Forty years on The forthcoming EU referendum has rekindled memories of the in-out Common Market referendum of 1975. But it seems a strange looking-glass world now. — Mrs Thatcher was a keen ‘yes’ campaigner, sporting a jumper with the flags of EC member states. Neil Kinnock campaigned for a British exit. The SNP and Plaid
David Cameron is now facing the biggest challenge of his leadership: how to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the EU without destroying his party. His dilemma mirrors the situation of Harold Wilson 40 years ago this month. So far, the old Labour man looks the better strategist. Wilson, who had a majority of three, avoided mass
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said of the EU referendum: ‘If you want to be part of the government, you have to take the view that we are engaged in an exercise of renegotiation to have a referendum and that will lead to a successful outcome.’ This caused a certain amount of uproar, with
From ‘Cabinet Salaries and Cabinet Pensions’, The Spectator, 12 June 1915: THE National Government have very wisely taken a step which we strongly urged upon the late Government on February 28th, 1914, and again on July 4th of the same year. They are going to pool their salaries just as we then recommended, and make
From ‘The Essential Need’, The Spectator, 12 June 1915: Just as wages must be ‘stabilised’ for the men at existing rates, so all additional profits due to war contracts must be credited, not to the individual employer, but to the state. The principle of no war rise in wages must be strictly applied to profits. Upon
From ‘The Essential Need’, The Spectator, 12 June 1915: UNLESS we beat the Germans they will bleed us to death, and grind their heels upon our faces. Those who in their hearts nourish a secret feeling that if the worst comes to the worst we can always break off the war, and acknowledge ourselves conquered,
From ‘The United States and Germany’, The Spectator, 12 June 1915: THE resignation of Mr. Bryan, the powerful American Secretary of State, which took the United States by surprise, must of course affect considerably the methods by which the American Cabinet will conduct their negotiations with Germany. Mr. Bryan, as he has in effect told
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 12 June 1915: A MAGNIFICENT feat of airmanship was performed at three o’clock on Monday morning by Flight-Sub-Lieutenant R. A. J. Warneford, R.N., who single-handed attacked a Zeppelin between Ghent and Brussels and destroyed it. He dropped six bombs on the Zeppelin, and had come so close to
From ‘Latent Creeds’, The Spectator, 5 June 1915: Has it not sometimes occurred to habitual church-goers to think how intensely interesting it would be if, when the congregation turned to the east, each man, instead of repeating after the choir, proclaimed aloud the creed of his soul? It would not perhaps be a bad spiritual
From ‘Husbands, Sons and Brothers’, The Spectator, 5 June 1915: AT the beginning of the war it was proposed by a group of well-known Englishwomen that mourning should not be worn for those killed in battle. The motive was excellent—the spirit of the Roman mother who did not count lost a life given for the
From ‘Depression and its Causes’, The Spectator, 5 June 1915: What causes fear and anxiety in moments of crisis is not the inevitable, but the thought whether one is doing enough or doing the right thing to prevent the peals which one dreads. When men have made the renunciation and are spending their last shilling
‘…and she leaves behind 30,000 Twitter followers.’
‘Who cares what it is? I want one!’
Sepp Blatter: the early years
‘And the hotel you were staying in would like their towels back.’
‘There’ll be a ten-year waiting list.’
‘It’s aimed at the aspirational poor.’