It was October 2010 the night the priest came to our door. The knock startled Tim’s dullard beagle into a howl just as Tim’s mother was serving up dinner. She and her husband had flown in from New York a few weeks earlier to care for their dying son. Tim and I had moved to
It was October 2010 the night the priest came to our door. The knock startled Tim’s dullard beagle into a howl just as Tim’s mother was serving up dinner. She and her husband had flown in from New York a few weeks earlier to care for their dying son. Tim and I had moved to
The Electoral College will cast their votes for president of the United States tomorrow without any last-minute intel on alleged Russian cyber-meddling, according to a statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. A group of electors had called for a briefing before the December 19 vote, though it’s unclear what they’d hoped
America may need to ‘vote again,’ says former CIA operative Robert Baer – preferably in a plebiscite not orchestrated by Vladimir Putin. The spy-turned-author spoke to CNN on Saturday about the latest reports of Kremlin skulduggery to elect Donald Trump. While there is no evidence that hackers fiddled with electronic voting systems or ballot-counting machines, the CIA
In Miami’s Little Havana, champagne fizzed all weekend. Meanwhile, the rest of us in the free world amused ourselves comparing the barmiest political reactions to the death of Fidel Castro. Jeremy Corbyn is strong in the running for the ‘Despot Hagiography Award’, though top honours must go to the national statesmen remembering a tyrant as a
When a Spectator editor, who shall remain nameless, emailed months ago to ask for an article on the business of post-mortem tattoo preservation, I was horrified. Not because it’s such a horrifying subject, as I discovered and had the pleasure of outlining in this week’s issue. Rather, horrified because it’s a subject that would require genuine effort on
Brooklyn Shall I have my sister’s skin peeled off for display after she dies? Specifically, the tattooed bits — the swatches on either forearm adorned with foliate designs by her favourite artist, and the patch on her wrist inked in her own handwriting with transliterated Hebrew. I’ve always liked them, and not just because they
When in doubt, blame wealthy foreigners for any political problems. That goes for pols in the US and the UK alike, and even the dual-national Mayor of London is not immune. Boris Johnson opposes blanket non-dom and mansion taxes, but wants councils to ‘whack up’ local levies on empty homes and advocates closing stamp-duty loopholes exploited by ‘mainly but not exclusively non-doms’. Through these, he
To use Donald Trump’s own parlance, the Republican presidential nominee is getting ‘schlonged’ in the polls. Following the release of a 2005 tape in which he bragged of making unwanted sexual advances, Trump’s support has dropped to 39 per cent in Rasmussen’s latest survey, versus 44 per cent for Clinton. In South Park terms, this means the
President Obama has taken his European tour to Germany, where he touted the ‘indisputable’ benefits of an EU-US free-trade pact. Speaking at the Hannover Messe Trade Fair, Obama noted the importance of an agreement as a bulwark against the likes of Russia ‘at this time of uncertainty, including here in Europe, when others would use trade
Koumpounophobia is the fear of buttons. Steve Jobs had it — or at least a strong aversion, which explained his affinity for touch-screens and turtlenecks. So do an estimated one of every 75,000 people alive today. Your correspondent was only recently made aware of the phenomenon when a friend, K of Cambridge, requested that I
Spectator Money is out, with ideas on how to make it, spend it and even how to be seen spending it. Freddy Gray looks at the ‘social economy’ – think tax loopholes for financiers of politically favoured endeavours; while Camilla Swift peruses credit cards such as Kanye West’s ‘African American Express’ and the Dubai First Royale, ‘studded with diamonds. Bring it on, Sheikh Sugardaddy.’ Spare a thought, though, for
George Osborne took a victory lap on Friday to declare that ‘instead of footing the bill, we have halved the bill.’ This would be the £1.7 billion EU budget invoice the European Commission handed to the UK government in October, with a pay-by date of 1 December. After meeting with his EU counterparts today, the
London Careening through the city in a minicab last night, en route to a pub in Bloomsbury that had promised to screen US election results, the mustachioed driver confirmed my accent and inquired: ‘So, what will happen after the elections?’ I issued the run-down: left-ish Democrats lose control of the Senate to right-ish Republicans, who also
Malaysian pharmacist Syed Azmi has emerged from hiding to apologise for organising ‘I Want to Touch a Dog’ earlier in October, a canine-petting event that drew a few hundred mostly Muslim Malaysians. So: not all Muslims hate dogs. Only some do. Syed has been getting death threats for the initiative, and is being investigated by
The UK Land Registry today released its latest report on house prises, showing the ticket-cost of an average home in England and Wales down 2.2 per cent to £177,299 in September from a peak of £181,324 in November 2007. No, that still doesn’t mean that underpaid Westminster interns can afford to buy a home in
English NHS ambulance services are spending twice as much on private ambulances than they were in 2012, according to Labour, while response-times have lengthened and ambulance staff appear increasingly disgruntled.[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_28_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Julia Manning joins Mary Wakefield and Fraser Nelson to discuss the 999 crisis.” startat=50] Listen [/audioplayer] So there’s something else to blame on the Tory
Remember this time last year, when Jeremy Hunt decried the ‘national shame’ of neglected old people suffering from undiagnosed dementia? The health secretary lamented that fewer than half of dementia cases are ever diagnosed, and promised ‘to make a big change.’ His initiative got rave reviews at the time. Now that the details are in,
According to an adviser to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, sanctions-hit Moscow intends to slowly move the finance of state companies and political players away from London, Zurich and Frankfurt toward Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. ‘We think we can match what we lose from the West with what China offers,’ the adviser told
Everyone’s favourite unelected European was doing the broadcasting rounds this morning, popping up on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show to tell David Cameron that he can forget any plans to cap the number of EU immigrants in Britain. Here’s what José Manuel Barroso had to say:- “Any kind of arbitrary cap seems to be not in conformity with
