The fall of the left

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Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Tories are paying the price for their swagger over the Rochester by-election

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_13_Nov_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth discuss the Rochester by-election” startat=624] Listen [/audioplayer]In a corner of the Ukip campaign office in Rochester, a light-up orb is spinning, with the words ‘Vote Mark Reckless’ endlessly switching from yellow to purple. It’s hypnotic, if disconcerting, but also unnecessary because voters don’t need to be persuaded to

Matthew Parris

What you’re missing now that you don’t read this in print

Liverpool airport is a curiously unreal place in the half-light before dawn on a cold November morning. Out across the Mersey at high tide, raindrops turn the silver to lead, and at the easyJet departures gate people in tracksuit bottoms brush against the occasional tweed and Remembrance Day poppy. Intending stag-weekenders, and the set who

Rod Liddle

Please, Theresa, let Anjem Choudary go and get himself killed

The news is always grim, isn’t it? Doom and gloom everywhere. And even the news which appears to be good has a dark cloud hovering behind it. For example, we frequently hear reports of British-born jihadis being killed in Syria, either by blowing themselves up in the familiar, traditional manner or being bombed by the

Any other business

Martin Vander Weyer

Why I’m glad there’s no British Las Vegas

I didn’t realise that the Rialto Bridge has a moving walkway and muzak, that the gondolas beneath it float on a clear blue pool, and that the school of Tiepolo had so many apprentices available to paint hotel ceilings. ‘Still in Venice, Martin?’ you’re thinking. ‘Surely that was last month?’ Well no, your intrepid columnist