Home The cost of the HS2 railway line was expected by some in the Treasury to rise from £43 billion to £73 billion. The number of new homes being built in England rose by 6 per cent in the three months to June. The United Kingdom has lost more than 40 per cent of its
The forecast is bad. Football is back. Gloom strikes. Cure the malaise by reading the book reviews in this week’s Spectator. Here’s a selection: Richard Davenport-Hines introduces the celebrated American novelist and businesswoman Willa Cather to a British audience: ‘Cather was a pioneering career woman who in the late 1890s supported herself as a magazine editor
‘Flying fish. Flying foxes. Birds, bats… You really like killing things that fly, don’t you?’
‘I’m finding it hard moving forward in life.’
‘I know you wanted to find a quiet part of the beach but we’ve walked too far now.’
‘I hope you haven’t got any skeletons in your YouTube...’
‘Apparently some of our pupils were born in wedlock. We must do all we can to ensure they’re not treated as outcasts.’
Pandora’s box sets
‘It was much more fun sticking someone’s head down the toilet.’
‘…over, the white cliffs of Dover…’
‘How embarrassing… nobody said it was a black-tie do.’
‘Why do we spend so much on foreign aid when we could be giving it to charity bosses?’
We would not want to return to the days when the transport secretary was actively engaged in the running of the railways, down to what the last wheel-tapper was paid. Nevertheless, Patrick McLoughlin’s answer when invited to condemn the £5 million bonuses which could be on offer to Network Rail directors over the next three
