The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Papal infallability

From ‘The Pope and the War’, The Spectator, 17 April 1915: The result of the war may prove that motives which we had supposed to be secured by Christianity are after all to be of little account in directing human actions. That is the situation stated without exaggeration. And in the world in which this

Said

‘Is it something I said, tweeted, retweeted, posted on Facebook, blogged, skyped, texted, snapchatted, emailed or facetimed?’

Letters | 16 April 2015

The real road menace Sir: I write in anger after reading Mark Mason’s malicious attack on mobility scooters (‘Hell on wheels’, 11 April). The motorcar has, since its invention, killed many hundreds of thousands of innocent pedestrians. Meanwhile, whole tracts of our beautiful and productive countryside have been flattened or destroyed to accommodate its traffic.

Barometer | 16 April 2015

Out of tune The use of a song, ‘Love Natural’ by the Crystal Fighters, at the launch of the Labour manifesto backfired when the band’s drummer urged people to vote Green instead. Some other campaign songs whose writers disowned the campaign: — Ronald Reagan used ‘Born in the USA’ by Bruce Springsteen for his re-election

Portrait of the week | 16 April 2015

Home Launching the Conservative party manifesto, David Cameron, the party leader, told voters he wanted to ‘turn the good news in our economy into a good life for you and your family’. The Tories promised: to eliminate the deficit by the end of the parliament; to provide 30 hours of free child care a week