No progressive Sir: David Cameron’s article last week (‘It is not enough for Labour to lose this election’) mentioned the post-bureaucratic age ten times. Mr Cameron loves this phrase because it was coined by a progressive — Al Gore’s former speechwriter Andrei Cherney. And as the April date for Mr Cameron’s proposed £5 billion cuts to
A series of selective leaks had suggested that the second edition of the country’s counter-terrorism strategy, released on Tuesday, would see a shift from trying to tackle violent extremism to tackling extremism per se. This would have been a welcome development. Counter-terrorism in Britain has been crippled by a strategic failure to match policy to
Jade Goody was propelled to a very strange form of modern stardom by the reality TV show Big Brother, and even learned of the cancer that finally claimed her life last weekend on the Indian version of that programme. The title of the show was Orwellian. But what the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four could never
Here are some of the posts made over the past week on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson wonders whether we’ve witnessed the beginning of the end, and says that Cameron should learn to love the bankers. James Forsyth tracks the internet success of Daniel Hannan’s attack on Gordon Brown, and says that Brown is hemmed in. Peter Hoskin
Stuck for ideas on what and where to eat over the weekend? Then Scoff! is here to help. Scoff! is a new, food & drink quarterly pullout in the print edition of The Spectator, although all its content – and more – is available at new.spectator.co.uk/scoff. Head over there to find out how to make a
Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no
…here are some of the posts made over the weekend on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson says that a 45p tax rate is not what’s best for this country, and reveals that that Tories’ current plans would leave national debt 60% higher than it is today. James Forsyth sets out what George Osborne is playing it right
Art for money’s sake Sir: It is hardly surprising that Olivia Cole (‘How to put children off art’, 14 March) found so many schoolchildren in the National Gallery and that they seemed to be learning little about art from their visits. The Gallery, like other public bodies, has a funding agreement with its sponsor department,
A momentous shift occurred in British politics this week: the National Union of Students accepted the principle that graduates should contribute to the cost of their degrees. This U-turn is proof that the argument that graduates should pay for their tuition has at last been won, 11 years after the introduction of fees in 1998.
At The Spectator, we are anti-Marxist but pro-musical. So it is with mixed feelings that we learned that Chinese producers in Beijing are to turn Das Kapital into a stage show, complete with big dance numbers and catchy songs. The director, He Nian, told Wen Hui Bao newspaper that ‘the particular performance style we choose
Here are some of the posts made during the past week on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson responds to the latest issue of the New Statesman, and thinks David Cameron got the better of Gordon Brown in PMQS. James Forsyth reports on the government’s debt worries, and says that the Tories are in the same position as
Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no
…here are some of the posts made over the weekend on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson salutes an unlikely hero for taxpayers. James Forsyth spots another G20 disappointment for Brown, and says that failure in Afghanistan would have terribel consequences. Peter Hoskin reports on the clique at the heart of the Tory party, and asks: where is the foreign
No axis of evil Sir: Melanie Phillips’s article (‘Beware the new axis of evangelicals and Islamists’, 7 March) contains untruthful statements about me. I have never said that I wish Israel, in her words, ‘to be destroyed’ or to ‘disappear just as did the apartheid regime in South Africa’. I have never believed this and
For Sinn Fein, the terrorist atrocity on Saturday night that left two British soldiers dead came at the worst possible time and involved the worst possible category of victim. Up until 2007, it seemed possible that the party would soon be in government on both sides of the border. This would have allowed it to
If Prince Charles is guilty of anything in selling the ‘Duchy Herbals Detox Tincture’, now the subject of a hysterical scientific controversy, it is the sin of euphemism. The food supplement is marketed as a way to ‘eliminate toxins and aid digestion’. What this means, in the Queen’s English, is that it aspires to be
We’ve just uploaded David Blackburn’s Web Exclusive report on the latest Spectator / Intelligence Squared event – ‘Afghanistan: the future’. You can read it here.
Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no
…here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson reveals why so many people in this country are on welfare. James Forsyth reports in the Labour party and the politics of immigration, and observes that Gordon Brown thinks he has nothing to apologise for. Peter Hoskin wonders whether the Lib
Don’t go Dutch Sir: The Dutch postal service was privatised, you say, ‘with no perceived damage to the services they offer’ (Leading article, 28 February). You would not say that if you lived here. Firstly, deliveries: there is one a day, which arrives at absolutely random times but is usually around 3 p.m. — even here