The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Time to tax

From our UK edition

From ‘The coming budget’, The Spectator, 18 September 1915: At present the large majority of householders and electors pay no direct taxation of any kind. They know nothing of the Income Tax collector’s demand-note, and they never receive a call from the rate collector. This system is not only fiscally but politically unsound, and a Cabinet

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 10 September 2015

From our UK edition

Biblical suggestions Sir: I wish to offer a couple of comments on Matthew Parris’s observation that although his ‘Christian atheism’ provides him with a moral framework, he feels the urge to help people in need, yet feels let down because Jesus offers no guidance about who to help and to what degree (‘Christianity is silent

The Spectator

Barometer | 10 September 2015

From our UK edition

Old bags The government announced details of a compulsory 5p charge for single-use plastic bags in shops. Plastic bags have only been around since 1960, when they were first produced by the Swedish firm Akerlund and Rausing, later to give the world the Tetrapak. The first store to use them was Strom, a shoe-shop chain

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 10 September 2015

From our UK edition

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, told Parliament that he had authorised the killing, on 21 August, by means of an RAF drone, of a British citizen near Raqqa in Syria, Cardiff-born Reyaad Khan, 21, an adherent of the Islamic State. Ruhul Amin, from Aberdeen, also an Islamic State activist, whose killing had not been

The Spectator

The fog of law

From our UK edition

Not even Jeremy Corbyn lamented the death of Reyaad Khan, who was killed by an RAF drone in Syria after joining the Islamic State. He was a straight-A student from Cardiff who had the freedom to do anything with his life, but chose to turn his back on Britain and join a band of Islamofascists.