The Week
Portrait of the week
Home The government sold 6 per cent of Lloyds Banking Group to big investors for £3.2 billion. It still owns…
Max Hastings’ diary: I love the British Army (but not the Blackadder version of it)
The looming centenary of the outbreak of the first world war offers an opportunity to break away from the Blackadder/Oh!…
Barometer
Vitamins and the veil A judge at Blackfriars Crown Court allowed a niqab-wearing defendant to identify herself only to a…
Plebs rule!
Momentarily banish thoughts of policemen on duty at the House of Commons, and picture a Roman pleb. You will probably…
Letters: Alan Sked on party politics, and how to win a pony show
Party politics Sir: I don’t think it is true that I would be unhappy in any party, as Ross Clark…
How to save the BBC? Privatise it
Three years ago, our columnist and former editor Charles Moore was summoned to Hastings Magistrates’ Court to pay £807 for…
Simon Schama's diary: The British divide? Proms vs 'Am I bovvered'
‘Wider still and wider, may thy bounds be set,’ the ecstatic throng sang at the Last Night of the Proms.…
Portrait of the week
Home George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that the British economy was ‘turning a corner’, with ‘tentative signs…
Barometer
Trust us The National Trust opened the Big Brother House at Elstree Studios at the weekend. Some other less grand…
Herodotus in Sochi
As a result of Russian laws against propagating homosexuality, there are calls to boycott the 2013 Winter Olympics in Sochi…
Letters
Tories and Italians Sir: Roger Scruton must be laughing, or more likely crying, to hear his Meaning of Conservatism described…
How Australia's Tony Abbott pulled off a great conservative victory
By conventional wisdom, Tony Abbott should not become Prime Minister of Australia this weekend. He ought to be too conservative,…
Portrait of the week
Home Having recalled Parliament to debate British military action over Syria, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, found the government defeated,…
Harold Evans’s diary: Beware Obama - he always pulls the rug out from under his allies
Days ago, I’d have bet that even the most bitterly partisan Congress in generations would jib at humiliating their commander-in-chief.…
What the Roman general Vegetius could teach Obama about Syria
So the USA must launch its onslaught against Syria without the Brits. Well, if Obama will make public announcements of…
Barometer
Shining examples The ‘Walkie Talkie’, a new tower block in Fenchurch Street, was blamed for partially melting the interior of…
Letters: The Syria debate, plus Giles Milton on Andro Linklater
Syrian matters Sir: Though Syria (Leading article, 31 August) is certainly no laughing matter, the turmoil prevailing over a ‘punitive…
Syria: A war without a purpose
There is something deeply disturbing about switching on the television and finding Jack Straw talking about the need to take…
Portrait of the week
Home Parliament was recalled four days early to debate military action against Syria, which David Cameron, the Prime Minister, had…
Andrew Marr’s diary: Holidays after a stroke, and what the Germans really think of us
It’s been a strange summer. After a stroke, holidays are not what they used to be. We went to Juan-les-Pins…
Varro on The Apprentice
Budding businesswoman Luisa Zissman, with her A in A-level English, has enquired whether ‘Bakers Toolkit’ or ‘Baker’s Toolkit’ is correct.…
Barometer
Your name here Supporters of Merthyr Town Football Club objected to having their ground renamed the Cigg-e Stadium in a…
Letters: Peter Hitchens vs Nick Cohen, and the case against the middle class
Piggies in the middle Sir: Your feature ‘The strange death of the middle class’ (24 August) assumes that young people…
The Guardian didn't care when Murdoch's journalists were arrested. So why the hysteria now?
It is good to see the Guardian suddenly rediscover its interest in the sanctity of a free press. Just five…
Portrait of the week
Home The cost of the HS2 railway line was expected by some in the Treasury to rise from £43 billion…
