The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

School portraits: Snapshots of four notable schools

Hurtwood House, Surrey Set in the Surrey Hills, Hurtwood House is England’s only independent boarding school exclusively for sixth-formers. Renowned for its performing arts, the school’s annual Christmas musical is no ordinary affair. The ten-night production is staged with a full West End orchestra and professional directors, choreographers and lighting designers. It is no surprise that alumni include Emily Blunt and Hans Zimmer. Hurtwood can also boast a high level of academic achievement: last year 54 per cent of A-level results were graded A*-A.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Livestream: The Tory Dilemma – deal or no deal?

As Reform chips away at the Tory vote, the Conservatives face a stark choice – join forces with Nigel Farage or fight alone. James Heale, The Spectator’s deputy political editor, will be joined by Conservative peer Daniel Hannan, journalist and politician Paul Goodman, shadow cabinet member Victoria Atkins and former Brexit secretary David Davis to discuss what a Conservative-Reform pact might look like – and whether it should happen at all. You can watch the event via livestream here at 7pm GMT on Monday 16 March.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: HMS Dragon sets sail, Mandelson records released and Trump declares victory

Home John Healey, the Defence Secretary, visited Cyprus after criticism of Britain’s response to drone attacks on the RAF base there. The Cyprus High Commissioner said: ‘The people are disappointed, the people are scared, the people could expect more.’ The destroyer HMS Dragon sailed for Cyprus from Portsmouth on 10 March. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told the Commons that inflation was likely to rise; the Office for Budget Responsibility estimated an extra percentage point increase on prices by the end of the year. The Prince of Wales aircraft carrier would not head for the Middle East. President Trump of America said: ‘That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer… We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!

The Spectator

The King is still our Trump card

George III has not been well remembered on either side of the Atlantic. Despite reigning for almost 60 years, in Britain he is known, if at all, for losing the Thirteen Colonies and his madness in his later life. But in America, he is the villain of the national story; in Thomas Jefferson’s phrasing, the ‘Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant’. The Declaration of Independence is a lurid list of his alleged crimes against his American subjects. But 250 years after that document was signed by the Founding Fathers, George III has been going through a renaissance. In recent biographies, Andrew Roberts and Jeremy Black have argued that he was a much-misunderstood monarch.

The Spectator

Where exactly is the Middle East?

Less near Where exactly is the Middle East?  – The term was first popularised in an article by Alfred Thayer Mahan, a US academic on naval strategy, published in the National Review in 1902, proposing that western powers would need outposts like Gibraltar to serve their interests in the region, which he defined as the countries bordering the Persian Gulf. This distinguished it from the Near East, a now largely defunct term for the countries surrounding the eastern Mediterranean, including Turkey and the Balkans. Over the first half of the 20th century, the Middle East gradually consumed the Near East.

The Spectator

Letters: We interfere in the Middle East at our peril

The West’s track record Sir: I read with much sadness Matthew Parris’s reservations about western attempts at regime change in Iran (‘Is this Starmer’s finest hour?’, 7 March). Sadness because he is quite correct, given the West’s track record in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. He rightly alludes to Benjamin Netanyahu’s ‘Greater Israel’ plans amid destabilised, chaotic neighbours. In Syria in late 2010, I spoke with resident Sunni, Shia, Alawi, Christian and even Jewish residents from Homs and Hama to As-Suweida and Aleppo: well over 90 per cent pointed to their freedom of association and of worship, the women to the secondary and tertiary education they could enjoy, and all because the Assads could guarantee these things.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Iran attacked, Iran attacks and Starmer fumbles

Home Britain was not involved in the attack on Iran, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said, but a day later he gave America permission to use British bases (including Diego Garcia) ‘to prevent Iran firing missiles across the region’. He told the Commons, ‘This country does not believe in regime change from the skies,’ and ‘the only way forward is a negotiated outcome’. ‘This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,’ said President Donald Trump of America. A drone hit RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus; the destroyer HMS Dragon was dispatched there. At least 300,000 British citizens were said to be in the Gulf.

William Wootten

Little Song

To be original would be to take The path that brought us back past the first song, The greenness of the buds out there along Near branches in the Springtime as they wake Up Springtime in ourselves and the ache Of seasons since so that we long To know the freshness in ourselves as strong In leafing as when it seemed a song would break Into its green forever, though now we hear Its cadences as leaf-fall. But that song, How did it go? It goes like this, and going Modulates to Summer, to reappear As Winter silences. No, we were wrong To think it gone, and everything is growing.

The Spectator

Ed Miliband must go

Economic forecasting was created, J.K. Galbraith said, to make astrology look respectable. It is not difficult to imagine what the great Keynesian economist would have thought of Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement this week. It was pure -crystal balls. The statement was redundant on delivery – redundancy being one of the few areas of growth in our economy, as the bleak unemployment figures amply attest. The developing conflict in the Middle East, which has unleashed precipitous oil and gas price rises, has rendered the Chancellor’s promises of future growth more unlikely than ever.

The Spectator

2739: Off Drive – solution

The eight unclued entries are the names of Verdi operas: FALSTAFF, AIDA, NABUCCO, ERNANI, IL TROVATORE, LA TRAVIATA, RIGOLETTO, OTELLO. The puzzle’s title suggests an anagram of the composer’s name, Verdi.

The Spectator

Letters: There’s no defending Robert Maxwell

Bring back wisdom Sir: Douglas Murray is right that reducing the educational attainment of politicians is not the answer to people’s demand for change (‘The perils of idiocracy’, 28 February). But we do have an educational divide driven by disrespect, which graduates have caused and need to fix. Historically, non-graduates associated those of higher education with values like wisdom, curiosity and insight, thereby qualifying educated people to fix complex problems and make big decisions affecting everyone else. Now, people see insufficient evidence of such qualities among those in charge. The less that higher education imparts genuine wisdom and expertise, the more it relies on looking down on ‘respectable’ people and opinions.

Tuesday

The Spectator

Watch: Spring statement live

Before the first missiles landed in Tehran, Rachel Reeves had been looking forward to today’s spring ‘forecast’ statement, which was designed to be the lightest-touch intervention by a Chancellor since Philip Hammond in 2018: no Office for Budget Responsibility scoring of her fiscal rules, no tax announcements, no major policy changes and, crucially, no months of damaging speculation about black holes or gilt yields in Britain’s fragile economy. The strategy worked, with barely any debate ahead of time and the only real question being how small her measures would be. That is, until turmoil in the Middle East sent oil and gas prices surging, markets tumbling and bond yields climbing, threatening to render parts of her forecasts outdated.

Thursday

The Spectator

The Alternative Covid Inquiry: the speeches in full

At The Spectator’s Alternative Covid Inquiry last night, science writer and journalist Matt Ridley; Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford; Jonathan Sumption, writer and former Supreme Court Justice; Christopher Snowdon, journalist and head of lifestyle economics at the IEA, and Tom Whipple, science writer and special correspondent at the Times, had their say on what went wrong – and right – during the pandemic. They asked the questions the experts didn’t – or wouldn’t – at the Covid Inquiry. Here is what they had to say. Spectator subscribers can view the full video of the event here. Jonathan Sumption This evening shouldn't really be necessary.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Livestream: The Alternative Covid Inquiry

Watch The Spectator’s Alternative Covid Inquiry. Six years after the world shut down, we’re still examining what happened and why. As the official Covid Inquiry finally comes to end, our panel asked the questions the experts didn’t – or wouldn’t. The Spectator’s commissioning editor Lara Brown was joined by science writer and journalist Matt Ridley; Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford; Jonathan Sumption, writer and former Supreme Court Justice; Christopher Snowdon, journalist and head of lifestyle economics at the IEA, and Tom Whipple, science writer and special correspondent at the Times.

Nicholas Murray

My Cavafy Poem

We are all, you might say, waiting for those barbarians even though we lack particulars, even an approximate profile, mug-shot, card-index summation, press cutting.

The Spectator

Is it still worth going to university?

When self-styled ‘Money Saving Expert’ Martin Lewis gate-crashed Kemi Badenoch’s Good Morning Britain interview to reprimand the Conservative leader over her plans to cut the interest on student loans, he failed to mention that she was addressing a crisis for which he carries a little of the blame. For years, Lewis has encouraged prospective students not to be put off by tuition fees, arguing that the loans should be thought of as a ‘graduate contribution system’ rather than traditional debt. This was an investment in their futures, easily paid off through the higher earnings a degree would confer. But the system has become a tax on aspiration.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Andrew’s arrest, tariff rulings and Boris in Ukraine

Home Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on his 66th birthday on suspicion of misconduct in public office, and released under investigation. The King said: ‘The law must take its course.’ The government proposed introducing legislation to remove Mountbatten-Windsor from the line of royal succession, and agreed to a motion compelling ministers to release information relating to his appointment as a trade envoy ‘as soon as practicable and possible within the law’. Global Counsel, the consultancy co-founded by Peter Mandelson in 2010, collapsed into administration. Lord Mandelson, aged 72, was arrested in London on suspicion of misconduct in public office, and released on bail nine hours later.

The Spectator

2738: First-rate third-rate – solution

The ship was HMS Bellerophon, nicknamed BILLY RUFFIAN (11A/14A), whose BATTLE honours included THE GLORIOUS FIRST OF JUNE, THE NILE and TRAFALGAR and whose most famous passenger was NAPOLEON who surrendered to her after Waterloo. Her final role was as a prison HULK (23D). Title: having 74 guns she was a ‘third-rate’. First prize D.C.

The Spectator

Letters: Why I love my Jellycats

Defence agreement Sir: If (a big ‘if’, I know) our politicians really would like to address the parlous state of the UK’s defences (‘Indefensible’, 21 February) but refrain from the necessary tax increases and/or spending cuts out of fear their unpopularity would open the door to their opponents, they should consider adopting a device the Danes have used to great effect for many decades. ‘Political agreements’, which I came across when advising the Danish finance ministry in the 1990s, are legally binding, long-term contracts between political parties to support and implement specified courses of action, regardless of who is in power, and requiring all parties’ sign-off to amend.