The Spectator

Equality in the trenches

From our UK edition

From ‘War the leveller’, The Spectator, 12 February 1916: Strange as it may appear to the pacificist, war has levelled up, not down, as the Socialists aim at doing… In presence of a common peril the private and his officer have learned to understand one another better, and have discovered the good qualities which each possesses.

Podcast special: The Fourth Industrial Revolution

From our UK edition

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/podcastspecial-thefourthindustrialrevolution/media.mp3" title="Listen: Podcast special - The Fourth Industrial Revolution"] Listen [/audioplayer] In this View from 22 podcast special, The Spectator’s Editor Fraser Nelson hosts a discussion about whether the world is going through a fourth industrial revolution and what this means for workers around the world. Fraser is joined by Stefan Krüger, Partner at King & Wood Mallesons, Simon Collins, UK Chairman and Senior Partner at KPMG, and Ed Conway, Economics Editor at Sky News. The Fourth Industrial Revolution was the key theme at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos. How will advances in technology affect how companies around the world operate?

Letters | 11 February 2016

From our UK edition

What’s best for Europe? Sir: It seems that the British negotiations in Europe have produced little, and even at this late stage they would surely be more effective if the tone were based more on what is best for Europe as a whole (‘Fighting over the crumbs’, 6 February). If we leave, we will desert our friends among the nations of Europe and make them more beholden to the largest members. Surely the difficulties of immigration, the euro and muscle-bound regulation will sooner or later force Europe to make changes of the kind we wish to see, and we should be there to help make them happen. History teaches us that Europe is too large, and too near, for us to consider abandoning any influence over what they do there.

Barometer | 11 February 2016

From our UK edition

Matters of life and death Lord Lucan is now officially presumed dead. How do you have someone declared dead? In England and Wales, under the Presumption of Death Act 2013… — Anyone can apply to have anyone else declared dead, but if the applicant is not a spouse, civil partner, parent, child or sibling of the presumed deceased they must show they have a significant interest. — The person should have been missing for at least seven years, but it is possible to have someone declared dead earlier if the court is convinced they have died. — It costs £480. — An order can be revoked if the person later turns up alive, but that will not reinstate a marriage or civil partnership. — The act cannot be used in the instance of a missing monarch.

Portrait of the week | 11 February 2016

From our UK edition

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that if Britain left the European Union, France could stop allowing British officials to make immigration checks on the French side of the border, and, his spokesman predicted: ‘You have potentially thousands of asylum seekers camped out in northern France who could be here almost overnight.’ Mr Cameron denounced the way prisons are being run by his administration: ‘Current levels of prison violence, drug-taking and self-harm should shame us all.’ Junior doctors went on strike again for 24 hours. Twelve men of Pakistani heritage were jailed for up to 20 years for the rape and sexual abuse of a girl when she was aged 13 and 14, over a period of two years, in Keighley, West Yorkshire.