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Mr Speaker, this Spending Review delivers on the commitment we made to the British people that we would put security first. To protect our economic security, by taking the difficult decisions to live within our means and bring down our debt. To protect our national security, by defending our country’s interests abroad and keeping our citizens safe
From our UK edition
From our UK edition
I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. As I said to him in the House last week the first duty of a state is to protect its citizens. At the moment the country’s overwhelming focus is on the threat we face from terrorism and on how we can best ensure the defeat of ISIL. Labour supports
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With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review. Mr Speaker, our national security depends on our economic security, and vice versa. So the first step in keeping our country safe is to ensure our economy is, and remains, strong. Over the last five
From our UK edition
‘There’s a call for you to observe a year’s silence.’
From our UK edition
From our UK edition
From our UK edition
‘We’ve found a niche.’
From our UK edition
From our UK edition
From our UK edition
‘On the internet, nobody knows you’re GCHQ.’
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‘I’m incredibly tired and apt to make mistakes.’
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The NHS and politicians Sir: The NHS is indeed in need of fundamental reform, but Max Pemberton’s excellent article (‘The wrong cuts’, 14 November) exemplifies why politicians are least well qualified to conduct it. The public loves the NHS and has every reason to distrust political meddling. NHS England should become a public corporation with a
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Friendly words England football fans sang ‘La Marseillaise’ in a friendly match at Wembley. The anthem has not always been so popular. In 1992 a Committee for a Marseillaise of Fraternity was founded to campaign for a change to the words, written as a war hymn by an army captain while French troops were besieged
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Home After the killings in Paris, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that seven terrorist attacks on Britain had been prevented in the past six months. He met President Vladimir Putin of Russia at a G20 meeting at Antalya in Turkey. Mr Putin said: ‘We should join efforts in preventing terror. Unfortunately our bilateral relations
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To say that the Paris attacks could have happened in Britain is not enough. Such attacks are being attempted here with terrifying regularity —seven have been thwarted so far this year alone. MI5’s official assessment is that a terrorist attack on British soil is ‘highly likely’. Our security services have so far been very good
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Last night Spectator Events hosted a discussion at Church House, Westminster about whether the BBC really is a national treasure. Speakers included Melvyn Bragg, author and broadcaster, James Purnell, director of strategy and digital at the BBC, Andrew Bridgen MP, Meirion Jones, investigative journalist, Robin Aitken, author of Can we trust the BBC? and Rachel Johnson, author and
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From ‘The Example of France’, The Spectator, 20 November 1915: France is an example to the world and to posterity of how a nation can bend itself to the work in hand, and labour with its whole body, its whole mind, and its whole soul. The more we know of the splendid details of this
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Daniel Hahn I suspect many people won’t bother to read Katherine Rundell’s The Wolf Wilder (Bloomsbury, £12.99) because it’s a children’s book. Don’t be one of those people. You’d be depriving yourself of a ferociously paced, brilliantly imagined piece of gorgeous, immersive storytelling — and really, why would you want to do that? Set
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Should the Investigatory Powers Bill be rushed through parliament in the wake of the Paris attacks? David Cameron seemed to suggest so this morning, when he said that the bill was part of his ‘full spectrum’ response. Britain will be responding to the Paris atrocities, he said, and this… ‘…means boosting our counter-terrorism capabilities. We
