Society

Thursday

Toby Young Toby Young

Victory in sight for the free schools revolution

I’m not surprised the Chancellor allocated more money for the free schools policy in the Budget. It’s not an exaggeration to say it’s the most successful education policy of the last 25 years. To begin with, free schools have proved to be a cost-effective way of meeting the need for additional places. This was underlined in the National Audit Office’s recent report on school capital, which said that on a like-for-like basis, they cost 29 per cent less than new schools built under Labour’s ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme. Given that the Department for Education has estimated that we will need 420,000 additional places between 2016 and 2021, it

The Spectator

Ambition deficit

Some Budgets are historic, most are boring and a small number can be remembered as a disaster. After just a few months, Philip Hammond has managed a budget – his first – that can be placed in this last category. Economically, it made very little difference. Politically, it is shaping up to be a disaster. His Budget was supposed to have been conducted under the pledge, issued no fewer than four times in the 2015 Conservative manifesto, that his party not raise taxes. ‘Instead, we will ease the burden of taxation,’ the Tories promised. It seems plausible enough, and the Conservatives were returned with an absolute majority. Whatever else one might have thought about David Cameron, he had shown

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 9 March 2017

Home The Lords passed two amendments to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, voting by 358 to 256 to guarantee the residence rights after Brexit of EU nationals living in Britain, then by 366 to 268 to give Parliament ‘a meaningful vote’ on the final Brexit deal. Lord Heseltine was sacked as an adviser to the government for voting for the latter amendment. Jeremy Corbyn published details of his tax return, which showed a total income of £114,342 but proved puzzling because, according to the Labour party, the £27,192 received for his first seven months as leader of the opposition was included under pension and benefits income. Professor Stephen

Columba

2300: The law

Each of ten clues comprises a definition part and a hidden consecutive jumble of the answer including one extra letter. Extras in Across clues spell a definition of three unclued lights, and extras in Down clues spell a definition of three unclued lights; these definitions combine to spell a definition of three unclued lights.   Across   1    Provided police report, quite emollient (8, hyphened) 8    My mistake, very big, about work (4) 11    Deprecators doubted nuclear survival (12) 14    Nervous man among drunkards returning jar (7) 17    Study odd parts of test for negative effects (5) 22    Tasted cabbage, mostly acceptable with wine

Joanna Trollope

Diary – 9 March 2017

Oh dear. Usually writers who contribute to these diaries start with something like, ‘To Paris. To launch my novel at Shakespeare and Company.’ Well, I went instead to Penarth, which is a charming seaside suburb of Cardiff, and got a right royal welcome. I told the customers of Griffin Books (and Book-ish in Crickhowell and Cover to Cover in Mumbles) that I forbade them to buy books from Amazon. If they didn’t support their independent bookshops, they would lose them. And bookshops are vital for community health. Think what Daunt’s did for Marylebone High Street; started its transformation from a non-street to a destination street, no less. Speaking of Daunt’s,

Columba

to 2297: Thoroughly

Corrections of misprints in clues give INSIDE OUT. Thematic entries at 2, 15A, 25, 30 and 39 are defined by 5, 28, 11, 21 and 12.   First prize Belinda Bridgen, London NW8 Runners-up S.J.J. Tiffin, Cockermouth, Cumbria; Tim Hanks, Douglas, Isle of Man

Helen Nugent

Pity the Co-op: bank reports fifth consecutive year of losses

If you’re a Manchester resident, you’ll be familiar with the all-singing, all-dancing, brand-spanking-new Co-op headquarters. In much the same way that London’s City Hall squats on the banks of the Thames, One Angel Square looms over Victoria Station, its solid glass bulk in stark contrast to the company’s iconic 1960s CIS Tower just over the way. The UK’s largest building when it was completed in 1962 (this title was later claimed by the capital’s Millbank Tower), the former home of The Co-operative Group is a relic of a bygone age. To step inside is be transported back to the grey vision of mid-20th century town planners. Once a jewel in Manchester’s architectural

Laura Whitcombe

What the final Spring Budget means for your pocket

With the Chancellor’s Budget moving to a single event from later this year, yesterday’s final Spring Budget went out with a muffled pop rather than a bang. After announcing an improved forecast for economic growth throughout the rest of year and revealing that employment has reached a record high, the biggest personal finance changes set out will largely affect the self-employed and small businesses. Both groups will be hit by rises in National Insurance Contributions and business rates. Currently, the self-employed can have to pay both Class 4 and Class 2 NICs, which are charged at 9 per cent on profits between £8,060 and £43,000 and at a flat rate of £2.80

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Philip Hammond’s broken promise

Philip Hammond is feeling the heat this morning. This was supposed to be the ‘boring’ budget, with no headline-grabbing announcements or spending splurges. Instead, the Chancellor’s face is splashed across the front pages this morning for all the wrong reasons. And the reception for Hammond doesn’t get any warmer inside the newspapers. The Daily Mail starts its commentary with some praise for the Chancellor. It says that his Budget ‘was a million miles from the panic-stricken emergency Budget’ put forward in the run-up to the referendum by his predecessor. Gone was the ‘anxiety’ about the future of Britain’s economy; and in came the jokes – gags the Chancellor could afford with

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

The plot against the Pope

On the first Saturday in February, the people of Rome awoke to find the city covered in peculiar posters depicting a scowling Pope Francis. Underneath were written the words: Ah, Francis, you have intervened in Congregations, removed priests, decapitated the Order of Malta and the Franciscans of the Immaculate, ignored Cardinals… but where is your mercy? The reference to mercy was a jibe that any Catholic could understand. Francis had just concluded his ‘Year of Mercy’, during which the church was instructed to reach out to sinners in a spirit of radical forgiveness. But it was also a year in which the Argentinian pontiff continued his policy of squashing his

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A Budget to keep Brexit off the rocks

Chancellors often enjoy a Budget for the chance it gives them to show off. They enjoy wrong-footing their opponents with a dramatic and unexpected announcement right at the end of their speech — the much-anticipated rabbit pulled from the hat. But Philip Hammond is not a political showman. He must be the only Chancellor in living memory to have played down his first Budget, telling colleagues with big ideas to come back to him this autumn. This lack of showmanship should not be mistaken for an absence of serious intent. He is unique among recent chancellors for two reasons: he has no ambition to move one door along to No.

Bruce Anderson

A vintage that tastes of Old Possum

Eliot. After 50 years trying to make sense of his verse, and at the risk of admitting to rampant philistinism, I propose three conclusions. At his best, he is one of the finest poets in the language. Partly because he is straining language and thought to the uttermost — an analogy with the final Beethoven piano sonatas — he is sometimes incomprehensible: sometimes, indeed, falls into arrant pseudery. Finally, his anti–Semitism before the war, his rejection of Animal Farm after it: this great man and devout Christian was not exempt from original sin. Gerontion. ‘The Jew squats on the window sill, spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp.’ We turn our

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Technology and the winner-takes-all effect

I was exchanging emails with someone the other day and signed off with the sentence ‘let me know when you are next in London’ or words to that effect. It then occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea where in the world my correspondent lived. This interested me. Because it occurred to me that I could write the sentence ‘next time you are in London’ to more or less anyone in the world without it sounding ridiculous. Of how many other cities is that true? New York, certainly. But then it gets difficult. Paris or Singapore? Well, at a pinch. It wouldn’t work for Perpignan, say, or Bourton-on-the-Water.

Jenny Coad

Calendar clash

On a Friday evening in May 2018 I am going to see the Broadway show Hamilton. We had to book the tickets two weeks ago. Fair enough, you might say — some theatre tickets sell out long before rehearsals have begun. Nonetheless, it seems a madly long way off and what if I forget about it between now and then? This week I’ve tried to pencil in the cinema with a group of friends — no one was free until April — and Saturday supper with a couple: they couldn’t do until July. Jenny Coad discusses spontaneity with Isabel Hardman: This is far from unusual. My diary tends to be

Harry Mount

Dumbing down the house

Osterley Park on the western fringes of London is a rare survival. A Robert Adam house, with splendid Adam interiors, it’s still surrounded by its Elizabethan stables, an 18th-century landscape and classical follies — in the middle of urban Hounslow. Over the past decade, this Georgian gem has been increasingly despoiled and dumbed down by the National Trust. The Trust is spending £356,000 to turn Osterley Park into a child-friendly leisure centre. As one of the huge posters strapped to the park fence says, the money will pay for ‘A new skills area for young families providing kids with a safe place to learn to cycle and gain confidence’. Why

Aidan Hartley

Wild life | 9 March 2017

Laikipia On Tristan Voorspuy’s hell-for-leather riding safaris across Kenya’s savannah, he cracked a bullwhip at predators that tried to eat his guests. One time a lion chased American actress Glenn Close on her horse and Tristan said, ‘We nearly lost her.’ They all joked about it that night around the campfire. Tristan was among the last of the stylishly mad people in Kenya. He once rode his horse into the bar at the Muthaiga Club during a stag party. From the saddle, he toasted the groom, his steed defecated on the parquet and off he trotted between astonished drinkers into Africa’s night. Tristan was a gentleman and well read. He

James Delingpole James Delingpole

‘Cash for ash’ is one green scam among many

Toffs are like jackals: always quick to sniff out new carrion. I remember a few years back one florid aristo boasting what obscene amounts of money he was saving on his heating bills thanks to a brilliant new government scheme to incentivise wood-burning. ‘Probably no use to you —your house isn’t big enough,’ he said, pityingly. Then he went on to tell me about the solar array on his estate. ‘Makes perfect sense if you’ve got a few acres spare.’ But I haven’t told you the worst of it. The worst was that my friend felt really virtuous. Some might say that here was another well-heeled scrounger with a massive

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

What will you do in the gene-editing revolution?

The only time I ever saw a wolf in the wild, a small one, I was so frightened that I closed my eyes. It was a useful insight into the depths of my own cowardice. Every day, with each new story about the exciting breakthroughs we’re making in genetic engineering, I feel that same shameful urge to shut my eyes. Far faster than anybody thought, we’re working out the genes responsible for all manner of traits in all creatures great and small. Far more easily than anyone expected, we’ve moved from standard gene therapies to figuring out how to actually edit our own DNA, to ferret around inside living cells,

Kate Chisholm

Keeping the faith | 9 March 2017

Perhaps surprisingly, in these secular times, Radio 4 keeps up its annual (and very Reithian) tradition of holding a series of esoteric talks about faith and belief to mark the Christian season of Lent, those 40 days of preparation and penitence leading up to the events of Holy Week. In the first of this year’s Lent Talks (produced by Christine Morgan), the psychotherapist Anouchka Grose talked about the role of the unconscious in our behaviour and the peculiar tendency of human beings to repeat experiences they claim not to enjoy. You could say that unconsciously we influence our own fate, and that however hard we might try to tame our