The Week
Frack the South
David Howell never really succeeded as energy and then transport secretary in Mrs Thatcher’s governments. After she sacked him in…
Diary
The astonishing level of enthusiasm over the birth of the new prince goes far beyond the pleasure that people naturally…
Letters
IQ and social mobility Sir: It seems not to have occurred to our leaders that ability is not evenly distributed…
Herodotus on 111
The NHS 111 line, designed to deal with problems that do not count as emergencies, is in financial and organisational…
Barometer
Art by the seaside The Kent seaside resort of Herne Bay staged the parade of a urinal through the town…
Portrait of the week
Home Barclays decided to issue £5.8 billion in shares to meet capital reserve requirements from the Bank of England. Lord…
Net loss
It is not quite clear what Google did to David Cameron, but the Prime Minister seems to be exacting some…
Portrait of the week
Home The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a boy, weighing 8lb 6oz, an heir to the crown, third in…
Diary
The pilot refuses to get going until everyone is seated and quiet. When we take off there are raucous cheers.…
Letters
EU diplomacy Sir: Lord Lamont’s article ‘The EU’s scandalous new army of overpaid diplomats’ (Politics, 20 July) revisits his oft-repeated…
Plato on Today
A woman is invited to join the Today programme, and the chatteratae are immediately a-twitter on the subject of female…
The cash myth
According to popular wisdom on the left — and even among some in the Conservative party — this ought to have been…
Portrait of the week
Home Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, put into ‘special measures’ 11 hospitals among the 14 with the worst death rates…
Diary
Next time I’m in a sauna I’m going to say: ‘It’s like a school sports hall on prize day in…
Barometer
Running scared Three participants were gored at the Pamplona bull run. The event has reputation for danger, but how risky…
Letters
Wild weather Sir: Weather and climate science is not an emotional or political issue — even though emotions and politics run…
Why Egypt needs a Socrates
No one seems to know, or is willing to say, whether the Egyptian army’s intervention in Egyptian democracy was legal…
Labour pains
Ed Miliband’s relationship with Len McCluskey was defined in a brief camera shot at the Labour party conference in 2010.…
Portrait of the week
Home There was a fine game of hunt-the-issue over the process to find a replacement, as parliamentary candidate in Falkirk,…
Diary
The frantic promotion of the proposed HS2 rail line — a white elephant in the making — is a reminder…
Barometer
Family games Andy Murray said that as a child he lived in the shadow of his elder brother Jamie, who…
Socrates on TV debates
Lord Hennessy has been arguing that, as a result of TV debates between party leaders prior to elections, ‘the plausible…
Letters
Tax breaks for families Sir: Hugo Rifkind is wrong to imply (6 July) that the current income tax system is indifferent…
Lessons from Egypt
Democracy and holding elections are not the same thing. There could be no better demonstration of this than the experience…
Letters
The Spectator 10 August 2013 9:00 am
In defence of bats Sir: I am saddened by the ‘us versus them’ stance taken by Melissa Kite (‘Bats vs…