The Spectator

Sunday

The Spectator

Ruth Davidson’s Conservative party conference speech, full text

It’s great to be here in Manchester. Or as I call it, the Southern powerhouse. I want to talk to you about the general election. In fact, I want to talk to you about two of them. The first one - two years ago.  And for us in Scotland, the same old story. Knocking our pans in. Hitting countless doors, delivering thousands of leaflets, too many conversations to count, another pair of boots ruined.  And at the end of it all? We started with one MP. We ended with one MP.  We’d survived the SNP tsunami, but were no further forward than when we began.…we were still outgunned by those sodding pandas.  But, two years later, we had a second election – this June. Back on the stump.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 28 September 2017

Fight and fight again Sir: In her Florence speech, Theresa May yet again declared that: ‘No deal is better than a bad deal.’ Yet in his piece ‘Brexit Wars’ (23 September), James Forsyth claims that minimal planning is being made for a ‘no deal’ under WTO rules. If true, this is insulting to the electorate as it means that the Prime Minister is being neither serious nor truthful. It is inexcusable for our civil service not to prepare for an event that is a clear possibility when it would be catastrophic if we had no plan. Couldn’t the 80 MPs in the Tory Research Group start preparing for a WTO deal? They could liaise with Eurosceptic groups plus friendly economists and other experts, to produce a viable exit plan.

The Spectator

Barometer | 28 September 2017

Lost in the post Postcard maker J. Salmon is to close after almost 140 years, because holidaymakers now send phone selfies rather than cards. — What is believed to be the very first postcard was a selfie of sorts. It was a caricature of postal workers that practical joker Theodore Hook sent to himself in Fulham using a penny black stamp in 1840, the year the penny post was introduced. — It was another 30 years before postcards were officially accepted by the Royal Mail, and the now standard design of a picture on the front, address and message on the back was established only in 1902. — Mr Hook’s card was sold at auction in 2002 for £31,750. Pay walls Which countries have the largest pay gaps between men and women, in a survey of 33 countries?

The Spectator

It’s time to talk trade

Thirty years ago, the Conservatives would have had no problem countering what Jeremy Corbyn had to offer in Brighton. But as they gather in Manchester for their own conference, they know they are going to have to find a new way of appealing to a generation born after the fall of Soviet communism, which has no memory of (or interest in) the 1970s, with its industrial strife and moribund state-run industries. Socialism, as we found out in June, is this year’s surprise hit. For younger voters struggling to find a way on to the property ladder, a bigger, all-embracing state may seem to be the answer. As for financial crises, the only one they have witnessed in their adult lives was one blamed on reckless banks.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 28 September 2017

Home Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, told the party conference that Labour was ‘on the threshold of power’. The party had been ‘war-game-type scenario-planning’ for things like ‘a run on the pound’, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said at a fringe meeting. Mr McDonnell had delighted conference-goers by denouncing Private Finance Initiatives: ‘We will bring existing PFI contracts back in-house. We’re bringing them back! We’re bringing them back!’ But next day, Jon Ashworth, the shadow health spokesman, said: ‘It’s only a handful which are causing hospital trusts across the country a significant problem.’ Mr McDonnell also promised to renationalise rail, water, energy and the Royal Mail.

The Spectator

Is being green good for business?

On Monday 11th September, The Spectator hosted a round table discussion over lunch about whether being green is good for business. Guests included: Philosopher Sir Roger Scruton, Shaun Spiers, CEO of Green Alliance, Mark Saxon from Coca-Cola Great Britain, journalist Harry Mount, Tom Robinson, founder of Adaptavate, Bill Wiggin MP, Peter Aldous MP, Neil Parish MP, Scott Mann MP and Anthony Marlowe of Edelman. Fraser Nelson chaired the discussion. A podcast was recorded on the same day, which can be played above. Recent bedtime reading for Sir Roger Scruton was a 50-page treatise by an art historian on the design of the classic Coke bottle, whose twists, it transpires, were designed specifically to foil counterfeiters.

The Spectator

The nerves of the enemy

From ‘The progress in Flanders’, 29 September 1917: The fighting has reached a degree of intensity never before known. There is no leisure or rest for any one. The instruments of destruction which fly through the air by day and night are more numerous and more various than before… The strain to which the enemy, even more than ourselves, is subjected is terrific beyond words. We imagine that for one shell that the Germans send over we throw across four, five, or perhaps six. There is also what may be called a kind of camouflage in artillery work, when the drum-fire which the Germans regard as the sure herald of a coming attack culminates in no attack. The nerves of the enemy are, in fact, kept at the breaking-point the whole time.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour conference speech, full text

We meet here this week as a united Party, advancing in every part of Britain, winning the confidence of millions of our fellow citizens, setting out our ideas and plans for our country’s future, that have already inspired people of all ages and backgrounds. And it’s a privilege to be speaking in Brighton.  A city that not only has a long history of hosting Labour conferences, but also of inspirational Labour activists. It was over a century ago, here in Brighton, that a teenage shop worker had had enough of the terrible conditions facing her and her workmates.

Tuesday

The Spectator

Tom Watson’s Labour conference speech, full text

Conference, thank you for being here. Thanks for your enthusiasm, for your passion,  for all your hard work on behalf of the Labour Party, on behalf of our country. I’m grateful to every one of you. Last week, the Prime Minister made yet another speech to reboot, yet again, her Brexit strategy. She chose to deliver this latest oration in the great city of Florence, though no-one seems to know why. For politicians, Florence, even more than the city of Dante, the Medicis and Michelangelo, is the city of Niccolo Machiavelli. I can only assume Michael Gove picked the venue. Michael Gove, who undermined his own Tory leadership bid last year, by admitting he doesn’t have the right skills to be Prime Minster.  For once in his life, he was right.

Monday

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Sadiq Khan’s Labour conference speech, full text

Conference, it's great to be back in Labour Brighton. And it's great to see our Labour Party so fired up under Jeremy Corbyn. Labour confounded all expectations at the general election this year. Let's be clear, Theresa May called this snap election to try and wipe us out. And boy did she fail. It was inspiring to see millions of people vote for the first time - especially so many young people. And it was inspiring to see so many people who used to vote for our Party return home to Labour. We made huge progress in the general election and the credit for that goes to one person – the leader of our party - Jeremy Corbyn. He mobilised our movement. He motivated our activists and reached voters we hadn't reached before.

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John McDonnell’s Labour conference speech, full text

I’d like to thank Ken Loach for that wonderful film and thank Ken for his incredible contribution to our movement. Can I also thank the Shadow Treasury Team: Peter Dowd our Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury; Anneliese Dodds; Jonathon Reynolds; Denis Tunnicliffe; Bryan Davies and my brilliant PPS Karen Lee Only a few months ago we were 24 points behind in the polls. Our opponents and virtually every political commentator = those two groups are often interchangeable by the way - they predicted that we would be wiped out in the general election. I said then in interview after interview that the polls would narrow and we would shock them all. Not many believed me. And let’s be honest until you saw the exit polls, most of you were pretty on edge too, weren’t you?

Saturday

The Spectator

Aung San Suu Kyi was never a saint to start with and she is not a demon now

Few world leaders have fallen from grace as quickly as Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nobel prize-winner, who also holds the US Congressional Gold Medal for her bravery and peaceful resistance to Burma’s military junta, now stands accused of aiding and excusing the suppression — even the genocide — of the Rohingya Muslims, more than 400,000 of whom in recent weeks have fled from Burma, which elected her leader nearly two years ago. There have been calls from her fellow Nobel laureates for her peace prize to be annulled. The UN has described action against the Rohingya as a ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing’ and complained that its observers have been denied access to Burma to judge the situation for themselves.

Friday

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Theresa May’s Florence speech on Brexit, full text

It’s good to be here in this great city of Florence today at a critical time in the evolution of the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. It was here, more than anywhere else, that the Renaissance began – a period of history that inspired centuries of creativity and critical thought across our continent and which in many ways defined what it meant to be European. A period of history whose example shaped the modern world. A period of history that teaches us that when we come together in a spirit of ambition and innovation, we have it within ourselves to do great things. That shows us that if we open our minds to new thinking and new possibilities, we can forge a better, brighter future for all our peoples. And that is what I want to focus on today.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 21 September 2017

Christians betrayed Sir: Michael Karam’s article (Ya Allah!, 16 September) is timely. Many Westerners seem to be unaware that there is such a person as a Christian Arab (a Christian who speaks Arabic as their first language), yet there are millions. At the time of the Crusades, Christians were a majority in the Near East. In 1914 about 25 per cent of the Near and Middle East was still Christian. The percentage is now much lower because events have forced massive Christian emigration, especially to North America. The serious consequences of this ignorance were not only felt by the Christian Iraqi removed from a flight after another passenger heard him speaking Arabic.

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Barometer | 21 September 2017

Roll up, roll up Party conferences this year revolve around the familiar settings of Bournemouth, Brighton and Manchester. But one party used to be more adventurous. — For its first conference in 1981 the newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP) opted to have a rolling conference with meetings in Perth, Bradford and London, with the entourage travelling between them (to quote the Conservative Research Department) ‘rather like Trotsky in his armoured train’. — The following year the train rolled between Cardiff, Derby and Great Yarmouth, but broke down between Peterborough and Ely on the last leg.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 21 September 2017

Home Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, issued a manifesto for a ‘glorious future’ for Britain outside the European Union as ‘the greatest country on Earth’. This was seen as a challenge to Theresa May, the Prime Minister. People like Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, and Kenneth Clarke, the Tory arch-Remainer, said he should have been sacked. Mr Johnson’s lengthy piece in the Daily Telegraph came six days before a big speech on the subject promised by Mrs May, in Florence, before the next round of Brexit negotiations. He declared that Britain should pay nothing for access to the EU single market. Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, went on television and accused him of ‘back-seat driving’.

The Spectator

A fallen idol

Few world leaders have fallen from grace as quickly as Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nobel prize-winner, who also holds the US Congressional Gold Medal for her bravery and peaceful resistance to Burma’s military junta, now stands accused of aiding and excusing the suppression — even the genocide — of the Rohingya Muslims, more than 400,000 of whom in recent weeks have fled from Burma, which elected her leader nearly two years ago. There have been calls from her fellow Nobel laureates for her peace prize to be annulled. The UN has described action against the Rohingya as a ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing’ and complained that its observers have been denied access to Burma to judge the situation for themselves.