The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 31 January 2013

Reforming criminal justice Sir: Crime continues to fall under this government and is now at its lowest level since the crime survey began in 1982. But we can’t be complacent. We still see too many of the same faces going round and round the criminal justice system, as Theodore Dalrymple notes in his article ‘The

The Spectator

Barometer | 31 January 2013

A desert mystery Insurgents were reported to have burned tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts in Timbuktu as French troops surrounded the city. Timbuktu has long been a byword for a distant and unreachable place. But how did it come to be so? — No European is known to have visited Timbuktu until Robert Adams,

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 31 January 2013

Home Britain decided to send 40 ‘military advisers’ to Mali, 70 more with an RAF Sentinel surveillance aircraft and 20 with a C17 transport plane, and 200 to neighbouring states in a training role; Britain was ‘keen’, according to Downing Street, to aid France there. David Cameron, the Prime Minister, visited Algeria. The British economy

The Spectator

Bad care

When the letters ‘NHS’ appeared to the world above the dancing nurses at the Olympic opening ceremony, many in Britain will have imagined two darker words hovering alongside: ‘Mid Staffs’. Few of those affected will have been able to forget what now seems to be one of the greatest scandals in the history of British

The Spectator

Has the RSPCA become a different species?

Is the RSPCA morphing from animal welfare charity into an animal rights group? In this week’s Spectator, Melissa Kite writes that following the charity’s successful prosecution of the Heythrop hunt, its chief executive Gavin Grant now has his sights set on the racing industry: Buoyed by the success of his prosecution of the Heythrop hunt,

Thursday

The Spectator

Foxhunt

‘You know it’s been a dream of mine to go fox-hunting, but it’s too expensive so I’m improvising.’