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Society

Thursday

Toby Young Toby Young

Why we need more universities

In 1961, shortly after getting a job as a lecturer at Cambridge, my father had an idea. The faculty buildings, he discovered, were largely unused for six months of the year. The colleges, too, were empty. Why not create two Cambridges, one for term time and one for the holidays? Unlike the Cambridge of dreaming spires and glittering prizes, the second would be for ordinary people who’d missed out on the chance of a university education — labourers, tradesmen, clerks, housewives. It wouldn’t be a place of privilege and over-indulgence, but of hard-working people eager to soak up knowledge. And instead of propping up the English class system, it would

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 12 January 2017

Q. My son decided to go straight into work and has got a job. The problem is that it is in central London and none of his friends are available to share accommodation since they are all either on gap years or, if in London, in university halls. He’s been lucky enough to find a berth with a friend’s parents. He pays rent but, though they’ve given him his own small fridge, he doesn’t cook there — he doesn’t know how to and also he senses they would prefer he didn’t. Consequently he eats at Pizza Express every night using vouchers. He is a sociable boy and is used to

Dot Wordsworth

Nativism

The title of America’s first woman bishop was claimed in 1918 by Bishop Alma White, leader of the Pillar of Fire Church, noted for her feminism, anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism, for her alliance with the Ku Klux Klan, and for her nativism. I was puzzled by the word. After all, Native Americans are what we used to call Indians. Native American is not a new piece of terminology. Sir Fulke Greville in his Life of Sir Philip Sidney, published in 1628, inveighed against the Spaniard as a race for suppressing ‘the poor native Americans’ with heavy impositions. But these American Indians, no matter how heavily suppressed, hardly seemed the sort of

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 12 January 2017

Home Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour party, proposed a limit on incomes: ‘I would like to see some kind of high earnings cap, quite honestly,’ he said on the BBC’s Today. The London Underground went on strike for a day and Southern railway workers for three. Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein resigned as the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland in protest against the mishandling of a multi-million-pound energy scheme by Arlene Foster, the Democratic Unionist Party first minister, who was forced out of office in the power-sharing administration by his move. Mr McGuinness, who has spent a decade in the post, was also said to be suffering from

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 12 January 2017

At the Golden Globes ceremony, Meryl Streep attacked Donald Trump because he ‘imitated a disabled reporter’. ‘When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose,’ she added. It has not been explained over here that hers is a disputed version of what happened. The controversy began in November 2015, when Trump, campaigning, alleged that ‘thousands and thousands’ of Muslims in Jersey City had publicly celebrated the attack on the Twin Towers in September 2001. The allegation caused outrage, and it seems that Trump’s idea of numbers was wildly exaggerated. However Trump’s people did produce evidence that such a celebration had taken place. One piece was a contemporary

Lavatch

Discovery

Two pairs of unclued lights are theme names. Remaining unclued lights aren’t in themselves thematic, but their unchecked letters complete a book title, and part of its sub-title, in two symmetrically placed, curving lines reading down. Both phrases are (14, three words) and need highlighting. The ODE confirms 19, 28, and 43.   Across 6    Gathering in dry, small clothes (7, hyphened) 12    Mythic king playing darts in Oz (8) 13    Heard fuel’s powder (4) 14    Metal with odd poison (6) 16    Repair men cut rasp — they affix handles (6) 18    Milliner’s note about poet (7) 19    Not sticking in force, joining police (8) 28    Polish pal about to

Columba

Festive features | 12 January 2017

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (99) and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (20) – whose DIRECTORS (37) were ERNST LUBITSCH (61) and FRANK CAPRA (35D) – are FILMS (53) in which the ACTOR (78) playing the CHARACTERS (68D) of ALFRED KRALIK (79) and GEORGE BAILEY (45) is JAMES STEWART (1A 5A). One film’s title suggests the shop around the corner of the grid; the other film’s setting is BEDFORD FALLS (112 113).   The winners   The first prize of £100, three prizes of £25 and six further prizes of Dent’s Modern Tribes go to the following. The first four winners each also receive a bottle of champagne.   First prize

Laura Whitcombe

Just 19 days left to file your tax return: here’s what to do

There are just 19 dreary January days left to complete your online self-assessment tax return and – here’s the important bit – pay what you owe. Miss the midnight deadline on Tuesday 31st January and you could face a stiff financial penalty. More than 10 million of us were organised and settled our annual accounts on time last year, but nearly 900,000 let it go down to the wire. HM Revenue & Customs reported that 823,000 taxpayers waited until the 30th and 31st to file their returns. The Revenue’s single busiest day for returns was the 29th January, when 513,271 people submitted their records. Men were the most likely to pay

Helen Nugent

Retail Super Thursday, Lloyds, economy and equity release

More bumper retail results today with M&S reporting an increase in clothing and homeware sales over Christmas for the first time in two years. Surpassing expectations, sales in the division rose by 2.3 per cent. John Lewis also reported results this morning, revealing that Christmas sales increased by 2.7 per cent. Meanwhile, a demand for fresh food helped Tesco over the festive period. According to the BBC, the supermarket giant reported that Christmas like-for-like sales, which strip out the impact of new store openings, grew 0.7 per cent in the UK, and were up by 0.3 per cent across the group as a whole. In addition, Dunelm, the homeware retailer, has reported

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Spectator podcast: The end of experts

On this week’s podcast we reappraise the role of experts, scrutinise the chaotic papacy, and check in with the court of King Donald. First up: In this week’s cover story, Fraser Nelson writes that the definitive quote from the referendum was one that the speaker, Michael Gove, never meant to make. In an interview with Faisal Islam, Gove was heard to claim that the British people ‘have had enough of experts’. But was that really the point that Gove was making? And, eight months on, was he actually right? Fraser joins the podcast to discuss this, along with the Spectator’s Political Editor, James Forsyth. So who should we be listening to?

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Healthy ridicule

Something I have long noticed is how, the moment they leave office, many politicians suddenly undergo a strange transformation where, overnight, they become much funnier, more likeable and intelligent. Two years after he had failed in his presidential bid, Bob Dole appeared on British television to comment on the American mid-term elections. To my astonishment, he was one of the wittiest people I have ever seen, delivering a series of perceptive barbs with a snarky, very British sense of ironic humour. I asked an American friend why we never saw this side of him when he campaigned for the presidency: ‘Oh, you can’t do that kind of humour in the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Don’t ask the experts

Michael Gove never intended to make his most famous remark. In an interview during the EU referen-dum campaign, the then justice secretary was told that the leaders of the IFS, CBI, NHS and TUC all disagreed with him about Brexit. He had tried to reply that people have ‘had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong’. But he was picked up mid-sentence by his appalled interviewer. ‘Had enough of experts? Had enough of experts?’ Gove’s partial quote was held up to ridicule, as if it embodied Trump-style populist rage; the battle of emotion against reason. As it turned

Bruce Anderson

Sherry to start

Someone came up with a century-old quotation plangent with irony and sadness: ‘The year 1916 was cursed: 1917 will surely be better.’ That was Tsar Nicholas II. Poor fellow: tragedy for him and his family, tragedy down the decades for tens of millions of his subjects. Its spectre is still haunting Russia. Although we raised a toast to the tsar’s memory, tragedy was far from our minds as we welcomed the latest New Year in a mood best described as eupeptic pessimism. Not hard to do: Dorset is one of the least dyspeptic places on earth. My friends who live there sometimes try to discourage me from praising their sweet

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Making work for ourselves

In 1929 John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2029 people in the developed nations could enjoy a perfectly civilised standard of living while working for 16 hours a week. His hope was for our precious hours of extra leisure to be devoted to such edifying pursuits as playing Grand Theft Auto and watching kittens skateboarding on YouTube. (Actually he didn’t predict that bit — he suggested we’d be listening to string quartets and attending poetry recitals but, hey, that was the Bloomsbury Group for you.) Today, however, not only has the work week stayed constant but, in direct contradiction of the theory, the better-paid now work disproportionately longer hours. In

Aidan Hartley

Wild life | 12 January 2017

We had my parents-in-law Gerry and Jean to stay with us on the farm over Christmas and being in a remote place in Africa, things often go wrong. A few days into the festivities the solar-powered electricity broke down and so did the solar water-heater. As we sat in darkness, after cold showers, Gerry said, ‘It reminds me of Ronnie and Doreen.’ In 1968, Gerry said, he was working for Kellogg’s, selling cornflakes all over the British Isles, Jean was raising two children and they lived in a semi in Billingshurst. Ronnie next door used to fiddle the electric meter. He offered, ‘Shall I do yours, Gerry?’ ‘No thank you,

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

As the cab doors locked, I wanted to get out

I meant to get the bus, but by the time I arrived at the stop at 5 p.m. last Tuesday, I was running late. I was relieved to see a Tic Tac of orange light floating towards me through the evening. The taxi stopped, I climbed in and said: ‘Just north of Angel please.’ Then: ‘I’m afraid I only have £25 so we’ll probably have to stop at a cashpoint.’ The driver had a flat cap, and in the paler oblong of the rearview mirror, I could see he was wearing sunglasses. I didn’t think to think this strange even though it was dark. ‘Oh don’t worry. I’ll take you for

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The lies we tell ourselves about the NHS

The language of the left is a truly transformative grammar, so I suppose Noam Chomsky would heartily approve. There are words which, when uttered by a leftie, lose all sense of themselves — such as ‘diverse’ and ‘vibrant’ and ‘racist’. It is not simply that these words can mean different things to different people — it is that when the left uses them they are at best a euphemism and at worst a downright lie. And from that you have to draw the conclusion that their whole political edifice is built upon a perpetually shifting succession of imaginative falsehoods. Such as when they tell you you’re a ‘denier’ of something

Harry Mount

Not owning a car

On two occasions, sainted members of my family have offered me a car for nothing. Both times, I turned them down — and not out of selflessness or for green reasons. I said no because I knew it would mean me sitting still in a metal box for hundreds more hours every year. If I were the only driver in London, I’d have accepted the free cars in a second. Even if I could have been transported back to 1970s London — when in my memory the streets were largely empty — I’d have said yes. But driving in London — and in British cities, generally — has now got

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Inflation creeps back like the forgotten whiff of cigarette smoke

From supermarkets to superyacht builders, sales figures are remarkably buoyant: consumer debt may be rising too, but no one can say the New Year economic mood is markedly downbeat. This column feels obliged to find something on the horizon to worry about, however, and my telescope is focused on inflation. If deflation was a real threat to developed economies in recent years, the pendulum is now swinging the other way. UK inflation is expected to hit 3 per cent by late 2017, what with higher import costs generally thanks to the weak pound, fuel-price rises as a result of Opec’s effort to restrict oil production, the pass-through to consumers of