Portas
The Spectator
Thursday
Celeb
‘Did you pack this bag, write this book, design this range of clothes and bedlinen and manufacture this perfume yourself?’
Fruitcake
Forgot
‘Say what you like about gay marriage — I’ve forgotten all about our desperate financial situation.’
Bing
‘OK, which one of you did that?
Quality
‘This is Jennings, in charge of driving up standards.’
Barometer | 30 May 2013
Minority sports The annual cheese-rolling race took place at Cooper’s Hill, Gloucestershire, won by an American who had flown over for the occasion. Some more minority sports: Chessboxing Contestants compete over 11 rounds, each one consisting of 4 minutes of chess followed by 2 minutes of boxing. National championships are held in India Unicycle polo
Letters | 30 May 2013
HS2 v broadband Sir: Rory Sutherland (The Wiki Man, 25 May) is rightly sceptical of HS2, but in limiting his remarks only to the transport of people, he is still too kind. Why spend 20 years building Victorian technology when the infrastructure of the future will be a broadband network of far greater capacity than exists
Portrait of the week | 30 May 2013
Home Ten men were arrested in connection with the public, daylight murder of Drummer Lee Rigby near his barracks in Woolwich. The two chief suspects, Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, Britons of Nigerian descent and converts to Islam, had waited in the street after the hacking to death of the soldier until armed
The madness of ring-fencing government spending.
As ministers trooped one by one into George Osborne’s office last week for negotiations over the Spending Review, most looked pretty grim, steeling themselves against news of cuts to come. But three more cheerful figures stood out: the Secretaries of State for Health, Education and International Development. Their budgets, which between them account for more
Wednesday
Don’t privatise justice
Privatisation has been a hugely successful policy over the past 30 years. Unfortunately, though, the government seems to have learned the wrong lesson from it. The proposal to sell the Courts Service’s buildings, and transfer some of its staff to the private sector, promises to bring out the worst aspects of the policy: it gives
Monday
Spectator debate: Assad is a war criminal — the West must intervene in Syria
With further reports today that Bashar Assad is deploying chemical weapons in Syria, the prospect of intervention looms larger than ever. The EU is talking about lifting its arms embargo (at Britain’s insistence) and France’s foreign minister talks about “stronger and better substantiated indications of the local use of chemical arms”. Barack Obama has indicated
Thursday
Alien
‘You always get bloody buskers at space stations.’
Tv
‘That’s the television.’
Health
‘They come over here, stealing our jabs…’
Picasso
Jeff felt an inexplicable closeness to Picasso after becoming a Police Community Support Officer.
Anger
‘The gods are in need of some serious anger management.’
Diversity
‘I preferred it when it was “ties”.’
