All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Will Sir John Major be asked to lead Britain’s Europe renegotiations? The Telegraph diary raises this prospect – and it makes sense. As a former PM with clout and credibility he would be well-suited to the job, and has made the case for such an external negotiator in the past. His recent speeches about Britain’s
From The Spectator, 26 December 1914: Egypt, as the Royal Proclamation in effect, if not in word, shows, has passed into the British Empire. She is as much a part of it as any of the Feudatory States of India. Technically we have not annexed Egypt, nor do we desire to do so, since we
Why on earth are the Tories using the quiet news period between Christmas and New Year to talk about fox hunting? It’s a question many Conservative MPs are asking, worrying that it will only make their party look more posh and out-of-touch to most voters. Other than that Boxing Day is good day to place
From ‘An Inquest Upon German Outrages’, The Spectator, 26 December 1914: It has already been announced in the Press that English. barristers have for some time past, under instructions from the Home Office, been investigating specific state- ments with regard to alleged atrocities. The witnesses have been subjected to a careful examination, and their evidence
Journalism usually focuses on what’s going wrong, not what’s going right. As a result, newspapers can give an unduly negative view of the world. I try to remedy this in my Daily Telegraph column today by pointing out that 2014 has been the best year ever – just as 2013 was, and just as 2015
From The Spectator, 26 December 1914: We notice in criticisms of Sir James Barrie’s new play Der Tag, that the author represents the German Emperor as hesitating till the last moment about consenting to the violation of Belgian territory. The assumption that the German Emperor wanted peace up to the end is not perhaps capable
Division and reconciliation were the themes of the Queen’s Christmas Message this year (full text below). She started mentioning the Josefina de Vasconcellos‘s 1977 statue Reconciliation, which is now in Coventry Cathedral. She then went on to other examples of conflict and reunion from the First World War to Northern Ireland. And then the unfinished business of the Scottish independence referendum… “In
Dear Brothers and Sisters: Happy Christmas! Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, is born for us, born in Bethlehem of a Virgin, fulfilling the ancient prophecies. The Virgin’s name is Mary, the wife of Joseph. Humble people, full of hope in the goodness of God, are those who welcome Jesus and
Channel 4 has The Snowman, the BBC has the Queen’s Message. And we at Coffee House have another tradition: publishing the above video released in 1941. It was made by British Ministry of Information, narrated by an American for Americans in hope of enlisting American support in the war. There are so many wonderful lines that it
From The Spectator, 26 December 1914: WE are not going to write a Christmas article on palm boughs and olive branches and the Angel of Peace. Not only is there no peace in sight for the world at the moment, but any talk of peace before our enemies are beaten, or even half beaten, and
Déjà lu is a symptom that affects all Spectator subscribers after a while: the feeling that, when reading the newspapers, that you have read the story before. Long before. Four months ago, The Spectator ran a cover story about a crisis that hadn’t then hit the news: the meltdown in our ambulance service. Mary Wakefield’s investigation revealed
From The Spectator, 26 December 1914: Under the heading ” Success of Recruiting Canvass,” the Times of Tuesday declares that the canvass conducted by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee is “progressing most satisfactorily.” We most sincerely trust that this roseate view is correct. As yet only two of the nine military commands—the Eastern and Southern—have been
Greetings from the Isle of Jura whence the sixth (!) edition of this blogs’ annual Christmas Quiz comes to you wherever you may be cloistered this festive season. As always you can enlist Google to assist you; as always doing so seems pointless and contrary to the spirit of the occasion. But it’s up to you.
On Sunday, Hartlepool FC quashed rumours that they would be signing Ched Evans, the former Sheffield United forward and convicted rapist. In response to the Hartlepool manager Ronnie Moore’s comment that ‘if it could happen, I would want it to happen’, the club released a statement saying that they would not be signing Evans, ‘irrespective
How many of Pope Francis’s spiritual diseases do you suffer from? The pontiff laid out no fewer than 15 of them in an ‘exchange of Christmas greetings’ yesterday. They included ‘spiritual Alzheimers’, ‘existential schizophrenia’, ‘working too much’, ‘planning too much’, ‘working without co-ordination’ and, above all, ‘the terrorism of gossip’. I did a quick check and found
From The Spectator, 26 December 1914: [TO THE EDITOR OF THE “SPECTATOR”] SIR,—Two correspondents in your issue of December 12th, writing on recruiting, say: “Compel all bachelors.” There was the same feeling in my son’s Territorial battalion on the first request for volunteers—the married men excused themselves (they afterwards volunteered). But why should they be
It says much about the dismal state of journalism that George Clooney, who is paid to act, has a far better grasp of modern threats to freedom of speech, than writers, who depend on free speech for their livelihoods. Journalists thought the real story was that leaked emails showed Sony executives called Angelina Jolie ‘minimally
Should enormously fat women be allowed into nightclubs? The obvious answer is ‘no, of course not, are you out of your f****** mind?’ But door policies which discriminate against the morbidly obese can undoubtedly be hurtful. Amy Pitcher and an un-named friend were denied entry to a club in Ashford, Kent; the bouncer didn’t actually
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 26 December 1914: It is true that the British lost several trenches to the enemy at the beginning of the week, but the greater part of them had been recaptured “at this of writing.” It is quite possible that before our next issue—that is, in the present case,
There’s little sign of a Christmas truce in the Conservative party this morning. Instead, the row between Theresa May’s camp followers and the rest of the Conservative hierarchy is still being played out in the newspapers. This might be a particularly public episode of it but this row has been going on in private for
From ‘A Proud Moment for Unionists’, The Spectator, 19 December 1914: The plight of Belgium was none the less only one of the causes which made it imperative for Britain to take up arms. It is always agreeable when stating a case for oneself to emphasize one’s most chivalrous motives. It is for this reason
The proverbial visitor from Mars would assume that the Scottish Nationalists had won—not lost—September’s referendum. Alex Salmond has given another crowing interview today, you can read mine with him from The Spectator’s Christmas issue here, in which he offers advice to England on how to rediscover itself. While the crisis in Scottish Labour continues. In
From ‘Dreams of a Warless World’, The Spectator, 19 December 1914: In truth, there is only one way to stop war, and that is for some one Great Power first to disarm the whole world, and then to see to it that no one shall again take up arms. Universal tyranny may create universal peace.
This year’s festive comp asked for Christmas round robins as they might have been written by a well-known fictional character. It was all there: the boasts, bad jokes, inappropriate intimacies and inconsequential detail. Most of the entries were bursting with forced jocularity, but Basil Ransome-Davies, in the shape of an unusually frank Jeeves, neatly subverts
How has Labour managed to make such a mess of its response to the leak of a document on dealing with Ukip that came out on Monday that it’s still having to talk about it on Friday? I’ve been baffled by the poor crisis comms this week – until I heard Lucy Powell, vice-chair of the party’s
Another week, another controversial set of controversial remarks from Nigel Farage — this time, it’s about the use of the word ‘chinky’ by Kerry Smith, who was running to be the Ukip PPC in South Basildon and East Thurrock. During his LBC phone-in show this morning, Farage had the following exchange with presenter Nick Ferrari
Anyone surprised by Alex Salmond’s comments in the Independent about SNP MPs possibly voting on English matters if it helped Labour is clearly missing out on the wealth of wisdom that comes from reading James Forsyth’s pieces, given our political editor’s interview with the former first minister revealed the very same thing last week: The
The Daily Mirror has today splashed on the fact that Rupert Harrison, chief economic adviser to the British government, has had a pay increase and is now on £95,000. Outrageous, says Kevin Maguire of the Mirror. I agree: he should be on far more. The British government is in the most almighty financial mess and
Westminster hasn’t made life easy if you are a 16-year-old. Michael Gove’s education reforms are well underway but the reorganisation of A-level courses is yet to be implemented. Everything about A-levels is changing. Until recently, you took an AS, then an A2, counting as two halves of an A-level qualification. However, under Gove’s reforms, these
As I wiggled into my tights in preparation for an end-of-term night out, I was faced with the perennial clubbing question: should I take a coat? Logic, and my mum, would say the answer was obvious. My outfit was hardly cosy, and a tipsy walk home at 2am in December is an adventure best braved
‘What kind of message are you guys trying to send with that brutal Christmas card?’ asked my friend in the bar last night. He’s referring to the above card, an image created by ‘Castro’ for the Christmas special edition of the Spectator (which you can download here) to run alongside Paul Wood’s stunning diary from Lebanon.
Today’s Times investigation into how the Islamic State is encouraging young British women to marry into this terrorist organisation is chilling. It is also a reminder that social media is the jihadis’ recruitment tool of choice. What’s striking is that Facebook closed down the account of Aisha, one of the girls in the investigation, because of the
From A Scandinavian League, The Spectator, 19 December 1914: THE meeting of the three Scandinavian Kings at Malmo is an event of more than momentary importance. According to the official statement, this meeting was arranged in order that the three Kings might confer upon the neutrality of their respective countries, especially in connexion with the
How much of a threat is Ukip to Labour? The tanks of the people’s army have been on the Conservatives’ lawn for some time but we now have an idea why Labour has been preparing to fight the kippers on the doorstep. Lord Ashcroft has carried out his final round of marginal seats polling this
