Spectator

We had a sell-out debate on global warming at The Spectator on Tuesday and, as I found out this morning, the debate is still going on. The teams were led by Nigel Lawson and Sir David King, and I was in the audience. I tweeted my praise of Simon Singh’s argument as he made it: it was a brilliant variation on the theme of “don’t think – trust the experts”. He seems to have discovered the tweet this morning, and responded with a volley of five questions for me. Then David Aaronovitch weighed in, followed by Simon Mayo. At 8.35am! I had the choice between replying, or carrying on with

What a difference a year makes. When Michael Gove spoke at a Spectator conference on schools reform twelve months ago, his policy ideas were just that: ideas, to be deployed should the Tories reach government. Today, at a follow-up conference, they are being put into practice in the fiery crucible of state — and doing quite well, at that. As tweeted by Andrew Neil, Gove has announced that the number of academies — existing state schools that have seized on the independence being offered to them — now stands at 465. That’s some way up on the 203 academies there were last year. And it’s even a significant rise on

Devastation today, and devastation when a tsunami swept across Sri Lanka, and other countries around the Indian Ocean, in 2004. Here is Andrew Gilligan’s report from Columbo at the time, which sought to set the facts straight: The littoral truth, Andrew Gilligan, The Spectator, 8 January 2005 Columbo The staff of Unicef’s Sri Lanka operation are in their Colombo offices dealing as best they can with a flood of desperate people, people at the end of their tether, people in overwhelming need of immediate help. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, for instance. Ms Amanpour, or at least her producer, wants two orphans, preferably brothers who have lost at least six other members

A strange sort of anniversary, but an anniversary nonetheless: it is 31 years, to the day, since Robert Mugabe took power in Zimbabwe, or Rhodesia as it was still called. In which case, here is The Spectator’s leading article from the time. It is, for the large part, a good demonstration of the benefits conferred by hindsight. But its caginess about Mugabe is apparent in such observations as, “It is up to Mr Mugabe whether he leads his country into yet another black tyranny, corrupt and inefficient, or whether he builds on what has already been built.” Mugabe, it seems, made his mind up on that one some time ago.

The Nottingham Post has a great scoop about Labour-led Nottingham City Council’s abuse of taxpayer funds. The story can be distilled into one sentence: ‘City council leader Jon Collins has used a consultant paid £870-a-day by the taxpayer for advice on Labour’s campaign in the run-up to the May election.’ Nottingham is one of England’s most profligate and rapacious councils. Examples of its needless largesse include stripping conkers from trees and spending £185,000 on signs to improve local morale. One probable reason for the residents’ black mood is the steep rate of council tax. In 2010-11, occupants of band A properties paid £1041.39; whilst those in Wandsworth attracted a maximum

For this week’s magazine (subscribers click here or follow this link to subscribe from £1/week), I have been on the trail of the ‘Yes To Fairer Votes’ (YTFV) campaign, attempting to discover the real source of their funding. What I found reveals a catalogue of undeclared donations, hidden money trails and one massive conflict of interest of such comical proportions that even Berlusconi would blush. It shows, in effect, that the largest single donor to the ‘Yes’ campaign is Britain’s no1 vendor of ballot papers and vote counting services – a massively profitable outfit whose commercial interest in a new, complicated Westminster voting system is clear. Last week, the Electoral