12-5
From our UK edition
The Spectator
Saturday
15-3
From our UK edition
17-7
From our UK edition
18-2
From our UK edition
19-4
From our UK edition
20-6
From our UK edition
22-7
From our UK edition
25-3
From our UK edition
30 2
From our UK edition
44 2
From our UK edition
52 2
From our UK edition
59
From our UK edition
60
From our UK edition
71 2
From our UK edition
72 2
From our UK edition
78 2
From our UK edition
Letters | 25 February 2012
From our UK edition
Forfeiting the VCSir: Although Charles Moore (Notes, 18 February) is correct to say (quoting Colonel Tim Collins) that a holder of the Victoria Cross cannot be stripped of it whatever subsequent disgrace he suffers, he could have added that this is so only thanks to royal intervention. Early in the last century, some functionary proposed, in a characteristic display of official spite, that VCs should lose the decoration if they were convicted of a serious offence. This came to the attention of King George V, whose sense of decency, just as characteristically, was outraged. As he protested, the VC was awarded for supreme gallantry, which nothing could subsequently efface.
Barometer | 25 February 2012
From our UK edition
Animals in courtA group of US scientists has demanded that a Declaration of Cetacean Rights be incorporated into law. There have been animal welfare laws since at least 1635, when an Irish statute prohibited pulling wool off a live sheep. But no country has yet gone as far as to grant animals rights, in spite of several legal challenges. — A US court threw out a case in 2011 brought by pressure group Peta, which argued five orcas were illegally enslaved. — In 2009 the Israeli Knesset rejected an attempt by an MP to rename an Animal Welfare Bill the Animal Rights Bill. — The Spanish parliament’s environment committee recommended in 2008 that primates be granted limited rights, but the suggestion has not been taken up.
Portrait of the week | 25 February 2012
From our UK edition
HomeImmigration officials did not check the details of 500,000 people entering Britain by Eurostar trains, and left unread the biometric chip in passports of people entering the United Kingdom on 14,812 occasions in the first half of 2011, according to a report by John Vine, the independent chief inspector of the UK Border Agency. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, told Parliament that the UK Border Agency would be split in two, with the UK Border Force becoming a separate law-enforcement body.
George should listen to Danny
From our UK edition
Britain is in the middle of the deepest slump in our modern history. What can be done? The best idea we seem to have is one which Danny Alexander drew up on the back of an envelope. When advising Nick Clegg, the now Chief Secretary to the Treasury came up with the idea that no one paid below £10,000 a year should pay income tax. His short-lived predecessor, David Laws, reprised the idea this week, calling for the policy to be financed by cutting higher-rate tax relief on pensions. The Liberal Democrats are rightly exploiting one of the more worrying gaps in British politics: the vacuum where a Tory growth agenda ought to be. George Osborne performs many roles in the government. He is the chief strategist and the arch-fixer.