Columnists

The Spectator's Notes

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 9 December 2006

It is strange to find myself at odds with several fellow Thatcherites, but it seems to me obvious that David Cameron’s first year as Tory leader, which falls this week, has been a success. What his critics cannot get into their heads is that opposition is completely different from government. You can’t do: you must

Any other business

What happens when you inherit your uncle’s underclothes

Just as the English have inspired supreme artistry in male dress, symbolised by Savile Row and Beau Brummell, so they have also contributed a dissenting movement of genteel shabbiness or grand nonconformity. It is not dictated by lack of cash but by sup-erior indifference, meanness and what I call the Robinson Crusoe syndrome, a delight

I’ve seen the future of food retailing — and it works

It’s simple, this internet grocery shopping. Log on, pick what you want, pay with your credit card and get on with your life while you wait for the doorbell to ring. No need to schlep to the supermarket, fight your way to the checkout, lug all those overloaded plastic bags into the car and out

‘This is not an industry for pussycats’

If you built a composite portrait of Leigh Clifford from the handful of newspaper profiles ever written about him, you would be presented with an archetypal Aussie miner, as tough as the rocks his company digs from the earth. Shortly before taking up, six years ago, the post of chief executive of Rio Tinto —

Enough, says Blair — but is anyone listening?

Given that the government’s lust for setting targets has done so much to increase bureaucracy in public services Given that the government’s lust for setting targets has done so much to increase bureaucracy in public services, one could be forgiven for a little scepticism regarding the Prime Minister’s latest target: to reduce red tape by

The perils of insouciance

Jonathan Davis says investors’ disregard for risk has paid off handsomely in 2006 — but it may not in 2007 A good general rule for investors is to take no notice of consensus predictions about what is going to happen in the next 12 months. The track record of year-end investment punditry is consistently poor.