The Spectator - October 29, 2016

(Joyce) #1
court ruled that it had been illegal for a
baker’s called Ashers to refuse to make a
cake with a message on its icing reading
‘Support gay marriage. Queer Space
born 1998.’ Russia’s only aircraft carrier,
Admiral Kuznetsov, sailed in a naval convoy
through the English Channel bound for
the Mediterranean off Syria. Ofcom fined
Vodafone £4.6 million for erroneous billing.
Seven contenders threw their hats into the
ring for election as the leader of the UK
Independence party.

S


ir Sigmund Sternberg, the metal dealer
who fostered friendship between
Jews, Christians and Muslims, died aged


  1. Jimmy Perry, who with David Croft
    co-wrote the comedy series Dad’s Army,
    died aged 93. Raine, Countess Spencer,
    the daughter of Barbara Cartland and
    stepmother of Diana, Princess of Wales,
    died aged 87. Dave Cash, the radio disc-
    jockey, died, aged 74. Pete Burns, who
    enjoyed success in Dead or Alive with
    ‘You Spin Me Round’, and later showed off
    his plastic surgery on Celebrity Big Brother,
    died aged 57. Police said an 11-year-old girl
    was sexually assaulted by three boys aged
    less than ten in Teddington cemetery where
    they had been attending a gipsy funeral.


Abroad


M


en with sledgehammers demolished
shelters at the migrant camp near
Calais called the Jungle as about 4,000 of
its 7,000 inhabitants were taken away in
buses on the first two days of its evacuation,
to be given the opportunity to claim
asylum or face deportation. The UN High

Commissioner for Refugees said that 2016
would be the worst year yet for deaths of
migrants in the Mediterranean, with about
3,740 people having died up to 23 October.
Indian court officials confiscated a train
with 100 passengers on board to secure
compensation owed by the railway
department to a farmer in Karnataka state
from whom it had acquired land in 2006.

I


raqi government forces in alliance with
Kurds, Shia militias and Sunni Arab
tribesmen continued their advance on
Mosul, which had been held for two years
by the Islamic State. The Islamic State made
diversionary attacks on Kirkuk and Rutba.
At least 59 cadets and guards were killed
by Islamist terrorists at the Balochistan
Police College in Quetta, Pakistan.
Mortada Mansour, the chairman of the
Egyptian football team Zamalek, blamed
‘sorcery’ for its defeat by the South African
Mamelodi Sundowns.

W


ily Walloons held up the signing of a
trade deal known as Ceta between
the European Union and Canada that had
taken seven years to negotiate. Twenty-
six sailors held hostage by Somali pirates
since 2012 were released. Authorities in
Shengzhou, Zhejiang Province, cancelled
a scheme to give out a packet of tissues for
every 50 cigarette ends handed in when
volunteers collected five million cigarette
ends. Bobby Vee, the singer whose hits
included ‘Take Good Care of My Baby’
and ‘The Night Has a Thousand Eyes’, died
aged 73. The Vatican’s Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith forbade the wearing
of human ashes in jewellery. CSH

Home


T


he government approved the proposal
in Sir Howard Davies’s report for the
building of an extra 3,800-yard runway at
Heathrow airport, two miles north of the
existing two, opening perhaps in 2025, at
an estimated cost of £17.6 billion. Chris
Grayling, the Transport Secretary, called
the decision ‘truly momentous’, but Boris
Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, said it was
‘undeliverable’. Sadiq Khan, the mayor
of London, opposed the decision and Zac
Goldsmith, the Conservative MP, succeeded
in his application to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer to be appointed Steward and
Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern.
He thus triggered a by-election for his seat
of Richmond Park, in which he means to
stand as an independent. MPs would not
vote on the proposal for at least a year.
The Labour party was fined £20,000 by the
Electoral Commission for failing to declare
£123,748 of its general election expenses,
including £7,614 relating to the 8ft slab
nicknamed the Ed Stone, inscribed with
pledges by Ed Miliband, its former leader.


T


heresa May, the Prime Minister, on
returning from a Brussels summit,
where her five-minute address at 1 a.m. was
met by silence, told Parliament that Britain
would be ‘the most passionate, enthusiastic
and convinced’ supporter of free trade in
the world after it leaves the EU. Mrs May
met the leaders of the regional assemblies
of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
and gave them the telephone number of
David Davis, the Secretary of State for
Exiting the EU. Northern Ireland’s appeal

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