The Spectator

Portrait of the Week - 31 August 2002

Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, called for a written constitution for the European Union; but in a speech to Scottish businessmen he played down the significance of the demand: ‘The Conservative party has a constitution,’ he said, ‘and so do golf clubs in Scotland.’ Dr Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, said that the situation

NOTHING IS 'SUSTAINABLE'

When it comes to doing his bit to save the planet, no one has a right to feel more smug this week than President Bush. No amount of power showers will lift his personal carbon consumption to the level of the 105 world leaders who, unlike him, will be blazing trails of noxious pollution through

Portrait of the Week - 24 August 2002

Mr John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, on being asked about British support for American action against Iraq, said: ‘There is no serious division inside the Cabinet and there are debates inside the Cabinet.’ A school caretaker, Ian Huntley, aged 28, was charged with the murder of two ten-year-old girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman,

A VILE PRESS

Hard cases make bad law, and cases do not come much harder than that of the two young girls recently abducted and murdered. The temptation must be considerable for the government to respond by doing something rather than nothing, to demonstrate that it is responsive to the will of the people and that it marches

Hard Labour | 10 February 2001

It is not untypical of the character of the Home Secretary that, having accused the Tories of ‘playing the race card’ over asylum-seekers, he should himself launch an assault upon refugees on the eve of a general-election campaign. Under Mr Straw’s proposals, it would seem that people fleeing from foreign dictators may soon no longer