The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: A defence of nursing assistants, a mystery shotgun, and a response to Melanie Phillips

From our UK edition

Poor treatment Sir: Jane Kelly’s article (‘No tea or sympathy’, 2 August) on the lack of empathy and emotional support shown to patients is humbling. It is also worth noting that showing patients a lack of compassion has wider consequences. We know for instance that around 13,000 cancer patients feel like dropping out of treatment each year because of how they are treated by staff. In other words, it could risk their lives. It is unfair to say, however, that the nurses who used to be ‘angels’ have been replaced by the ‘mechanistic bureaucrats’ of assistants.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 7 August 2014

From our UK edition

Home The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge joined 50 heads of state at the St Symphorien cemetery near Mons to commemorate the invasion of Belgium in 1914. The Prince of Wales attended a service at Glasgow cathedral; the Duchess of Cornwall attended a service at Westminster Abbey where a lighted flame was put out at 11p.m., the hour that Britain had declared war on Germany on 4 August. Many people in Britain kept one light burning for an hour that evening. The Queen attended a private service at Craithie church, near Balmoral. In the grassy moat of the Tower of London, 888,246 ceramic poppies were being planted, one for each British and Colonial death in the first world war.

The Spectator

Sorry, but trains can’t really replace welfare lines

From our UK edition

George Osborne proposed an attractive idea this week: that spending on state benefits should be diverted into new infrastructure in the North. His conceit was that while welfare spending produces no economic return, spending public money on new high-speed railways and the like will inevitably boost the economy. We can’t fault the former assertion: that paying people to be idle is a drain on the public purse. But we take issue with the notion that infrastructure will always serve to boost the economy.

The Spectator

Podcast: Boris is back, Baroness Warsi’s resignation and the demise of the ‘nice girl’

From our UK edition

Here comes Boris! After he announced yesterday that he will stand as an MP in 2015, the next Tory leadership fight has just begun. Now that Boris is back in the fray, and making Eurosceptic noises, he has an excellent chance of making it to No. 10 – to assume what he believes is his rightful destiny — the position of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Freddy Gray presents this week's podcast, and talks to Harry Mount about how Boris's parliamentary campaign might play out. Isabel Hardman also examines the possible constituencies he might pick. The other major political story this week was Baroness Warsi’s shock resignation. But was it political or poisonous? Douglas Murray believes Warsi was over-promoted and incompetent, and is glad to see the back of her.

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: A lesson from history

From our UK edition

A letter to the editor from the 8 August 1914 Spectator, from Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer: ‘Sir, - A septuagenarian may perhaps profitably remind his countrymen of events which happened some fifty years ago, and of which the present generation may possibly be unmindful. In 1866 Napoleon III. allowed himself to be lulled into security by Prussian assurances, and stood aside whilst Austria was crushed at Sadowa. He paid dearly for his neglect four years later at Sedan.

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: ‘Why has it come?’

From our UK edition

From ‘Topics of the Day’, The Spectator, 8 August 1914: ‘How does it happen that within a week Germany and Austria-Hungary are at war with France, with Russia, with Britain, with Servia, with Belgium, and that it is exceedingly likely that to the list will have to be added Holland, Switzerland, and Denmark, and later Italy, Roumania and Greece? ‘…Our answer is one which we feel bound to give because we believe it, even though it may seem to a section of our readers unjust to Germany.

Wednesday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: All at sea

From our UK edition

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 8 August 1914: ‘The question that every man is asking is, What news of the Fleet? As we write on Friday it is almost impossible to answer this question. All we know is that our Fleet is in the North Sea and doing its duty. In all human probability it is as we write heavily engaged in action, but how that action goes it is impossible to say. Modern naval battles take up almost as much room as modern land battles, and it is quite possible that a fight begun off the North of Scotland may be decided far to the South, or actually off the Dutch coast.

Tuesday

The Spectator

Warsi resignation: David Cameron replies

From our UK edition

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_07_August_2014_v4.mp3" title="Douglas Murray and Tim Stanley discuss Baroness Warsi's resignation" startat=462] Listen [/audioplayer]Dear Sayeeda, Thank you for your letter today, in which you set out your reasons for resigning from the Government. I was sorry to receive this. I realise that this must not have been an easy decision for you to make and very much regret that we were not able to speak about your decision beforehand. I understand your strength of feeling on the current crisis in the Middle East – the situation in Gaza is intolerable.

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Are the lights going out?

From our UK edition

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 8 August 1914:  ‘A good many excellent people are talking now as if the present war would mean the destruction of all civilization. That, we venture to say with all respect, is rubbish. Civilization is a far tougher plant than these good people imagine. That the war is a terrible evil, and that it will bring great sufferings, we admit as fully as can the most determined pessimist. It is, indeed, because we feel this so deeply that we have struggled hard in favour of those preparations which alone could have averted war, or, at any rate, might greatly have shortened it. Nevertheless the war, frightful as it must be in its consequences, is not, in any true sense, without parallel, nor will its effects be permanent.

Monday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: ‘The great war has come…’

From our UK edition

This is the first in a series of daily extracts from the Spectator during the course of the first world war. The aim is not to tell the full story of the conflict, or even to provide a full assessment of our coverage of it — that requires deeper expertise and a wider view. Our regular archive writer Molly Guinness will continue to provide such a perspective. Instead, we’ll seek to give an impression, week by week and page by page, of the atmosphere of the time, with a minimum of commentary and hindsight.

Friday

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Germany’s forgotten war

From our UK edition

Britain is braced for the anniversary of the outbreak of world war one. Memorials and events are taking place across the country this weekend. Not so in Germany, where reticence reigns.  This week’s Spectator features a piece by Antonia Oettingen, a descendant of Karl Max von Lichnowsky, the Kaiser’s ambassador in London from 1912-1914. She explains why Germany is shy about the Great War. 'In 1912 Kaiser Wilhelm had an ambitious task for my great-great-great uncle Karl Max von Lichnowsky. He sent him to London to be our ambassador there, with orders to try to ensure Britain’s neutrality (at the very least, in cases of conflict with Russia and France).

Thursday