The race isn’t run Sir: Bravo Fiona Unwin (‘Rooting for Rishi’, 6 August) for the best piece I have read on the grassroots take on the Conservative party’s leadership election. Having attended several such hustings both this time and over the years, this one does remind me of 2005: David Davis vs David Cameron. Lots
Tracing paper FBI agents raided Donald Trump’s estate in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, in search of papers he is accused of removing illegally from the White House. What are the rules? — The Presidential Records Act, passed in 1978 in the wake of Watergate, makes clear that documents relating to a president’s time in office are public
Home Energy bills will be £4,266 for a typical household by January, according to the consultancy Cornwall Insight, which had put the sum at £3,616 only a week earlier. Ofgem had decided since then to shorten the period over which suppliers can recover their costs. Gordon Brown, prime minister 2007-10, declared that Boris Johnson, the
The unclued lights are words (or one phrase) which contain three pairs (3 x 2, in the title) of double letters: 13 Tennessee, 15/14 Sweet tooth, 17/37 Successfully, 21/24/39 Whippoorwill, 31/2 Bookkeeper, 41 Committee, 42/6 Barrenness. First prize Chris Edwards, Leeds Runners-up Graeme Palmer, Switzerland; Emma Corke, Abinger Hammer, Surrey
Liz Truss has taken the lead in the Tory leadership race with an agenda that seems radical and ambitious, whereas Rishi Sunak appears to offer only elegantly managed decline. Truss promises instant relief from the rising cost of government; Sunak offers to reverse barely half of his own tax rises – and over the course
Injured party Sir: Prue Leith’s short interlude as a Conservative party member and subsequent resignation underlines a feature of the current membership and the impact of resignations (Diary, 30 July). The Johnson era has seen the continuing decline in party membership brought about by the resignation of many members who were dissatisfied with the evidence
The unclued lights 11 SOLITARY, 8 POOR, 38 NASTY, 36 BRUTISH and 35 SHORT are descriptions of 1 THE LIFE OF MAN in 26 LEVIATHAN by 13 THOMAS HOBBES. First prize David Andrews, Surrey Runners-up Alexander Caldin, Salford, Oxfordshire; Geoff Hollas, London W12
An idea past its sell-by date Waitrose has announced the removal of ‘best before’ dates from many food products. – The idea of printing dates began with Marks & Spencer in the 1950s, but only for use in the stockroom. They first appeared in the company’s shops in 1970 and were named ‘sell-by’ dates from
Home BP reported quarterly profits of £6.9 billion, its biggest for 14 years, after oil and gas prices rose steeply. Typical domestic energy bills were forecast by the consultancy Cornwall Insight to go above £3,600 a year in the coming winter. Under the family scheme for visas, 31,300 Ukrainians had arrived in the United Kingdom,
During the eurozone crisis, southern European states had to go cap in hand to Germany to stave off national bankruptcy. A decade on and it is Berlin doing the begging. Europe has reluctantly agreed a 15 per cent cut in gas use this winter in the hope that German factories can stay open and German
Get fracking Sir: All credit to The Spectator for grabbing the cancelled Tory leadership debate slot (‘The final three’, 23 July) and for quizzing the contenders on the massive cost of net zero. Rishi Sunak’s response was particularly disappointing. Here is a man who has financial acumen and who has spent his entire cabinet career
Home In a television debate between the two contenders for the leadership of the Conservative party (and hence the prime ministership), Rishi Sunak said it would be irresponsible to put the country in even more debt by cutting taxes and Liz Truss said that the tax rises he approved would put Britain into a recession.
The longest heatwave How did the recent heatwave compare with that of 1976? That year, the temperature peaked at 35.9˚C at Cheltenham on 3 July. This did not even break the UK temperature record at the time – 36.7˚C recorded in Northamptonshire on 9 August 1911. No recording from 1976 currently features on the list
As suggested by 11 across, the other unclued lights were anagrams of capital cities: 23A Nairobi, 25A Nassau, 29A Lima, 35A Pretoria, 40A Kabul, 2D Seoul, 6D Luanda, 20D San Marino, 28D Nicosia, 31D Manila. First prize Elaine Galloway, London SE6 Runners-up Dennis Cotterell, Carlisle; Wendy Whitelock, Kilgetty, Pembrokeshire
Hot topic Last week’s Barometer detailed past UK temperature records. Those were broken by this week’s heatwave. On Monday a new Welsh record was set when temperatures hit 35.3˚C in Gogerddan and on Tuesday England measured a new high of 40.3˚C at Coningsby in Lincolnshire. Source: Met Office Inn crowd The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
Home In the contest for the leadership of the Conservative party, Jeremy Hunt and Nadhim Zahawi were the first of the eight contenders to be eliminated, followed by Suella Braverman, Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch. After two televised debates, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, the frontrunners, refused to take part in a third, which was
Procurement profligacy Sir: In response to Susan Hill’s query ‘Who allows the profligacy in NHS hospital procurement to continue?’ (‘Best medicine’, 16 July), it seems the national scale of public sector bureaucracy is just too great. Given the size and spending power of the NHS, no one should come close to achieving equal efficiencies in
The title resolves into CL RVW which suggests the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams. The unclued lights are seven of his compositions: 1A, 1D, 8D, 11A, 15D, 19D/3D and 21D/39A. First prize Julian Prouse, Redditch Runners-up James Bristol, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire; Caroline Arms, Ithaca, NY
Trains were running even more slowly than usual. Schools were closed again. Offices were empty. No one would deny that Monday and Tuesday were on the warm side, at least by British standards. Even so, there was something more alarming than the temperature: how quickly the authorities started to close down society – and showed
How would you describe The Spectator? And how would you sell it to someone who had never read us before? Some of the most important words we write never appear in the magazine: they’re from our ten-strong marketing department. They’re now looking for a senior digital marketing exec: it’s a mid-level job to learn from