The Battle for Britain – 4 May 2017
Society
Thursday
to 2305: Whodunnit?
The unclued lights are trios of Cluedo © rooms at 1A, 14A and 40, weapons at 6, 13 and 14, and suspects at 5, 27 and 36. The solution to the crime are the highlighted HALL, ROPE and PLUM. First prize P. Langdale, London N11 Runners-up Matthew Cawthorne, Watford, Hertfordshire; Barry Fisher, Bramhall, Stockport
Welcome to the era of the boring Royals
The news that Prince Philip will be retiring from his royal duties from August is a terrible blow. It’s entirely fair, of course. The Prince, after all is 95, and will be 96 by the time he retires. He has done far more than his share of Royal duties; last year he had 219 official engagements in the UK, and he’s Britain’s longest serving consort in history. But it’s still a terrible shame, because where will the fun be in the royal family without Prince Philip? I remember nervously waiting in a queue at St. James’s Palace to receive my Gold Duke of Edinburgh’s award – which was, of course,
Giving money to beggars does more harm than good
I still feel bad about the beggar I ignored years ago. Fear of being mugged while fumbling for money has often kept me walking past beggars. But on that occasion I felt safe since I was with friends. Wimpishly, I took my cue from them. Later we compared notes – we’d all felt a strong urge to give. Some of us never give, others always do, and, some like me, agonise, summoning instinct to make snap decisions, then fretting we’ve made the wrong ones. Lately, I’ve been wondering if I should always walk on by, though reasons to give freely tug at my heartstrings. Contrary to urban myth, those asking
Marine Le Pen has come out with the best political line of the year
It was the best line of the night. The best line of the campaign, in fact. It might even prove to be the best political line of the year, though it’s unlikely to be acknowledged as such, because of who uttered it. It was Marine Le Pen. Fixing Emmanuel Macron in a surprisingly friendly glare during last night’s televised debate, the last one before the ballot boxes open in Sunday’s presidential election, she said the following: ‘France will be led by a woman – it will be either me or Mrs Merkel.’ Wow. And also: ouch. It’s the definition of a killer line. It had it all. It instantly emasculated
How to check, amend and repair your credit record
When was the last time you checked your credit history? This vitally important information can seriously affect many aspects of your financial life, from your ability to get a smartphone contract to obtaining a mortgage. Every time you apply to borrow money, the lender will run a search on you to try and determine how likely it is that you’ll be able to repay them. This information is held by credit reporting companies including Experian, Equifax and CallCredit in the form of a credit report. The report is a summary of credit accounts you’ve had during the past six years and can include details of any credit cards, loans, mortgages, overdrafts,
At the cutting edge
There’s a graveyard inside Henry Marsh’s head, though you’d never guess it to look at him. There he sits in his elegant flat in a small castle on a small island in the Oxford Thames: 67, attractive, restless. There he sits with the world all around him: Persian rugs, French tapestries, Japanese prints and his beautiful blonde wife (the anthropologist Kate Fox) in a separate flat below. But the ghosts of past patients are never far away. Henry Marsh is a brain surgeon, celebrated for his skill in operating on patients under just local anaesthetic. He’s famous also for his astonishing memoir Do No Harm, to which he’s now written
A very British bildung
Over the long weekend I read a couple of bildungs-romans; one a revisit after many years, the other a recent work. In Hemingway’s words, A Moveable Feast was about living in Paris ‘when we were very poor and very happy’. The poverty was relative. Hemingway did occasionally have to skip lunch, but there was always enough to drink, even if some of it, from Corsica or Cahors — rough in those days — was better mixed with water. Fishermen still plied the banks of the Seine. Simple restaurants sold the catch, delicious with Muscadet, and our author does not mention ill effects. Nor does he inflict any on his readers.
The MBA idiocies that ruin everything
I rang a company’s call centre the other day, and the experience was exemplary: helpful, knowledgeable, charming. The firm was a client of ours, so I asked what they did to make their telephone operators so unbelievably good. ‘Um, to be perfectly honest, we probably overpay them.’ Their call centre was 20 miles from a large city. Staff didn’t have to travel for an hour each day to find reasonably paid work, so they stayed for decades and became highly proficient. Training and recruitment costs were negligible. And it wasn’t just me they impressed: customer satisfaction was astoundingly high. The staff weren’t really a ‘cost’ — they were a significant
Scafell Pike
Within a couple of miles of England’s deepest point is its highest. Towering a kilometre above the hidden depths of Wast Water looms the sublime massif of Scafell Pike. From here, the rooftop of England, the whole union reveals itself — Scotland, Wales and those glowering guardians of Northern Ireland, the Mountains of Mourne. Most visitors to Lakeland know Scafell. For the tramping tourist and charity rambler, lured by the thrill of being atop its 978m peak, it’s a must-see goal. Its prominent summit cairn, memorialising Cumbrians who fell in the Great War, is large enough for a cricket team to picnic on. The terrain is astoundingly alien: devoid of
Wild life | 4 May 2017
Laikipia, Kenya On my way home to the ranch, I stopped for a beer with my neighbour Martin. It was twilight and large herds of cattle were being brought into the yards around Martin’s house for the night. Pokot militias had been attacking for days, trying to rustle cattle and shooting at anybody in sight. Gunmen had a few days before shot Athaju Eloto, one of Martin’s farm workers. Doctors extracted a bullet from near Eloto’s spine but he later died. The bandits had also killed a police officer on the farm during operations to remove the attackers. In a nearby village full of smallholders, Pokot attackers had murdered a
Acrostic spectator
In Competition No. 2996 you were invited to submit an acrostic sonnet in which the first letters of each line spell AT THE SPECTATOR. You weren’t obliged to make the theme of your sonnet this magazine and its contributors but many of you did, to great effect. (The tone was mainly though not universally affectionate.) Dorothy Pope, Joseph Houlihan, George Thomson and Paul A. Freeman deserve a special mention for eye-catching contributions, and the winners, printed below, pocket £25 each. W.J. Webster takes £30. A nest of singing birds they may not be (Too individual in the way they speak); Their talents, though, make quite a company, High-class
Wednesday
Investment returns are in the bag: luxury handbags outperform gold and property
Exceptions aside, Spectator readers are not consumers of luxury for luxury’s sake. They are unassuming keepers of style, guardians of distinction – and firm of belief that any claim to sophistication demands a renunciation of bling. In fact, I can only assume that this is being read by a pious confederacy of cashmere-clad clones. You may recall the early noughties. It was a halcyon age. Everyone was flush with cash and casual credit was king. We were at our most acquisitive and if there was money to be spent, it was invariably on one thing – the obsession of the era, the latest ‘It Bag’. Just thinking about it turns
Is Paul Mason being lined up for a seat?
After Simon Danczuk was barred from standing as the Labour candidate for Rochdale, there have been reports that the Leader’s Office are keen for Corbyn adviser Katy Clark to be put forward for the seat — after she lost out in Leigh. However, now the word on the ground is that Labour want a local candidate over concerns a non-local candidate could lose the seat if Danczuk runs as an independent. So, could it be another Corbynite who is in contention to make the shortlist? Applications for the seat open today and close tomorrow. The chatter in Labour is that Paul Mason may go for it — after he was apparently spied visiting the Leader’s Office today.
Banks are failing to help customers slipping into the red
I’m in one of those moods. The one where I’m beset by delusions of adequacy, I can’t work up the energy to pretend I like people, and every email is filled with doom and gloom and stories of bad behaviour. Which brings me to today’s missive from the comparison site uSwitch. According to new research, consumers have been stung with more than £300 million in unarranged overdraft fees by banks which prevent them from opting out of this costly system. I know, banks are (for the most part) upfront about charges for unauthorised overdrafts. But that doesn’t make the stats any less startling. Consider this: typically, consumers are charged £33 each time
Labour infiltrate Tory election campaign
Oh dear. Although Labour have had a lacklustre campaign so far, things are beginning to look up. While the shadow home secretary might not be able to get her figures right on bobbies, the party is still capable of a good old-fashioned stunt. Today hacks are gathered at a venue in Westminster to hear Philip Hammond and David Davis speak for the first time in the Conservative campaign. The message on the screen is that Corbyn would mean ‘no bombs for our army’ but ‘one big bombshell for your family’. However, the event has gone off message thanks to a Labour activist who managed to sneak her way into the
Tuesday
Wiping the record book clean is no way to tackle cheating in sport
What does it say about today’s athletes that the men’s triple jump record hasn’t been broken since 1995, the long jump since 1991 and the discus since 1986? Or that the women’s long jump record still stands from 1988 and the 800 metres since 1983? Does it say that athletes all used to be a bunch of doped-up cheats which today’s squeaky clean competitors can’t possibly be expected to beat without steroids and a few other goodies from the medicine cupboard? Or does it just say that the people currently competing in these disciplines aren’t quite as good as a few exceptional athletes in the past? European Athletics, the governing
Standard hit job on May
Today George Osborne has begun his new job as the editor of the Evening Standard. Given that the paper’s proprietor previously claimed the former chancellor would provide the real opposition to Theresa May, it should come as no surprise that Osborne has wasted no time in turning his ire on the Prime Minister. In today’s leader, Brexit is branded ‘an historic mistake’: ‘The British people were asked last year whether we should remain in or leave the European Union. Although the majority of Londoners wanted to remain, the country — by a small but clear margin — voted to leave. This paper respects that democratic decision, even though it continues
The Bank of Mum and Dad is now the ninth largest lender in the UK
As lenders’ names go, The Bank of Mum and Dad is rather appealing. There’s instant brand awareness, the prospect of small or non-existent interest rates, and the likelihood that financial negotiations will end with a hug and a few happy tears. I’m a member of this institution. When I moved back up North following 14 years in London, I found the perfect house outside of Manchester. But I couldn’t sell my flat in the capital and was leaking money left, right and centre. A bridging loan was out of the question, as was anything resembling a deposit. So my Dad stepped in, loaned me a sizeable sum, and it all
We should teach infants about the value of money
On the one hand, perhaps he should only be thinking about football, Minecraft, his Lego Millennium Falcon and whether he is actually capable of magic. On the other, I can’t let this window of opportunity go by. Being five-years-old is a prime time for learning about the world and how things work. It might seem a bit too young to be dulling his imagination with compound interest, but it’s a lesson he probably won’t get at school (unfortunately) and is one he would do well to get sooner rather than later. That’s why I’ve started giving my five-year-old son £2 pocket money every week for the completion of very minor
