Two years ago this week the philosopher Alain de Botton unveiled his proposals for a giant gilded tower in central London at which atheists such as himself could indulge in a spot of self-worship. This edifice was to be 46 metres tall and a line of gold at the top would pick out the years
European elections are normally an afterthought in British politics. As even David Cameron admits, most of us struggle to remember who our MEPs are. Two-thirds of us don’t even bother to vote for them. But this year, the European elections are threatening to dominate politics. Talk to Tory ministers and MPs about the year ahead,
It’s surprisingly boring, legalising weed. In Colorado, where recreational doobie has been utterly without censure for, ooh, about a week and a half now, the Department of Revenue (Marijuana Enforcement Division) has published Permanent Rules Related to the Colorado Retail Marijuana Code, which is 136 pages long and no fun at all. Were I actually
A gay friend phones over the New Year break. A lovely chap (let us call him Richard) and long retired, he has done well and made money over the years. Richard has called to tell me how he is spending it. I know that in the past he had helped the gay lobbying organisation Stonewall;
One of the genuine seasonal pleasures to be enjoyed as 2013 slipped around the U-bend was Enoch Powell making his familiar comeback as the Evil Ghost of Christmases Past. Enoch was disinterred by the producers of the hitherto un-noticed Murnaghan Show — presumably in order to frighten the viewers and put a spanner in the wheel
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_9_January_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”David Goodhart and Tim Finch on Labour’s immigration woes”] Listen [/audioplayer]Victor Spirescu came to Britain last week looking for work washing cars, but seems to have landed himself with a career in broadcasting. The Romanian, who arrived on the first flight into London after restrictions on workers from Bulgaria and Romania ended on
So what I’ve found myself wondering over the festive period, again and again, is whether it would ever be OK to have sex with a sheep. I mean, jeez, don’t take this the wrong way. I am not thinking of a particular sheep. There is not one in my shed right now, emitting worried, stricken
Here’s a thought to kindle a lovely warm glow of smugness and schadenfreude as we enter a new year: you didn’t lose your fortune in the great bitcoin bubble of 2013. The reason I know you didn’t is because few Speccie-reading types of my acquaintance even understand what a bitcoin is, let alone how you
At last, it has been scientifically proved that Jesus Christ is better than Muhammad. We’d always known that our lad with the beard and the holes in his hands was far superior to that arriviste Arabian chap who hung around in caves. But tell that to a Muslim and they become unaccountably frosty and defensive.
This will be the coalition’s last full year, and it is remarkable how few people are talking about how it will all end. Last January, every conversation in Westminster was about when the two parties would disengage. Tory ministers were eyeing up the jobs that would be available once their coalition partners had left the
It may come as a grave surprise to you that, when it was offered as a prize in a charity auction, the opportunity to attend a dinner lecture by the former prime minister Gordon Brown failed to reach anywhere near the sum the organisers had expected. Particularly so as the prize promised, as a special
Next year will decide the fate of the United Kingdom. The Scottish independence referendum on the 18th of September could destroy the Union, and when we sit down to Christmas lunch in 2014, it could be to the background of independence negotiations. We may all be waiting to see what the Queen says about the
‘Is anyone here even remotely shocked that Nigella Lawson has done cocaine?’ I asked. Everyone shook their heads. Well of course they did: it was the after-show drinks in the green room at a BBC studio. ‘So why is it being reported in the media as if it were some amazingly big deal?’ No one
The worst thing about going on University Challenge, I now know, is when you interrupt a question and get the answer wrong. This is bad, not only because you lose five points, but also because it can mess up the general filming of everything, somehow, which means they make you do it again. And sometimes
Bitcoins have been in the news, after a story about an unfortunate fellow who jettisoned his computer’s hard drive that contained (apparently) the code he needed to access his stash of this electronic currency — its value more than £4 million. I don’t even pretend to have an opinion on bitcoins. I only just, and
It’s a fact that most ministers are most scared, not of their political rivals but of their civil servants. Ministers know that if they cross civil servants, all of their foibles may soon end up in print. It’s one reason why politicians so often repeat the mantra ‘Our civil service is the best in the
It’s funny, really, because most of the time I think that my university education was a bit of a waste. It was pleasant enough, I’ll tell people, but I mainly spent it sitting around, eating biscuits and smoking things. Growing dreadlocks. Getting intimidatingly good at Tekken 2 on a PlayStation. Taking some excellent walks. Just
When I was a child — in the days before it became illegal under Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) and Schedule 2 of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations (2010) — I was an unlicensed handler of great crested newts. I loved them for the same reasons, I imagine, Ken
A very useful feature in the Daily Telegraph informs me of the best 20 towns in Britain ‘for Christmas’. Number one on the list is the Cotswold village of Chipping Campden, to which we must surely all decamp immediately. People moan all the time that despite the profusion of new technology and our comparative affluence
James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss George Osborne’s 2013 Autumn statement: [audioboo url=”https://audioboo.fm/boos/1763353-isabel-hardman-and-james-forsyth-discuss-george-osborne-s-autumn-statement”][/audioboo] Next week’s autumn statement looks at first as if it should be easy for George Osborne. For the first time, he’ll arrive with unambiguously good news. He can announce an upgrade of the growth forecasts and that borrowing has come in lower
