The Spectator

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The Spectator

Spectator letters: Remembering Clarissa Tan; and Hugo Rifkind replies to Matt Ridley

From our UK edition

In loving memory Sir: When Clarissa Tan covered last year’s Good Funeral Awards, it quickly became apparent that she was a woman facing her greatest fears with a gentle and courageous spirit. She left an enduring impression on all who met her. In her subsequent article for this magazine (‘The ideal death show’, 14 September 2013) she wrote of the hope she derived from her belief in God: ‘It is the hope not that I will live. It is the hope that I am loved.’ You were, Clarissa, and you are.

The Spectator

The rise and fall of the Red Road flats

From our UK edition

Flat pack Some facts about Glasgow’s Red Road Flats, built in 1968, which are to be demolished as part of the opening ceremony for the Commonwealth Games. — The original plans were for four-storey maisonettes rather than tower blocks. — At 31 storeys and 292 feet, the first blocks were the highest residential buildings in Europe when opened. — The flats were clad in asbestos, which was later covered up. — In 1980, two of the blocks were declared unfit for habitation by families, and were let to students and the YMCA. Asylum-seekers followed from the 1990s onwards.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 10 April 2014

From our UK edition

Home Maria Miller resigned as Culture Secretary after a week of being the centre of a game of hunt-the-issue. She had paid back expenses, but only the £5,800 requested by the Commons standards committee, not the £45,000 suggested by the parliamentary commissioner for standards; she had apologised in the Commons, but her apology lasted only 32 seconds; her special advisers were accused of putting pressure on the Daily Telegraph not to report on her expenses embarrassment because she had power over newspaper regulation; the chairman of the 1922 Committee called the scandal ‘toxic’. Mrs Miller told her constituents: ‘I am devastated.

The Spectator

It’s time to stop the omnishambles – and send Lynton Crosby to No. 10

From our UK edition

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_10_April_2014_v4.mp3" title="James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman on Maria Miller's resignation" startat=1057] Listen [/audioplayer]Yet again, the Conservative party has reminded us that it is quite capable of losing the next election. The events leading up to Maria Miller’s resignation are entirely consistent with a party that is so gauche, so accident-prone, so surprised by basic news events that it can make Ed Miliband seem positively presidential. The government had intended this week’s political news to be about its success on welfare reform. Instead, the theme has been one of Tory chaos, as MPs publicly debated the survival of the Culture Secretary before she eventually chose to walk the plank.

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