The Spectator

Podcast: Big trouble in Big China

Forget Greece; China’s economic slowdown is the biggest story of the year, says Elliot Wilson in this week’s issue of The Spectator. China’s long boom may finally be ending and the consequences for the world will be profound. Elliot joins Isabel Hardman and Andrew Sentance, Senior Economic Adviser at PwC and a former member of the

Boy soldiers

From ‘What will they do with it?’, The Spectator, 14 August 1915: It is true that in a good many cases boys of 17 ought not to be sent to the trenches. Such boys would, however, be quite serviceable for home defence purposes, and it is obvious that we must in any case keep a quarter

The Spectator at war: The last post

From ‘The End of the First Year‘, The Spectator, 7 August 1915: Terrible as have been the sufferings caused by the war—the agonies of the body for those who have fought and fallen wounded, and the agonies of the mind for those who have seen husbands, fathers, and sons go to their deaths or return

Loft

‘There’s so much rubbish up here — and there’s the pedestal you used to put me on.’

Portrait of the week | 6 August 2015

Home Tom Hayes, aged 35, a former City trader who rigged the Libor rates daily for nearly four years while working in Tokyo for UBS, then Citigroup, from 2006 until 2010, was jailed by Southwark Crown Court for 14 years for conspiracy to defraud. The government sold a 5.4 per cent stake in Royal Bank

Barometer | 6 August 2015

Rogue traders Former UBS trader Tom Hayes was jailed for 14 years for rigging the Libor market. How long could you go down for financial misconduct? 19 months (plus a £100,000 fine) in the case of Julian Rifat, former trader at Moore Capital, convicted of insider trading in March this year. 7 years in the

Ted talk

There was a grim inevitability that the name Edward Heath would one day be trawled up in connection with allegations of sexual abuse of children. As one of our few unmarried prime ministers, Heath always attracted speculation about his sexuality. The public image of a private man wedded to his career, content to spend his