The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Cameron’s new mission

From our UK edition

As David Cameron lined up beside Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband at the Cenotaph on the day after the general election, he said that he had thought he would be the one writing a resignation statement that day. He may also have imagined how history would have judged him: as a so-so Tory leader who didn’t quite manage to win an election against the reviled Gordon Brown and was booted out after one term. A leader who was good at balancing a coalition but who didn’t stand for (or achieve) very much himself. It would have been a miserable legacy. Luckily he now has the chance to reshape it. The political landscape he surveys has changed utterly. Of all the political parties, only the Conservatives and Scottish Nationalists are intact. The Labour party is settling down for a long civil war.

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans

From our UK edition

From ‘The Right Spirit of Concentration’, The Spectator, 15 May 1915: It need not be supposed that we are blind to the dangers which arise from a large number of aliens in our midst. We have several times written of these dangers. But latterly, whenever the subject was debated in Parliament, the answer was that the War Office were responsible for the control of aliens who could do harm, and that the War Office were doing what they thought necessary. We may, if we like, suspect that the War Office were not doing enough, but they, at all events, were in possession of the facts and we were not.

The Spectator

A war crime – and a president’s dilemma

From our UK edition

From ‘Germany and the United States’, The Spectator, 15 May 1915: The text of President Wilson’s Note to Germany on the sinking of the Lusitania has not been published at the time when we write, but there is no doubt that the unofficial summaries convey its sense accurately enough. It asks that some assurance shall be given that in future unarmed merchantmen carrying noncombatants shall be searched by the German Navy, and that the passengers and crew shall be transferred to a place of safety, before the prize is destroyed… After his earlier declaration that Germany would be held to ‘strict accountability’ for the loss of American lives, Mr Wilson could not have done less than send such a Note. If he had acted literally on his words he would have done much more.

Wednesday

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The Spectator at war: Will Germany change her ways?

From our UK edition

From ‘Germany and the United States’, The Spectator, 15 May 1915: The questions that concern us now to the exclusion of all others are: What will the German answer be to Mr. Wilson? and To what action by the United States will Mr. Wilson's Note lead? We take it for granted that Germany will not consent to abandon her submarine campaign against "unarmed merchant vessels carrying non-combatants," for that would mean an entire reversal of her criminal policy at sea. She attaches enormous importance to that policy, and hopes by means of it ultimately to neutralize the existence of our Fleet. Besides, she has dipped her hands too deep in illegality to draw them out now. She can hope to succeed only by further and worse crimes. Opposed to that fact we have the other fact that Mr.

Tuesday

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The Spectator at war: The sinking of the Lusitania

From our UK edition

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 15 May 1915: SINCE our last issue every day has been to packed with incident and emotion that it is difficult to see events in their right perspective. The diabolical crime of sinking the ‘Lusitania’ is, from a military point of view, of course much lees important than the development of large and critical movements on both fronts of the war. The battle raging in the western theatre is probably the greatest which has yet been fought, and, measured by the employment of artillery, it is probably the greatest battle in history.

Monday

Sunday

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Dan Jarvis: why I won’t run as Labour leader (and why we lost)

From our UK edition

Excerpts from his article in The Times today. Do read the whole thing (here). "I won’t be putting my name forward in the coming leadership contest. It’s not the right time for my family. My eldest kids had a very tough time when they lost their mum [in 2011] and I don’t want them to lose their dad. I need some space for them, my wife and our youngest child right now, and I wouldn’t have it as leader. In Scotland, [Labour has] been all but wiped out. We were also rejected across large parts of England. Put London to one side and more people have walked on the moon than the number of Labour MPs elected across the south west, southeast and east of England. And while Ukip only retained one seat, they made a marked impression in our traditional heartlands.

Saturday

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The Spectator at war: Counting the cost | 9 May 2015

From our UK edition

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 8 May 1915: Mr. Lloyd George opened his Budget on Tuesday. We have dealt with it at length elsewhere, and will only say here that “for the present” he proposes no new taxation. Later in the year, however, the whole fiscal problem will have to be reconsidered. If the war lasts till September we shall have a net deficiency of £516,346,000 to make up. The increase of indebtedness, actual and prospective, is very great and very serious, but it is nonsense to talk of it meaning “absolute ruin” and of our being crushed to the earth. A hundred years ago, when the value of £1 was far greater than now, the burden of Debt on the United Kingdom was, roughly, £40 per inhabitant.

Friday

The Spectator

Cabinet reshuffle: George Osborne, Theresa May, Michael Fallon and Philip Hammond remain in their posts

From our UK edition

David Cameron has 'reshuffled' his Cabinet. George Osborne has been re-appointed as Chancellor, and will also be First Secretary of State, as were William Hague and Peter Mandelson. The title implies that he is the most senior minister.  https://twitter.com/David_Cameron/status/596701353289846786 Theresa May will remain as Home Secretary. https://twitter.com/David_Cameron/status/596704917374525440 Philip Hammond will also remain in his role as Foreign Secretary, and Michael Fallon will keep his job as Defence Secretary. https://twitter.com/David_Cameron/status/596707531520610304 https://twitter.

The Spectator

Remembering VE Day

From our UK edition

It is 70 years since Britain celebrated Germany's unconditional surrender and the arrival of victory in Europe. Prime Minister Winston Churchill hailed ‘a victory of the great British nation as a whole... against the most tremendous military power that has been seen,’ and he asked ‘when shall the reputation and faith of this generation of English men and women fail?’ It has not yet; and today we remember the freedoms for which they fought and died, which we exercised yesterday. In its 11 May 1945 issue The Spectator's leading article was on at ‘The Challenge Ahead’ in the wake of Germany's defeat: GERMANIA fuit—Germany is a thing that was.

The Spectator

As it happened: 2015 general election results

From our UK edition

Welcome to The Spectator's live coverage of the 2015 general election results. We provided results and analysis overnight and throughout the day. You can read all the coverage below. Key points: David Cameron remains PM —He has won a majority and has visited Buckingham Palace for an audience with the Queen. The Conservatives have won 331 seats. In an exclusive revealed by The Spectator, Cameron told Conservative HQ staffers this morning that 'this is the sweetest victory of them all'. Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband and Nigel Farage have resigned as leaders of their parties. SNP has swept Scotland — The SNP now have 56 MPs in Scotland, while the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats each have one.

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The Spectator at war: Brave little Belgium

From our UK edition

From ‘The Starving Belgians’, The Spectator, 8 May 1915: The two hundred thousand Belgian refugees who are being provided for in the United Kingdom have made us feel that the refugee question is part of our daily life. We hear of the refugees wherever we go; we see them; our everyday conversation is concerned with them. Yet our own preoccupying experience is but a fraction of the whole question of caring for the Belgians. It is humiliating to reflect how far the vividness of small daily impressions exceeds that of the greater things which have to be imagined. The conditions in Belgium at this moment challenge the imagination to bestir itself if ever events in history did.

Thursday