The Spectator

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said: ‘Red warning lights are once again flashing on the dashboard of the global economy.’ He then offered £650 million to a ‘green climate fund’. In a speech in Singapore, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, said that fines for banks over rigging foreign exchange rates showed that ‘it is simply untenable now to argue that the problem is one of a few bad apples. The issue is with the barrels in which they are stored.’ Official figures showed that the number of British Army reservists has been boosted by a recruitment drive in the past year from 19,290 to 19,310. Friends of the Earth went to law to secure the future on the river Otter of a family of beavers living wild there.

From The Spectator, 21 November 1914: WE record with deep regret the death of Lord Roberts, which occurred last Saturday evening at Sir John French's headquarters. Lord Roberts had gone to France specially to visit the Indian troops, of whom he was Colonel-in-Chief. He caught cold on Thursday week, and his heart was not strong enough to resist the attack of pneumonia -which followed. We have written elsewhere of Lord Roberts's brilliant career, and of his great example not only as a soldier but as a man. We may add here that the Times of Monday published a letter in which M.

From The Spectator, 21 November 1914: Though we realize how terrible is the strain on our Army in Flanders, we are, of course, well aware that General French and Lord Kitchener are fully conscious of what is going on, and are taking all the measures necessary to provide the requisite reliefs, and to strengthen the line at any places where it is really threadbare. Though the strain and distress in the trenches, and the weariness of the men owing to want of sleep caused by almost continuous fighting, may be very great, and may call loudly for relief, from the higher military point of view there may be no danger.

From The Spectator, 14 November 1914: THACKERAY dealt a blow at domestic service which it has never quite recovered. He made it ridiculous. It was the one bad turn that he did to English society. The litera- ture of his day reflected his point of view. Servants did not then read novels—they were 31s. 6d. each—neither did they belong to lending libraries. The derisive smiles of their employers were hardly understood by them. By now the employer has forgotten that he ever laughed, though it is impossible to deny that some very faint aroma of ridicule still clings to his mind in connexion with the thought of domestic service, at any rate for men. Meanwhile education has made rapid progress. A class which never read before is reading now.