If all goes according to plan, the first baby with the DNA of three people will be British, and could be born next year. Mitochondrial transfer could end years of misery for some couples and prevent appalling conditions being passed on to the next generation. Some scientists have raised concerns that it’s such uncharted territory
Seventy years on from the liberation of Auschwitz, Roman Kent, who was 12 when he was sent there, wept as he implored the world not to allow anything like that to happen again. ‘How can one erase the sight of human skeletons – just skin and bones, but still alive?’ he said. ‘How can I
This week’s wazzock spat hasn’t polarised people in the way that arguments about class often do; most of us have just enjoyed the spectacle of the pop star James Blunt and the Labour MP Chris Bryant exchanging insults. In case you missed it, Bryant said it was a pity the arts were dominated by public
Sometimes writers have to get a memoir out of their system before they can start on their great novel. Will Boast spent years trying to turn his life story into fiction, but eventually gave up and wrote an autobiography. In Epilogue, he describes how his mother died of brain cancer when he was in his
The recent BDO and PDA darts championships were undeniably glorious. Ronnie O’Sullivan is arguing that snooker needs to learn from darts by introducing shot clocks and power play to speed things up. Perhaps another way of boosting snooker’s status would be to bring in an element of hooliganism. John Wells was delighted when a Jamaican
There’s something so depressing about the newspapers’ tips for sticking to your New Year’s Resolutions that to shield yourself from boredom and irritation, you may decide not to make any at all. But they can be rather romantic; the diplomat Harold Nicolson had a tender affection for resolutions, much preferring them to Christmas. How far
This week’s Senate Report on the CIA hasn’t settled the question of torture once and for all, as Bruce Anderson has pointed out. When we talk about the heroes of the Resistance, our deepest admiration is reserved for the fighters who didn’t give away their secrets under torture, so the claim that the CIA’s enhanced
There have been some glorious celebrations of human flesh in the newspapers this week – who could resist poring over the pictures from the Victoria’s Secret catwalk show, or taking a few minutes to study Madonna’s page three shoot? Of course they’ve also spawned an awful lot of articles containing words like empowerment and objectify,
The Shadow Education Secretary is suggesting that private schools provide qualified teachers to help deliver specialist subject knowledge to state schools. It’s depressing that they don’t all already have in-house specialists. Not surprising though, according to Terence Kealey, who argued in 1991 that the state should never have got involved in education in the first
What You Want, or the Pursuit of Happiness by Constantine Phipps (Quercus, £20). This is a deeply eccentric book — a novel entirely in verse set in a theme park that takes in the history of philosophy and the tale of a disintegrating marriage. In a few witty rhyming couplets, my cousin Constantine Phipps can
The verse before Laurence Binyon’s ‘They shall not grow old…We will remember them’, is this: They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, They fell with their faces to the foe. It’s reflected in an
Good on David Cameron for refusing to wear that hideous T-shirt. Feminists these days spend an awful lot of time telling people what to think and what to wear. It’s easy to forget the heady days of feminism’s innocence, when it lobbied for freedom, the freedom for women to operate telegraphs, for example. The deft
Britain has ended combat operations in Afghanistan. The war did topple the Taleban, but it hasn’t got rid of them. It has improved some things in Afghanistan – better roads, better education, better newspapers – but the country is still corrupt, bankrupt and dangerous. When Britain and America decided to go into Afghanistan in 2001,
Richard Bradford has written more than 20 books of literary criticism and biography. This latest one is a compendium of writers’ feuds and resentments. Reading Literary Rivals is a curious experience; from the quotations and bare facts you can just about make out a version of reality, but it’s fighting so hard against the author’s
Ebola clinics in many parts of West Africa are full, so more and more people are being told to stay at home and take Paracetamol and fluids if they become infected. It means if someone in your family gets Ebola, you all have to stay in the house, which is effectively a death sentence. At
Talking to people in Clacton-on-Sea this week, there was a sense that, as much as they thought there were too many people in Britain, they felt politicians had it too easy. Over and over again people told me that MPs in Westminster didn’t understand working people. Politics is becoming less about policy and more about empathy; voters
University terms are getting started and this year’s Freshers may be glad to read that The Spectator has always staunchly supported the right to get drunk. In the late 19th century, the magazine took issue with the Permissive Bill, which would allow individual parishes to vote on whether or not to ban the liquor trade.
The three recent beheadings by the so-called Islamic State have been peculiarly, barbarically pointless. IS was asking western governments to leave them be to wreak havoc across the Middle East; it was an unrealistic demand. But rather than toning down their behaviour to a level perhaps tolerable, they simply executed their hostages. By murdering two American
It’s been a good week for old people. On Friday, the Chilean poet Nicanor Parra celebrated his 100th birthday, and at midday people in Chile stopped whatever they were doing to read one of his poems. On his annual visit to Skegness, a 104-year-old man called Sid Pope was delighted when he was welcomed by
South Korea’s education system puts us to shame. Last year the BBC tested a group of 15- and 16-year-olds with some questions from a GCSE maths paper; they all finished in half the time allowed, four scored 100 per cent and the other two dropped one mark. It’s the kind of performance most British teachers
