Columns

Thursday

James Forsyth

Why are the Lib Dems duffing up the Tories? To ensure another coalition

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_9_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss Lib Dem tactics” startat=782] Listen [/audioplayer]The last Liberal Democrat conference before the general election has been dominated by denunciations of the ‘nasty’ Tories. Lib Dems claim they are shocked to find George Osborne proposing a freeze in working age benefits. But can they really be so very

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

Why there’s no such thing as an Etonian

Finally, just in the last few years I’d say, we’ve all begun to accept the role of nature in the great nature/nurture debate. Though we’ve squirmed and baulked, we mostly now do accept that genes inform (to a greater or lesser extent) not just our height and eye-colour, but our personalities: our intelligence, our disposition.

Thursday

James Forsyth

Get ready for an election where everyone loses (except maybe the Lib Dems)

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_2_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman review the conference season” startat=604] Listen [/audioplayer]Two things have been puzzling Tory high-ups in Birmingham this week: does Nigel Farage have another defector in his back pocket, and why is the Tory party in such a good mood? Many expected that a second MP defecting to Ukip would

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Must MPs always vote before we go to war?

Jesse Norman was permitted three minutes for his speech to the Commons in last Friday’s debate. But the contribution from the Conservative MP for Hereford & South Herefordshire was one of the more important backbench interventions — and no less important for being wide of the debate’s focus. The House was being invited to support British

Thursday

James Forsyth

Cameron must reunite the Tories or lose the next election

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_25_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Freddy Gray, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth on Cameron’s radicalism” startat=70] Listen [/audioplayer]No one goes to Birmingham to revive a marriage. But that is what David Cameron and the Conservative party must do next week at conference. They must find a way to put the passion back into their relationship, to learn to

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

Is forgiveness a weapon in the war on terror?

Could you ever torture someone? Could you, under different circumstances, in a different world (I hope) than the one which led you to this Spectator, be as brutal as the fighters of the Islamic State? Your answer, I reckon, is most likely to be no. Most people these days talk of IS jihadis as if

Thursday

Hugo Rifkind

The ‘no’ campaign’s problem was that it sounded like me

Journalistically speaking, it’s been a good year to be Scottish and Jewish. Had I been a Welsh Zoroastrian, say, I doubt I’d have had nearly so much to say. In recent months, obviously, it’s been the Scottish thing that has really taken off. I used to be marginally Scottish, irrelevantly Scottish; never realising that a

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Yes or no, I’ll never feel the same about the Scots

I doubt I’m alone among English readers of this magazine in having felt uncomfortable with our last issue. ‘Please stay with us’ was a plea I found faintly offensive to us English. Not only did it have a plaintive ring, but there seemed to be something grovelling, almost self-abasing, in the pitch. Why beg? A

Thursday

James Forsyth

After a referendum campaign like this, will even no mean no?

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_11_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and Fraser Nelson discuss the crisis in Westminster” startat=1142] Listen [/audioplayer]This is really happening. The Scots could vote to end the greatest, most successful union in human history next week. Westminster has, at last, woken up to this threat and what it would mean for the United Kingdom as

Thursday

Rod Liddle

It’s not just Ashya King’s parents who the authorities despise

My first act upon returning from my holiday was to sign the online petition to have the supremely irritating children’s cartoon figure Peppa Pig banned from television. I have always found the creature half-witted, arrogant and sinister, and the tune which accompanies her exploits is both grating and didactic. Further, even allowing for the usual

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Is clicking on Jennifer Lawrence’s naked pictures really as bad as hacking and distributing them?

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_4_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman, Emma Barnett and Jamie Bartlett discuss the leaked photos” startat=1312] Listen [/audioplayer]‘If you click on Jennifer Lawrence’s naked pictures,’ said the headline on the Guardian’s website, ‘you’re perpetuating her abuse.’ That gave me pause. Even though I haven’t. In all honesty, I haven’t even had the opportunity, and I thought I