Political party conferences have, in recent years, felt like an empty ritual. They used to be convened in seaside towns, so grassroots activists could find affordable accommodation. Now they are usually held in cities, so lobbyists can find better restaurants. Activists have been supplanted by members of the political class who are charged £500 a
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, told the Conservative party conference in Manchester: ‘We need a national crusade to get homes built.’ George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that councils would be allowed to set their own business rates and keep all the money they raise. Lord Adonis, the Labour peer, moved to
On the top landing of the Royal Academy is the Sackler Sculpture Corridor, a long stony shelf of torsos of gods, martial bodies, heads, a vast foot. At one end Michelangelo’s Taddei Tondo is hidden behind slightly green glass. It is worth any pilgrimage. At the other end is a modest door into the print
John McDonnell, shadow chancellor in the Corbynite splinter-group, has announced that £120 billion is waiting to be reclaimed from tax avoidance, evasion and other schemes. Nero was equally detached from reality. The Roman historian Tacitus tells us that in ad 65 a fantasist from Carthage by name of Caesellius Bassus bribed his way into an
The death of Diesel The Volkswagen scandal has brought into question the future of the diesel engine. A century ago its inventor, Rudolf Diesel, was himself the subject of scandal. On 29 September 1913 he disappeared from the steamship Dresden on its way from Antwerp to Harwich. He had retired to his cabin after dinner
From ‘Bulgaria and Greece’, The Spectator, 9 October 1915: The fact that the British people will in all probability soon be at war with Bulgaria is a matter of very deep regret, for this nation has always watched the development of the peasant state with strong sympathy… But though we can and do sympathise with the
Spanish practices Sir: In your leading article last week you wrote: ‘Yes, Catalonia and Scotland were independent in the 16th century.’ True about Scotland, but not Catalonia. Since 1162, the Kingdom of Aragón and the county of Barcelona have been a single entity and, since 1475, the Catholic kings and their descendants have ruled both
