The worst has not happened; Scotland has not seceded from the United Kingdom. But David Cameron will have known some time ago that, whichever side won in the referendum, there would be no victory. This morning, the United Kingdom wakes up to one of the biggest constitutional messes in its history. Given that the unionists
The words are strong, the sentiment behind them no doubt heartfelt. ‘We will do everything in our power to hunt down these murderers and ensure they face justice, however long it takes,’ said David Cameron, speaking as Britain recoiled in horror at yet another jihadist beheading video, this time of a British man, David Haines.
Cool, calm Sweden can still produce a surprise from time to time. Yes, our economic recovery has been the best of any major European country. Yes, our finance minister, the earringed and formerly pony-tailed Anders Borg, is hailed as the best in the world. And yes, our government has somehow managed to cut taxes so
Henry Kissinger doesn’t believe in retirement. At 91, having had a heart-valve operation three months ago, he is nonetheless publishing a book entitled World Order. As I happened to be interviewing him about it on 11 September, I asked him about his memories of 13 years ago. ‘I was in Frankfurt addressing a business group,’
Anglicans aren’t the sort of church-goers who set much store by miracles, signs and wonders. Yet their own church is one of the greatest miracles of our society: it has managed to hang together, in spite of raging differences, for centuries. Since 14 July, that miracle has been under threat. For most, it was a great
In the heyday of the Hollywood studio system, Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM (‘More stars than there are in the heavens’) was rumoured to have had a very strange chart on his wall. This graph, allegedly, kept a record of the menstrual cycles of the studio’s leading ladies: Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Grace Kelly
We’d taken off smoothly and the two-seater Cessna 152 was climbing through 1,000 feet on full power. Then my instructor, Gill, reached over and closed the throttle. As the plane’s nose began to sink, she told me calmly, ‘We’ll simulate an emergency now. Can you find a suitable field to land in?’ Hurrying panic wouldn’t
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_11_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, Tom Holland and Leah McLaren discuss how we can still save the Union” startat=50] Listen [/audioplayer]At 9.30 p.m. last Saturday news broke that Scotland’s ‘yes’ campaign had established its first opinion poll lead. Since then, the country has been confronting the possibility of its impending dissolution. The vote will affect all
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_11_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, Tom Holland and Leah McLaren discuss how we can still save the Union” startat=50] Listen [/audioplayer]As I write this, I am sitting outside a weinhaus in Kaub, a half-timbered town on the wooded slopes of the middle Rhine. If you don’t know the place, I recommend a visit: the scenery is
This summer brought highs and lows, sadness and laughter, some irritating, some exhilarating. I was fortunate to be uplifted by an encounter with Leslie Bonham Carter, a remarkable woman who seems quite British but is in fact American. She is the daughter of Condé Nast, who founded the company that bears his name. He was
I am standing outside Ken Livingstone’s family home in a pleasant row of terraces in the multi-ethnic, north-west London suburb of Willesden Green (commemorated in the novel White Teeth by the novelist Zadie Smith, perhaps the most widely celebrated daughter of the parish). If the authenticity of a Labour politician’s socialism can be gauged by
Twenty years ago, in 1994, I had a golden summer. I scored 375 against England in Antigua, a Test record that stood for nine years, and two months later I posted 501 against Durham, which remains today the world record in first-class cricket, as my team Warwickshire achieved an unprecedented domestic treble. I was in
I had a misspent youth. During the period when most normal adolescents were playing Grand Theft Auto or discovering ten interesting facts about Pamela Anderson, I am afraid that I would take the tube by myself — aged about 13 — and visit the British Museum. I would walk through the cat-headed Egyptians and the
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_11_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, Tom Holland and Leah McLaren discuss how we can still save the Union” startat=50] Listen [/audioplayer]I bet that until a few days ago you thought the referendum in Scotland was a mildly amusing sideshow. Perhaps you still do. Perhaps you are convinced that the ‘silent majority’ that Better Together are so
It was 2 May 1997. Not only was most of the country celebrating the election of a bright young Kennedy-esque Prime Minister called Tony Blair, so too, perhaps more surprisingly, were the champagne-swilling Thatcherites of the City of London. As the government took office, the FTSE 100 index climbed up to 4,455, and it was
Most of our independent schools in Great Britain have a religious origin and the campuses of many are dominated by school chapels. The earliest surviving foundations, including Eton and Winchester, contain vestiges of their religious inspiration in their statutes and constitutions. Some of the older grammar schools began life as training places for developing Protestantism,
For a centre-right political party, the Conservatives are oddly obsessed with where people went to school. Michael Gove and Lady Warsi both lamented the number of Old Etonians in influential positions earlier this year. It may not have been coincidence that, within five months, both had moved posts: there remains a potent undercurrent of class
The two great regrets of middle age are: ‘I never learnt a language’ and ‘I never learnt an instrument’. One of my regrets is that, because I was a happy-go-lucky sort of chap at school, my music teachers kept giving me heavier and heavier cases to carry. They started me on the trumpet. That was
When the late, great Ronald Searle and Geoffrey Willans conspired to create St Trinian’s and Nigel Molesworth, the archetypal English prep school boy, they wanted to evoke an air of -austere, post-war gloom. Molesworth’s school, St Custard’s, was, in his own words, ‘built by a madman in 1836’. For both St Custard’s and St Trinian’s,
Earlier this year I attended my first Independent Schools Bursars Association conference. Perhaps it was because it was in Harrogate, Herriot Country — but I couldn’t help noticing a severe case of ‘All Creatures Great and Small’. Bursars certainly come in a bewildering variety of breeds — some are preened, some are plumped and some