Last night Spectator Events hosted a discussion at Church House, Westminster about whether the BBC really is a national treasure. Speakers included Melvyn Bragg, author and broadcaster, James Purnell, director of strategy and digital at the BBC, Andrew Bridgen MP, Meirion Jones, investigative journalist, Robin Aitken, author of Can we trust the BBC? and Rachel Johnson, author and
From ‘The Example of France’, The Spectator, 20 November 1915: France is an example to the world and to posterity of how a nation can bend itself to the work in hand, and labour with its whole body, its whole mind, and its whole soul. The more we know of the splendid details of this
Daniel Hahn I suspect many people won’t bother to read Katherine Rundell’s The Wolf Wilder (Bloomsbury, £12.99) because it’s a children’s book. Don’t be one of those people. You’d be depriving yourself of a ferociously paced, brilliantly imagined piece of gorgeous, immersive storytelling — and really, why would you want to do that? Set
Should the Investigatory Powers Bill be rushed through parliament in the wake of the Paris attacks? David Cameron seemed to suggest so this morning, when he said that the bill was part of his ‘full spectrum’ response. Britain will be responding to the Paris atrocities, he said, and this… ‘…means boosting our counter-terrorism capabilities. We
‘The John Lewis advert seems to start earlier every year.’
‘There’s a rumour going round it was murder.’
‘Hi! Oh, nothing really, just socialising.’
‘Hang on, scroll back up a bit.’
‘What’s your carcinogen of the day?’
‘If I’m on holiday, you’ll have to get a locum to strike for me.’
‘I’m into wearable tech.’
The C of E should apologise Sir: Peter Hitchens’s article on the allegations against the late Bishop Bell is a welcome intervention in a sorry affair (‘Justice for Bishop Bell’, 7 November). If the best evidence against Bishop Bell was sufficient only to merit his arrest (were he alive), then the recent statements concerning him
A marathon of cheats Russian athletes may be stripped of the medals they won at the 2012 Olympics, but what of the earliest-known drug-taker in the modern Olympics? Thomas Hicks won the 1904 marathon in St Louis after taking two doses of brandy laced with strychnine. —Hicks collapsed on the finishing line and had to
Were David Cameron in any way adept at spin, it would be tempting to think that the publication of the Investigatory Powers Bill had been deliberately timed so as to coincide with the opening of Spectre, the new James Bond film. The debate over the bill has turned into a question of whether we trust
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, outlined four changes he sought in Britain’s membership of the EU. He wanted to protect the single market for Britain and others outside the eurozone; to increase commercial competitiveness; to exempt Britain from an ‘ever closer union’; and to restrict EU migrants’ access to in-work benefits. Mr Cameron put
From ‘Soldiers for the land’, The Spectator, 13 November 1915: It is certain that, when the war is over, tens of thousands of soldiers will not want to return to their former urban occupations. No man who has enjoyed the liberty of a greater world and a freer life will be reconciled easily to resuming his