The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Germany’s unimpressive air raids

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 17 April 1915: The chief event, or rather sensation, of the week has been the German aircraft raids—first on the Tyne on Wednesday, and then on Thursday over Lowestoft and Malden and other parts of South Suffolk and North Essex. Both raids were quite futile. The raid on

View from 22 podcast special: the Conservative manifesto

In a View from 22 podcast special, Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the implications of the Conservative manifesto, which was announced today. You can read the full manifesto here and Isabel’s snap reaction here. Will Tory promises on issues such as childcare, housing and income tax be enough to convince voters that they are

The Spectator at war: Friendship and the war

From ‘Friendship and the War’, The Spectator, 10 April 1915: WE are all losing our friends. This is true in a tragic sense, because our friends are dying in battle. But there is a lighter sense in which it is true also, and which is also connected with the war. There is so much work to be

The Spectator at war: The possibilities of thrift

From ‘The Possibilities of Thrift’, The Spectator, 10 April 1915: IT has, perhaps, not yet been sufficiently realized that the country is passing through what may almost be called an economic revolution. Large numbers of the working classes who, let it be frankly admitted, were often underpaid are now in receipt of incomes which, in

Noah

‘You laughing hyenas at the back, why don’t you just come out here to the front and then we can all share the joke?’

Spin

‘Or this is the election model — it features both a spin cycle and a counter-spin cycle.’

Letters | 9 April 2015

In defence of Catholicism Sir: Michael Gove gives an excellent defence of Christianity (4 April), but his embarrassment about the Roman Catholic part of the story is unnecessary. He writes of his discomfort as, declaring oneself to be a Christian, ‘You stand in the tradition of the Inquisition, the Counter-Reformation, the Jesuits who made South