Home The crisis of the week was a shortage of fuel at garages. ‘There is no need for people to go out and panic buy,’ said Paul Scully, the small-business minister. That set motorists queueing. BP had shut some petrol stations and blamed a shortage of heavy goods vehicle drivers. Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary,
There’s a great revival under way in the British TV and film industry, but it’s not the BBC that’s behind it. Netflix is normally secretive about its figures but this week published a list of its most popular shows and top of the pile is Bridgerton, which imagines Regency London as a racially mixed society.
The Spectator is back at Conservative party conference, where we’re delighted to be hosting a packed schedule of entertaining fringe events. We’ll be discussing the biggest topics of the day with a range of exciting guests, hosted by our top team of political journalists. Every event includes a free G&T – make sure to arrive
Seeds of change The Chelsea Flower Show opened in autumn for the first time, delayed thanks to the pandemic. The show has been cancelled before due to the world wars — during the second world war the site was used for an anti-aircraft gun emplacement. But it wasn’t always held in Chelsea. It began as
Britain is caught in an energy crisis of the government’s own making. It is true that gas prices have spiked all over the world — but Britain is suffering more than most. Energy suppliers are going out of business, thanks to the government’s price cap. Even fertiliser companies are going bust, with serious knock-on effects
Driving force Sir: As a long-distance UK lorry driver I am very aware of the issues raised by Rodney Pittam (‘So long, truckers’, 18 September). However the job can provide an income of more than £40,000 to those with a practical rather than an academic bent. Yes, there is unpleasantness, discomfort and a combative attitude
Home To prevent a shortage of meat, which relies on carbon dioxide in its packaging, the government gave millions of taxpayers’ money to an American company to reopen a fertiliser works at Stockton, Co. Durham, that produces the gas as a by-product. The plant had been shut down because of a rise in wholesale gas
Unclued lights were synonyms of NOTHING. ‘A trifle’ is one definition of nothing given in Chambers. First prize James Knox, Beaconsfield Runners-up Phillip Wickens, Horsham; David Morgan, Gilesgate, Durham City
Many feared mass unemployment as a fallout from Covid-19. Instead, we have ended up with the opposite problem: a labour shortage. The lack of lorry drivers has led to some items missing from supermarkets. Pubs, restaurants and many other businesses are struggling to re-open as completely as they would like for want of adequate staff.
The question was ‘What is THE THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY(-)NINTH PRIME NUMBER’ (7A/10/22/40/16/31/32/28)? The answer is 2521, the number of the puzzle, which solvers were to shade. First prize Trevor Evans, Drulingen, France Runners-up Jo Anson, Birmingham; Ian Shiels, Bramley, Leeds
A kick up the assetocracy Sir: While it was heartening to see Fraser Nelson take a stand against the ‘assetocracy’ (11 September), it made for a depressing read too. As a millennial, voting Conservative today feels increasingly like an act of social charity. Something done at my own economic expense to shield my fellow citizens
Home The government decided to offer booster vaccinations to those over 50. Children aged 12 to 15 would be offered one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination. This followed a declaration by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation that it could not recommend vaccination for these children for their own health benefit alone; the chief
For 18 months, the government has held power over us as never before in peacetime. The emergency powers granted by parliament in March last year can cancel our events, separate families and send us back into our homes. The argument for giving politicians this kind of control was that leaders needed to make huge decisions
Out of practice Sir: GPs are not ‘hiding behind their telephones’ (Leading article, 4 September). In-person appointments are the core of general practice, and practices have been delivering millions of them throughout the pandemic. GPs share patients’ frustrations with the limitations of telephone consulting, which can often take longer than a face-to-face appointment, and with
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, announced a new tax in the Commons branded a ‘health and social care levy’. It would increase National Insurance paid by employees and employers by 1.25 percentage points from April 2022. A year later it would become a separate tax that even pensioners still earning would have to pay.
Floating vote Voters in St Petersburg were presented with three candidates all calling themselves Boris Vishnevsky, with two believed to have changed name and appearance to draw votes from the other. It is not the first time voters have faced a confusing choice: — In a Moscow city election in 2019 voters had the option
The unclued lights are the names of the six principal presenters of COUNTDOWN (hence 5 4 3 2 1 as the title). The pairs are 16/33, 22/1A, 24/13, 37/34. First prize Marian Small, Harrow, Middlesex Runners-up Bill Ellison, Caversham, Reading; Jeffrey Frankland, Storth, Milnthorpe, Cumbria
Nye Bevan famously said that he was only able to persuade family doctors to support the creation of the NHS because he ‘stuffed their mouths with gold’. But at least he obtained good service from them — including home visits. Until Tony Blair awarded GPs hefty pay rises while allowing them simultaneously to opt out
A glimmer of hope Sir: After the debacle of the West’s shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan, it was comforting to read two of the articles in last week’s Spectator (28 August). The first was Rod Liddle’s explanation as to how we got there in the first place (‘I blame Tony Blair’) and the second was John
Home Britain brought its last troops home from Afghanistan, having flown out more than 15,000 people since 14 August; but the operation failed to evacuate perhaps 1,000 eligible Afghans, some of whom had worked for the government, and 100 to 150 British nationals. Pen Farthing, who runs an animal charity in Afghanistan, returned in an