Society

Thursday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Single mothers, not wealthy presenters, are the real victims of the BBC’s gender disparity

There is a group of women who have every reason to feel aggrieved to learn that the BBC is paying Gary Lineker £1.8 million a year and John Humphreys between £600,000 and £650,000. But it doesn’t include Jane Garvey and Emily Maitlis, both of whom appear to be grubbing by on a little below £150,000. It is the 101,000 women found guilty last year of evading the TV licence. If you want a genuinely worrying gender disparity, forget the BBC’s highest-earners and look at the balance of people at the bottom of society who are being dragged through the courts for the non-payment of the tax. The Perry Review into the TV licence,

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: Madness in the Med

On this week’s episode, Isabel Hardman is joined by guests to look at the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean and how NGOs might be making things worse, rather than better. We also wonder whether Bristol should be ashamed of its past, and discuss binge drinking with Julie Burchill. Fewer than 300 miles off the Libyan coast lies the Italian island of Lampedusa. With a population of just over 6,000, Lampedusa has become the nexus of a migration crisis that has rumbled on for years, with seemingly no resolution in sight. In this week’s magazine, Nicholas Farrell reports from Italy on a crisis that he believes is being compounded by boats run

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Andrea Leadsom hails Jane Austen as one of our ‘greatest living authors’

Oh dear. Although there has been much excitement this week at the news that Jane Austen will feature on the new ten pound note, some appear to have got a bit carried away in their celebrations. Speaking in the Chamber this morning, Andrea Leadsom shared her personal joy at the news: ‘I’m delighted to join in celebrating Jane Austen, who will feature on the new ten pound note – one of our greatest living authors.’ However, given that Jane Austen sadly passed away in 1817 it appeared that Leadsom had got her dates mixed up. Happily, she was quick to realise her error – rephrasing to say that Austen was one of the

James Mumford

In defence of offence

On Tuesday the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) announced a crackdown on gender stereotyping. Adverts suggesting men are useless around the house – racing out of the door, leaving the stove bubbling over and the dishes unwashed – could be censored because they ‘reinforce and perpetuate traditional gender roles.’ Images of beautiful mothers mopping spotless floors will be able to be banned. How do the ASA define gender stereotypes? ‘Gender stereotypes relate to body image, objectification, sexualisation, gender characteristics and roles, and mocking people for not conforming to gender stereotypes.’ Well, that’s pretty much everyone. The ASA will have the power to make billboards bare. For as far as my own body

Nicholas Farrell

Madness in the Med

Following the EU’s deal with Turkey over people smuggling, the issue of migrants trying to cross, and quite often drowning in, the Mediterranean has largely disappeared from the British media. There have been no more images like that of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach after the rubber dinghy in which his family were trying to reach the Greek island of Kos capsized in August 2015. Now, people smugglers and migrants know there is little point in trying to make the crossing from Turkey to Greece because they will only be sent back, in return for the EU taking refugees directly from camps in Turkey. The deal

Laura Freeman Laura Freeman

It’s got to be perfect

When I order a cup of tea in Costa, the barista says: ‘Perfect!’ I ask for tap water in a restaurant: ‘Perfect!’ I buy a card in Paperchase and at the till it’s: ‘Perfect!’ And: ‘Perfect!’ again as I put in my PIN. ‘Perfect!’ when I say I don’t need a bag. It used to be ‘Great!’ and even that was too ecstatic a response to a side-order of creamed spinach. Now, there’s been a service industry upgrade. No longer is the customer always right; they are perfect. A little thing, yes, but a symptom of a wider mania for perfection. Everything from breakfast muesli to career, home and family

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Deus ex machina

Mark Zuckerberg says that Facebook could be to its users what churches are to congregations: it could help them feel part of ‘a more connected world’. That got a dusty response. Facebook as church, eh? So the man who helped an entire generation to replace real friends with virtual ones and online communities is sounding off about people feeling unconnected? Cause and effect or what? He wasn’t quite touting Facebook as an alternative church. It is, rather, now using artificial intelligence to suggest groups that its users might join — anything from locksmiths’ societies to addiction groups and Baptist organisations — and Mr Zuckerberg is enthusing about the benefits of

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Rog apart, Wimbledon 2017 was a disgrace

For obvious reasons this column always welcomes ‘King Roger Rules The World’ headlines on the back pages. And the front too. So warm congrats from one Rog to the greatest Rog of all. Is Federer the best sportsman ever? Pelé? Ali? Bradman? Maybe, but it’s hard to challenge Rog. Look at this year: two grand slams at 35 and four children under seven to tire him out, too. What odds on the two sets of Federer twins for the mixed doubles in 2040? Their dad will probably still be reaching the quarter-finals. Though just a word Rog: maybe you were slightly overdoing the whole Von Trapp shtick with the younger

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Wine Club 22 July

Esme Johnstone at FromVineyardsDirect.com is the past master at digging out little parcels of top quality, fully mature vino from fine French estates and I’m delighted to report that his touch has not deserted him. Along with a brace of tip top whites and a rosé, we’ve a trio of really tasty (and tastily priced) clarets, each one so delectable they’re just begging to be drunk. First, the 2016 Domaine du Bicheron, Macon-Péronne Vieilles Vignes (1), an old favourite that I remember we offered a couple of years back in a previous vintage to the delight of Spectator readers. This vintage is even better. Made from old vine Chardonnay in

John Major

Test of time

I first walked into the Oval as a small boy in the early 1950s. My family home was in Brixton, only a few minutes from the ground. More than 60 years later, those early memories are still vivid. I sat on what were then very uncomfortable wooden benches with sandwiches, an apple and a bottle of Tizer. On my lap was a schoolboy scorebook in which I recorded every run. The Surrey team that won the championship for seven years in a row held me transfixed. I still believe they were the greatest county side of all time — although Yorkshire would dispute this vigorously. The team’s supreme bowling attack

Julian Glover

Shropshire

I found the land of lost content last week, west of the Clee Hills in the Shropshire Housman wrote about, but hardly knew. It is deep England, thick with trees, stone-built farms that look like forts and tracks in gullies cut by ancient feet. The villages here have rhythmic names: Bouldon, Peaton and Cockshutford — or simple Heath, where there is now no village at all, only the pure Norman chapel standing in grass with its long old iron key on a hook outside. It was built for a settlement lost at the Black Death. Few sounds here are unnatural: you hear birdsong more than cars or planes. I was

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Bending London’s listing rules to win Saudi favour smacks of desperation

Now here’s a tricky question. The world’s largest oil company, potentially worth six times as much as ExxonMobil and ten times as much as Royal Dutch Shell, wants to list its shares on a major stock exchange next year, and has indicated that the choice is between London and New York. The company’s initial public offering of just 5 per cent of its shares promises a $100 billion deal that will generate a fee bonanza for bankers, lawyers and PR men in the chosen marketplace, with several more tranches to come. Clearly London should go all-out to win this lucrative and prestigious piece of business, which would reconfirm the City’s

Will Heaven

Must Colston fall?

Edward Colston, mega-rich philanthropist around the year 1700, is the nearest thing Bristol has to a patron saint. The largest stained glass window in the cathedral there is dedicated to him. Go and do thou likewise, it commands. There’s no doubt Bristol owes Colston. He funded almshouses and schools here; made countless donations to churches and charities, some of which work wonders to this day. And many signs of Victorian civic gratitude to him litter the place. There are half a dozen Colston roads and three Colston schools, for instance — including one which churns out more England rugby players than Eton creates prime ministers. Colston is — or was

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Dear Leavebugs, it’s time to admit your mistake

‘Brexit,’ says my friend David Aaronovitch, ‘is dying.’ We Remainer irreconcilables certainly hope so. But there’s a slim chance the grisly Brexit project could yet pull through, and it’s right to acknowledge this. So in a spirit of candid friendship I write this letter to die-hard Leavers, of whom a small — but vigorous — colony survives on these Spectator pages… Dear Leavebugs, You know I am not of your number, but I understand you. I even feel for you. The Leave/Remain split is not a divide between two halves of the British population, but a war within the breast of each person. Every feeling you’ve had, I’ve experienced too.

Tuesday

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Is the ASA brave enough to ban adverts for children?

We all know that advertising is the work of the devil – creating entirely spurious wants, including in small children – but making it gender neutral doesn’t help. The Advertising Standards Authority is extending its brief to ensure that advertising does not confirm unhelpful sex stereotypes. That is to say, it is going to ban advertisements suggesting that little girls want to be ballerinas (Aptamil) or showing Lynda Bellingham at the stove (Bisto). Guy Parker of the ASA says, ‘advertising standards can play an important role in tackling inequalities and improving outcomes for individuals, the economy and society as a whole’; the ASA will make sure it does by stigmatising the

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

The Princess generation needs to grow up

I never dreamed I’d see the day when I agreed with Miriam González Durántez – such a snob that she believes people can be socially snubbed by being given Hellman’s mayonnaise, such a Euro-bore that she found Brexit ‘devastating’ and so short-sighted that she sees sex with Nick Clegg as a reasonable proposition. But with this recent Twitter rant, I quite warmed to her: ‘When you have a 2.30 hours delay in a British Airways flight (what is happening to this airline!?) open the inflight shop magazine and want to scream: STOP-CALLING-GIRLS-LITTLE-PRINCESSES!! It cannot be so difficult for an airline to get this right…’ Mind you, it’s pretty likely that

Monday

Richard Ekins

Only Parliament can decide the law on assisted dying

The question of whether assisted suicide should be legalised is back before the courts. The High Court this week is being invited to declare that the Suicide Act 1961, which prohibits assisted suicide, is incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to respect for private life.  Whatever the High Court eventually decides, its judgment will inevitably work its way on appeal up to the Supreme Court. Our courts clearly have the power, under section 4 of the Human Rights Act 1998, to declare legislation incompatible with ECHR rights.  Declaring the Suicide Act incompatible would not itself decriminalise assisted suicide, but would put

Alex Massie Alex Massie

English cricket is too glass half-empty for its own good

There is, let us be honest, a certain kind of England supporter who derives some cheerful satisfaction from disaster and weak-minded capitulation. Many England cricket supporters – for it is summer and time to put away minor matters such as Brexit and concentrate instead on more substantial civilisational matters – are naturally crepuscular, forever looking forward to the dying of the light. And why not? There is much to be said for being an Eeyore, especially if – as sometimes seems to be the case – being a Tigger is the only available alternative. Nevertheless, it is always a mistake to take things too far. Today’s miserable collapse at Trent

Ross Clark Ross Clark

HS2 is steaming towards budgetary disaster

Byng was the name of the unfortunate admiral executed in 1757, in the words of Voltaire, “pour encourager les autres” after the fall of Minorca. I fear that poor old Michael Byng might be about to go the same way. Having put out a report estimating that the first phase of HS2 could cost £48 billion and the full scheme £104 billion, twice official estimates – will have woken up this morning to hear transport secretary Chris Grayling rubbishing his work, saying that he couldn’t possibly know about HS2 because he hasn’t been working on it. He did, however, devise the system which Network Rail use for estimating costs, which

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Assisted dying turns doctors into killers

You know, the quality on which the British pride themselves, pragmatism, has its limits. There’s a case for abstract moral thinking and it’s especially true when it comes to the fraught moral question of euthanasia, assisted suicide, right-to-die, whatever. And essentially the distinction is between actively killing someone, or allowing them to die – of doing something, as opposed to not doing something, of commission rather than omission. The little ditty by Arthur Hugh Clough, ‘thou shalt not kill but needst not strive/ officiously to keep alive’ sort of sums it up. The latest right-to-die case comes before the court today, that of Noel Conway, a retired lecturer who has