Italy’s to-do list Sir: You would expect a long letter of rebuttal by a piqued senior diplomat in response to the many barbs that Nicholas Farrell packed into his piece about Italy (‘The dying man of Europe’, 25 October). Among the most painful ones were that Italy is ‘almost doomed’ and parts of it are
What’s special about Rochester What is special about Rochester and Strood? — Rochester has the second oldest cathedral and school in Britain, after Canterbury. — Medway, the unitary authority area in which the constituency is situated, has one of the highest rates of private home-ownership in Britain, with 92 per cent of homes in private
Home The last British combat troops turned over Camp Bastion in Helmand to Afghan forces and withdrew from Afghanistan after 13 years and 453 deaths. Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, spoke of ‘whole towns and communities being swamped by huge numbers of migrants’. He later withdrew the word ‘swamped’, but David Blunkett, a former Labour
In the 2005 general election this magazine supported the Conservatives, with one exception — we urged voters in Medway not to vote for a deeply unimpressive Tory candidate by the name of Mark Reckless. Our then political editor, Peter Oborne, went so far as to write a pamphlet in support of the Labour rival, Bob Marshall
The chances are that by now either you or someone you know well has begun to practise ‘mindfulness’ — a form of Buddhism lite, that focuses on meditation and ‘being in the now’. In the past year or so it’s gone from being an eccentric but harmless hobby practised by contemporary hippies to a new
From The Spectator, 31 October 1914: THE most important event of the past week is the entrance of Turkey into the war, announced in the newspapers of Friday. For some time the Committee of Union and Progress, the gang of desperate and intriguing adventurers who control the Porte, have been doing their best by various
From ‘A Probationer’s Diary’, by a Red Cross volunteer, from The Spectator, 31 October 1914: Friday. The wounded are coming to-morrow. Twenty of them. They are to be drafts from a military hospital, and will be convalescent. Such a flutter in the dovecote, with a cleaning of sinks and of brass, and a preparation of dressings,
From The Spectator, 31 October 1914: We do not ask for help of any material kind from the United States; we recognize that a strict neutrality is not only her proper course, but represents her true interests. All we desire is the sympathy of comprehension, the sympathy of a clear understanding of the principles on
The most curious thing of all is that the sailor should become so much a part of his peculiar element that his detachment from the land is even more marked than the landsman’s imperfect acquaintance with the sea. The sailor comes on shore like a man penetrating doubtfully into an unknown hinterland; he has the air
From The Spectator, 31 October 1914: The Germans are doing rapidly and effectively what we ought to be doing, and what we must do if we are to win. They are raising new armies and training the remaining portion of their adult male population to arms. When the war began we all thought that about
From The Spectator, 24 October 1914: It is alleged that in London there are something like a hundred thousand people, and as many more in the rest of the country—probably the figures are twice too high—of German and Austrian nationality. These aliens are for the most part at present earning their living in various trades.
From The Spectator, 24 October 1914: Time being against her, a condition of stalemate on her frontiers is a hopeless business for Germany. Invasion, then, is a logical necessity. It is true that the chances are small, and that failure might mean the loss of a quarter of a million Germans or more, but to the
From The Spectator, 24 October 1914: For years past the vodka monopoly in Russia has been a public scandal. Government officials, in order to get good financial returns, have connived at the abasement of the people by encouraging drink. Year by year the revenue from the vodka monopoly has increased by leaps and bounds till
‘Please, Dad, can I have a puppy?’
‘It’s another breakthrough for artificial intelligence — it’s learned to take selfies!’
‘It’s a worse record on immigration than the government’s!’
‘What do you mean you want to cut out dairy?’
