Society

Thursday

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 6 April 2017

My brother and I were taking a short cut through an alleyway and saw a copper coming towards us through the rain with a fishing rod in his hand. My brother is also a copper, though currently taking time off work for an intensive course of chemotherapy. He knows all the older coppers in the area and he immediately recognised this one and quickened his step to greet him. I too knew this copper, but not as a colleague. I pretended to panic at the sight of him and started climbing into a nearby skip. My last conversation with him was on the phone four years ago about a woman

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 6 April 2017

We all know how important it is to stop and think when defending a hand. There’s just one problem with that advice: sometimes it’s equally important not to stop and think. Every hesitation gives something away — and although it often doesn’t cost you anything, it can prove fatal. I regularly find myself having to decide in a heartbeat — before I’ve managed to work out what’s going on — whether I can afford to pause and consider my actions, or whether to duck smoothly and hope for the best.   Declarers who draw inferences from our hesitations are acting perfectly legitimately; it’s all part of the game. You may

Toby Young Toby Young

Meritocracy isn’t fair

I’ve just made a programme for Radio 4 about the populist revolts that swept Britain and America last year. Were they predicted in a book written by my father, Michael Young, almost 60 years ago? I’m thinking of The Rise of the Meritocracy, a dystopian satire that imagines a 21st-century Britain governed by a highly educated technocratic elite. Eventually, the intellectual and moral hubris of these Masters of the Universe is too much for ordinary people and they’re overthrown in a bloody revolution in 2034. It often surprises people to learn that my father’s critique of meritocracy was underpinned by his belief that human differences are rooted in genetics, a

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 6 April 2017

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, visited Saudi Arabia without covering her hair, or even wearing a hat. Earlier, asked whether Britain’s response to Spain’s ambitions to rule Gibraltar meant war-war or jaw-jaw, said: ‘It’s definitely jaw-jaw.’ She was responding to a hoo-ha over remarks by Lord Howard of Lympne, a former leader of the Conservative Party, about a paragraph at the end of draft negotiation outlines circulated by Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, that said: ‘No agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom.’ Lord Howard had

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 6 April 2017

A friend of a friend hosted an engagement party in a London hotel. Invitations had gone out six weeks beforehand, and no expense was spared. They had planned it to be an ultra lavish event to please even the most critical and spoiled of their friends. However, between the hours of 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on the day of the party, 30 of the 100 guests who had accepted suddenly cancelled. The bride and groom are in their fifties, so surely their friends should be old enough to know better? What can an ordinary, non-super-rich person like me expect the turnout to be for my own forthcoming engagement party?

Dot Wordsworth

An historic

Everybody’s saying it, even though the latest research declares that only 6 per cent of the population is given to the habit. I mean saying an historic. Sir John Major, though a Knight of the Garter, is proud of his origins in Brixton and Worcester Park, but started the present vogue at Chatham House in February by saying in a speech that the referendum vote to leave the EU was ‘an historic mistake’. On 29 March, when Donald Tusk received Theresa May’s letter triggering, not Article 50 (which itself was the trigger), but the process of leaving, the Prime Minister said: ‘This is an historic moment from which there is no

Pabulum

2304: Hexagon

The same 26 appears six times in 1D. Remaining unclued lights exemplify its different meanings. The 26 will appear diagonally in the completed grid and must be shaded.   Across 7    Chief cycling daily (4) 11    Young man has time for special author (5) 12    Food Victor feeds forces (6) 13    A road alongside hill in Cheshire? (7) 15    Heart of some lady fair (4) 17    Maybe Oxford lecturer has eyepiece with unique cavity (10) 18    Water casks? Take in large cups (8) 21    Birds from region around Germany (5) 22    Friend hoards money in an unfriendly way (7) 23    Rory downsized huge cargo boats (5, hyphened) 29    Sheep in

Sophia Money-Coutts

Marmalade

Marmalade’s had a rough old time of it lately. A recent report in the Telegraph declared it is dying out; that only oldies are buying it because millennials can’t handle ‘bits’ in spreads. Well, excuse me, but I direct you to this year’s World Marmalade Awards, held a few weeks ago in a big Georgian house called Dalemain just outside Penrith, which attracted nearly 2,000 homemade jars from around the globe. Big jars, little jars, jars decorated with glitter, sticky jars that had leaked in the post, jars with gingham hats. All laid out on trestle tables with individual, handwritten tasting notes from the WI judges underneath, marking each jar

Pabulum

to 2301: Age of extremes

Unclued lights (in red) are the characteristics of ‘the period’, from the opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities. The highlighted words are part of the same quote, appropriately occupying the first line of the grid.   First prize R. Snailham, Windsor, Berkshire Runners-up M. Threasher, Winscombe, Somerset; Ben Stephenson, London SW12

Helen Nugent

High street firms shun government savings programme

Poor LISA. She’s all dolled up, ready to make her entrance onto the national stage and nobody wants her. She’s the girl at the dance who sits on her own, unloved and ignored. Today marks the launch of the Lifetime ISA, the government’s flagship savings programme. The LISA is a version of the Individual Savings Account, intended to help first-time buyers and those saving for retirement. It works like this: for every £1,000 saved, the government provides a £250 top-up. People can make annual contributions up to £4,000. Anyone aged between 18 and 39 is eligible, with a cut-off age for contributions of 50. The maximum government bonus is £32,000 and

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Books Podcast: The joy of indexes

On this week’s Books Podcast, I’m joined by the scholar Dennis Duncan to talk about a subject that’s very dear to both of our hearts: that neglected few pages at the back of any book — the Index. In the wake of last week’s National Indexing Day, we talk about the ancient history of indexes and indexing, their vital importance to scholars, the surprising role they have had in the intellectual dogfighting of the Enlightenment… and where you might find an entry for “Peterhouse: shocking goings-on there, 85, 87-9, 107-8; four revolting fellows of, 109; main source of perverts, 103″… It’s a fascinating if obscure part of the book-world, and one well worth your attention.

Steerpike Steerpike

The left will eat itself – Easter special

This week, there has been a chemical attack in Syria, Labour decided not to expel Ken Livingstone from the party and Michael Howard suggested that Britain could take military action if necessary to protect Gibraltar. So, what are the hard left protesting? A left-wing magazine daring to criticise Corbyn. Tomorrow: Protest New Statesman's biased coverage of the Labour leadership 5-6 pm 71-73 Carter Lane EC4V 5EQ https://t.co/ng5wlf9UEz pic.twitter.com/vIiMnZNmos — Momentum Camden & Islington (@Camden_Momentum) April 5, 2017 Yes, Momentum Camden will tonight take to the streets to protest the great injustice of our time: a critical press. After last week’s New Statesman cover piece called for a new opposition leader, Corbynites are

Laura Whitcombe

What does the new tax year mean for your pocket?

Today marks the start of the new 2017/18 tax year, and this month a long list of changes come into effect that could impact on your household finances. There’s good news for the low paid thanks to an increase in the National Living Wage, and middle earners also stand to benefit from a rise in the threshold at which they have to start paying higher-rate income tax. Pensioners will see an increase in how much the government gives them to live off and many individuals coming into an inheritance will see the taxman’s slice of their gains narrow. But the changes aren’t good news for everyone – especially most people

Ross Clark Ross Clark

VAT on fees? Our greedy private schools have it coming

The standard conservative response to Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal to impose VAT on private schools would be to attack it as as a policy motivated by class envy and dreamed up to please his party’s levellers — except that Michael Gove, too, questioned private schools’ charitable status a few weeks ago. Private schools might moan and groan, yet they have invited an attack on their charitable status by shamelessly pitching their product at the children of very wealthy parents – an increasing number of them from abroad. By jacking up their fees relentlessly they have priced many middle-class parents out of the market Where 40 years’ ago private schooling was an

Steerpike Steerpike

Naz Shah makes a profit on the NHS

With health bosses warning last month that the NHS faces a ‘mission impossible’ to meet the standards required by the government with the current levels of funding, there are financial worries over its future. So, how is the NHS spending its limited funds? Well, the latest register of interests shows that Naz Shah has been brought in to train staff on ‘leadership’ skills. The Labour MP — who was previously suspended from the party after she said the ‘the Jews are rallying’ over an online poll on the Gaza war — took home £1,200 from the NHS for for delivering two leadership training sessions at the NHS Leadership Academy: Mr S hopes that Shah’s pearls of

Bruce Anderson

A toast to unsung heroes

We were talking about war, the desert and God. In the early Seventies, one of our number, Christopher James, had been involved in serious fighting in the struggles to stop Yemeni-backed communist insurgents from destabilising Oman. Christopher was happy to pay tribute to everyone else, but evasive about his own service in the SAS. That savage little war of peace witnessed much unsung gallantry, not least by one of the most under-decorated soldiers in military history: Sgt Talaiasi Labalaba, also SAS. In 1972, he won a battle by firing a 25 pounder as if it had been a rifle (it normally needs a crew of three or four). Hit repeatedly,

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

All hail the new taxi-card revolution

From October last year, it was compulsory for all London black cabs to accept payment by card. London cabbies aren’t always sunnily disposed towards Transport for London, but those I have spoken to since the move seem to welcome the ruling, and acknowledge that business has picked up since. There are, of course, plenty of reasons why taxi drivers preferred cash. It’s quick and does not require equipment or entail the surcharges credit card payments do; it might also be a little more, ahem, tax-efficient. Never-theless, the case for cabs accepting card payments was compelling. Uber, for fair reasons and foul, was eating into their business. From New York, there

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Trump’s plan for Pyongyang

On several foreign policy issues, Donald Trump has toned down the campaign rhetoric now that he is in office. His administration still has concerns about the Iran nuclear deal, but it is backing away from the idea of simply ripping it up or unilaterally rewriting it. On the European Union, he is calming down too; his White House no longer says Brexit marks the beginning of the end of the European project. But on North Korea his positioning is hardening. Hence his warning that ‘if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will’. Not only does Trump want this problem fixed, but his National Security Council is already

Aidan Hartley

Wild life | 6 April 2017

Laikipia, Kenya   For weeks the farm has been in the eye of a storm, with violence swirling all around us in clouds of dust kicked up by multitudes of cattle. Last week to the west, tribal invaders burned down Kuki Gallmann’s tourist lodge overlooking the Mukutan Gorge. On Sosian ranch to the south our neighbours are bravely pushing on a month after the invaders murdered Tristan and burned down several homes. To the east on Suyian ranch, Anne’s safari lodge — the loveliest camp I ever saw in Laikipia — also lies in ashes. To the north invaders are still poaching elephant, as they are everywhere around us, spraying