Charles Moore

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_17_July_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Charles Moore and Fraser Nelson discuss the reshuffle” startat=851] Listen [/audioplayer]This must be the worst reshuffle since Mrs Thatcher demoted Geoffrey Howe in 1989. Unlike that one, its errors are unforced. This year, David Cameron had established a surprisingly strong position as the leader whose unpopular but necessary policies were starting to work.

Like almost everyone else, I have no idea whether the accusations about paedophilia in Parliament in the 1980s are true. One thing I do feel quite confident about, though, is the business of the lost ‘dossiers’. The suggestion is that the disappearance of the file containing Geoffrey Dickens’s accusations of about 30 years ago and

‘A culture changes by example and a licentious old man being found guilty will help do that,’ says a leader in the Times. Perhaps, but I would be much more impressed if it were a licentious younger man. We can all moralise away in retrospect about what the BBC and others allowed Rolf Harris CBE or Sir

‘A culture changes by example and a licentious old man being found guilty will help do that,’ says a leader in the Times. Perhaps, but I would be much more impressed if it were a licentious younger man. We can all moralise away in retrospect about what the BBC and others allowed Rolf Harris CBE or

Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, is undoubtedly one of the most dashing figures on the world stage. I first met him in the mid-1980s, possibly when I was a guest of the Oxford Union and Radek who, I seem to remember, was wearing white tie and tails, was on the standing committee. At that

On Friday night, I went to Althorp, childhood home of Diana, Princess of Wales, to speak at its literary festival. My first duty was to appear on the panel of the BBC’s Any Questions? in a tent there. It was 30 years to the month that I had first been on the programme. Then it

David Cameron is said to want a woman to be chairman of the BBC Trust, now that Chris Patten has had to retire early because of ill health. Perhaps he has a bad conscience about what happened last time. By far the best candidate then was the runner-up, Patricia Hodgson, a distinguished BBC veteran who

Not long after the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich last summer, I wrote a piece in the Daily Telegraph criticising the concentration on the alleged backlash against Muslims. In particular, I attacked an organisation called Tell Mamma, run by Fiyaz Mughal, for appearing to suggest that the unpleasant EDL was as monstrous as

The conviction of Max Clifford for indecent assaults feels like a vindication of the jury system, as did the acquittal of the many other showbiz characters charged under Operation Yewtree. One reason I keep raising questions of justice about the current obsession with paedophilia is out of suspicion that those most zealous in their accusations

The conviction of Max Clifford for indecent assaults feels like a vindication of the jury system, as did the acquittal of the many other showbiz characters charged under Operation Yewtree. One reason I keep raising questions of justice about the current obsession with paedophilia is out of suspicion that those most zealous in their accusations