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The unclued lights (10/1D, 11, 23/38, 29D/28 and 39) received knighthoods or a DBE in the recent New Year’s Honours List. First prize Chris Warburton, Dagenham, Essex Runners-up Peter Hampton, Wimborne, Dorset; Pam Dunn, Sevenoaks, Kent
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The British are said to be among the most generous people on earth. When it comes to ordinary people scraping together pennies to give to children’s hospitals or donkey sanctuaries, this is unquestionably true. Yet when it comes to wealthy individuals using large slices of their fortunes to make transformative donations to institutions such as
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Fawning over China Sir: In reading your recent leading article on Huawei (‘Red-handed’, 2 February), I feel I should point out that it is not solely the British government who have been wrong-footed by the rise of China. Here in Canada, Prime Minister Trudeau has long desired to open up Canadian markets to Chinese companies, going so
From our UK edition
The British are said to be among the most generous people on earth. When it comes to ordinary people scraping together pennies to give to children’s hospitals or donkey sanctuaries, this is unquestionably true. Yet when it comes to wealthy individuals using large slices of their fortunes to make transformative donations to institutions such as
From our UK edition
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, went off to Brussels again to talk about ‘alternative arrangements’, for which parliament had voted, to the Irish backstop in her EU withdrawal agreement, which parliament had rejected. First she gave a speech in Northern Ireland, saying: ‘There is no suggestion that we are not going to ensure in
From our UK edition
From our UK edition
The LITTLE GENTLEMAN IN BLACK VELVET (4/8/16D) was a Jacobite toast to the MOLE (34) who made the molehill on which KING (30D) William III’s horse fatally stumbled. Frances HODGSON BURNETT’s (10) LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY (4/1D) also wore black velvet, which also describes Guinness mixed with champagne. First prize Ian Webster, Clun, Shropshire Runners-up
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Vegan excess Sir: As a lifelong vegetarian I am heartily sick of vegans and of the amount of attention that is being paid to them. (‘The great carniwars’, 26 January). Vegan food is everywhere, in places where it used to be difficult to find vegetarian dishes. Often it tastes of nothing much and has the
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The world is a better place for China’s emergence from behind the bamboo curtain where it hid for half a century. Economic and market reforms have led to the greatest reduction of poverty in world history. For some western manufacturers, competition from low-cost China has sometimes proved fatal, yet the overall economic effect has been
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Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, set off to seek a change to the Irish backstop of the EU withdrawal agreement after the Commons voted by 317 to 301 for a government-backed amendment by Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbench 1922 committee, proposing unnamed ‘alternative arrangements’. Mrs May said there was ‘limited appetite
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The theme word is GRASS (for which the title is a cryptic clue). 1A, 1D, 6 and 37 are informers; 28, 29, 33 and 39 are types of grass; 8A, 15, 22 and 26 are German Nobel literature laureates. First prize Mrs R.J.C. Shapland, Stanley Common, Derbyshire Runners-up John Renwick, Ramsgate, Kent; Taylor-Mansfield, Worcester
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From The Spectator, No. 152, 24 July 1711: There cannot a greater judgment befall a country than such a dreadful spirit of vision that rends a government into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers to one another, than if they were actually two different nations… A furious party-spirit, when it rages in its
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Autistic freedom Sir: Jonathan Mitchell, an autistic writer, argues that autism is an affliction and that a cure should be found (‘The dangers of “neurodiversity”’, 19 January). When my son was diagnosed I would have agreed with him, but I disagree strongly now. My son’s autism comes with real challenges, but I value the ways
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If knighthoods could be removed by vote of parliament, Sir James Dyson would be first in line. Knighted for being one of Britain’s most celebrated entrepreneurs, he backed Brexit — only to decide this week to scarper to lower-taxed Singapore. To Sam Gyimah, a former Tory minister, it is a ‘betrayal of the public’. To
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Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, having survived a parliamentary vote of no confidence, came to the Commons with an amended plan for Brexit which would entail changing the Irish backstop agreement with the European Union. Otherwise Plan B looked very much like the Plan A that had been defeated by a majority of 230
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From our UK edition
The paired unclued lights are anagrams of one another, most being symmetrically arranged; 2/21, 5/23, 12/41, 15/25, 19D/20. First prize Alan Peevers, Manchester Runners-up Martin Dey, Hoylandswaine, S. Yorks; Jason James, Cambridge
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An unexpected outcome of the tortuous process of Brexit negotiations has been the enhancement of Britain’s reputation as a parliamentary democracy. For many years, it has seemed as if political debate was draining away to the TV and radio studios, or even to social media — with MPs reduced to simply rubber-stamping decisions which have
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Turkey and the deep state Boris Johnson said that if Brexit was blocked, the public would blame it on the ‘deep state’. The expression comes from the Turkish Derin Devlet — coined to express the conspiracy of military, police, intelligence bodies and even organised criminals which many Turks believed were operating against their democratically elected
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The straight dope Sir: Much of the media and a large part of the political class in Britain seem to have fallen completely for the propaganda of one of the biggest greed lobbies in the world, the billionaire-backed campaign for cannabis legalisation. Articles such as the one by Robert Jackman (‘Homegrown industry’, 12 January) suggest