The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: The immoral Vladimir Putin

From our UK edition

Putin the gangster Sir: Putin is a gangster’s gangster. While he ruins Russia economically and diplomatically to keep himself in power, he behaves like a renegade in Ukraine and Syria (‘Putin’s triumph’, 10 October). He is a stirrer and an adventurer, who causes danger in the world and to his fellow citizens. In 2011 he suggested that Russia should join the EU in a common market reaching from Lisbon to Vladivostok. That would be a good idea if the country were ready in terms of human rights and law and order, for Russia’s obvious political destiny is as a bridge between Europe and Asia. But Vlad changed his tune straight after the Sochi PR beano.

The Spectator

Four great demolition disasters

From our UK edition

Bang goes the plan The demolition of six tower blocks in Glasgow failed when the top half of two of the blocks settled upright on rubble. Some more demolitions which went wrong: — A girl of 12 was killed and several people injured in 1997 when the Royal Canberra Hospital toppled rather than collapsed in on itself. Debris, which was supposed to stay within a 50-metre zone, spilled over more than 200 metres. — A 300ft power station chimney in Springfield, Ohio, toppled onto power lines, cutting off electricity to 4,000 people. — A 80ft flour mill at Cankiri, Turkey, toppled onto its roof and came to rest against a block of flats. No one was hurt.

The Spectator

Britain should not mistake its allies for friends

From our UK edition

It would be hard to dream up a more absurd piece of political satire than an agency of the British government called Just Solutions International winning a contract to train prison officers in a country that has executed 175 people in the past year, many of them in public beheadings for offences such as sorcery, witchcraft, adultery and political activism. That it sought this contract in the first place is a sign of the great void at the heart of our foreign policy. This week, the Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, pulled out of the deal with Saudi Arabia — thereby attracting the ire of the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, who called him ‘naive’ for doing so. That is a word better applied to Mr Hammond.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 15 October 2015

From our UK edition

Home Two groups were launched, one in favour of remaining in the European Union and the other in favour of leaving. Vote Leave drew support from Conservatives for Britain, from Labour Leave and from Business for Britain. Lord Rose, chairman of the new group Britain Stronger in Europe, said: ‘To claim that the patriotic course for Britain is to retreat, withdraw and become inward-looking is to misunderstand who we are as a nation.’ The Metropolitan Police withdrew officers stationed outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London where Julian Assange sought refuge in 2012, a watch that had cost £12.6 million. Marlon James from Jamaica won the Man Booker Prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings, based on an attempt to assassinate Bob Marley in the 1970s.

The Spectator

Our debt to Serbia

From our UK edition

From ‘Boldness, Boldness and Again Boldness’, The Spectator, 16 October 1915: There are considerations of faith and honour which must in any case control the action of the allies. Serbia has been our ally from the beginning of the war, and it is now absolutely impossible for us to leave her to her fate. We must stand by her at all costs. The Bulgarians are preparing to stab her in the back. If Greece and Roumania quail, we must not do so. How can we expect them to play the part of honour in this respect unless we set the example? We cannot desert the Serbians — even though to help them will require a gigantic effort, and one which students of war in the abstract tell us may cause a loss of energy and involve us in great risks.

Saturday

The Spectator

Geoffrey Howe, 1926 – 2015: An advocate who believed

From our UK edition

Geoffrey Howe, the former Conservative chancellor, has died aged 88. Lord Howe was Margaret Thatcher's longest serving cabinet minister and chancellor from 1979 to 1983. The following profile of him, titled 'Sir Geoffrey Howe: An advocate who believes' appeared in The Spectator on 20 July 1973, soon after he had reached the Cabinet. When Sir Geoffrey Howe, said to be the most brilliant man in the Cabinet, appears at the dispatch box or on television, his eyes look through his owlish spectacles not out but down, and he talks rapidly in a cultured undertone, more or less in the same hurried, dedicated way he smokes cigarettes — constantly. Slightly over-plump, he is a well of nervous energy, and indefatigible.

Thursday