Quebec City Canada is about to hit a new high. If the supercute 44-year-old prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has his way, marijuana will soon be legally available. Trudeau himself is no pothead. He last had a joint in 2010 at a family dinner party, with his children safely tucked up in bed at their
Because Americans love Britain, and because we are a presumptuous lot, we often advise the United Kingdom on its foreign policy. And not only the UK, but Europe. Successive US administrations have urged European nations to form a United States of Europe as an answer to the question attributed to Henry Kissinger: ‘Who do I
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/donaldtrumpsangryamerica/media.mp3″ title=”Freddy Gray talks to Isabel Hardman about Donald Trump’s angry America”] Listen [/audioplayer]It was, in the end, the best possible night for Donald Trump. On Super Tuesday, 11 American states voted for Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. Trump won seven. That was enough to ensure he remains easily the frontrunner, but not enough
Just after last year’s general election, George Osborne delivered a budget that he hailed as proof that his policies were working. ‘The British economy I report on today is fundamentally stronger than it was five years ago,’ he crowed, as he started to detail the record number of jobs created and a growth rate that
It used to be ‘Your M&S’. That was presumptuous enough. Now, when you drive past Earls Court exhibition hall, pathetically covered in plastic sheeting while being demolished to make way for a high–quality, mixed-tenure residential neighbourhood, the hoarding tells you you’re going past ‘My Earls Court’. You can read all about it on myearlscourt.com. No,
I went to Budapest last year and did the usual touristy things. I climbed up the hill to the fantasy castle walls in Buda. I took a boat ride. I went to the Turkish baths — edging cautiously into scalding hot water and then summoning up the courage to tip a bucket of cold water
Grumpy Gertie was killed in a drive-by shooting. This resident of the village of Sandon, near Letchworth, was shot at close range from a passing 4×4. There seems to have been no motive. Apart from pleasure, perhaps. Flowers have been placed at Gertie’s favourite spot, a reward of £250,000 has been offered for information about
I open a dusty binder and look at my yellowing Spectator articles from Poland, Germany and Russia in the dramatic 1980s. And here’s one from Brussels in 1986, suggesting that Britain was edging towards finding its role in the European Community. Ho ho. Back then, Charles Moore was the editor and I was the foreign
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/donaldtrumpsangryamerica/media.mp3″ title=”Emily Rhodes talks to Isabel Hardman about book thieves” startat=1139] Listen [/audioplayer] Notoriously, during the riots in London five years ago, Waterstones was the only high-street shop that wasn’t looted. But that depressing lack of book-pinching belied a thriving -tendency. Think of a bookshop and you think of a musty, hushed spot where
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/insidethetorieseudogfight/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth, Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman discuss the Tory dogfight over Europe”] Listen [/audioplayer] Many Tories had doubts about David Cameron’s EU renegotiation, but only Boris Johnson was promised a piece of legislation to assuage his particular concerns. It was quite a compliment. The so-called Sovereignty Bill was, in effect, the
If the Church of England was once the Tory party at prayer, then the nation’s shotgun-owning farmers were the party’s armed wing. I grew up on a farm in the Yorkshire Dales and must have been about 18 before I met someone who didn’t identify as TBC (True Blue Conservative). Ours was one of the
Never before has a radio soap crossed so far over from fiction and into the real world. Never before has it become imperative to listen to each and every episode of The Archers (just after 7 p.m. on Radio 4, every day except Saturday) as if by being there, listening in on the ether, we can
It’s the only thing Bianca Jagger and I have in common: we’ve both been victims of false memory. You almost certainly have, too. False memory is the meanest trick your brain can play on you. Instead of refusing to admit that it can’t recall something, the treacherous little creep supplies a wrong answer instead. It’s
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/insidethetorieseudogfight/media.mp3″ title=”Katie Glass and Isabel Hardman discuss Leap Year proposals” startat=1456] Listen [/audioplayer] I’m planning to propose to my boyfriend this leap year. I’m proposing that he earns another £10,000 and loses a stone. But marriage? Hell, no. I don’t know why, in the age of equality, society still endorses women going down on
On Nawroz, the Persian New Year, last March, Isis sent a holiday greeting to the Kurds. They published several videos of Peshmerga fighters, now prisoners, kneeling, handcuffed and wearing the usual orange jumpsuits. In one video, a prisoner is shot in the back of the head; the rest have their heads sawn off with a
A few nights ago, my missus and I were walking along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, minding our own business while trying not to think about Donald Trump — or Ted Cruz, or Hillary Clinton, or Bernie Sanders. Presently we passed the Old Post Office Building, a venerable pile dating to 1899. It looks a bit
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/putinsendgameinsyria/media.mp3″ title=”Putin’s endgame in Syria”] Listen [/audioplayer] Russia’s bombing of the city of Aleppo this week sent a clear message: Vladimir Putin is now in charge of the endgame in Syria. Moscow’s plan — essentially, to restore its ally Bashar al-Assad to power — is quickly becoming a reality that the rest of the
The LGBT rights movement — so the story goes — has split the Christian churches in two. On one side are the progressives, who believe that Christianity should accept gay people and recognise gay marriage. Lined up against them are the conservatives, who hold fast to the belief that being gay is sinful. It’s not
At a party recently I started talking to a friendly, charming woman and we established early on that she was left-wing. We chatted about this and that and for some reason I asked her if she played golf. ‘Oh no,’ she replied. ‘As I’m left-wing, I am not allowed to play golf.’ I was taken aback. Here
So the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, thinks his country has a ‘profound interest… in a very strong United Kingdom staying in a strong EU’, and President Obama is planning to join in campaigning for the Remainders too. They say this not because they think it is good for us, but because it is