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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).
This is the Spectator’s leader from 22 January 1965. Two days later, on 24 January, Winston Churchill died: Since the first news was given of his grave illness, the attention of the world has been concentrated on a quiet house in Hyde Park Gate. Old men and children, friends and strangers, came to pay homage
I have spent most of the last fortnight debating Islam and blasphemy and wanted to take the opportunity to put down a few unwritten thoughts. In the immediate aftermath of the Paris atrocities most of the people who thought the journalists and cartoonists in some sense ‘had it coming to them’ kept their heads down.
After Islamist terrorist atrocities, political leaders often rush to say that the attacks had nothing to do with Islam. One can understand why they feel the need to do this but the problem is the terrorists clearly do think, however mistakenly, that they are acting in the name of Islam. But if any politician wants
When I went to stay with my German cousin and he showed me the room where I’d be sleeping, the first thing I noticed were the hairy hides on the floor and the spears mounted on the wall. ‘Boar skins,’ he told me. ‘The forest is full of them.’ ‘And the spears?’ I asked him.
In Competition No. 2881 you were invited to take your lead from Carol Ann Duffy and provide an amusing poem about a piece of government legislation. The first line of Duffy’s poem ‘22 Reasons for the Bedroom Tax’, ‘Because the badgers are moving the goalposts’, is, of course, a reference to environment secretary Owen Paterson’s
Private Eye will have a field day when it comes to the tributes being paid to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia – it’ll be like beheading fish in a barrel (for adultery). Among the tributes paid to the people’s medieval theocrat was one by David Cameron, who said: ‘I am deeply saddened to hear of
Matthew Parris is obsessed by an unsolicited app which landed on his smartphone and which, thanks to GPS tracking, is able to tell him how far he has walked in the past 24 hours. ‘I can’t stop checking, sometimes every 10 minutes, my average daily distances,’ he wrote in the Times last week. He has discovered, to
So the broadcasters have done what many thought they’d be too afraid to do and have threatened to empty chair David Cameron – or anyone else who refuses to take part – in the TV debates. In a statement released this afternoon, BBC, ITV, Sky and Channel 4 said ‘in the event that any of
Even by the standards of the Conservative and Unionist (sic) party this is an impressively stupid poster. Do they really want to encourage Scots to vote for the SNP? Evidently they do. Of course we know why. Every seat Labour lose in Scotland makes it less and less likely Labour will emerge from the election
The Palace of Westminster’s flag is currently at half-mast, as is the flag on top of Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and the Treasury. But who could it all be for? Treasury flying flag at half mast for King Abdullah, as are flags across Government estate. Controversial pic.twitter.com/zSR6OPWCD1 — Jason Groves (@JasonGroves1) January 23, 2015 Could it
This week’s wazzock spat hasn’t polarised people in the way that arguments about class often do; most of us have just enjoyed the spectacle of the pop star James Blunt and the Labour MP Chris Bryant exchanging insults. In case you missed it, Bryant said it was a pity the arts were dominated by public
France is to institute something called a National Secularity Day, which will happen on 9th December every year, when French schools will remind pupils how to sing the national anthem, what the tricolor stands for and generally celebrate the values of the Republic. Odd, isn’t it, that this should sound so much like the reflexive,
Everything seems to be falling into place ahead of the election for the Tories. Today’s data shows high street spending rising at the fastest rate for more than 13 years – and this is not a freak. In fact, it’s part of a broader picture which is more impressive (and promising) than George Osborne seems to
Although Louise Mensch was once heralded as a ‘Cameron Cutie,’ the former Conservative MP’s relationship with the Prime Minister has soured after he paid tribute to the late King Abdullah. The Saudi Arabia monarch’s death was announced yesterday, with the cause of death thought to be a lung infection. Speaking following the news, Cameron gushed that he would be remembered for his ‘commitment
An email arrives from the excellent Zoe Williams, Guardian columnist and leftyagitfem middle-class propagandist. It requests that I should sign a round-robin petition to ensure that the Green Party is included in these proposed TV general election debates – much as David Cameron has, rather disingenuously, demanded. I couldn’t sign the petition. I can’t think
This election is going to be terribly confusing, something the latest TV debate proposals from the broadcasters highlight very nicely indeed. The debates are starting to resemble an episode of Take Me Out with the number of parties who’ll be standing behind lecterns growing – and calls for even more to join. One of the
From ‘Economic Quackery’, The Spectator, 23 January 1915: Ever since the war began there has been a tendency to rely upon the Government, instead of relying upon ourselves and upon the operation of economic laws. The political mischief resulting is the establishment of what is virtually an un-controlled Cabinet autocracy. The economic mischief, though it
Before George Osborne took to wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, he used to revel in his status as a political insider. In 2004, he wrote a piece for The Spectator setting out his model for forecasting the result of UK General Elections. Adapted from an academic model for predicting US Presidential Elections, it set
Liz Kendall is a real rising star in the Labour party. Few colleagues have a bad word to say about her, and indeed many have a great deal of good words. Tonight the House magazine publishes an interview with the Shadow Health Minister that contains a number of rather strong comments that she’s made about
If his condition of including the Greens in the TV debates was to be met, David Cameron’s next hope of scuppering them was that the other parties got upset with the new proposals. Well, the proposals have only been out a few hours and already a lot of people are satisfyingly upset. The DUP is
With the Guardian still to name their new editor-in-chief, the Economist has thrown down the gauntlet by appointing their first female editor. Zanny Minton Beddoes will succeed John Micklethwait to be the magazine’s next editor, making her the first female editor in its 172 year history. Formerly the publication’s business affairs editor, Minton Beddoes interviewed for the post last Thursday, beating off competition from
The lot of the snarky health-science debunker is not a happy one. It involves going to a lot of newspaper websites actively seeking out stories that will annoy you, and getting annoyed by them, and then writing about how annoyed you are. Look, here’s a piece that claims some food or other makes you live
Having seven parties in two of the TV debates, as the broadcasters are reportedly proposing, is an admission that what matters is not whether the party will provide the Prime Minister but whether it might have influence in a hung parliament. On this basis, there is no justification for excluding the DUP. The DUP currently
The broadcasters have reportedly come up with a new set of proposals for the TV debates in order to force David Cameron to sign up. The Radio Times reports that they now want to hold one debate where the Prime Minister will face Ed Miliband, and two debates that feature almost everyone – Conservatives, Labour, the
It didn’t take long. In fact, the tweet from Nicola Sturgeon appeared soon after Alistair Carmichael had started speaking this morning. Smith clauses publication welcome – but doesn’t include a general power to create new benefits in devolved areas as was promised 1/2… — Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) January 22, 2015 2/2…and gives UKG effective veto
Leon Brittan, a former home secretary under Margaret Thatcher, has died aged 75 following a long battle with cancer. He first entered Parliament in 1974 as the MP for Cleveland and Whitby before representing Richmond until 1988. After serving as home secretary from 1983-1985, Brittan had a brief spell as the secretary for trade and industry
‘The Green Surge’ has already become a fixed feature of the election campaign, but are we just reliving the giant damp squib of ‘Cleggmania’? According to Green Party officials, their membership stands at 45,558. Since Cameron declared they should be in the TV debates, thousands have supposedly signed on the dotted line. Apparently, of the 14,780
The Duke of York is expected to host a private reception tonight at the World Economic Forum, in what will be his first public appearance since he was accused of abusing an under-age ‘sex slave’. One question that remains, however, is which of the movers and shakers at the summit will choose to attend the Duke of York’s
The Sun was being widely credited last night with having pulled off a brilliant bit of trolling, first appearing to kill off Page 3, then resuscitating it a week later. If the paper’s intention was to make its feminist critics look ridiculous, it succeeded. The triumphalist reaction of the anti-Page 3 campaigners, patting themselves on
Excellent news for Britain’s travelling community (and indeed those who aren’t travelling very much at all and are therefore known, officially, as ‘static travellers’). A judge has decreed that the government’s approach to planning applications on Green Belt land by gypsies is discriminatory. Henceforth, applications to build on the green belt will not be summarily
The Conservatives are running two voter databases, neither of which are fully functioning, in their key constituencies, Coffee House has learned. The party had been trying to get rid of its frail database Merlin, which keeps breaking during by-elections and at other crucial moments, in time for the General Election. But it hasn’t quite managed
David Cameron is visiting Scotland today to set out his blueprint for Scottish home rule. Might he expect to see a lapse in the nationalist sentiment during his first visit since the referendum? No, according to a new poll from STV. The SNP remain on 52 per cent of the vote — exactly the same
Why has politics turned into stand-up comedy? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Andrew Watts and Jesse Norman MP discuss this week’s Spectator cover feature on how these two worlds are colliding. What does the increased influence of comedy mean for our faith in politics? Aside from notably humorous politicians like Boris Johnson, how