The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 3 September 2015

Suicide and assisted dying Sir: As a mental health practitioner, I am grateful to Douglas Murray (‘Death watch’, 29 August) for his incisive commentary on the impact of legalised euthanasia on people with psychiatric conditions. Supporters of assisted dying argue that a permissive act would be tightly framed, but the scope would inevitably widen, as has

The Spectator

Barometer | 3 September 2015

Peers’ peers Forty-five new peers were created. Are we alone in having an upper house of parliament made up of appointed cronies? FRANCE Senate has 348 members elected for six-year terms by 150,000 state officials known as ‘grandes electeurs’. GERMANY Bundesrat is made up of 69 members delegated by governments of individual states. ITALY Senate composed

The Spectator

Elizabeth the Great

That the Queen has lived to become our longest-reigning monarch — a milestone which she will mark quietly with a lunch next Wednesday — is in itself a sign of the golden age of prosperity which has been the second Elizabethan age. Over the 63 years of her reign, life expectancy for women has increased

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 3 September 2015

Home The Government decided after all to retain the rules preventing ministers and their departments from publishing campaign material, ‘with some exceptions’, in the month before the referendum on membership of the European Union. The Electoral Commission said the planned wording for the referendum, ‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?’

The Spectator

Muscular economics

From ‘War bonuses’, The Spectator, 4 September 1915: War means a demand for human muscle… At the moment the brain-worker is at a discount. The demand for lawyers, for writers, for musicians, for painters has declined. The only brain-workers who are much wanted are the comparatively small number of people necessary to direct industrial and war

Thursday