Two years ago, a new strain of Covid emerged and with it came calls for a Christmas lockdown. The Omicron variant was said to spread far faster than previous iterations of the virus and Imperial’s Neil Ferguson warned that it was no less deadly. The call for lockdown began and Britain came very close to
Home James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, told the Commons that to gain a work visa, migrants must in future secure a salary of at least £38,700 instead of the present £26,200. The government also said it would stop health and care workers and students bringing family dependants to Britain. He said this would have disqualified
This week I have been working with the great Dame Judi Dench. We have been rehearsing a song by Noël Coward for a show we are doing together at the Royal Albert Hall next Friday. Judi met Sir Noël not long before he died in 1973. What she remembers best is his amused smile and
Next year there will be an election, and all the talk is of strategies for winning power. But for the elite Romans who thought about politics, the debate was not so much about power as about the ethics of those seeking it: did they possess virtus, i.e. moral excellence? And did they practise it? That
Black and white politics Two pandas, Yang Guang and Tian Tian, left Edinburgh Zoo for China after their 12-year loan to Britain ended. But contrary to popular belief, ‘panda diplomacy’ didn’t begin in 1972 when Chairman Mao gave two to the visiting Richard Nixon – and received two musk oxen in return. (In 1974, Mao
Power to the readers Sir: I would suggest that even if the government of the UAE gives a ‘cast-iron’ guarantee not to interfere with The Spectator’s editorial line, this should be taken with a very large pinch of salt (‘The real deal’, 2 December). Why don’t you ask your subscribers to buy the magazine? With nearly 140,000
