Andrew Roberts Biographer The Cameron ministry of 2010-15 will go down in history as having made Britain as the most successful economy in the developed world, despite it having inherited a near-bankrupt nation from a Labour party that spent money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Ordinarily that should be enough to have it
Britain’s airport wars are still ongoing. After the election, the Davies Commission is expected to announce how to expand capacity. The main options are new runway at Heathrow, at Gatwick, or ‘Heathrow Hub’ (extending Heathrow’s runway). Each of them is keen to get their case across to Spectator readers – so much so that they have each
From ‘Cabinet Responsibility’, The Spectator, 1 May 1915: The maintenance of Cabinet responsibility, that is, the responsibility of the Cabinet as a whole for the acts of individual Ministers, is of the utmost importance for the welfare of the nation. It is only through such Cabinet responsibility that the country can hope to obtain a
From ‘News of the Week,’ The Spectator, 1 May 1915: The Government plans for dealing with the liquor problem have ended, as we feared, in “a moist relentment” of small beer and large taxation. Mr. Lloyd George, whom we must entirely exempt from our condemnation of the Government’s cowardly opportunism, evidently failed to induce his
From ‘News of the Week‘, The Spectator, 1 May 1915: SINCE our last issue the western extremity of the western theatre of the war has been the scene of furious fighting in which the French, Belgians, and British have been engaged. The special feature of this second battle of Ypres, one of the greatest of
Dick West, a foreign correspondent and longtime contributor to The Spectator, has died. Here’s a profile we ran about him in 1989. One side of Richard West’s character is his contrariness. At a time when others fear salmonella he refuses to have his breakfast eggs kept in the refrigerator. At the height of the Band Aid
In 1914 some 1,500 men from ‘Churchill’s Little Army’, the First Royal Naval Brigade, retreated from the defence of Antwerp to the Netherlands. As a neutral country the Netherlands was obliged to intern any soliders from warring armies that crossed its borders to stop them re-joining the fight. The men were put in the ‘English Camp’ (or ‘HMS
Today is the 100th anniversary of the first landings of the Gallipoli campaign by Anzac troops. The battle to take control of the Dardanelles and Bosphorous to open a supply route to Russia and force the Ottoman Empire out of the war would, in its eight months, leave 130,000 dead. The Spectator was to report the
‘Is Ed Miliband actually talking or is it Nicola Sturgeon doing his voice?’
‘Apparently she used to be a city tour guide.’
‘I can’t stand Labour party electioneering. What’s on ITV?’
Fridge magnet
‘Oh, Malcolm — is this a raft of proposals?’
‘We’re worried he may be addicted to online porn.’
‘We must remember to send the Johnsons a death threat.’
