The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: The National Trust and young people reply

From our UK edition

Trust renewables   Sir: Your editorial (‘Green and unpleasant’, 3 May) accused the National Trust of jumping ‘aboard the climate change bandwagon’ and performing a ‘double backflip’ on wind energy and shale gas. Not true. We have long been worried about the impact that climate change is having on our properties. Sixty per cent of the 740 miles of coastline we look after is at risk from erosion as sea levels rise, and rising average temperatures are affecting the species we care for on our land. That’s why we are considering investing £35 million in renewable energy sources, so that by 2020 the Trust will only get 50 per cent of our energy from fossil fuels.

The Spectator

Why does Britain’s fight for religious freedom stop at Dover?

From our UK edition

‘We don’t do God,’ was Alastair Campbell’s put-down when his charge, Tony Blair, was tempted to raise the issue of his faith. Unfortunately, it seems to have become the motto of David Cameron’s government. It is a month now since 276 girls were kidnapped from a school near the town of Chibok in northern Nigeria, and still the Foreign Office’s statements on the crisis read like a deliberate exercise in missing the point. ‘Continuing murders and abductions of schoolchildren, particularly girls in Nigeria by Boko Haram, are a stark reminder of the threat faced by women and girls in conflict-prone areas,’ Mark Simmonds, minister for Africa, said this week. ‘Young children are being denied universal freedoms such as an education.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 15 May 2014

From our UK edition

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said on television that he was ‘bullish’ about negotiating change for Britain in the European Union, but that there would be a referendum on membership by the end of 2017 ‘whether or not I have successfully negotiated’. In a telephone poll by Lord Ashcroft the Conservatives were found to be ahead for the first time since 2012, on 34 per cent, with Labour at 32, Ukip 15 and the Liberal Democrats 9. An ICM poll said much the same. In the first quarter since visa restrictions were lifted, 140,000 Romanians and Bulgarians were employed in Britain, not counting dependants. Unemployment fell by 133,000 to a five-year low of 2.2 million. The FTSE rose to its highest since 1999, at 6,873.08.

The Spectator

Four stories the EU would like the right to have forgotten

From our UK edition

Memory holes The EU wants to introduce a law which would force Google to delete from its searches old information that individuals and organisations would prefer forgotten. Some things that come up when you write ‘EU’ and ‘scandal’ into Google: — A 2009 EU document advising officials to write two minutes of every meeting: a full one and a ‘neutral’ one, with the juicy bits taken out, in case it has to be released in a Freedom of Information request. — European Commission president José Manuel Barroso’s £24,600 hotel bill for a four-day stay in New York. — A former European commissioner’s appointment of her dentist as a highly paid adviser on HIV/Aids.

Thursday