Join The Spectator on Tuesday 14 April via livestream for Is AI a threat to humanity?. Michael Gove, The Spectator’s editor, is joined by Louis Mosley, head of leading AI firm Palantir Technologies UK, Martin Wolf, the FT’s chief economics commentator, former health secretary Matt Hancock and Stephanie Hare, technology broadcaster and journalist, to discuss whether AI will save – or destroy – the global
Home The government withdrew an offer to create 1,000 more training posts for doctors in England after the British Medical Association refused to call off a six-day strike by resident doctors. In a speech at a White House Easter lunch, President Donald Trump of America mocked Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, for having to
Moonstruck Four astronauts aboard the Artemis II spacecraft achieved the distinction of travelling further from the Earth than any humans before them – 252,000 miles away. This was by virtue of their orbit of the Moon being higher, at 6,400 miles above the Moon’s surface, than that of the craft used in the Apollo programme.
Did Donald Trump ever intend to obliterate Iranian civilisation? Some will see the past week as one in which the world pulled back from the brink, when an unhinged US president experienced a rare moment of lucidity at the last crucial minute. Trump’s oscillation is, his defenders argue, the ‘madman theory’ in operation. This was
The unclued lights are DOCTORS and all can be verified in Brewer. First prize Sarah Darlington, Acton Trussell, Stafford Runners-up Colin Ratledge, Leven, East Yorks; Mark Humble, Beercrocombe, Taunton
Clerical errors Sir: Glad though I am that The Spectator bucks the trend in its conviction that the C of E is alive and well (Easter Special, 4 April), I cannot help but be frustrated by the sense that too many of these articles speak of, for and to a secure metropolitan elite. Of course
On 3 April we mark 1,500 days since Russia invaded Ukraine; on 11 June, the conflict will have lasted longer than the first world war. At that point in 1918, the German army was in complete collapse amid the success of the final Allied offensive, as the Kaiser’s disillusioned troops were forced back through the
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said: ‘We are working on a viable plan for the Strait of Hormuz.’ Insisting that ‘it’s not our war, but it is our duty to protect British citizens’, he urged business leaders to help protect households from soaring prices. Brent crude sloshed up to $116 and back a
The unclued lights (10/30/39 and 16/41, 28/35 and 30/32) are WALTZES by Johann Strauss II, apart from (THE) SKATERS Waltz which was composed by Waldteufel. First prize Jon Owen, London Runners-up John Henson, Windsor; J. Bielawski, Southport
Working out the Kinks American singer and vegan activist Moby called the Kinks’ song ‘Lola’ ‘transphobic’ and ‘unevolved’. According to the band, the song was based on a real incident when their manager, Robert Wace, spent the night dancing with a cross-dressing man in a bar in Paris, was alerted to the stubble on his
Dark Greens Sir: Both your leading article and Angus Colwell’s cover piece (‘Zacked Off’, 28 March) are bang-on. Although I have never been an activist, I do have some previous as an environmentalist. Among other things, I was briefly employed by the Green party at the turn of the century. I felt I could support
Join The Spectator’s restaurant critic Tanya Gold and Prue Leith via livestream tonight for our next instalment in our Speaker Series. Prue will share her reflections on her bountiful career in food, including opening award-winning restaurant Leith’s and dazzling millions of TV viewers in Great British Menu and The Great British Bake Off. With 12 cookery books, eight novels
You might describe it as the Polanski paradox. The party which calls itself Green, which has concern for the environment as its raison d’être, has never been more popular. Four Green MPs returned at the last general election. Victory in the recent Gorton and Denton by-election. Local election gains in May predicted to be sweeping.
Home Iran fired two missiles at the British-American military base at Diego Garcia, 2,400 miles away, one being intercepted by a US warship and the other failing in flight. The attack was revealed after Britain announced that in ‘collective self-defence’ it was allowing America to use British bases to launch strikes on Iranian sites targeting
The initial and final trio of letters of the eight nine-letter unclued lights are reversals of each other. This property is suggested by the ‘other title’ – There and Back Again – of the puzzle’s title The Hobbit. First prize Tom Rollinson, Borehamwood, Herts Runners-up Richard Higson, Rugby, Warwickshire; Norman Watterson, Hillsborough, Co. Down
Crude estimates Why is crude oil measured in barrels? — From medieval times onwards, all sorts of commodities were measured in barrels for convenience, from wine to eels to whale oil. However, standardisation only arrived in fits and starts. Since Richard III’s time, a barrel of wine was defined as 42 ‘wine gallons’, but this
Leave the US to it Sir: I was struck by the dichotomy of your 21 March issue. Christopher Caldwell describes President Donald Trump’s world-affecting miscalculation in attacking Iran (‘The end of Trumpism’), while the editorial exhorts us to climb aboard this runaway train to ‘finish the job’. The conflux of multinational involvement in this fiasco
Editorial errors, ideological bias and partisan presenters – what has happened to the BBC? Watch The Spectator’s Charles Moore, who was fined after refusing to pay his licence fee, and the Telegraph’s Allison Pearson go up against Spectator editor and former BBC journalist Michael Gove and former BBC America editor Jon Sopel to debate whether we should defund – or defend – this once
The unclued lights reveal ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done,’ said by Sydney CARTON towards the end of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles DICKENS. First prize Jane Hudson, Eye, Suffolk Runners-up Gordon Hobbs, Woodford Green, Essex; D.P. Shenkin, London WC1
Donald Trump may be the volatile leader of an unstable coalition. America’s numerous interventions in the Middle East may have been marked by chaos, inconstancy and the erosion of western prestige. Nato, and even more so the European Union, may be militarily anaemic and economically sclerotic. And the war in Iran may well have intensified