Stephen Daisley is a Spectator regular and a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail
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As a schoolboy, George Washington transcribed 110 Jesuitical maxims later published as Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation. In this pamphlet he counsels a regimen of behaviour so meticulous it forbids blowing on a spoonful of soup to cool it and specifies the proper method for dipping bread in sauce. Presidential mores have
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One of the many problems with the effort to bring back the death penalty in Israel is that it never went away in the first place. Israel is only a partial abolitionist, banning the death penalty for ordinary crimes in 1954 but retaining it for war crimes and offences against the state. The last execution
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Why is Jeremy Corbyn silent on the protests in Iran? A cynic might say that the Labour leader could hardly be expected to bite the hand that fed him £20,000 for appearing on the state’s propaganda channel. But Corbyn’s motivations are not financial. He and those who share his worldview simply cannot stomach being on
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Turmoil in the Middle East, a reshuffle rumoured at Westminster, and Toby Young is offending the liberal establishment. So far, 2018 doesn’t seem all that different from 2017. The occasion for the latest sputtering is the Speccie columnist’s appointment to the board of the Office for Students. The OfS is the new regulator of Britain’s
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It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. As 2017 draws to a close, one could be forgiven for remembering the past 12 months as an unrelenting parade of grimness. There was the inauguration of Donald Trump, the governance of Donald Trump, the tweets of Donald Trump…and that’s before one considers
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Outvoted on a resolution on Israel, on the wrong side of international opinion, the United States ambassador responded with an intemperate address to the UN General Assembly. America’s diplomat told the countries assembled: ‘The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not
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Jeremy Corbyn’s interview with Grazia (a 2017 sentence if ever there was one) was helpfully revealing. Not his assertion that ‘there will probably be another election in the next 12 months’ and that he ‘will probably win’. That just tells us that the man who supposedly never wanted the job really wants the job. His
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Jeremy Corbyn is going to be Prime Minister. There can no longer be any doubt. He has seen off Tony Blair; the Parliamentary Labour Party folded; and Theresa May just hopes no one notices her anymore. With Ed Sheeran’s endorsement, Corbyn’s transformation from Leninist crank to PM-in-waiting is complete. He has been sucked into the great
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The Israelis are doing it again. That thing they do when someone, anyone, even a total nishtgutnick like Donald Trump, comes along and tosses them a few warm words. Their little hearts leap to be told that, on balance, all things being equal, they have a right to exist, perhaps even to defend themselves, and
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The thing to appreciate about the Conservative and Unionist Party is that the only principle it understands less than Conservatism is Unionism. The Tories have convinced themselves that these concepts mean their perfect opposite, so that Conservatism is a counsel of market dogmatism and social reaction; and Unionism is the English national interest with brief
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It’s remarkable how quickly tribalism can capture people. Three years ago, only a small number of politicians and commentators advocated leaving the European Union. Reform it, yes; complain about it, always. But actually quit? That was a Ukip cause. But now a lot of people, having drunk the Brexit brew, are quite heady. It’s not
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It’s quiet up in Scotland at the minute. We’ve not tried to secede in a few months, some MSPs are away pursuing reality TV careers, and Nicola Sturgeon is still deciding the best punishment for parents that smack their recalcitrant offspring. The downside is that when things are quiet, some geyser of nationalist lunacy inevitably explodes.
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Oh Jeremy Corbyn, your takeover of Labour is all but complete. Left-winger Richard Leonard has triumphed in the Scottish Labour leadership, defeating moderate rival Anas Sarwar. The Yorkshireman and former GMB official becomes the party’s sixth leader in ten years and takes over from Kezia Dugdale, who abruptly quit the post in August for the
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If books about the Israeli-Arab conflict were building blocks, the Palestinians would have their own state already and then some. Most volumes bring little that is fresh or challenging, so selectivity is key. Daniel Gordis and Benny Morris are essential, Avi Shlaim and Tom Segev unavoidable. Take time on unsexy stylists like Mustafa Kabha or
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When Kezia Dugdale quit as Scottish Labour leader in August, she said it was time to ‘pass on the baton’ to someone else, handing power to her deputy, Alex Rowley. Today, Rowley has stepped aside, leaving a leaderless party following allegations – which he denies – that he was abusive to his former partner. The
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Australia is hardly the first country to back gay marriage but it certainly appears to be the most unlikely. A nation that once prided itself on backs-against-the-wall masculinity has just backed equal marriage in a government-run postal survey. Sixty-two per cent answered ‘Yes’ to the question: ‘Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples
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One of the hazards of writing about a government so hapless you wonder if it’s doing it all for a dare is that it could fall any minute. By the time you get to the end of this sentence, Theresa May could be cramming that last pair of heels into the back of a Pickfords
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The cameras were on Nicola Sturgeon but it was Nick and Phil Duffy’s day. The couple sat in the public gallery of the Scottish Parliament to hear the First Minister announce her government’s Bill to pardon gay men historically prosecuted for same-sex relations. The old men, who sat holding hands, heard Sturgeon tell Holyrood that
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Britain’s unease about the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, our imperial pronouncement that we ‘view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use [our] best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object’, is not hard to spot. Boris Johnson lauds Balfour as ‘indispensable to the creation
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The Catalan Parliament has voted for a unilateral declaration of independence from Spain. President Carles Puigdemont had toyed with taking the decision but in the end left it up to the legislature. It is now not a question of Madrid deposing him; it will have to shut down the whole operation. Direct rule is all
