The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

A better way

From our UK edition

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 at keeping us safe. But as the IRA famously put it, spies have to be lucky all of the time, terrorists have to be lucky only once. So it is impossible for Britain to view events on the continent with any sense of complacency. Still, the Prime Minister was justified in pointing out last week that the more we learn about what happened in Paris, the more it justifies the policies that Britain has pursued.

The Spectator

Listen: Is the BBC a national treasure? With Melvyn Bragg, James Purnell and Rachel Johnson

From our UK edition

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 broadcaster. The discussion was hosted by Andrew Neil. Both entertaining and informative, the discussion touched upon a number of different areas, including whether the BBC should reduce its print content, whether a 'liberal' bias exists and whether the BBC can actually be reformed.

The Spectator

The French way of war

From our UK edition

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 devotion the better. We think that we Englishmen know a good deal more of the ways of devotion than we are generally credited with, and we are learning daily in a geometrical progression. But even so, we cannot fail to help ourselves by watching and admiring the wonderful performance of a people whose circumstances brought them more quickly and more really into contact with war than we ourselves were brought… Beyond the rampart which we defend lie the barbarians yearning to advance.

The Spectator

A further selection of books of the year — the best and most overrated of 2015

From our UK edition

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 in Russia a century ago, it’s the story of a girl and her friends (some of whom are wolves) forced to be brave, and to right some great wrongs. We began 2015 with the introduction to another bright new talent, following the publication of The Vegetarian by Han Kang (Portobello, £12.99), superbly translated by Deborah Smith.

Monday

The Spectator

Cameron’s snooping law would not help our spies. Why does he pretend otherwise?

From our UK edition

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 should think, absolutely, the bill we’re taking through parliament to strengthen our capabilities to intercept the communications of terrorists is a vital part of this.' Asked if he wanted to speed it up, he replied: 'we ought to look at the timetable'. But why? The Investigatory Powers Bill will confer no new powers on the spies at all – as No10 confirmed in a briefing to journalists this afternoon.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 12 November 2015

From our UK edition

The C of E should apologise Sir: Peter Hitchens’s article on the allegations against the late Bishop Bell is a welcome intervention in a sorry affair (‘Justice for Bishop Bell’, 7 November). If the best evidence against Bishop Bell was sufficient only to merit his arrest (were he alive), then the recent statements concerning him issued by the church authorities should be withdrawn; if they have better evidence, then that should be published. It should not be forgotten that this is not the first time this year that senior figures in the Church of England have made dubious accusations of child abuse against the dead.

The Spectator

Barometer | 12 November 2015

From our UK edition

A marathon of cheats Russian athletes may be stripped of the medals they won at the 2012 Olympics, but what of the earliest-known drug-taker in the modern Olympics? Thomas Hicks won the 1904 marathon in St Louis after taking two doses of brandy laced with strychnine. —Hicks collapsed on the finishing line and had to be revived. There being no rule at the time against drugs, he was allowed to keep his gold medal. — Not so a man who reached the finishing line ahead of him, fellow American Fred Lorz. He was disqualified after admitting that he had taken a car most of the way. Police, camera, revenue The police and crime commissioner for Bedfordshire is thinking of turning on speed cameras on the M1 24 hours a day. On which roads do most fatalities occur?

The Spectator

Pry another day

From our UK edition

Were David Cameron in any way adept at spin, it would be tempting to think that the publication of the Investigatory Powers Bill had been deliberately timed so as to coincide with the opening of Spectre, the new James Bond film. The debate over the bill has turned into a question of whether we trust our spies, which by and large we do. But the real question to be asked is whether we trust the taxman, the police and our town halls with the powers of espionage — and that is another matter entirely. The Investigatory Powers Bill does not actually contain new powers for the security services, who can already tap phones and access emails and have done for decades.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 12 November 2015

From our UK edition

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, outlined four changes he sought in Britain’s membership of the EU. He wanted to protect the single market for Britain and others outside the eurozone; to increase commercial competitiveness; to exempt Britain from an ‘ever closer union’; and to restrict EU migrants’ access to in-work benefits. Mr Cameron put the demands in a letter to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council. David Lidington, the Europe minister, said that others in the EU could put forward ‘alternative proposals that deliver the same result’. In a speech to the Confederation of British Industry, Mr Cameron had said: ‘The argument isn’t whether Britain could survive outside the EU; of course it could.