The Spectator

Spectator letters: Degrees, dishwashers, and charity catfights

From our UK edition

What’s a degree worth? Sir: Mark Mason’s article (‘Uni’s out’, 24 January) hits the nail on the head. A brief addendum: it is generally stated that graduates earn more over a lifetime than non-graduates — obviously a selling point to would-be students. This claim may be true in a very crude sense, but is meaningless without certain

Calling the Green party socialist is an insult to socialists

From our UK edition

The Green party has been likened to a watermelon: green on the outside and red on the inside. But that is to do a huge injustice to generations of socialists and communists. Misguided though they were in many of their ideas, nobody could accuse them of actively seeking to make society poorer. That, however, is

Portrait of the week | 29 January 2015

From our UK edition

Home Party leaders mercilessly launched 100 days of campaigning before the general election on 7 May. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said he would reduce the annual maximum household receipt of welfare to £23,000 from the current limit of £26,000. Ed Miliband announced a ten-year plan for the National Health Service, but Alan Milburn, a

The Spectator at war: What is wrong with Germany?

From our UK edition

From ‘What is Wrong With Germany?‘, The Spectator, 30 January 1915: If the inquiry is to be pushed to the ultimate point, what is wrong with the Germans is their dreadful, their slavish devotion to Logic— to the “Absolute” and to Abstractions. When Englishmen create an Abstraction they do not call upon all mankind to

From the archives | 29 January 2015

From our UK edition

From ‘Reprisals’, The Spectator, 30 January 1915: There has been a tendency among some newspapers, and perhaps still more among private persons, to demand that the murder of non-combatants on the East Coast by German ships of war and Zeppelins should be visited with reprisals. ‘Murder is murder,’ they say in so many words, and

The Spectator at war: Crime and punishment

From our UK edition

From ‘Reprisals’, The Spectator, 30 January 1915 THERE has been a tendency among some newspapers, and perhaps still more among private persons, to demand that the murder of non-combatants on the East Coast by German ships of war and Zeppelins should be visited with reprisals. “Murder is murder,” they say in so many words, and

The Spectator at war: Keeping the country sweet

From our UK edition

From ‘Economic Quackery’, The Spectator, 23 January 1915: Ever since the war began there has been a tendency to rely upon the Government, instead of relying upon ourselves and upon the operation of economic laws. The political mischief resulting is the establishment of what is virtually an un-controlled Cabinet autocracy. The economic mischief, though it

Trojan Horse

From our UK edition

‘Isn’t that nice? It’s a gift from the Jehovah’s Witnesses to apologise for being so annoying and pushy earlier today.’

Bamboo

From our UK edition

‘So, that’s bamboo, bamboo, bamboo, bamboo, bamboo, bamboo. And for you, Sir?’

Down

From our UK edition

‘So can I put you down as holding us in slightly less contempt than the others, then?’