Stanley Johnson was a volcano victim — stranded in Spain with thousands of other British holidaymakers. Fortunately, the Royal Navy was on hand to bring him home in style Last week was quite extraordinary. My wife Jenny and I landed at Madrid airport on Monday afternoon, having flown overnight from Ecuador. We should have had
Asking NHS staff to call a medical hotline — rather than their boss — when they feel ill has cut ‘sickies’ by a quarter. Martin Vander Weyer meets the man behind the scheme It’s Monday morning and you’re feeling a bit below par. Maybe it was last night’s kebab, maybe it’s the bug that’s going
When Winston Churchill, as a young cavalry officer, found himself fighting the fierce tribesmen who inhabited the imposing mountainous terrain that defined the Indian empire’s northern border, he provided a graphic account of the brutality of the enemy the British force encountered. When Winston Churchill, as a young cavalry officer, found himself fighting the fierce
The Nick Clegg bubble has been caused by the mistaken view that he is not a machine politician, says James Forsyth. But if this bubble doesn’t burst before polling day, then it could be the end of the Tory party as we know it Both Andy Coulson and the gaggle of journalists surrounding him agreed
Chief among Nick Clegg’s grand claims during this election is that he is Britain’s ‘most honest’ political leader. Chief among Nick Clegg’s grand claims during this election is that he is Britain’s ‘most honest’ political leader. The Lib Dems, he promises, will clean up our politics. And when it comes to politicians using expenses to
It doesn’t matter what the Lib Dem leader stands for, says Rod Liddle. In the era of X Factor politics, people can decide, on a whim, that he should be Prime Minister Is Nick Clegg better than Winston Churchill, as a recent opinion poll seemed to suggest? The obvious answer is yes, of course —
Americans are panicking again about immigration and the size of their population. But they shouldn’t, says Patrick Allitt. The US remains the greatest assimilator of new peoples The American census takes place every ten years, in the zero year of each decade. I filled out my form last week and anticipate being part of a
When Anatoly Dobrynin died earlier this month, aged 90, the British press paid little notice. Yet it is increasingly clear that he was one of the most remarkable players in the Cold War — someone who did much to stop the conflict turning hot. Over 24 years he served as Soviet ambassador to six US
With its obsessive law-making, this government has sought to micro-manage our lives, says Brendan O’Neill. Let’s hope the next administration leaves us alone The Ten Commandments, which stood Judeo-Christian societies in fairly good stead for centuries, only forbade eight things: murder, adultery, theft, bearing false witness, coveting your neighbour’s missus and things, taking the Lord’s
The class system, with its fixed mealtimes, stopped us all from getting fat, says Andrew M. Brown. Today we are a nation of all-day munchers — and it shows Imagine if, at breakfast, a mother were to offer her family, instead of cornflakes or boiled eggs, slices from a gigantic cake smothered in icing. Would
The official investigation into the firm’s activities is pointless, says Philip Delves Broughton. Governments are too weak to punish the financial giant I loathe Goldman Sachs as much as the next man. It’s part jealousy at the firm’s grip on the world’s treasure. Part horror at the parade of bumptious baldies who run the firm
Last summer, Charlie Whelan’s lawyers threatened to sue The Spectator for an article describing him as a bully. The article was entirely correct. So what was he so keen to cover up? Fraser Nelson and Ed Howker investigate The Labour rebellettes fear the creeping takeover of the party by the Unite trade union via Charlie
Don’t listen to the hype about ‘Web 2.0’ politics, says Andrew Gilligan. Online campaigning is only of interest to a handful of Westminster nerds and journalists Ed Balls has ‘had to take the roast chicken out of the oven’. For Sarah Brown, ‘waking up in our house in Fife was today’s special treat’. William Hague
Harry Mount watches Nick Griffin try to win round the disgruntled former Labour voters of Dagenham and Barking — if he wasn’t so ridiculous, he might be dangerous As always, P.G. Wodehouse got it right. Far-right groups are unlikely to take off in Britain because, for all their nastiness, they always come across as just
Examine Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time last year, or the British National Party’s campaign for the European parliament, or even their work ‘on the ground’ in Barking today and you will find something very peculiar. The party is desperate to demonstrate to an electorate angered by expense abuses that it is a tightly run,
Anne Applebaum says the catastrophic plane crash near Smolensk, which killed so many of Poland’s leading figures, may hasten a rapprochement between Warsaw and Moscow The President, the First Lady, the chairman of the National Bank. Fifteen members of parliament. Ten generals. Anna Walentynowicz, 80-year-old heroine of the Solidarity strike of 1980. Ryszard Kaczorowski, the
Gordon Brown’s latest campaign slogan — ‘Vote Labour or Die of Cancer’ — has a certain apocalyptic vigour about it, don’t you think, even if it was implied rather than directly stated? The party sent out 250,000 ‘postcards’ to women, although they were not the sort of postcards you get when your Aunt Jemima’s been
Last week’s Spectator debate — ‘Britain’s in decline again. Pity Cameron is a Heath not a Thatcher’ — looked at the nature of a future Tory government under David Cameron. Last week’s Spectator debate — ‘Britain’s in decline again. Pity Cameron is a Heath not a Thatcher’ — looked at the nature of a future
Benedict XVI’s handling of sex abuse cases is not above criticism, says John L. Allen Jr. But the campaign for him to be hauled before an international court is ill informed A Vatican spokesperson recently laughed off the campaign to issue an arrest warrant for Pope Benedict XVI when he visits the United Kingdom in
The fate of Lady Mary Grey, Queen Elizabeth’s prisoner and a potential heir to the throne, has never been resolved. Now Leanda de Lisle tells all At the Prime Minister’s country residence at Chequers, scribbles on the walls of the 12-foot prison room bear testimony to the dreary misery of the woman Elizabeth I had
