The Spectator

Letters | 4 April 2013

Quantitative ease Sir: Unlike Louise Cooper (‘The great savings robbery’, 30 March), I don’t have a problem with inflation or quantitative easing. It’s the perfect tax: painless, easy to collect and fair. It’s painless because after having been collected you still have the proverbial pound in your pocket. OK, it’s worth less — but as

Googling the NUT

Googling lessons Delegates at the National Union of Teachers conference complained about Michael Gove’s ‘pub quiz’ curriculum and suggested that children didn’t need to learn facts any more because they could Google them. Some things you can Google about the NUT: — The union was formed on 25 June 1870 as the National Union of

Portrait of the week | 4 April 2013

Home Housing benefit for council and housing association tenants was reduced by 14 per cent for those deemed to have one spare bedroom and by 25 per cent for those with two or more spare bedrooms. Council Tax Benefit, claimed by 5.9 million families, was transformed into Council Tax Support, supplied by local authority schemes.

45 years ago: The death of Martin Luther King

45 years ago tonight, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr was shot and killed as he stood on a motel balcony, aged just 39. Here is the leader from the following week’s Spectator: The agony of America, The Spectator, 12 April 1968 The assassination of Dr Martin Luther King at Memphis, Tennessee, on Thursday 4 April

Happy Easter | 31 March 2013

It is a glorious morning, suitable weather to mark this joyous day in the Christian calendar. The leading column in this week’s issue of the magazine considers the Easter story in humanity’s past, present and future, from perspective of non-believers as well as believers. Here’s a short excerpt: ‘Unlike Christmas, it’s a story that doesn’t

Postcode

‘I was talking to the wretched woman for at least ten minutes until I realised she was quite an unsuitable postcode.’