The Spectator
Thursday
Why British mothers need a tax break
Next week’s Budget marks George Osborne’s last chance to make a game-changing reform before the next election. The Chancellor will have his boasts ready: he’ll say that Britain has the fastest growth of any developed country. What he won’t say is that no developed country has needed to pile so much debt onto its citizens to buy this growth. Statistics about GDP are not much use if the average British breadwinner can put less food on the table than five years ago. To make a proper recovery, something fundamental needs to change in the way the British economy is run. Where Osborne has had the courage to change the Labour system he inherited, it has worked.
Spectator letters: Slavery continues to this day; and why Russia’s re-emergence as a world power is down to Obama’s apathy
Slavery isn’t over Sir: I was alarmed to read Taki’s piece in this week’s High Life (8 March) which claimed that ‘slavery… has been over since 1865, except in Africa’. The Centre for Social Justice, whose board I chair, last year published its groundbreaking report It Happens Here, exposing the desperate plight of those in modern slavery in the UK.
Do wars always start in years ending ‘14’?
Years of war Imaginative souls have tried to compared the situation in Ukraine with that which preceded the first world war 100 years ago. Are years ending in 14 especially violent? — 1414 saw the Polish-Teutonic war, one of a dozen skirmishes between Poland and Teutonic knights between the 14th and 16th centuries. The war was noted for the efforts to starve opposing armies by razing crops. — 1714 saw the outbreak of the seventh Ottoman-Venetian War, which like the first world war lasted four years. It ended with Venice losing control of the Peloponnese. — 1814 saw the Swedish-Norwegian War, which resulted in Norway entering a union with Sweden.
Portrait of the week | 13 March 2014
Home Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour party, promised that, if elected, his administration would hold a referendum on membership of the European Union only if there was a new transfer of power to Brussels, which he called ‘unlikely’. If Scotland votes for independence, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds might have to move their legal homes to London under European Union law, the BBC reported. BBC Three is to be closed as an on-air channel, to go online only. The future of BBC Four is also in question. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, told the Treasury Select Committee that interest rates could reach 3 per cent within three years.
Books and Arts – 13 March 2014
Wednesday
Ed Miliband’s speech on Europe: full text
In a speech today at the London Business School, Ed Miliband set out Labour's policy on an EU referendum: unless there are further transfers of powers, there won't be one. Here's what he said: listen to ‘Ed Miliband on an EU referendum’ on Audioboo It is great to be here at the London Business School. For fifty years, in the teaching you provide you have made a major contribution to helping businesses succeed across the world. And today I want to talk about an issue that I know is close to your heart: Britain’s place in the European Union. I want to set out why I believe our country’s future lies in the EU. Why the EU needs to change.
