The Spectator

Slow march to victory

From our UK edition

From ‘The western victories’, The Spectator, 2 October 1915: As this is a war of heavy artillery, masses of slow-moving guns and ammunition have to be brought to fresh positions, and there installed with all the exacting formalities which are foreign to the handling of field-guns and horse artillery. Patience is as valuable as determination. There are times to go fast and times to go slow… If the Hohenzollern and Kaiser Wilhelm Redoubts can be captured in spite of all the lavish care on their construction which is implied in their proud names, there is no redoubt yet invented that will ultimately survive the combined assault of hurricane artillery and well-trained infantry — provided only that we go on feeding our Army with the necessary drafts.

Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to Labour conference – full audio and full text

From our UK edition

Jeremy Corbyn has just finished delivering his speech at Labour's annual conference. The audio can be listened to here: Friends, thank you so much for that incredible welcome and Rohit, thank you so much for that incredible welcome. Rohit, thank you so much for the way you introduced me and the way our family and you have contributed so much to our community. That was absolutely brilliant. Thank you very much. I am truly delighted to be invited to make this speech today, because for the past two weeks, as you’ve probably known I’ve had a very easy, relaxing time. Hardly anything of any importance at all has happened to me. You might have noticed in some of our newspapers they’ve taken a bit of an interest in me lately. Some of the things I’ve read are this.

John McDonnell’s speech to the Labour party conference – full text

From our UK edition

I warn you this is not my usual rant, they get me into trouble and I've promised Jeremy to behave myself. Jeremy and I sat down at the beginning of his campaign for the Labour leadership to discuss what they call the strap line for his campaign leaflets and posters. We came up with the strapline you see now. Straight talking, honest politics. It just embodied for me what Jeremy Corbyn is all about. So in the spirit of straight talking, honest politics. Here’s some straight talking. At the heart of Jeremy’s campaign, upon which he received such a huge mandate, was the rejection of austerity politics. But austerity is just a word almost meaningless to many people. What does it actually mean? Well, for Michael O’Sullivan austerity was more than a word.