Ross Clark is a columnist I try to read because he is never trite. So I was sorry to miss performances of his musical play staged earlier this month. Shot at Dawn is about a sister’s quest for a recognition (after his death) of her brother, Harry Briggs, a soldier in the Great War who
‘There’s no shame in a cabinet to win the next election,’ declared an exasperated senior No. 10 figure on Tuesday night. This week’s reshuffle was not one for the purists: it was designed with campaigning, not governing, in mind. With less than ten months to go to polling day, politics trumps policy. This is why
My young daughter has a furry beaver — lifelike in all but its eyes, which to me seem cold and dead. I bought it for her in the United States and I think it has pride of place within her impressive menagerie of anthropomorphised cuddly toy animals. There are also countless wolves which we have to
Great God, Vegas is an awful place. I realised this the moment I arrived. My cab driver — who’d been perfectly agreeable en route from the airport — mistook my post-flight sluggishness for reluctance to give him a tip, and drove off angrily cursing me as I fumbled in my pockets. The line just for
Tom leant back against the bathroom wall, his face streaked with blood from the nosebleed, eyes half shut like an owl. ‘I’m passing out,’ he said. Then his legs gave way and he slumped to the floor. ‘Tom? Tom?’ I shook him but — nothing, no response. His hands began an awful looping tremor. Five
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_10_July_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the EU Commissioner role” startat=732] Listen [/audioplayer]In recent weeks British government visitors to Berlin have been confronted with a persistent question: when will David Cameron make up his mind about who he’ll send to Brussels? Picking a European commissioner is a big decision: Tony Blair sent Peter
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_10_July_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Matthew Parris and Dr Liz Davies discuss the child abuse enquiry” startat=48] Listen [/audioplayer]As essay titles go, ‘On losing an argument with Tim Loughton MP’ may fail to catch the imagination; but there we are: I don’t need to be re-elected. You know before you start when you’re on a losing wicket, and
Glaring, the ennui over Israel. The way we drag our eyes to the page, and sigh, and want to read something else. Sympathy is hard. Even anger is hard. It’s just… bleurgh. Israel drifting away. Never mind whose fault it is; that’s a whole other point. But it’s happening. It’s off. No longer does it
Feminism in modern Britain is not for the faint-hearted. Only the smartest, mouthiest girls on the social media scene dare join the fray — in print, in blogs, on Twitter — where they yell silently at each other in front of a mute but poisonous audience. It often seems not so much a fight for
‘Why did you leave us?’ said the old Sudanese man in Omdurman market. ‘Things were so much better when you were here.’ He was talking about the British empire, of course, and apologies if I’ve told the story before, as I know I have. It’s just that it’s such a fantastically satisfying way of winding
There is something attractive about almost the whole of southern Europe being part of an immense and somewhat rigorous caliphate, as promised by the exciting Sunni Islamic movement formerly known as Isis. This new entity, stretching from Santander in what we currently know as Spain, to Cox’s Bazar on the Bangladesh and Burmese border, would
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_26_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman discuss Osborne’s rising fortunes” startat=934] Listen [/audioplayer]George Osborne’s first taste of political leadership came aged 12. At his prep school, Colet Court, he took charge of a party for school election in 1983. The Chancellor’s chosen party (as the forthcoming schools guide will discuss) was not the Conservatives,
What image comes to mind when we think of Britain today? I was moved to contemplate this question after reading the Prime Minister’s inspiring treatise on British values, which seemed to involve ‘being quite nice’ and not referring to other people as kaffir and then trying to blow them up. Fair enough. I suppose —
Khat is a leafy stimulant chewed mainly, I gather, by Somalis. This week the government banned its possession and sale. And, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why. Not being a Somali (or, indeed, a Russian murderer, whatever the sketch above might suggest) I can’t pretend that my life will now have
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_26_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman discuss whether Labour should let Miliband be Miliband” startat=934] Listen [/audioplayer]That bacon bap earlier this month was not the cause of Ed Miliband’s unpopularity. Ed Miliband’s unpopularity was the cause of the bacon bap. Scant comfort this will give the Labour leader and his fabled ‘advisers’, but they
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_19_June_2014.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the death of Westminster hawks” startat=726] Listen [/audioplayer]There is a slight whiff of the summer of 1914 to Westminster at the moment. The garden party season is in full swing and the chatter is all about who is up and who is down. In the Commons chamber
It is surely only a matter of time before someone with a mischievous glint in their eye invites the Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, Helen Goodman, to open a fête in a place with which she is entirely unfamiliar, e.g. Bishop Auckland. Helen recently turned up as guest of honour at a fête in a
Though I’m not generally big on banning stuff, there’s one substance I would prohibit without a moment’s hesitation — probably on pain of death if that’s what it took because clearly, where vanquishing monstrous evil is concerned, no sanction is too extreme. I’m talking, of course, about the devil’s semen: semi-skimmed milk. And about its unholier
If there’s a bright spot in the murky mess of Iraq, it’s that finally we have a war that it is impossible to paint in simple terms, as a battle of good against evil. This time, even our PM, the self-appointed heir to Blair, can’t grandstand about defeating ‘terror’ or protecting ‘innocent civilians’ because there’s
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_12_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the English question and the next election” startat=1129] Listen [/audioplayer]Before David Cameron heads off for his summer holiday, he’ll be presented with a first draft of the Tory manifesto by Jo Johnson, Boris’s younger brother and a cautious, well-organised thinker. He dislikes publicity almost as much as
