The Week

Leading article

Leading article: Britain’s riots: burning issues

  When David Cameron returned from holiday on Tuesday to find volunteers cleaning up the mess left by the riots and shopkeepers making plans to protect their property at night, he did not dare mention the Big Society. Perhaps he should have. The Londoners who organised a clean-up — using the same technology as the

Portrait of the week

Portrait of the week | 13 August 2011

  HOME Parliament was recalled as rioting spread across London and to other cities. It began in Tottenham on Saturday night, two days after a black man, Mark Duggan, was shot dead by police during an attempted arrest. Friends gathered at Tottenham police station asking the truth of the incident. The Independent Police Complaints Commission

Ancient and modern

Ancient and Modern – 13 August 2011

Rome’s death penalty The government has set up a system of e-petitions which, if they garner a million signatures, may — or may not — trigger a debate in parliament. The capital punishment lobbies, pro- and anti-, immediately sprang into action. Ancients would have been amazed. Greeks and Romans happily slaughtered each other without giving it

Letters

Letters | 13 August 2011

Press complaint Sir: Charles Moore’s comments on the PCC last week (The Spectator’s Notes, 6 August) contained several significant inaccuracies. Lord Wakeham didn’t leave the chairmanship of the commission as a result of criticisms from the Telegraph that he wasn’t handling complaints impartially. He stood down, as a matter of honour, after he was tangentially implicated in