Technical issues Sir: Martin Vander Weyer’s supposition that car manufacturers are holding back investment due to Brexit seems to be wishful thinking (Any other business, 30 June). Having worked for years for one of the largest international vehicle manufacturers in both finance and export, I can assure him that the investment cycle is almost entirely to do
Home In an attempt to distract the nation from the toothache of Brexit, the government announced a £4.5 million scheme to encourage homosexuals to hold hands; a law would be considered to ban corrective therapy, which Penny Mordaunt, the Equalities Minister, said could involve rape. A man known as Nick, whose true name is withheld
In the basement of The Spectator office, there is a 12-volume version of the paper in its original incarnation. That journal, started in 1711 by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, lasted barely two years. But collections of its essays could be found in almost every educated household for generations after. The first Spectator was seen
In Henry VI part II, Dick says to Cade: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers’, thus potentially victimising Atticus Finch (3A), Perry Mason (20D) and Rumpole (30D). First prize Mrs R. Bailey, Swindon Runners-up Mrs E. Knights, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire; Mark Roberts, Hostert, Luxembourg
190 years of The Spectator 5 July 1828 The principal object of a Newspaper is to convey intelligence. It is proposed in The Spectator to give this, the first and most prominent place, to a report of all the leading occurrences of the week. In this department, the reader may always expect a summary
190 years of The Spectator 4 June 1975 At no time during the campaign have the opponents of our membership of the EEC been remotely as unbalanced, as hysterical or as deliberately personally insulting as those in the opposite camp. Naturally, as in any vigorously fought campaign, there have been some fibs and
190 years of The Spectator 6 September 1957 There are two ways of looking at sexual immorality. One is to regard all illicit intercourse as a crime; the other is to regard it as a sin but not as something which concerns the State unless it has obvious anti-social consequences. The first has been
190 years of The Spectator 13 August 1881 The reading of this book fills us with alarm. It is evidently the work of a clever man, as well as of an educated man, but it is not only a book containing poems which ought never to have been conceived, still less published, but it
190 years of The Spectator 1 June 1861 The time has arrived when the national will on the American quarrel ought to be expressed. A party, numerous in Parliament and powerful in the press, is beginning to intrigue for the recognition of the South. They are aided by the fears of the cotton dealers,
190 years of The Spectator 14 January 1843 The country gentlemen of England never committed a greater blunder than when they passed the Corn Law of 1815. If they would but allow themselves to examine dispassionately their own objects, they could scarcely fail to discover this, and also the necessity of retreating as
190 years of The Spectator 21 May 1831 Lucretius tells us, in some famous lines, that it is a pleasant thing to watch the sea in a tempest, from the shore: it is a far more gratifying employment to be throwing out Manby’s lifesaving apparatus, and saving the sinking mariners from the wreck.
Harvard’s racial quotas Sir: While I largely agree with Coleman Hughes that racial quotas are counterproductive (‘The diversity trap’, 23 June), he misuses Martin Luther King Jr to buttress his argument. King said that he hoped his descendants would ‘be judged…by the content of their character’, not by their standardised test scores. The grim pursuit of
Nursing numbers Was there ever a time when the NHS wasn’t in crisis? According to a report by NHS Health Improvement in February 2016, the health service was then short of 15,000 nurses. A year later the Royal College of Nursing was claiming a shortfall of 24,000. But that is a lot less than the shortage
Home The Commons voted in favour of a new runway at Heathrow by 415 votes to 119. Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, who had previously promised to lie in front of the bulldozers, absented himself from the vote, instead meeting the Deputy Foreign Minister of Afghanistan in Kabul. ‘My resignation would have achieved absolutely nothing,’
When Nye Bevan launched the NHS on 5 July 1948, most of the British population could not expect to celebrate a 70th birthday. Life expectancy at birth for men was 66 and for women 71. That this has since grown to 79.1 years and 82.8 years respectively is in part — though far from entirely
The unclued lights are COMPOSERS whose surnames begin with the letter D. First prize E.C. Hynard, Guernsey Runners-up Geran Jones, London SW1 R.C. Teuton, Frampton Cotterell
As an economics geek, and a committed free marketer, I’ve always admired the London School of Economics. Despite its left-wing reputation, it was the academic home of Hayek. But even more than that, it produced my husband, Hugh O’Leary. It means that whenever I want a late night discussion about supply side reform or econometrics,
Well oiled The government last week ordered a review into the medical use of cannabis. Some cannabis oil available on the internet: — Hemp oil for pain relief. ‘Great peppermint flavour. Promotes overall health and wellness when combined with a regular workout routine and diet.’ $24.97 — Ultra hemp 500 oil drops. ‘Helps with anxiety,
Song of myself Sir: As a disabled writer, I thoroughly despise the idea of being the beneficiary of a publisher’s tokenistic diversity initiative (‘When diversity means uniformity’, 9 June). If I’m going to achieve success, I’m going to do so on merit alone. In spite of the added challenges I face as a man on