Charles Moore is The Spectator’s chairman.
He is a former editor of the magazine, as well as the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph. He became a non-affiliated peer in July 2020.
‘Moderate Taleban’ are being talked of. It is a very strange, almost oxymoronic concept, like ‘moderate fanatics’; but the conventions of Western political discourse are such that the Foreign Office and the BBC have to deploy the word ‘moderate’ to legitimise whatever our diplomats might be up to. Hunting the moderate is a favourite sport
No one seems to have noticed, but next week the House of Lords will be abolished. I don’t mean the entire chamber, but the highest court of appeal in the land. Until now, this body has been a committee of the House of Lords, and has met in committee rooms of the House. When it
It may well be true that some equipment given to British soldiers fighting in Afghanistan is inadequate. It almost certainly is the case that the government has willed ends without willing means, and it deserves to be criticised for that. But it is a mistake to encourage bereaved parents to think that their sons’ deaths
As the Conservatives try to make themselves fiscally responsible against spendthrift Gordon Brown, there are now only two departmental programmes which they will ‘ring-fence’ against cuts — health and international development. As the Conservatives try to make themselves fiscally responsible against spendthrift Gordon Brown, there are now only two departmental programmes which they will ‘ring-fence’
Except for the great William Rees-Mogg, no commentator seems to have noticed that Gordon Brown’s Bill to ‘clean up politics’ is about to remove the liberty of Parliament. ‘Res ipsa loquitur’ is the old legal tag: ‘the thing itself speaks’. Under the new Bill, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) is created. When IPSA speaks,
Since the Speakership of the House of Commons depends on general acceptance for the holder to be able to do his job, it would seem to be right to say nothing further against the new one, and wish him well. The trouble is that John Bercow does not have that general acceptance. His own Conservatives
Should the next Speaker speak? It is a surprisingly difficult question to answer. It seems obvious that, in the age of the 24-hour news cycle, the ‘first Commoner in the land’ should add his voice to the public conversation. Until now, he has been forbidden by convention from doing so. The favourite for the post,
Labour got 15 per cent of the vote in the European elections, in which only 34 per cent of the electorate voted. That is roughly five per cent of those entitled to vote. When you add those too young to vote, this means that, on average, only one in every 25 people you pass in
When you are invited on to programmes like the BBC’s Question Time, the idea is that you express your opinions. So that is what I did when I last appeared on Question Time, on 12 March. In the wake of the Luton Islamists who insulted the British troops parading through the town, I made some
By chance, Mr Speaker had invited me to a party on Tuesday evening. I had decided, rude though it would have been, to attend, but to tell him to his face that he should go. But by the time I got there, he had. All emotions went into reverse. The reception was in aid of
In the great row about MPs’ expenses, which big party looks worse so far? It is a difficult question to answer. With the Tories, words like ‘portico’, ‘swimming pool’, ‘moat’, ‘gravel’, ‘Farrow and Ball’, ‘chandelier’ and ‘helipad’ are, as officials put it, ‘unhelpful’. One sees a constant attempt to uphold a certain style of living
Thirty years, almost to the day, after we greeted our first woman Prime Minister, we greet our first woman Poet Laureate. Unlike Margaret Thatcher, who was careful not to press the sex point, Carol Ann Duffy describes her own appointment as ‘a historic day for women’. She says she wants 300 years of female poet
For once, the unity of comment on the Budget was perfectly justified. It may well have been the worst Budget in history. Which makes it all the more annoying that the ‘Red Book’, which contains the Budget details, is this year entitled ‘Budget 2009: Building Britain’s Future’. It is insulting that official documents should have
In Princeton, New Jersey, last week, I gave two lectures on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. I was told that the last outsider to have spoken at the university on this subject was Edward Heath. He had informed Princetonians that Lady Thatcher posed a greater threat to world peace than Saddam Hussein. My second lecture’s
Muslims respect Jesus as a prophet and endorse various aspects of his story. The Annunciation appears in the Koran, and so, in consequence, does the Virgin Birth. In the pains of childbirth, it says, Mary was sustained in the desert by God providing a brook at her feet and a palm-tree which she could shake
Charles Moore’s reflections on the week Only connect. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said that her family house in her Redditch constituency was her second home. This allowed her to claim £116,000 from the taxpayer for it. Then her husband, Richard Timney, who is paid by the taxpayer as her constituency assistant, claimed pornographic films
The Governor of the Bank of England’s eyebrows were the proverbial means of preventing unwise schemes in the City. He raised them, and rash financiers withdrew, chastened. Things have now come to such a pass that the Governor has to raise them — publicly — to discourage rash Prime Ministers. Mervyn King’s direct warning on
Nicko Henderson, who died this week, wrote a famous dispatch when he retired as Ambassador to Paris in March 1979. It summed up how Britain’s precipitous economic decline had undermined her foreign policy, and looked for a solution in being ‘fully and inevitably committed to Europe’. We needed ‘something to stimulate a national sense of
Why are people surprised that two soldiers and a policemen have been murdered in Northern Ireland? One of the key parts of the ‘peace process’ was the Patten report on policing. This recommended the disbandment of the RUC. The part of the RUC which caused most offence to republicans was the Special Branch. As a
There is talk once again of Tony Blair becoming ‘President of Europe’. This grand title is unofficial. The job in question is formally called President of the European Council, and it will be created if the Lisbon Treaty ever comes into force. More Europhiles now see Mr Blair as having the fame and political clout