Society

Tuesday

Emma Lunn

Ban the rip-off ticket touts

Among the baby photos and moans about the weather cluttering up my timeline the other day, a Facebook post by my friend Elaine caught my eye. She’d been trying to buy tickets for a Jamiroquai gig at The Roundhouse in London on 31 March. Armed with one old-fashioned telephone and three devices, she’d been desperately dialling and refreshing web pages since the moment the tickets went on sale. But the tickets sold out in minutes and she wasn’t one of the lucky ones. My first thought was ‘why am I friends with people with such terrible taste in music?’ My second was ‘I bet the tickets are already for sale

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

The Church of England should be agnostic towards homosexuality

Let me state the obvious for a moment: the Church of England does not know what line to take on homosexuality. The traditional line, that it is contrary to God’s will, is opposed by most Anglicans. The clergy in General Synod showed their opposition last week by refusing to approve a report by the bishops that upheld the old line. But the minority that likes the traditional teaching is not for budging. Does the leadership have the stomach to pursue a reform that will create a schism? No. Is a compromise possible? In theory, the Church could drop the ban on gay clergy and the ban on the blessing of gay

Helen Nugent

Pensions, fuel, HSBC and pay gap

There’s some bad news for employees with generous company pensions following the publication of a government green paper on the future of Defined Benefit (DB) pensions. The Guardian reports that, under the proposals, firms could cut pension promises to 11 million people, dramatically reducing their income in retirement. The plans are likely to face fierce opposition from unions given they would permit companies to save £90 billion by providing annual increases in their retired employees’ pensions based on the consumer price index, rather than the retail price index. Analysis by Hargreaves Lansdown suggests that for every £1,000 in pension income in 1988, under RPI it had increased to £2,586 this year,

Monday

Hanushka Toni

The perils of leasehold property

You’ve traded in your beat-up turkey of a car. You’ve forked out on insurance, finance, the MOT, and what you think are tasteful new rims. Next thing you know, you’re being summoned to court. The tricked-out wheels were a step too far. The car-maker is suing you for messing with their product. The fluffy dice in the rear view are also a problem. If you lose in court, it’s goodbye to your gleaming saloon – dice and all. ‘Get off it mate. It’s your car. You paid for it. We don’t live in some preposterous ownership dystopia,’ I hear you say. After all, if this were true, there would be

Helen Nugent

Cuts, Bovis, housing and loans

The prospect of swingeing cuts to public services edged closer today despite plans by nearly every local authority in England to raise council tax in 2017. The BBC reports that rises of up to 4.99 per cent are expected across the country. Nevertheless, libraries, bin collections and other services will still face funding problems. The Local Government Association says the cost of care for increasing numbers of elderly people is forcing up bills. But a spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government insisted that local authorities had been given a ‘historic’ four-year settlement. Bovis Homes  Following widespread publicity of the alleged shoddy quality of new houses built by Bovis, The Guardian

Sunday

Tove Lifvendahl

Trump is right: Sweden’s refugee policy has led to problems it never imagined

(Fraser Nelson writes from Stockholm) During a rally in Florida yesterday, Donald Trump spoke about immigration. “You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden! Who would believe this. Sweden! They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible.” He then mentioned Brussels and Nice, both scenes of terrorist attack last year. But nothing had happened the previous night in Sweden: Trump later said he was referring to a Fox News feature on Swedish migration that he was watching the previous evening (clip above). So he misspoke, as he does. A lot. But the tragic fact is that, overall, he has a point.  Sweden has grown used

Koos Couvée

There’s one real way to stop gang crime: legalise drugs

I covered another stabbing the other day, a particularly nasty one this time. An 18-year-old was repeatedly knifed in the stomach and beaten over the head with a baseball bat. Witnesses told me he’d been outside his mum’s tower-block flat in Islington, north London, when he was rushed by a group of about ten or 15 boys. He suffered serious head injuries and multiple stab wounds and was soon in hospital in a medically induced coma. By some miracle, he survived. Who would have committed such a brutal and pointless crime? A source told me police believed the attackers to be from two London gangs: the Hoxton N1 gang, whose

Jason Mitchell

Britain under Corbyn? Just look at Venezuela

Twenty years ago Venezuela was one of the richest countries in the world. Now it is one of the poorest. Venezualans are starving. The farms that President Hugo Chavez expropriated, boasting about the great increase in production that would follow, have failed. Inexperienced management and corruption under both Chavez and the current president, Nicolas Maduro, mean that there is less of each crop each year. Across the country, supermarkets are empty and most ordinary people queue for hours every day just for flour. Many of the animals in Caracas zoo have starved to death, but even those who survive aren’t safe — Venezuelans have taken to raiding the cages to

David Butterfield

Overwhelmed by opinion? Here’s how to cope

quot homines, tot sententiae: as many men, so many opinions. What seemed a universal human truth for the playwright Terence in 161 BC now finds itself, amidst the chaotic swirl of online news and opinion in AD 2017, drastically in need of adaptation: quot sentias, tot sententiae – there are only as many opinions as you experience. This should be a golden age for the exchange of opinion, for sharing diverse ideas through increasingly interconnected media. Yet, without filtering or curation, an unmanageable welter of report and comment has blurred the distinction between the two, bewildering even the most determined of readers. Strange as it is to say, the immutable importance of free

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Pol Roger 2008

            Pol Roger Champagne is pretty much the house pour at the Spectator. Not every day, you understand, only when the occasion demands it. You know the sort of thing: mid-morning on Monday to beat the blues; lunch time on press day to celebrate that week’s issue; afternoon on Friday to welcome the weekend.             Well, maybe we’re not quite as bibulous as that. But there are certainly more bottles of Pol Roger in the office fridge than there are of milk and it’s a fact that no party of note or celebration at the Spectator passes by without several familiar white foil bottles being

Saturday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

How to get away with murder

Given our seamy obsession with serial killers, real and fictional, one would expect the crimes of Stephen Port to have made more of a mark on the national psyche. Port was convicted in November of the rape and murder of four young men in Barking, east London over a 15-month period. His modus operandi was cold and calculating: He would contact men on gay hook-up sites and incapacitate them with ‘date rape drug’ GHB, before sexually assaulting and murdering them. A further seven men were drugged and/or raped but lived. Port is serving a whole-life sentence; he will die in prison. What makes these crimes particularly shocking is that the

Roger Alton Roger Alton

The Six Nations is the most exciting sport on the planet

Perfection in sport: unattainable, but sometimes you can come close. Moments, people, actions you never tire of watching: Roger Federer’s backhand; Virat Kohli’s cover drive; Mo Farah’s acceleration off the final bend or little Lionel Messi dribbling through a crowded penalty area as if his opponents were shadows; Fred Couples’s sensuous golf swing. Last weekend another moment: the long pass from England’s Owen Farrell to Elliot Daly for that decisive try in the final minutes at the Principality Stadium. This 25ft rocket, superbly timed and delayed long enough for Farrell to be in touching distance of the defensive battery, was so quick and flat it left the defence flummoxed. It

James Forsyth James Forsyth

For the sake of Britain’s constitution, will everyone please shut up?

One of the striking features of Britain’s unwritten constitution is how it relies on various people keeping their opinions to themselves. The monarch, the Speaker of the House of Commons and senior judges must all avoid expressing political views in public – or even in what one might call semi-private. It’s not their right to remain silent; it’s their responsibility. The royal family is expected to stay out of politics from birth, the Speaker is an MP who puts aside partisanship when he or she is dragged to the chair, and judges must show that they are applying the law, not advancing their own agenda. Any appearance of partiality is

The Spectator

The Labour party has turned into a political bed-blocker

Just as it seems that Labour has reached the bottom of the abyss, Jeremy Corbyn and his party somehow manage to find a new low. The latest nationwide poll puts them at 24 per cent, trailing the Tories by 16 points. No wonder Labour MPs look so boot-faced around Parliament, and an increasing number are hunting for jobs elsewhere. If a general election were called now, the Conservatives would win a huge majority. Labour would be further than ever from power, arguably even finished as a major parliamentary force. Polls are not rock-solid indicators of future electoral success or failure, but Labour’s ratings are so abysmal as to suggest a

Friday

Helen Nugent

Business rates, retirement, housing and retail sales

There’s more on the government’s upcoming changes to business rates today, with a group of Britain’s biggest employers’ associations condemning the move. The BBC reports on a letter written by 13 groups, including the British Retail Consortium, the Federation of Small Businesses, Revo, the Association of Convenience Stores, the British Property Federation and the CBI, who want ministers to drop the ‘outrageous’ increases to business rates. They are particularly angry about a clause they believe could prevent firms appealing against rate rises, even if firms can prove they are wrong. The next business rates revaluation comes into effect on 1 April – the first for seven years. Retirees The Guardian reports on research by

Thursday

Raymond Keene

no. 444

White to play. This position is a variation from Hou Yifan-Ju, Gibraltar 2017. Hou lost this game to her compatriot. The puzzle shows what might have happened if her opponent had gone wrong. How can she conclude her attack? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 21 February or email victoria@spectator.co.uk. There is a £20 prize for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery.   Last week’s solution 1 … Qe1+ Last week’s winner John Briggs, Whickham, Newcastle upon Tyne

Taki

High life | 16 February 2017

Gstaad One’s unpopularity on account of calling it a night diminishes in direct proportion to the severity of the next morning’s hangover. I was literally booed by Geoffrey Moore and co. for asking the wife of a friend to drive me 200 yards to my chalet. Co., not Geoffrey, had other plans for the lady, and I will give you, the readers, two guesses what those plans were. It was 5.30 a.m., the friend’s wife did look awfully charming — desirable is closer to the truth — and co. was getting touchy-feely, so I opened my big mouth and asked her to drive me home. The next day, all sorts

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 16 February 2017

A deep frost in the winter of 1821–22 killed the orange trees in Nice. The Anglican minister to the English colony, the Reverend Lewis Way, appealed to his congregation for relief funds to provide work for redundant orange-pickers. The money raised was spent on the construction of six miles of coast road, the redundant orange-pickers were employed as navvies, and the completed road became known as the Promenade des Anglais. On 14 July 2016, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian bisexual gym bunny, drove a 19-tonne truck into a crowd assembled on the Promenade des Anglais to watch the Bastille Day fireworks, killing 86 and injuring 450. On 13 February 2017,

Melissa Kite

Real life | 16 February 2017

Fine, so I got it completely wrong. It turns out the sale of my flat was not held up by a wiggle in the garden, but by a kink in the kitchen. This kink in the kitchen is far more serious than a wiggle in the garden. I should have realised that, the buyer’s solicitor has complained. I don’t know why I got the idea that exchange of contracts had been delayed by a mistake in the plan for the garden, but I’m struggling to keep up. I’ve been deluged with complaints about absolutely everything I had thought was fine. From the crisp new electrical safety certificates to the diligently