The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Labour’s little helper: the CBI is failing British business

From our UK edition

What is the Confederation of British Industry for? Indeed, who is it for? The soi-disant voice of British business held its conference this week. As one might expect, the organisation’s chief executive, Rain Newton-Smith, lamented the tax increases levied on employers in the Budget. She issued a plea to the Chancellor for the CBI to be more closely involved in the design of fiscal events in the future. She was joined by the organisation’s chair in chiding Labour for treating the private sector as a cash cow. But these criticisms were pianissimo compared with the chorus of praise the group has been orchestrating for Labour. The CBI welcomed the Labour manifesto during the general election for its mission to deliver sustainable growth.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Storm Bert, Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire and Putin gives cockatoos to North Korea

From our UK edition

Home A white paper outlined measures to counter economic inactivity (which had risen by September to 41.2 per cent among those aged 16 to 24): everyone aged 18 to 21 would be offered an apprenticeship, training, education or help to find a job; Jobcentres would be rebranded as the National Jobs and Careers Service. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: ‘What I haven’t heard are many alternatives’ to the tax rises imposed by October’s Budget; she was speaking to the Confederation of British Industry. A petition on the parliament website, accusing Labour of breaking promises and calling for a general election, gathered more than 2.

The Spectator

Who chooses assisted suicide in Canada?

From our UK edition

Sign of the times A petition for an immediate general election gathered 2.7 million signatures in five days.   What are the other most popular petitions on the UK parliament website this week? — Introduce 16 as the minimum age to have social media (112,500 signed). — Don’t change inheritance tax relief for working farms (85,600). — Limit sale and use of fireworks to licence holders only (68,000). — Introduce a compensation scheme for Waspi women (56,600). — Apply for the UK to join the EU as a full member as soon as possible (50,100). Die is cast Who chooses assisted suicide in Canada?    — In 2022, 13,241 people ended their lives in this way, 4.1% of all deaths.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Trump’s tariff threat

President-elect Donald Trump’s threat of 25 percent, across-the-board tariffs on Mexico and Canada has already shocked the system. The US dollar rose against its neighbors’ currencies, as stocks dropped and rose.Floating an additional tariff on China is one thing, but adding America’s two neighbors makes the move especially ambitious. If implemented, the US would effectively levy tariffs against its top three trading partners, which together make up around 40 to 50 percent of total trade between America and the world. That’s revolutionary.One thing that’s for certain is that tariffs would hurt the countries they target more than they hurt the US. More than 75 percent of Mexican and Canadian exports are to the Land of the Free.

Monday

The Spectator

Trump’s popular transition

President-elect Donald Trump is assembling his presidential cabinet in record time, leaving those outside of his orbit scrambling to keep up with the abundance of names flooding their inboxes. In just the past few days, Trump announced Russ Vought will return to the helm of the Office of Management and Budget, president of the America First Policy Institute Brooke Rollins will serve as secretary of the Department of Agriculture, billionaire hedge-fund manager Scott Bessent will lead the Department of the Treasury — plus a smattering of other department heads and health-related appointees.Even if the rapid pace — particularly when compared to the 2016 transition — might be giving some whiplash, the American people are so far on board with the president-elect’s picks.

Friday

The Spectator

How DOGE is planning to cut down the feds

President-elect Donald Trump’s appointees for his new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are planning to crack down on employees who work from home — those who are left, anyway, after the duo’s round of “large-scale firings.”In an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy laid out “the DOGE plan to reform government,” in which they purport to “reverse a decades-long executive power grab” while “following the Supreme Court’s guidance.

Thursday

The Spectator

The Spectator’s 2024 Books of the Year

William Boyd It makes grim, compelling and minatory reading, but Hitler’s People (Penguin, $35) by Richard J. Evans is not only the only book you ever need to read about Nazi Germany but a salutary example of what happens when crazed populist leaders win power. Twenty-two short portraits of the key players and lesser apparatchiks of the Nazi years manage to encompass the whole history of the Third Reich and its baleful legacy. Evans’s hundred-page chapter on Hitler — the “Boss” — is masterly. Evie Wyld’s fourth novel, The Echoes (Knopf Doubleday, $28) with its edgy and moody supernaturalism (the narrator is a ghost) establishes her growing reputation as one of our finest young writers.

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The Spectator

This month in culture: December 2024

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Disney+, December 3 Of the making of Star Wars, there appears to be no end. This one, though, looks different. The characters are a group of children on an Amblin Entertainment-style adventure, a coming-of-age story as they try to make their way back home across the universe after something goes wrong on their home planet. The trailer gives strong Spielberg/E.T./Goonies vibes. Taking place around the same time as The Mandalorian, it rounds out its cast with Jude Law as a “new kind of Jedi,” according to the creators. — Zack Christenson Nightbitch In theaters December 6 Based on Rachel Yoder’s hit horror-comedy novel of the same title: Amy Adams stars as an artist turned stay-at-home mom who learns that domesticity contains multitudes.

culture
The Spectator

The Spectator’s 2024 Holiday Gift Guide

Matt McDonald, managing editor As we grow older, the idea is that we become wiser. I’ve decided to buck that trend by making progressively dumber decisions that put me further from my goals of attaining professional success, home ownership, emotional stability and nirvana. The most recent of these is increasing the distances I’ve been running; I will be attempting a half-marathon back home on the south coast of England the week before Christmas, with a view to running my first marathon in Berlin next fall. It’s unclear why we as a species decided to adopt the practice of doing marathons a couple of millennia ago — the first man to do it did die at the end, after all.

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The Spectator

Which birds are doing best in Britain?

From our UK edition

The last straw Farmers are threatening to strike over the government’s changes to inheritance tax in what is being described as a first in Britain. Besides France, where farmers regularly protest, India witnessed a farmers’ strike in 2020, which was eventually settled after the government dropped proposed new laws. But one of the earliest farmers’ strikes was conducted by the Farmers’ Holiday Association in Iowa in 1932, by farmers protesting at consistently low prices for their products. The idea was that farmers would go on ‘holiday’, refusing to sell any of their produce. Few, however, joined, leading to pickets blocking rural roads with telegraph poles. One policeman was killed, but in an accidental discharge of his gun. The action died down after a few months.

The Spectator

Letters: How to support the dying

From our UK edition

Life support Sir: If the Terminally Ill (End of Life) Bill is passed into law we will have crossed the Rubicon. As the second reading vote on 29 November approaches, it is astonishing that we are hearing less debate than on the loss of the winter fuel payment. There should be the mother of all debates. The issues surrounding assisted dying are immensely complicated and the arguments for and against are powerful. On the one hand it may shorten and ease a dreadful death and on the other it may put pressure on the dying and be deficient in its application. However, the trite adage that hard cases make bad law has great weight, especially if the law is made too quickly and without the fullest informed consideration.

The Spectator

Rachel Reeves can still repair the damage done to farming

From our UK edition

The Chancellor of the Exchequer found time this week to edit her own page on the social media site LinkedIn. She had, it appeared, fallen into error by saying that she had worked as an economist for the Bank of Scotland. Her role had in fact been humbler. No one should be criticised for seeking to correct a mistake. There is no fault in acknowledging that your claims to economic authority were exaggerated, and no shame in embracing humility. Which is why Rachel Reeves should apologise again – without further delay – to Britain’s farmers. For the grotesque, unjust and vindictive tax assault she has launched on the nation’s food producers.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Rising inflation, electric car targets and a tax on flatulent livestock

From our UK edition

Home Thousands of farmers protested in Westminster against inheritance tax on farms. Tesco, Amazon, Greggs and 76 other chains belonging to the British Retail Consortium said that costs introduced by October’s Budget ‘will make job losses inevitable and higher prices a certainty’. The annual rate of inflation rose to 2.3 per cent from 1.7 a month earlier. The British economy grew by 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, but shrank during September; in the second quarter it had grown by 0.5 per cent. Beth, the Queen’s Jack Russell, died. An additional 50,000 pensioners will live in relative poverty next year as a result of cuts to the winter fuel allowance, the government estimated.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Laken Riley’s killer sentenced

Jose Ibarra, the “sick, twisted and evil coward” who was accused of murdering Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, was convicted on all counts and sentenced to two life sentences without the possibility of parole, with an additional twenty-seven years tacked on.“She fought for her life in dignity, and to save herself from being brutally raped,” Riley’s mother said. Ibarra, who is reported to be a member of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang, “showed no regard for Laken and human life. We’re asking the same be done to him.”Riley’s high-profile murder inspired the Laken Riley Act, a bipartisan measure that “directly addresses one of the federal policy issues related to Laken Riley’s murder,” according to Congressman Mike Collins’s office.

Monday

The Spectator

How Biden is preparing for a Trump presidency

President Joe Biden delighted Kyiv officials and war hawks — and infuriated the incoming Trump administration (and, separately, the Kremlin) — on Sunday by authorizing Ukraine to send long-range missiles into Russia. Ukraine had been begging for approval to conduct strikes deep into Russia with Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMs) for years, only to receive the go-ahead in the final months of Biden’s lame-duck presidency. The decision is being reported as a response to Russia importing 10,000 North Korean troops a few weeks ago, but the timing feels curious.

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Friday

The Spectator

Are Pennsylvania Democrats starting the steal?

“Dave McCormick won. Bob Casey lost. Dems can’t handle it. Don’t let them get away with this scheme…”I got this text a few hours ago, and before texting back, “Stop,” as I’ve done about a thousand times over the course of the last month, I tapped the Senate GOP’s link to learn Pennsylvania’s incumbent Democratic senator, “Punxsutawney Bob” Casey (so-called because of allegations he only comes out of hiding when it’s re-election time), is not going back into his hole quietly.The Associated Press declared Republican candidate Dave McCormick the winner many days ago, as he “was leading by more than 30,000 votes when AP called the race...

Thursday

The Spectator

The case against assisted suicide

From our UK edition

Those in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill insist they’ve addressed critics’ principal concerns and that ‘stringent safeguards’ are in place. But it is impossible to see how this could be the case. If suicide is institutionalised as a form of medical treatment it is inevitable that vulnerable people will feel under pressure to opt for it, and inevitable that the bill will in time be amended and extended. In Canada, denying assisted suicide to people who are not terminally ill has been ruled to be discrimination Under the terms of the existing bill, a terminally ill person given less than six months to live will legally be able to take their own life if sanctioned by two independent doctors and a High Court judge.