Nick Clegg has
announced a review into male primogeniture, but subscribers to The
Spectator will – as so often – be already well-briefed on the subject. We ran a piece on this in Thursday’s magazine by Rachel Ward, the firstborn of the younger brother of an
earl. This in itself will be enough to earn her a ribbing from some commentators on this blog, I imagine, but her thoughts on the subject are fascinating. Here’s a sample:
“At the reading of the will after my father’s recent death, I was firmly reminded of my place by certain clauses bestowing his ‘residuary estate’ ‘upon trust for my first son “A” during his life and subject thereto’, followed by ‘A’s first son’, then ‘his son B and his son’.…. Growing up, I accepted that my younger brother would inherit the family estate and all its chattels. I was flattered that my father considered me ‘pretty enough to marry someone very rich’. I thought it normal that my education was inferior to my brothers’ and that my extremely bad reports were of no consequence. Even after years of living in Australia, where you spread equality on your toast for breakfast, I never really confronted my father on the preposterous notion of male primogeniture.”
She says that it’s too late for her generation. “Most of us have accepted our inferiority and the limited choices of ‘marrying well,’ without the education to pursue serious careers’. She calls for the abolition of the male bias, as suggested by Keith Vaz in a Bill being tabled next month. It’s a fascinating piece, which offers a fascinating glimpse into what is (for me, anyway) another world. I wonder, for example, what Clegg’s review will make of the Osborne baronetcy? That’s been an all-male club since 1620.
Anyway, if CoffeeHousers will permit me, I’d like to use this to make the case for reading the magazine. Rather than restrict ourselves to the week just passed, we’re about the week to come. We stray from the beaten track, we take our readers into a whole bunch of subjects they wouldn’t otherwise care about. You can be wise before the event. Yesterday, Paddy Ashdown attacked George Osborne saying “For the chancellor of the exchequer to claim that there is something ‘dodgy’ about the Electoral Reform Society donating cash to a campaign in favour of electoral reform is bizarre.” Why the fuss? Because Ed Howker revealed in The Spectator in February that the ERS is funded by a commercial division which stands to make a killing from AV, and had become a corporate interest disguised as a society.
It is one of the many issues that Spectator subscribers read about first, long before it blows up as a national issue. We give our writers complete freedom and that includes freedom from having to follow the all-too-perishable news agenda. We’re very lucky to be able to give our readers pretty much the best names in Fleet St, of hugely varying styles. Matthew Parris and Richard Littlejohn are both in the magazine this week: very different writers, but both at the very top of their field. Last week, Matthew was voted columnist of the year; Rod Liddle has one of his cocaine intros this week: an opening line so addictive that you have to read the second sentence.
For those who haven’t read the mag for a while, this issue is a good one to see what you’re missing. Philip Zeigler’s review of Hugo Vickers’s biography of Wallis Simpson is, for me, worth the cover price. I know that I’m asking for trouble posting this paean to print in Coffee House, but I really do think The Speccie is the most rewarding subscription you can take out. Other publications may offer more words, but we have the most to read. For those who might be tempted, we’re doing a trial offer at £12 for 12 issues, which includes an iPad subscription. Rachel Ward’s primogeniture piece is just one of these random gems which makes the subscription a quid well spent.
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