1. This prize draw is open to residents of the UK, 18 years or over, except employees of The Spectator 1828 Limited their associated, affiliated or subsidiary companies, and their families, agents or anyone else professionally associated with the draw. 2. Details regarding how to enter as published form part of the terms and conditions.
Aspiring actors are, by tradition, advised by their mentors never to work with children or animals. Budding politicians, on the other hand, should be advised at all costs to avoid pensioners. They make lousy photo opportunities and they have a tendency to fuss over irritatingly small amounts of money. On the other hand, it doesn’t
Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, proposed internment without trial for those suspected of terrorist offences, and other measures such as wider telephone-tapping. The government said that migrants from countries joining the European Union on 1 May will not be able to claim some benefits until they have worked in Britain for a year. Mr
If staff at the Lancet ever go on bonding weekends, they should avoid rock-climbing, canoeing or any other activity in which they would rely on the trust and loyalty of their colleagues. Last weekend the magazine spectacularly turned against the author of one of the most controversial papers it has ever published. Andrew Wakefield, who
Mr Oliver Letwin, the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that the Tories wanted to freeze government spending, except that on health, education and pensions, and would fund increases there from economic growth. On the day he made his remarks, a report by the government’s efficiency review, headed by Sir Peter Gershon, said that perhaps
Oliver Letwin has laid the foundation for a Conservative victory at the next general election. We do not mean the Conservatives will necessarily win that election: that will require the recovery of great tracts of the political landscape from the Labour party. But the Conservatives are now in a position to campaign on the basis
Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, announced plans to set up a Serious Organised Crime Agency, which was likened to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, to replace the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad, and to take over the functions of the Home Office and Customs and Excise in investigating the smuggling
There could be no clearer example of human exploitation and its tragic consequences than the recent events in Morecambe Bay. Nineteen Chinese workers, who had paid a small fortune to agents in order to come to Britain for a better life, were drowned while gathering cockles in dangerous tidal waters of which they lacked local
The government announced a committee of inquiry into the accuracy of the intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the war last year; it will be chaired by Lord Butler of Brockwell, the former Cabinet Secretary; the other members will be Mrs Ann Taylor, a Labour MP and chairman of the Commons intelligence and
Every so often there is an event which confuses the usual prejudices of political folk. One such event was the rise of the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, who combined gay liberation with a dislike of immigrants, thereby scattering in all directions those on the Left whose belief systems are dependent on the assumption that all
The government narrowly carried the second reading of the Higher Education Bill, which makes provision for universities to charge British students an extra £3,000 a year. The vote was 316–311, with 72 Labour MPs voting against the government and 18 abstaining; Mr David Taylor, the Labour member for North West Leicestershire voted both for and
On Tuesday, 24 September 2002 Tony Blair stood up in the House of Commons and waved a dossier. ‘The threat of Saddam and weapons of mass destruction is not American or British propaganda,’ he said. ‘The history and present threat are real.’ These words were vital, at the time, since many MPs believed this country
Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, ordered a review of 258 convictions of parents for killing their children after the Court of Appeal ruled improper convictions based solely on expert opinions where two or more babies had died. Mr Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, met Samantha Roberts, the widow of a sergeant shot dead
Two developments this week demonstrate the absurdity, not to mention the inhumanity, of the government’s policy towards child-rearing. Firstly, sperm donors were informed that children conceived with the aid of their donations will be given the right to trace them. Secondly, the minister for children Margaret Hodge announced that it would be impossible to reunite
The government proposed adding a surcharge to fixed-penalty fines for offences such as speeding and being drunk in public; it would be hypothecated to the compensation of victims of crime, but employers would also have to pay compensation for those injured at work by criminals. Asked in Parliament by Mr Michael Howard, the leader of
At 6.20 a.m. on Tuesday, the serial killer Harold Shipman hanged himself in Wakefield prison. He tied a noose in a bedsheet, placed it round his neck, tied the other end to the bars of his windows and jumped off a radiator pipe. It is difficult to see what else there is to say about
Mr Michael Burgess, the Coroner of the Queen’s Household, opened the inquest on Diana, Princess of Wales, the conclusion of which, he said, would not come for more than a year; he had asked Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, to investigate her death, which was on 31 August 1997; as Coroner for Surrey,
On Sunday, Tony Blair told the troops in Basra that they were ‘new pioneers of 21st-century soldiering’. The praise was fully deserved and sincerely delivered. Over his years in office, the Prime Minister has become a great admirer of the armed forces. Even so, there was a slight problem about the way he chose to
When, at the insistence of the US Department of Homeland Security, the first armed ‘sky marshals’ take to British transatlantic flights, it is to be hoped that the in-flight movie won’t be Goldfinger. For anyone who has managed to avoid seeing any of the 40 years’ worth of repeat screenings, the Bond film concludes with
Police in plain clothes armed with guns are being put on international flights thought to be at risk from hijacking, according to Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, and Mr Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Transport. Pilots’ unions opposed the scheme; it had been urged by the United States. The Foreign Office said