The 22nd annual Threadneedle/ Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year lunch took place last Thursday at Claridge’s and the prizes were presented by the Rt Hon. Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democrats. Welcoming Mr Kennedy, the editor of The Spectator, Boris Johnson, recalled the tumultuous events at last year’s luncheon. He said that among the
To this day I am astonished when I hear that sensible, biologically mature adults allow themselves to be treated as if they were incompetent dimwits by a new army of professional surrogate parents. In days of old, traditional authority figures, like priests, instructed us how to behave in public and told us which rules to
Actions are being taken in the British people’s name which should make us feel appalled. The government’s behaviour towards the British army has been despicable. In Northern Ireland, there are plans to give an amnesty to IRA terrorists who were never prosecuted because they went on the run. Though an unappealing prospect, that could be
Lazy, ignorant, shallow and irresponsible, more interested in taking drugs than in proper study, too apathetic to make it to the polling station but not to an ecstasy-fuelled rave: those are the images often associated with young people in modern Britain. Survey after survey shows widespread illiteracy and innumeracy among teenagers. At the ever-expanding universities,
Have you ever escaped from captivity by removing from your boot the serrated surgical wire cunningly disguised as a shoelace and sawing through the windpipe of your hapless, squirming guard? Me neither, but I know someone who has. He’s a lovely old boy, gentle, thoughtful, slightly melancholy and, but for that unsettlingly sardonic smile and
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, has warned recently of ‘sleepwalking our way to segregation’. Although he was not speaking principally about Muslims, they have become perhaps the most dominant group in British society. Divided along ethnic and sectarian lines, Muslims are nevertheless united by their creed, their law and the powerful
As France burned, the mullahs arrived on the scene, shook their heads sadly and immediately issued a fatwa. However, for the many Frenchmen who may have shuddered inwardly when they heard the term so invoked, this was a good fatwa, a nice fatwa, a fatwa to be proud of. The mullahs swung by and ordained
Ever since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, there has been a seemingly endless flow of self-congratulatory comment in the West about how former communist countries — and even some which have remained communist — are gradually westernising and learning the ropes in the capitalist jungle. Very often, these countries’ so-called progress is in fact
Jonathan Mirsky says that the state visit to Britain of China’s President is no cause for celebration When China’s President Hu Jintao sits next to the Queen at her state banquet for him on 8 November he will be a contented man. In the words of the Royal Academy of Arts, ‘China Turns London Red’.
By mid-century, the world’s population will be 50 per cent higher than it is now, says Richard Ehrman, but the boom will come from developing countries, not Europe, and that’s very bad news indeed If demography is destiny, then, on the face of it, Britain should be feeling pretty smug. In late May the number
‘Unbelievable,’ the professor told me. It was hard to disagree. We had just laid flowers on the grave of the anti-communist Russian philosopher Ivan Alexandrovich Il’in. Just a short time ago, mere possession of one of Il’in’s books would have brought six years in prison. Now the Russian state has reburied the philosopher in Moscow
Britain, the Prime Minister will be pleased to learn, once had a nuclear weapon named the Tony. (It was a prototype warhead to be fitted to the Bloodhound surface-to-air missile, tried in the 1950s but never developed.) The record books of our great nation’s early nuclear experiments also yield something called the Peter (appropriately enough,
It didn’t occur to me until a few weeks ago to question homeopathy. Of course it worked. I grew up with it; my aunt Liz was and still is a homeopathic practitioner and for us — my mother, father, aunts, uncles, brother, cousins — calling Liz was the natural reaction to the slightest swollen gland.
My daughter suffered two seizures the other night. One was shortly after midnight, the other a couple of hours later. Having been away on business the previous night, it was my turn to get up to comfort her, to check that the fits were not life-threatening and, afterwards, to settle her back to sleep. Five
British newspapers care greatly about some victims of the Israel army, says Tom Gross, but not the Jewish victims of Palestinian terror — even if they are British Rachel Thaler, aged 16, was blown up at a pizzeria in an Israeli shopping mall. She died after an 11-day struggle for life following a suicide bomb
Less than six weeks ago a threadbare group of Conservative MPs, from what one might call the boarding-school wing of the party, assembled in a small, air-conditioned room in Portcullis House, Westminster. Not everyone was punctual. The Commons was deep in recess. The fifth Test against Australia was flickering on television sets around London SW1,
Tony Leon says the Zimbabwean leader’s histrionics appeal to the resentment and Soviet nostalgia of southern Africa’s elite Cape Town It was a proud moment for aviation in Zimbabwe. The country was suffering the worst fuel crisis in its history; hospitals were reverting to ox-drawn ambulances. But still the Zimbabwean air force managed to stage
Vernon Bogdanor says that David Cameron is the only Conservative who can read the nation’s mood and respond to it In the 1960s Harold Wilson sought to make Labour the natural party of government. Tony Blair seems to have succeeded in doing so. The Conservatives have now been in opposition for eight years, their longest
The threat to our national security has seldom been greater. Not only are historic regiments being scrapped — or amalgamated — but the fundamental reorganisation of armed forces now under way is likely to undermine the special relationship with the United States, and thus a key element in our defence strategy. There is, of course,
Over the next few weekends, the gardens of 23 stately homes will be opened up to several thousand sponsored fun-runners who, demonstrating the typically huge generosity shown towards cancer charities by the British public, will raise £2.5 million for oncology research. Elsewhere, the stalls at village shows will heave with home-baked cakes, thousands will empty