The Spectator

Ballot points Michael Gove hinted that the general election could be on 14 or 21 November.     Have we had a November election before? – General elections were held on 15 November 1922, when the Conservatives won a 74 seat majority and on 14 November 1935 when the National Government won a majority of 242. –

It was bound to happen sooner or later: a guest on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow presented an artefact which derived from the slave trade – an ivory bangle. One of the programme’s experts, Ronnie Archer-Morgan, himself a descendant of slaves, said that it was a striking historical artefact but not one that he was willing

Home The Hate Crime and Public Order Act came into effect in Scotland, making it a crime to communicate or behave in a manner ‘that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive’, with the intention of stirring up hatred based on age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. The

Twelve unclued entries comprise six ‘joined’ pairs which are symmetrically placed in the grid: FLESH & BLOOD, CHEAP & NASTY, TIME & TIDE, SLINGS & ARROWS, ALPHA & OMEGA and WEAR & TEAR. First prize George Walker, Romiley, Stockport Runners-up Susan Hay, Perton, Wolverhampton; Jake Mermagen, Conches, Geneva

Lock, stock and barrel Jeremy Hunt committed the Conservatives to maintaining the Triple Lock in their manifesto. How much is the policy costing taxpayers? – The Triple Lock – which guarantees a rise in the state pension equivalent to the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), average earnings or 2.5 per cent, whichever is the highest –

Copping out Sir: Both the Police and Crime Commissioner Dr Andrew Billings and your recent correspondent John Pritchard are partly right (Letters, 16 and 23 March). Policing has gone wrong for two reasons. First, the massive cuts in staff instigated by Theresa May as home secretary resulted in a large number of the most experienced