Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
For the first time in its 186-year history, The Spectator‘s cover story will be written by its readers: people from outside of Scotland, saying why they want Scotland to stay and keep our country united. Even over lunchtime, we have been deluged with people writing in to say why they want Scots to stay. Please keep
We’ve had an extraordinary response to our request for emails saying why you hope that Scotland votes to stay, and to keep our country united. So many that we’ll put this on the cover – it will be the first cover piece written by readers, not journalists. And we need more! So please, email me
Would you bet on Scotland staying in the union? Isabel Hardman asks Hamish Macdonell, my former Scotsman colleague, in a podcast she presented this morning. Its about a minute from the end: listen to ‘Scotland’s ‘yes’ camp takes the lead (Spectator podcast special)’ on Audioboo
It’s extraordinary to think that we could be 12 days away from the dissolution of our country. The union of Scotland and England, perhaps the most successful and consequential alliance in history, could be ended – and for the worst of reasons. The Scottish National Party has been campaigning hard, and campaigning well. Alex Salmond has
It’s extraordinary to think that we could be 12 days away from the destruction of our country. The union of Scotland and England, perhaps the most successful and consequential alliance in history, could be ended – and for the worst of reasons. The Scottish National Party has been campaigning hard, and campaigning well. Alex Salmond has
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_4_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss the Tory civil war” startat=60] Listen [/audioplayer]David Cameron is in need of advice right now and there’s plenty of it in the new Spectator – not least from Justine Greening, his International Development Secretary. Her interview with Melissa Kite makes clear that the party needs
“It’s part of the energy of nationalism,” sighed Jim Murphy on Newsnight. “They’re never knocked down.” He’s right, and that that is why the Scottish referendum polls show the gap between the two narrowing – YouGov has that gap at 6 points, down from 22 last month. If even Labour’s Jim Murphy accepts that the
Where is this burning point of principle that drove Douglas Carswell into the arms of Ukip? I’ve read lots about his defection, and I’m still none the wiser. We’re told that he was talking to Farage for almost a year, which would have overlapped with the time he told me that the Tories need to
Anyone who would rather not live in a Britain run by Ed Miliband and Ed Balls should be dismayed at Carswell’s defection to Ukip. He is an original, intelligent and eloquent MP who has done much to help the Prime Minister form the more radical parts of his agenda. For a while, I thought that
At a time when politics resembles a bad soap opera, it’s easy to despair about the ability of government to change anything for the better. But as the Queen pointed out in her 2010 UN address, the best changes in society tend not to come from governments but from society more broadly. Anyone concerned about
Over the summer I read Vilhelm Moberg’s The Emigrants, a documentary novel about the Swedes who emigrated to America in the 18th century. It powerfully describes what drove illiterate peasants to take such an extraordinary gamble on a country about which they knew almost nothing. The story, of course, could have been written about migrants
Now and again, America puts its inequality on display to the world. We saw it after Hurricane Katrina and we have seen it again in the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. A white police offer shoots dead a black man, after having stopped him for jaywalking. Britain’s police don’t have guns, so these scenes are unthinkable
David Cameron is back on holidays again, this time to Cornwall. He missed a trick. His economic recovery is making the pound strong and, ergo, the continent cheap for British holidaymakers. This also makes imports cheaper which has, in turn, cut UK inflation to 1.6 per cent in July – down from 1.9 per cent
How seriously should we take modern slavery? To some, the very phrase sounds hysterical: slave markets are seen as something belonging to 18th century Jamaica (or present-day Mosul) but not modern Britain. It’s true that slavery has mutated, but it’s very much still with us – which is why, at 6.30am on Saturday, screaming and
I’m delighted to announce another strong set of figures for The Spectator. It’s still a pretty tough market out there for magazines but today, we’re reporting a headline print ABC that’s actually up on last year: 62,684 in the first half of this year. Add digital subscriptions, which rose by 24 per cent, over the year,
It’s a busy summer for The Spectator. Sales of the magazine are rising and our website is now visited by well over a million people each month. Spectator TV has now joined our regular podcasts, so we’re now watched (and listened to) as well as read. One of the great strengths of The Spectator is
I’m in the US right now, where the national conversation is – it’s safe to say – not fixed on Ed Miliband’s White House trip. We now have photographic proof of this event, but what’s Barack Obama saying? A prize for the best suggestion. PS some unkind souls have suggested that this picture is the
I can confirm that Liam Fox was offered Minister of State at the Foreign Office with responsibility for India, China and Latin America. He politely declined the Prime Minister’s idea, even when it was later sweetened with the offer of a place in the National Security Council. Fox, a former party chairman and defence secretary,
After today’s hiring and firings, the women ratio in the Cabinet rises from 14 per cent to 24 per cent. There is something horribly tokenistic, and faintly misogynistic, about boasting about what percentage of women you have in the Cabinet – as if this is a sign of how ‘progressive’ you are. It’s not clear that
Good morning. We’ve just had the night of the long knives – for middle-aged Tory ministers at least. Now for the promotions, and you can expect a disproportionate number of them to be younger and female. Will Britain join the list of countries with female defence secretaries? Will Esther McVey, Liz Truss and Priti Patel become