The Spectator

Sunday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: A ‘psycho-political’ study of the English

'The Magazines', from The Spectator, 5 September 1914: THE most interesting paper in the new Nineteenth Century is that by Sir Harry Johnston on "The German War and its Consequences." Writing as one with many German friends, he sets forth the reasons why his love for Germany has changed to righteous anger. They are, briefly, that Germany, ruled by the Hohenzollerns and inflamed by Prussian Professors, though Great Britain and France had made all reasonable concessions to her colonial and commercial aspirations, has, on the pretext of the Austro-Servian quarrel, violated the neutrality of an unoffending country and conducted the war in Belgium and France with a barbarity hitherto associated with Oriental savages.

Saturday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Normal public service

THE WAR AND THE CIVIL SERVICE. [To the Editor of The Spectator] SIR,—May I suggest that some of the normal public services may, for the time, be curtailed in order to give patriotic young men the opportunity of serving their country in another way? The number of deliveries of letters might be reduced without serious inconvenience; a possible curtailment may be suggested in many other directions. Service with the colours is the one thing that matters now, and it should be made plain in every town and village how greatly those who are debarred from it honour and appreciate those who accept it. Everywhere the families of those who have relatives in any branch of the Service should be marked out for special consideration and special distinction.

Friday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: A city at war

From The Spectator, 5 September 1914: LONDON changes day by day, and the London of the first few days of the war lies far in the past, distant for all of us by differently measured aeons of time. The trainloads of troops, the horses, the hurry, the altered railway service, the packed streets, the questioning crowds, the visible stress and strain of meeting the new conditions and the new standards of the world—these are gone. London instead is very quiet, and exceedingly hard at work. The noise of preparation has ceased, and now the silence that has followed has a quality of its own. There is a new sound in it, which a Londoner returning from travel would detect at once.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: Andrew Roberts on Cameron, and a defence of Kate Bush

Advice for Cameron Sir: David Cameron once saved my life from a school of Portuguese man o’ war jellyfish, so now’s the time for me to save his political life with this advice: to do nothing. The British people are a fair-minded lot; they will give him another term in office because he and George Osborne have delivered the best growth rates in Europe despite the monstrous overspending and boom-bust of the Blair-Brown years. Every newly incoming ministry since the war has been re-elected — except Ted Heath’s, which broke all the rules anyhow — and this one will be too. Douglas Carswell is an intelligent man who has made a stupid mistake.

The Spectator

An undiplomatic history of British diplomatic dinners

In poor taste US Ambassador Matthew Barzun attracted the ire of chefs for complaining that he had been served lamb and potatoes too often since arriving in Britain. Some others who have landed in the oxtail soup after complaining about British food: — At a summit in 2005 former French President Jacques Chirac was said to have joked with world leaders that his country’s problems with Nato originated from being persuaded to try haggis by its former secretary-general George Robertson. He went on to say of the British: ‘one cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad’.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 4 September 2014

Home Britain’s terror threat level was raised from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe’ in response to fighting in Iraq and Syria, meaning that an attack on Britain was ‘highly likely’. Three days later, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, in a hesitant statement to the Commons, proposed that: police should be able to seize temporarily at the border the passports of people travelling overseas; there should be all-party talks on drawing up powers to prevent suspected British terrorists returning to Britain; those under terrorism prevention and investigation measures (Tpims) should be subject to ‘stronger locational constraints’.

The Spectator

Nato must rediscover its purpose, or it will end up losing a war

This week’s Nato summit was originally intended to look back on lessons learned from Afghanistan and reflect on the notion that (as Barack Obama put it) a ‘decade of war is now ending’. How naively optimistic that seems now. In the past week a second American journalist has been beheaded in Iraq and the Sunni insurgents who call themselves Islamic State say that a British hostage will be next. So far, their war has claimed more than 25,000 lives. Meanwhile Russia is intensifying its war with Ukraine in a conflict that has seen the loss of at least 2,000 lives.

The Spectator

Podcast: Tory civil war, Scotland’s political soul and naked photos of celebrities

Do the Tories think they’ve already lost the election? Their behaviour is certainly beginning to suggest so. In this week’s issue, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the civil war that is raging in the Conservative party. A party that should be readying itself for victory is now preparing to tear itself apart in opposition. But can Cameron do anything about this? Isabel, James and Fraser Nelson weigh up his options in this week’s podcast. It’s a different story up in Scotland. The referendum debate has ignited politics, and galvanized both sides of the political spectrum.