Liz Truss has taken the lead in the Tory leadership race with an agenda that seems radical and ambitious, whereas Rishi Sunak appears to offer only elegantly managed decline. Truss promises instant relief from the rising cost of government; Sunak offers to reverse barely half of his own tax rises – and over the course
Home BP reported quarterly profits of £6.9 billion, its biggest for 14 years, after oil and gas prices rose steeply. Typical domestic energy bills were forecast by the consultancy Cornwall Insight to go above £3,600 a year in the coming winter. Under the family scheme for visas, 31,300 Ukrainians had arrived in the United Kingdom,
The Season has ended and – apart from The Spectator’s summer bash of course – the two bang-up parties of July were discos in the Cotswolds. They do things differently there. At Jemima Goldsmith’s I danced so hard in high heels with a selection of her handsome young swains that I suspect the double hip
It is clear that the country will soon need a Water Czar. Augustus’s right-hand man Agrippa would be the one to reshape the whole system, and Frontinus to ensure it all worked. Of Rome’s aqueducts, ‘cut-and cover’ masonry channels, following the contours of the ground, made up 80 to 90 per cent of their total
An idea past its sell-by date Waitrose has announced the removal of ‘best before’ dates from many food products. – The idea of printing dates began with Marks & Spencer in the 1950s, but only for use in the stockroom. They first appeared in the company’s shops in 1970 and were named ‘sell-by’ dates from
Injured party Sir: Prue Leith’s short interlude as a Conservative party member and subsequent resignation underlines a feature of the current membership and the impact of resignations (Diary, 30 July). The Johnson era has seen the continuing decline in party membership brought about by the resignation of many members who were dissatisfied with the evidence
