In England, success in life is bound up with where you went to school. In Wales, where I come from, the standard of education can be so miserable that you’d do better to get expelled. I did. I’d just spent three days in ‘isolation’ in my south Wales comprehensive — banished to a cubicle with
Trying to count posts on the web is like trying to number grains of sand on a beach. In June 2012, a data management company called Domo attempted the fool’s errand nevertheless. It calculated that, every minute, the then 2.1 billion users uploaded 48 hours of YouTube video, shared 684,478 pieces of content on Facebook,
Perhaps you’re aware that it’s Ramadan right now, the month in which all good Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex during daylight. What you might not know is that Ramadan also marks the start of an annual turf war in London; a battle between the tribal Sloanes and the young Gulf Arabs to
‘Hi Ian!’ the email began. ‘We are a group of mostly females who meet regularly in London to review really good reads. We are currently reading The Dead Yard, and were wondering if you would like to join us as our honorary guest while we fire you (gently) with questions about your book.’ The email
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_3_July_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth, Fraser Nelson and Eddie Bone discuss whether the UK could survive without Scotland” startat=41] Listen [/audioplayer]On 19 September, people over all Britain could wake up in a diminished country, one that doesn’t bestride the world stage but hobbles instead. If Scotland votes to leave the United Kingdom, it would be Britain’s
It is a sign of how no one expects Scotland to vote yes in September that no serious planning has been done about the consequences. By contrast, Gladstone shut himself away for days in the spring of 1886 drawing up the Bill that would have bestowed Home Rule on the Irish, plotting what it would
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_3_July_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Harris and Madeleine Teahan discuss the Assisted Dying Bill” startat=874] Listen [/audioplayer]If you were around in the days when the US series M*A*S*H was a regular feature on British television, its sing-song theme is probably still lodged in your memory: ‘Suicide is painless/ It brings on many changes/ And I can take
In a one-horse town called Hestrud, on the Franco-Belgian border, there’s a monument which encapsulates Europe’s enduring fascination with Napoleon. The story carved upon this plinth is more like poetry than reportage. As Napoleon passed through here, on his way to Waterloo, he struck up a conversation with a bold little boy called Cyprien Joseph
Thirty years ago, as editor of the Salisbury Review, I began to receive short articles from a Bradford headmaster, relating the dilemmas faced by those attempting to provide an English education to the children of Asian immigrants. Ray Honeyford’s case was simple. Children born and raised in Britain must be integrated into British society. Schools
The latest US census found that 43 per cent of the population in Santa Clara County, California, were members of a religious institution. This is slightly less than the American national average of 50 per cent, but you’d probably expect that because the area includes Silicon Valley, where geeks are busy designing our online, gadget-laden future. You
Nigel Farage turned down an alliance with Marine Le Pen in the European Parliament not because her ‘far right’ Front National party is in fact — unlike his Ukip — ‘far left’ on most economic and social issues, but because it has ‘anti-Semitism in its DNA’. Instead, Nigel Farage, the ex-commodity broker from Sevenoaks, has
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_26_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Damian Thompson vs. Cristina Odone on the role religion plays in politics” startat=44] Listen [/audioplayer]Aren’t Buddhist monks adorable? They meditate for days without needing to go to the toilet. They talk to each other in ‘grasshopper’ haikus. Their pot bellies are full of wholesome vegetarian fare. Your package tour to Southeast Asia isn’t
Driving along in the car, listening to the radio news, the boyfriend turned to me and said he thought the Michael Fabricant row a very strange one. Fabricant was being pilloried for having tweeted that he could never go on television with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown because he might ‘end up punching her in the throat’, but
Remember when masturbation was something everybody did but no one talked about? It was not most people’s idea of a conversation starter. Certainly nobody boasted about being a self-abuser. It was seen as a sorry substitute for sex, a sad stand-in for intimacy. Not any more. Masturbation has been reinvented as ‘self-love’, a healthy and
Like any sensible, prosperous Englishman in his middle years, I spend every winter in Thailand. Indeed, I’ve been visiting the country for three decades: I can still remember my first hotel in Bangkok, a beautiful teak-stilted villa down a rat-infested alley which had the singular facility of offering heroin on room service. I went with
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_19_June_2014.mp3″ title=”Paul Staines from Guido Fawkes and Evan Harris of Hacked Off debating Steve Coogan’s involvement with Index” startat=1508] Listen [/audioplayer]I have looked everywhere. I have Googled, and asked around. But I can find no evidence that Steve Coogan has ever taken the trouble to defend freedom of speech at home or abroad. I
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_19_June_2014.mp3″ title=”Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Freddy Gray discuss ISIS, Iraq and pop-up terrorism” startat=49] Listen [/audioplayer]Jihadist banners flying. Victorious extremists on camera slapping and then executing dehydrated and pleading Shia members of the Iraqi security forces. Dark reports of mass slaughter. City charters released in captured territory heralding the implementation of an extreme version of
Danny Alexander doesn’t suntan well, but he looks more freckly than normal when we meet in HM Treasury. He’s just back from the seaside town of Nairn in the Highlands, where, as the most senior Scot in the Cabinet, he’s been sent to fight in the front line of the Battle for Britain. People were
Taki What a pity this competition is not open to members of the fairer sex. Marie Christine of Kent would make an ideal winner. Among the men, of course, we have an embarrassment of riches. Tony Blair, John Bercow, Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross, A.A. Gill, Charles Saatchi, I could go on until the next millennium. However
Few people, don’t you find, are as irritating as those who define themselves as Spiritual But Not Religious? There was a riveting piece in the Sunday Times ‘Style’ magazine last week about them, featuring people who were both fabulously stylish and spiritual. Among the names checked was a shop called Celestine Eleven (‘when you buy