The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 7 November 2013

From our UK edition

Counting on the country Sir: I spent many hours helping to canvas for local Conservative candidates before the last two elections (‘The countryside revolts’, 2 November). I was motivated to do so because of the Labour government’s prejudice against the rural community. The Conservative party offered a chance to redress this prejudice through repealing or amending legislation on small employers, hunting, communication, transport, fuel, immigration and the EU. But progress on these issues has been negligible. We see no action on the Hunting Act, and no action to stop the harassment of country people by vigilante pressure groups, despite managing a more robust reaction to anti-fracking campaigners.

The Spectator

Barometer: Who eats dogs?

From our UK edition

Dog’s dinner A Canadian hiker rescued in Quebec was reported to have killed and eaten his German shepherd dog in spite of it having saved him from a bear. Who else, outside Southeast Asia, has survived on dog? — Ernest Shackleton and his party in the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17 were forced to eat their dogs after their ship Endurance was crushed by ice. — It was a deliberate tactic of Roald Amundsen gradually to reduce the size of his dog pack by killing them one at a time and feeding them to the rest of the pack. The men, too, ate the odd ‘delicate filet’.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 7 November 2013

From our UK edition

Home Three Police Federation representatives accused of giving misleading accounts of a meeting with Andrew Mitchell over the Plebgate scandal are to undergo a second investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, 27, whose movements are restricted under a Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measure (known as a T-Pim) went missing after changing into a burka at a mosque in Acton, west London. Paul Gambaccini, the BBC broadcaster, was arrested on suspicion of historical sexual offences unconnected with Jimmy Savile’s crimes. An eight-year-old boy shot and wounded a five-year-old at Wickford, Essex. London Gateway, a container port capable of taking the biggest ships, opened just west of Canvey Island, Essex.

The Spectator

We are not ‘tired of war’. We are tired of lack of leadership to win one

From our UK edition

One remarkable fact of recent years is that even as the veterans of the first world war have died and as those who served in the second world war have headed through their eighties and beyond, the memory of the 20th century’s two most devastating wars has continued to be honoured with thoughtfulness and devotion. The idea of commemorating those who defended and saved this country has lost none of its potency. This year, as we head towards the 100th anniversary of the start of what was meant to be the war to end all wars, there are more British poppies in evidence than ever. Our part in the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in particular has become one of the few indisputable moments of our history about which all British people can feel legitimate and unalloyed pride.

Tuesday

The Spectator

Ed Miliband’s speech on ‘dealing with the cost of living crisis’: full text

From our UK edition

It is great to be here in Battersea with you today. Last Friday, I was in my constituency, at the local Citizens Advice Bureau. And I talked to some people who had been preyed upon by payday lenders. There was a woman there in floods of tears. She was in work. But she took out a payday loan for her deposit so she could rent somewhere to live. And then disaster followed. A payday loan of a few hundred pounds became a debt of thousands of pounds. She still faces bullying, harassment and threats from multiple payday lenders. Like the young mum I met who described sitting at home with her daughter and seeing an advert on the TV for a payday lender. She said she was down to the last nappy for her baby. She took out the payday loan.