It can happen that something ought to feel wrong yet somehow doesn’t; and you wonder whether this means that in some deep way it could be right. Take for example a discussion on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday last week. The subject was the rise of the ‘Teflon’ United Kingdom Independence Party. I
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_1_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss Osborne’s Foreign Secretary aspirations” startat=646] Listen [/audioplayer]Confidence is coursing through Downing Street at the moment. The economy is growing at a good clip and senior Tories feel more optimistic than ever about the result of the next general election. With this belief in retaining office comes more
Apparently, mice think that women are useless. I don’t mean that they think women mice are useless — they’re keen enough on them, all right. I mean women women, like Rachel Reeves, the shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, and the R&B singer Rihanna, and the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs
The most thought-provoking discussion about racism I ever heard took place five years ago on Channel 4’s Celebrity Wife Swap. No, it did. On the one side they had the former TV pundit and football manager Ron Atkinson and his wife Maggie, and on the other they had the former Olympic javelin thrower Tessa Sanderson
The conviction of Max Clifford for indecent assaults feels like a vindication of the jury system, as did the acquittal of the many other showbiz characters charged under Operation Yewtree. One reason I keep raising questions of justice about the current obsession with paedophilia is out of suspicion that those most zealous in their accusations
A bouquet to Alison Kennedy, ‘governance and stewardship director’ at the Edinburgh-based pensions provider Standard Life, for leading the rebellion of Barclays shareholders against the bank’s decision to pay increased bonuses of £2.4 billion, far outstripping dividends to shareholders and despite a fall in profits. At last week’s AGM, 34 per cent of shareholders refused
