Books & arts – 9 June 2016
The Spectator
Thursday
EU referendum TV debate – Leave and Remain face off in ITV showdown
Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman review the ITV debate: Welcome to Coffee House’s coverage of ITV’s EU referendum debate. Boris Johnson, Andrea Leadsom and Gisela Stewart made the case for Brexit, and Nicola Sturgeon, Angela Eagle and Amber Rudd argued for Britain to stay in the EU. Here’s our commentary from the debate, as well
All the Ins and Outs
We asked two of the most eloquent voices in the EU referendum debate to put their best arguments in the most condensed form — and gave them a few words to rebut each other. • The six best reasons to vote Remain, by Matthew Parris, with a response from Daniel Hannan • The six best
The Kitchener effect
From ‘Lord Kitchener’, The Spectator, 9 June 1916: The central fact in Kitchener’s administration of the War Office is that he both invented and created the New Armies, and that he did it of his own motion, alone bearing the responsibility of the idea, and almost alone stubbornly asserting and reasserting the belief that this
Wednesday
Transcript: George Osborne vs Andrew Neil on Brexit
Coffee House Shots James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss George Osborne’s performance Abridged transcript of George Osborne’s interview with Andrew Neil. AN: Now you claim the European Union could cause armed conflict if we leave, could put a bomb under our economy if we leave – the Prime Minister’s words: hurt pensioners, collapse house
Tuesday
EU referendum TV debate – David Cameron vs Nigel Farage
Welcome to Coffee House’s coverage of ITV’s EU referendum debate. David Cameron and Nigel Farage faced public questions on the EU referendum. Here’s our commentary, as well as audio and video highlights, from the discussion. PODCAST: Listen to Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman give their verdict on Cameron vs Farage: DAVID CAMERON: James Forsyth David
Thursday
Portrait of the week | 2 June 2016
Home Two British men were charged with immigration offences after the rescue by night of 18 Albanian migrants, two of them children, from an inflatable boat off Dymchurch, Kent. ‘We don’t want the English Channel turning into the Mediterranean with fleets of small boats coming over,’ said Chris Grayling, the Leader of the House of
Letters | 2 June 2016
Cameron’s bluster Sir: Peter Oborne is surely right that lying and cheating are now commonplace in the heart of government (‘The new dodgy dossiers’, 28 May). If David Cameron truly believed that exit from the EU would mean economic meltdown, a third world war and always winter but never Christmas, his decision to hold a
Barometer | 2 June 2016
Gorilla warfare Harambe, a 17-year-old gorilla, was shot at Cincinnati Zoo after he started dragging away a boy aged four who had fallen into his enclosure. What are world’s biggest threat to gorillas? — There are approximately 100,000 left in the wild, most of them western lowland gorillas who live in the Congo. — Two
Continental drift | 2 June 2016
It is a long time since the term ‘sick man of Europe’ could be applied to Britain. France is now a worthier candidate for the accolade — it -increasingly resembles a tribute act to 1970s Britain. A package of modest labour-market reforms presented by a socialist president has provoked national strikes on the railways and
Against armistice
From ‘President Wilson and the Lessons of History’, 2 June 1916: Emphatically it is not a war of what we may call the old eighteenth-century pattern, where any one could step in and say, as if speaking to a couple of duellists: ‘You have had a good honest fight. Honour is satisfied. Now don’t you
Friday
The Spectator poll: Are You In or Out? Bob Geldof, Tim Rice & Joey Essex have their say
The Spectator’s EU Poll asked a fairly random group of well-known people how they’d vote in the EU referendum, and this is what they said: Sir Tim Rice, lyricist: ‘In 1975 I voted to stay in the Common Market from a standpoint of ignorance. In 2016 I shall vote to leave the EU, as a
Thursday
Letters | 26 May 2016
Leave’s grumpy grassroots Sir: James Delingpole should join us at a Remain street stall. He would soon be disabused of his idea that Remainers are ‘shrill, prickly and bitter’ and Leavers are ‘sunny, relaxed and optimistic’ (‘What’s making Remain campaigners so tetchy?’, 21 May). We can often spot a likely Leaver by their angry expression.
Barometer | 26 May 2016
A man in full A relic said to contain a fragment of St Thomas à Becket’s elbow arrived from Hungary for a tour of London and Kent. Where to go to see some of his other bits: — St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic church, Burgate Canterbury: fragments of vestment, bone and finger are in a glass
Losing faith
A landmark in national life has just been passed. For the first time in recorded history, those declaring themselves to have no religion have exceeded the number of Christians in Britain. Some 44 per cent of us regard ourselves as Christian, 8 per cent follow another religion and 48 per cent follow none. The decline of
Portrait of the week | 26 May 2016
Home The government published a Treasury analysis warning that an exit from the EU would plunge Britain into a year-long recession and could cost 820,000 jobs. David Cameron, the Prime Minister, speaking with George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at B&Q’s head office in Hampshire, said that leaving ‘would be like surviving a fall
Books & arts – 26 May 2016
The dogs of peace
From ‘Food dictatorship’, The Spectator, 27 May 1916: Nobody would like to see the whole race of dogs exterminated, but there are undoubtedly more dogs maintained in this country than can reasonably be justified, and a substantial addition to the Dog Tax would diminish the number, and pro tanto economise the consumption of food.
Thursday
Barometer | 19 May 2016
Name check 306 business people signed a letter to the Daily Telegraph saying that Britain would be better off outside the EU. Some notable collections of signatures: — 364 economists signed a Times letter about the dangers of monetarism in 1981. — 5,154 physicists signed a paper in Physical Review Letters last year reporting a