The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

A hollow victory

From our UK edition

Barack Obama this week pulled off a remarkable victory. The American economy is recovering at a pace most voters regard as unacceptable, and just over half believe that the country is on the wrong track. The President campaigned with an approval rating below 50 per cent and unemployment above 8 per cent. Historically, these factors have combined to ensure defeat for any sitting president. But as Obama reminds us now and again, he is in the business of changing history. He has again demonstrated that he can inspire people — even the British — in a way that other world leaders can only dream of. His extraordinary personal appeal has trumped the paucity of his achievements.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Shelf Life: Iain (M) Banks

From our UK edition

Scottish novelist Iain (M) Banks is this week's Shelf Life provocateur. He tells us how he likes to test his potential lovers and what extreme punishments he exacts on books he doesn't like. 1) What are you reading at the moment? The Hell of it All by Charlie Brooker and Anatomy of the Orchestra by Norman del Mar are by the bedside, but the book I've just started is The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer (at only a year old, this is ferociously up-to-date by my standards). 2) As a child, what did you read under the covers? The Beano 3) Has a book ever made you cry, and if so which one? A few have. Most recently, I got a bit misty-eyed at the end of And The Land Lay Still by James Robertson.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 1 November 2012

From our UK edition

Objections to gay marriage Sir: Hugo Rifkind (27 October) thinks that religious objections to gay marriage can be ignored because Christians have no right to impose their beliefs on others. He sees nothing illiberal, though, in a small number of progressives seeking to force their new definition of marriage on the rest of us. Our government is threatening to misappropriate a word which owes its value to centuries of mainly Christian tradition in this country. Those many of us who stand in that tradition, both in and out of the Church, protest that the government has no right to do so. James McEvoy Chertsey, Surrey Sir: On gay marriage Hugo Rifkind (27 October) overlooks the Dot Wordsworth argument.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 1 November 2012

From our UK edition

Home Hitachi bought Horizon Nuclear Power for £700 million, giving it rights to build nuclear power stations in Anglesey and Gloucestershire. John Hayes, the energy minister, said that Britain was ‘peppered’ with onshore wind turbines, and ‘enough is enough’. HM Revenue and Customs wrote to families with at least one member earning more than £50,000 telling them they are no longer entitled to the full amount of child benefit. Some 100,000 ash trees had been burnt in an attempt to halt the spread of Chalara fraxinea, a fungus deadly to them, David Heath, the environment minister, told parliament, as import of the trees was banned.

The Spectator

Land of the right

From our UK edition

Next week, weather permitting, Americans will go to the ballot to choose between an unpopular Democratic president and an uninspiring Republican challenger. The 2012 US election may have become more exciting in recent weeks — the polls indicate a tense finish — but that fundamental quandary remains. President Obama, the great liberal hope of four years ago, has disappointed. He has failed, spectacularly, to fix the American economy. His re-election campaign has been remarkable only in that he has said next to nothing about what he plans to do with four more years in power. As The Spectator went to press, however, it looked as if he would still somehow win a second term. But conservative Americans ought not lose heart.