Hogarth’s satire is as appropriate now as it was 250 years ago, says Dan Jones. What we need is a new approach to our age-old drinking problem In 1751, as the great Gin Craze was winding down, William Hogarth produced a series of six prints. It included ‘Gin Lane’, his cruel masterpiece. In the foreground
It is hard to work out what the bankers did to George Osborne. Perhaps he was refused an overdraft at a formative age. Whatever it was, he is taking his revenge, saying that the large British banks should only be allowed to pay trivial cash bonuses. The plan has its political attractions — focus groups
Charles Moore I wish the Pope’s new offer to Anglicans had been available when I became a Catholic 15 years ago. It would have helped avoid many misunderstandings. In modern times, most Anglicans converting to Roman Catholicism are not trying to repudiate their existing beliefs. Instead, they are recognising that the logic of those beliefs
It was Bonfire Night last year in the Officers’ Mess of 2 Rifle and I was jokily explaining how fighting is such a national sport among Afghans that they fight with birds, kites and even boiled eggs, when I suddenly realised my heart had gone out of it. As one of the few journalists to
Irrationality, without which life cannot be lived, is profoundly irritating, especially in others. It is at its worst when those who are guilty of it try to sue those who, like Simon Singh, try to expose it. Singh was sued by the British Chiropractic Association after he wrote a book debunking several alternative ‘therapies’. A few
There is a subtle campaign on Wikipedia to overstate the contribution of Islamic sages to scientific scholarship. James Hannam says that the facts should be sacred As an author who craves all the publicity he can get for his work, I’m usually cock-a-hoop to receive invitations to pontificate on film. Even the lowliest producer can expect to
But don’t worry, says Rod Liddle, they’re not going to. The bee holocaust myth is just another example of our strange yearning for catastrophe The world is going to end in 2012, apparently — hopefully just before the start of the Olympic Games. Armageddon may come about as a consequence of those monkeys firing up the
There’s no need for Jan Moir to apologise for speculating about the death of the boy-band singer Stephen Gately says Rod Liddle. Why have we become so censorious and hysterical? I have to say that I don’t particularly like newspaper and magazine columnists, as people. Smug, not terribly bright, usually cowardly, lazy, always self-obsessed, self-important
There are two sorts of grouse-shooting, really; the one the papers favour, of the quality picnicking beside the butts, the men in deerstalkers or caps with sewn-up peaks, the women in tweeds and scarves, doling out baps and buttered gingerbread. At a respectful distance sit the beaters with their sandwiches: they will have walked some
Hear the one about the ‘professional Southerner’? Of course not, says Michael Henderson, so why does the media keep trotting out this tired old cliché about Northerners? John Prescott is at it again. Embold-ened by his first assault on television, an ‘examination’ of social class that was unaccountably aired by the BBC last year, the
First the Irish, then the Czechs. José Manuel Barroso is eliminating enemies of the Lisbon Treaty — setting things up for the arrival of President Blair, says Brian M. Carney At first, the European Union’s critics had high hopes for José Manuel Durão Barroso. If Jacques Delors represented Brussels’s unbridled ambition and Romano Prodi its
Big Ben strikes eleven, and time is running out for you to nominate a politician for The Spectator/Threadneedle Readers’ Representative Award. Big Ben strikes eleven, and time is running out for you to nominate a politician for The Spectator/Threadneedle Readers’ Representative Award. We’ve had an enthusiastic response so far, which just goes to show that
When Israeli tanks and troops rolled into Gaza in December 2007, there was no doubt about the outcome of the conflict. Nor was there any doubt about who would be held responsible for using disproportionate force and deliberately harming civilians. Never mind that Israel was responding to years of rocket bombardments from Gaza on its
The BNP are using the public’s real fear of Islamism to attract support for their racist movement, says Melanie Phillips. If the political class wants to take on Griffin, it must first join the fight against Islamofascism The frenzy over the participation of BNP leader Nick Griffin on Question Time this week has been a
It’s easy to spot a member of the recession generation. They’re the sober, thoughtful young people. They’re our sons, daughters, nieces, nephews and friends aged between about 18 and 23 and beginning their adult lives at a time when six million are on benefits. Like the generation above, they love iPods and TopShop. But they’re
David Beaumont, 21 ‘I’d thought that a final year economics student at the LSE would get a job easily. But I’ve found it impossible to get even an unpaid internship. My plan after graduation is to get out: to travel, funded by a low-paid job. Getting on the career ladder at this stage seems a
Rod Liddle is appalled that, after knowingly swindling the taxpayer, the former home secretary faced no punishment at all. It seems unbelievable after all their grandstanding — but MPs really don’t think they have done anything wrong ‘We have got to clean up politics, we have got to consign the old, discredited system to the
It’s fashionable for military top brass to attack politicians when things go wrong. But, says Paul Robinson, many of the army’s problems are of their own making In recent years, failure to ‘support the troops’ has become the ultimate political sin. The Conservatives’ soon-to-be defence adviser, General Sir Richard Dannatt, blasted Brown a few weeks
Power cuts and uncollected rubbish form most people’s memories of the economic debacle that was the 1970s. But for me, a quite different story sums up the lack of business sense that distinguished the British at the time. My mother had gone into a village shop in Kent to buy some bacon, which the affable
Sinclair McKay celebrates 30 years of Britain’s funniest, sharpest and most irreverent cartoon. David Cameron need look no further for a perfect picture of broken Britain Some night soon on the peaceful back streets of Bloomsbury, you might want to keep an eye out for two young ladies from the north for whom the term