The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Has the RSPCA become a different species?

Is the RSPCA morphing from animal welfare charity into an animal rights group? In this week's Spectator, Melissa Kite writes that following the charity's successful prosecution of the Heythrop hunt, its chief executive Gavin Grant now has his sights set on the racing industry: Buoyed by the success of his prosecution of the Heythrop hunt, I am reliably informed, he has set his sights on the racing industry next. ‘His modus operandi for these big campaigns is to target high-profile events and people,’ a well-placed veterinary expert told me. ‘So you won’t see him having a go at Badminton, where horses also get injured, because it’s not a household event. He will go for the Grand National because the entire country watches it.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 24 January 2013

Moore for less Sir: Niru Ratnam (Arts, 19 January) is wrong on a number of counts and omits much else. The sale of Henry Moore’s ‘Draped Seated Woman’ would be most unlikely to raise the £20 million he claims; £5 million is thought to be much nearer the market value — 0.3 per cent of Tower Hamlets’ annual expenditure of £1.53 billion, and scarcely likely to relieve the current financial pressure on its council. Moreover he neglects to mention that the Museum of London has offered to house and maintain the work on its Docklands site, giving it the public profile in London, and impact on daily lives, that Moore himself so desired. This matters today as much as it ever did.

The Spectator

Barometer | 24 January 2013

Four sworn Barack Obama achieved a remarkable feat last week: he managed to take the oath of office for a fourth time. Under the 22nd Amendment to the US constitution, which was passed in 1947, no president may be elected to office more than twice. — In 2009 Obama took his oath a second time, in the White House, after chief justice John Roberts confused his lines, leading to suggestions that Joe Biden was president. — The constitution demands that 20 January be inauguration day. As it fell on Sunday, Obama took an oath in private, followed by a re-run at the official ceremony on Monday. — Only one other president has taken the oath four times: Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was inaugurated for a fourth time in 1945.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 24 January 2013

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, at last delivered his speech on Europe, postponed during the Algerian hostage crisis. He wanted to ‘negotiate a new settlement with our European partners’, and before the end of 2017, ‘when we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice. To stay in the EU on these new terms; or come out altogether. It will be an in/out referendum.’ The government started trying to hurry through a Bill to change succession to the Crown. Blockbuster, the DVD rental firm, went into administration and announced the closure of 160 of its 528 shops. Tom Albanese resigned as the chief executive of Rio Tinto after the company wrote off £8.

The Spectator

Cameron speaks

It was almost worth the wait. The substance of David Cameron’s speech on Europe was disclosed in this magazine a fortnight ago, but his delivery was excellent. He offered a clear-headed and almost touchingly optimistic vision of the type of union that the British public would find acceptable: one based on free trade, not bureaucratic diktat. One where power can flow back to countries, not be leached from them. And one founded on genuine popular consent, rather than broken promises and dodged referenda. Such a settlement would be nothing more than what the British signed up to when last consulted. The Prime Minister based his speech on the most important point: that the Europe question is no longer about political factions. It is about the people.