The Spectator

Saturday

The Spectator

Old news

From our UK edition

There is one crumb of comfort that Fleet Street can extract from the phone-hacking scandal: its own foibles still create a vastly bigger splash than do those of newer media. This week Facebook investors harangued the company’s chief executive for wearing a hoodie in meetings and Yahoo’s chief executive resigned after a shareholder questioned his claim to hold a computer science degree. But they hardly caused a ripple compared with the news that former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, her husband and five others are to be charged with perverting the course of ­justice. The hacking inquiry has become like The Mousetrap: a show that never closes.

Friday

The Spectator

The week that was | 18 May 2012

From our UK edition

Here is a selection of articles and discussions from this week on Spectator.co.uk... Fraser Nelson writes why choice matters more than tuck shops and says this is no time to tinker. James Forsyth says Boris is continuing to charm his party, reports on the battle for the 1922 committee and thinks Miliband's shuffle might not neccessarily be to the left. Peter Hoskin says Greece is still the word and reveals the union's lazy opposition to schools reform. Jonathan Jones says Romney is looking for an average white guy for vice president and reports the public don't want the government to drop Lords reform or gay marriage.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Shelf Life: Laurent Binet

From our UK edition

The latest intellectual maverick to win the 2010 Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, Laurent Binet certainly isn't shy, especially when it comes to his literary tastes. A single paragraph in his debut — a postmodern take on Heinrich Himmler's righthand man Reinhard Heydrich — reveals his position on Camus, Desnos, Flaubert, Hasek, Kafka, Marquez, Rimbaud and Hemingway among others. Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones is summarily dismissed as 'Houellebecq does Nazism'. Binet's next book, an account of Francois Hollande's presidential campaign, is unlikely to be quite as provocative. He lets us know what's on his book shelf. He tweets @laurentbinetH 1) What are you reading at the moment?

Monday

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 14 May 2012

From our UK edition

...here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: James Forsyth asks if Greece is running out of German sympathy and reports Cameron is looking to his early leadership days for inspiration. Peter Hoskin examines Philip Hammond's attempt to speak out. Sebastian Payne wonders if the Tories will ever find friends in the North and thinks Eric Pickles struggled for an answer on growth. Jerry Hayes looks at the book no newspaper editor wants you to read. And Rod Liddle asks if TOWE is turning British girls into an army of feckless, drunken, sluts.

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters | 12 May 2012

From our UK edition

PollygarchySir: It was with a rising sense of disbelief that I read Polly Toynbee’s review of Ferdinand Mount’s The New Few (Books, 5 May). There’s an oligarchy in this country all right, but what Ms Toynbee fails to realise is that she is a member. For every overpaid plutocrat, there are any number of privileged people like herself who find lucrative employment ‘representing the disadvantaged’. They remind me of nothing so much as the old squirearchy, who used to visit their cottagers to do good works. I would not like to suggest that it is actually in the interest of the socialist elite to keep the masses in their place, though one does wonder why, if they truly care about the working class, they support benefits culture and uncontrolled immigration.

The Spectator

Barometer | 12 May 2012

From our UK edition

Before the Golden DawnA neo-Nazi party called the Golden Dawn won 7 per cent of the vote in the Greek elections. The party denies being inspired by the Nazis, even though its flag bears a resemblance to the Swastika. Its name, however, may be inspired by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an occultist society founded by William Wynn Westcott, a coroner from Leamington Spa. — The society was founded upon rituals and teachings which Westcott claimed to have obtained by deciphering letters from Anne Sprengel, an imaginary illegitimate child of Ludwig I of Bavaria. In 1888 the society opened a temple in London, followed by others in Weston-super-Mare, Bradford and Edinburgh, where members taught astral projection and alchemy. — The movement’s following included W.B.