MONDAY Life is just one long crisis. Big row over what to take to Sudan in Lord A’s jet. I just thought that a few Harrods hampers thrown in with the medical supplies might cheer people up a bit, although possibly I shouldn’t have forked out for them myself on my account card. (Have given
Beijing Last time I was in China it was for the handover in Hong Kong. I stood in Tiananmen Square with tens of thousands of others as the clock went to midnight. This time another clock is ticking — counting down to the eighth of the eighth of 2008, an especially chosen auspicious date, for
The 23rd annual Threadneedle/ Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year lunch took place last Thursday at Claridge’s. The prizes were presented by the Rt Hon. David Cameron MP, Leader of the Opposition. Welcoming Mr Cameron, Matthew d’Ancona, the editor of The Spectator, observed that, in less than a year as Conservative leader, he had dislodged Beckham
The assassination on Tuesday of Pierre Gemayel, Lebanon’s industry minister, was another brutal blow of the axe to the cedar tree that gave its name to the nation’s so-called ‘revolution’ last year. That uprising was triggered by another death — the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri in February 2005 — and
Since Labour came to power, there has been a hugely important social trend that almost no one mentions. The institution of the two-parent family — whether married or unmarried — has been disintegrating at a speed seen nowhere else in Europe. The proportion of children living with lone parents was 19 per cent when Tony
Calling time on legislation From Christopher W. Robson Sir: In your leading article ‘To govern is not to legislate’ (18 November), you quote the late Ralph Harris as arguing that there should be a department for repealing laws. May I suggest that the creation of new laws has now reached a pitch where it would
