ridicule the former Scottish First Minister for his lavish choice of tipple. However, Mr S has it on the highest authority that Salmond was guzzling in the name of the people. The rosé tipple, Mr S is told, is not
The Sun’s front page today has a picture of Ed Miliband saying: “Oops, I just lost my election”. That’s an exaggeration: I’d say the election is still 50/50, pretty much where it was last week. And realistically, that’s the best David Cameron could have hoped for. Miliband emerged best from the Paxman interviews, and had he triumphed
That was a surprisingly well-mannered debate, tightly moderated, with the main chaos coming from the member of the audience who decided to start heckling (and then stopped, followed by an ominous thud). There wasn’t a big upset at any point, and even the big moments weren’t really big stories. Those big moments were Nick Clegg going
Welcome to The Spectator’s live coverage of the seven-way leaders’ debate on ITV. We’ll be providing the latest developments and analysis on the programme, starting at 8pm this evening. This page will automatically reload
Look, I’m sorry about this, but Jim Webb is no more going to be the Democratic nominee next year than Rick Santorum is going to be the Republican candidate for the Presidency of the United States. Indeed Santorum, who has no chance, has a better chance than Webb of succeeding Barack Obama. Which is annoying,
Which David Cameron will take the stage for tonight’s seven-way showdown? Will it be the competent, likeable and reasonable statesman who has steered the economy onto safer ground? Or the tetchy one who calls Ed Miliband a ‘waste of space’ at Prime Minister’s Questions? On Monday, speaking at a lectern outside the door of Number
Last month the Supreme Court ruled that Prince Charles’s ‘black spider memos’ to government ministers should be made public. The decision comes following a ten year legal battle between Buckingham Palace and the Guardian, after Clarence House argued that the contents of the letters were private. With the release now impending, Max Hastings has offered a taste of what
There are many grating phrases in modern British politics. ‘Best practice.’ ‘Fit for purpose.’ ‘Let me explain’ (just bloody well explain!). And that tendency of Labour politicians to preface pretty much everything they say with a schoolmarmish ‘Look’, as in ‘Look here’. As in: ‘You donuts know nothing, so I am going to put you
1) Can Natalie Bennett do enough to spark another Green surge? After Natalie Bennett’s infamous ‘brain fade’ the Green surge faded away. The media stopped giving the Greens the attention they had been and without the oxygen of publicity, support for the party fell away; this morning’s YouGov poll has the Greens on 4%, their
Being a Christian in Britain today is to invite pity or condescension, writes Michael Gove in this week’s cover piece. Why is that, and what is the future of Christianity in Britain? Michael Gove joined Isabel Hardman and Ken Costa, the Chairman of Alpha International, on this week’s View from 22 podcast, to discuss the issue.