Never speak on the same platform as Sir Malcolm Rifkind. I tried it once, at a Spectator debate held during the Scottish independence referendum campaign in 2014, and I will not be repeating the experience. The former Foreign Secretary spoke as usual without notes, and with such ringing clarity and confidence that all the other
Never speak on the same platform as Sir Malcolm Rifkind. I tried it once, at a Spectator debate held during the Scottish independence referendum campaign in 2014, and I will not be repeating the experience. The former Foreign Secretary spoke as usual without notes, and with such ringing clarity and confidence that all the other
It ought not to be a surprise that Alex Salmond, Scotland’s former First Minister, has declared that the vote to leave the European Union is the trigger for a second referendum on Scottish independence. Salmond thinks everything is an excuse for another go. If a new Bay City Rollers album suffered poor reviews south of
With The Spectator and Coffee House you are already used to getting the very best gossip and news. Can I interest you in the perfect accompaniment?It is a new service called CapX. I’m its editor and we have been trialling the site since last summer. The new version, looking rather nice we hope, launched today.
Ben, an articulate 14-year-old hard at work in the school design and proto-typing centre, is explaining to Lord Baker of Dorking how 3D printing works. Baker, a former Tory education secretary, listens intently before declaring the technology ‘marvellous’. This coming July will mark the 25th anniversary of his leaving the Department for Education — but Lord
When Fred Goodwin was looking for a marketing slogan in the boom years, he alighted on a simple phrase which encapsulated the ‘can-do’ philosophy of the bank he ran. RBS would, promised the adverts, ‘Make It Happen’. Goodwin and his colleagues made it happen, though not quite in the way they intended. They turned RBS
Britishness was supposed to be finished, its last flickering embers to be snuffed out by Alex Salmond when he holds his 2014 referendum on breaking up the Union. The London Olympics, the Nationalists claimed, would be the last at which the Scots, English, Welsh and Northern Irish would be teammates. The Scots, supposedly on the
Alex Salmond will be a formidable opponent – so David Cameron needs to fight on his own terms In Aberdeen this week, a new statue of Robert the Bruce was unveiled. Canny, daring and tenacious, he is a king revered for an audacious victory that altered the course of Scottish history and secured his country’s
Iain Martin examines Gordon Brown’s confident policies before and after disaster struck and finds them wanting In a previous life, working on Scottish newspapers, I used to take delivery of the occasional article offered by Gordon Brown. The then Chancellor of the Exchequer or one of his aides would call— on the way to the
Gordon Brown’s chief fixer is ensconced in Unite, the increasingly militant union. Iain Martin asks if the comrades can be persuaded to hold back a wave of strikes Where is Charlie Whelan these days? What’s the old rascal up to? The trade union fixer, spin-doctoring confidant and close friend of the Prime Minister was on
