All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Sajid Javid is giving a speech today that doesn’t seem to have a great deal to do with his brief as Culture Secretary. He’s also a pretty good Tory attack dog, and his address to the Centre for Policy Studies will focus on Labour’s ‘basic instinct’ to spend and a warning that this instinct would
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 8 August 1914: ‘The question that every man is asking is, What news of the Fleet? As we write on Friday it is almost impossible to answer this question. All we know is that our Fleet is in the North Sea and doing its duty. In all human
Many people, I’m sure, will already be calling the first TV debate in Alistair Darling’s favour. That is a fair point to make but it was not quite as straightforward as that. I think a truer reflection would be this: Darling won on substance but lost on style, while Alex Salmond won on style but
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_07_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Tim Stanley discuss Baroness Warsi’s resignation” startat=462] Listen [/audioplayer]Dear Sayeeda, Thank you for your letter today, in which you set out your reasons for resigning from the Government. I was sorry to receive this. I realise that this must not have been an easy decision for you to make and
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_07_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Tim Stanley discuss Baroness Warsi’s resignation” startat=462] Listen [/audioplayer]One of the risks of Sayeeda Warsi’s resignation was that it would encourage other ministers uneasy about the government’s response to the situation in Gaza to break ranks. She is certainly trying to encourage that by alleging that other Foreign Office ministers
Now, now, no laughing at the back. Less than 12 hours after representing the government at WW1 commemorations, Baroness Warsi has quit — citing the government’s policy toward Gaza and the Middle East as the reason behind her departure. However, there is growing belief that the bungling baroness’s exit has something to do with the
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_07_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Tim Stanley discuss Baroness Warsi’s resignation” startat=462] Listen [/audioplayer]Now that Baroness Warsi has revealed her letter to the Prime Minister in which she resigns over Gaza, here are the key criticisms that she levels at the government. They are notably not just about Operation Protective Edge and the British government’s
I know some readers have tired of Scotland’s independence debate. That is understandable, even forgivable. It has, after all, been rumbling along for 40 years. There may only be six weeks of campaigning left but these arguments won’t go away. You’ll be hearing them again and again for the next few years at least. This
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_07_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Tim Stanley discuss Baroness Warsi’s resignation” startat=462] Listen [/audioplayer]After disagreeing with the Prime Minister on a great deal for a great while, Baroness Warsi has this morning resigned from the government, citing its position on Gaza. She tweeted a few minutes ago: With deep regret I have this morning written
I was a little saddened by Baroness Warsi’s resignation. I like the woman; it is an odd and disturbing thing to say, but I felt I had more in common with her – a Muslim, Asian, woman – than almost any other prominent Tory. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps class has something to
Yesterday was a chance for people to remember relatives who died in the 1914-1918 conflict, often the only record of their existence being grainy old portraits from a grandmother’s mantelpiece and a gravestone in France. I have no idea what my grandfather did, although he was old enough to be fighting by the end of
It’s a busy summer for The Spectator. Sales of the magazine are rising and our website is now visited by well over a million people each month. Spectator TV has now joined our regular podcasts, so we’re now watched (and listened to) as well as read. One of the great strengths of The Spectator is
Farewell then Sayeeda, Baroness Warsi. The most over-promoted, incapable and incompetent minister of recent times has finally done the nation one service and resigned. This morning she announced on Twitter that she can ‘no longer support government policy on Gaza.’ That would be government policy that now includes reviewing all arms export licenses to Israel?
George Osborne can’t quite help himself. Today he’s continuing his Northern charm offensive, which has been impressively choreographed. He gave a speech back in June in which he said he wanted to create a ‘Northern powerhouse’, involving cities working together. Just a few weeks later, a group of councils in the North pops up with
Never before have so many waited so keenly to hear Alistair Darling speak. Tonight’s the night, however, and the fate of a nation hangs upon his words. Or so some folk would have us believe. Anyway: two hours of Alistair Darling, live on prime time television. We chosen people, we. In truth, Darling is still
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 8 August 1914: ‘A good many excellent people are talking now as if the present war would mean the destruction of all civilization. That, we venture to say with all respect, is rubbish. Civilization is a far tougher plant than these good people imagine. That the war is
I’ve just been in France, where the shadow of the First World War always seems to be darker and longer than that cast over Britain; it is partly that, aesthetically, their war memorials are far more haunting than ours, but also that in sheer numbers our allies lost more men than we did, up to
So Ed Miliband is in trouble with some angry people over whether or not he took enough trouble over signing a remembrance wreath. Here is the offending wreath, on the right besides the Prime Minister’s which bears a personal message. Messages on the wreaths laid by David Cameron and Ed Miliband. #WW1Centenary #c4news pic.twitter.com/gDNMxvc2tQ —
Boris Johnson’s speech this week is one of the few domestic issues really animating Westminster. He will argue that the UK should not be ‘frightened’ of leaving the EU, supposedly in contrast to David Cameron, who has always made clear that he wants to remain in the bloc. But it’s worth remembering that Cameron himself
This is the second part of Charles Moore’s notes. You can read the first part here. On Tuesday 4 August, NM rang his London house: ‘Roberta our house-maid said that “Master Gilla had got a commission in the Army & Master Alan was to be appointed a surgeon in the navy”.’ Gilla sent a telegram
To look on the heartwarming side, Australians have shown that they are rather more humane as a nation than the anonymous couple in the news for allegedly discarding one of the twins borne for them by a Thai surrogate six months ago. Scores of Australians have volunteered to adopt Gammy, the Down’s syndrome baby that
The Apollo magazine podcast, produced in association with The Spectator’s Culture House, takes a monthly look at international art and museum news. In the July/August edition, Thomas Marks is joined by Diane Lees, director-general of the Imperial War Museums, and writer and curator David Boyd Haycock to discuss the reopening of IWM London and the role of
New powers to tackle the huge growth in ‘legal’ highs are set to be introduced. Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, is said to be pushing for the most radical move, a blanket ban on all psychoactive substances. My heart sinks. Do those at the top of government really think that a blanket ban
What is it with the Daily Mirror and its spectacular ability to cock up its front page? We all remember the circumstances that led to Piers Morgan’s (first) spectacular fall. And the current editor is not having such a good run of things either. First there was the splash about British children living below the poverty line,
This is the first in a series of daily extracts from the Spectator during the course of the first world war. The aim is not to tell the full story of the conflict, or even to provide a full assessment of our coverage of it — that requires deeper expertise and a wider view. Our
The 1914 editions of The Spectator in the days surrounding the declaration of war give a sense of bewilderment. At first they couldn’t believe it would happen. After Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Serbian nationalists on 28th June 1914, Austria-Hungary’s handed Serbia a list of demands, which looked like a provocation of war: ‘It
The Sunday Telegraph has news that Boris Johnson will give a speech next week in which he will throw his weight behind a report, published by Volterra, calling for Britain to renegotiate its membership of the EU. The Telegraph reports: ‘The capital’s gross domestic product (GDP), currently £350 bn — or just over a fifth of
Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP deputy leader, is busy claiming that post the Glasgow games the momentum will be with the Yes side in the referendum. But this claim is contradicted by the Survation poll in today’s Mail on Sunday which shows support for Yes marginally down on last month. The Yes campaign’s last best chance
In this week’s Spectator, Melanie Phillips argued that supposedly anti-Israel protests over the Gaza war have convulsed Europe in the worst scenes of open Jew-hatred since the 1930s. The most appalling aspect is the silence in the face of all this of the political class. Here’s her suggestion for what Ed Miliband should say if he
I wonder if any readers have an answer to this question: Has anybody, throughout this whole conflict around Gaza, heard any reporter inside Gaza, at any time, preface or conclude their remarks with ‘reporting from Gaza, under Hamas government reporting restrictions’? I don’t watch television news all the time and so may have missed it,
This time last year, the Spectator’s Clarissa Tan discussed how you can never really have a proper holiday if you own a smartphone. A year on, and Clarissa is no longer with us, but her wonderful writing still is: I was sitting on some rocks by the Cornish coast when a teenager swanned by on the
In this week’s Spectator, Melanie Phillips argued that supposedly anti-Israel protests over the Gaza war have convulsed Europe in the worst scenes of open Jew-hatred since the 1930s. Even more appalling is the silence in the face of all this of the political class. Here’s her suggestion for what David Cameron should say if he really
The mystery is over. A man named Jonathan Burrows has been exposed as the Stonegate fare-dodger. Our own Charles Moore must share a train with this enterprising man. Back in April, Charles reported what the local gossips were saying: ‘Much speculation where we live about the identity of the Stonegate fare-dodger, one stop up our