The Spectator

Monday

The Spectator

Lest We Forget

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.

Friday

The Spectator

John Cole: ‘An institution cherished by the viewing public’

From our UK edition

The BBC’s former political editor, John Cole, has died aged 85. As their political reporter during the Thatcher era, he covered many major stories concerning her, including the miners' strike and the Brighton bombing. We have dug up from the archive a review, by John Campbell, of Cole’s memoir, ‘As it seemed to me’, from April 1995.  John Cole's Ulster accent was a shock to metropolitan ears when he became the BBC's Political Editor in 1981. Scottish or Yorkshire voices were no problem, but there was unfamiliarity amounting almost to incongruity in hearing that particular accent discoursing on subjects wider than the tribal politics of Northern Ireland.

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’.