Society

Tuesday

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Flaming phones

Is that a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 in your pocket, or are your pants on fire? The Korean manufacturer has halted sales of its latest smartphone and advised anyone already an owner to switch off immediately, lest the thing’s battery explodes — as one did on a Southwest Airlines flight in the US, forcing the plane to be evacuated. Meanwhile flights to Seoul are packed with crisis-management PR people — all carrying Apple iPhone 7s, sales of which are soaring at Samsung’s expense, or awaiting delivery of the rival Google Pixel device, due this month. Also set to gain is Huawei, the mysteriously rising giant of Chinese electronics. Exciting times

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

We must have the freedom to mock Islam

How did mocking Islam become the great speechcrime of our times? Louis Smith, the gymnast, is the latest to fall foul of the weird new rule against ridiculing Islam. A leaked video shows Smith laughing as his fellow gymnast, Luke Carson, pretends to pray and chants ‘Allahu Akbar’. Smith says something derogatory about the belief in ‘60 virgins’ (he means 72 virgins). Following a firestorm online, and the launch of an investigation by British Gymnastics, Smith has engaged in some pretty tragic contrition. He says he is ‘deeply sorry’ for the ‘deep offence’ he caused. He’s now basically on his knees for real, praying for pity, begging for forgiveness from

Helen Nugent

Currency, pensions, fuel and housing

Many travellers buying foreign currency at the UK’s airports are now receiving less than one euro to the pound. The continued fall in sterling’s value means that the average rate available at 17 airport bureaux de change is now just 99 euro cents to the pound. The BBC reports that the worst rate is currently 88 euro cents at Moneycorp at Southampton airport and the best is €1.06 from the Change Group at Glasgow Prestwick. Since the UK’s Brexit vote in June, the pound has fallen sharply in value. The average US dollar rate at the airports is down to $1.08 to the pound. Pensions The Pensions Regulator is asking

Monday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

How the triple lock pension pledge went out of control

In my Dispatches documentary on the generation wars, which has just aired on Channel 4, I interviewed Iain Duncan Smith about the pensions triple lock. He thinks it has turned into a monster, and discussed how it led to his resignation. He cut working-age benefits and believed that he had cut to the bone. But he was asked to go further. The ‘triple lock’ – that pensions should rise by earnings, inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever was the highest – was intended a piece of spin. But when inflation hit zero, that turned out to be one of the most expensive pledges David Cameron ever made. Duncan Smith told me how,

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Shami Chakrabarti joins the ranks of lefty hypocrites

Congratulations to Shami – sorry Baroness! – Chakrabarti for joining the exciting, ever-growing pantheon of ultra-left wing metropolitan Labour hypocrites. Her dameship was appearing on the Godawful Peston on Sunday show. Asked why she opposed selection and grammar schools while at the same time sending her brat to the selective, £18,000 per year, Dulwich College, she said: ‘I live in a nice big house, and eat nice food, and my neighbours are homeless, and go to food banks. Des that make me a hypocrite, or does it make me someone who is trying to do best, not just for my own family, but for other people’s families too?’ Yes, of course

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Books podcast: The Masculinity Problem

We hear a lot about a “crisis of masculinity” these days, but nobody seems to be in agreement about what it consists of. On the one hand, we hear of “rape culture”, absent fathers and everyday sexism; on the other, complaints of the feminisation of society, political correctness and the disappearance of traditional male role-models. Are men a gender that has – to adapt Dean Acheson — lost its empire and still not found a role? In this, the second of our weekly Books podcasts, I asked two writers of recent books on the subject to talk about it. One is Rebecca Asher, author of Man Up: Boys, Men and

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The truth about young people’s pay? It’s up, significantly, over a generation

Right at the start of filming for Dispatches on the generation wealth gap (8pm on Ch4 tonight), we were working around a striking claim: that the young were so shafted that people in their 20s are earning less now that they were 20 years ago. I asked the Office for National Statistics to check this out and when their figures came back, it was the opposite to what I expected – and to what everyone seems to believe. Not only are the 20-somethings paid more, but their disposable income is up by a third on where it was two decades ago. The idea that the young ones are paid substantially

Helen Nugent

Will a new financial advice body actually work? For all our sakes, let’s hope so

Consolidation. It’s a word used widely in financial circles. Consolidation of debt (translation: combining lots of different credit cards into one seemingly simple yet unmanageable whole). Consolidation of assets (translation: combining liabilities into one seemingly simple yet unmanageable whole). You get my drift. So, consolidation is not always a good thing. I wonder if this will prove to be the case for a new government-run financial advice service. Although it has yet to be given a name, this brand spanking new single advisory body will, according to ministers, be more efficient than the organisations it, er, consolidates. Financial experts agree that we are better off without one of these: the

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The complicated truth about generational inequality in the UK

I’ve spent the last few weeks making a documentary for Channel 4’s Dispatches on what I regard as one the biggest new arguments of our times: the generation wars. The idea that (as David Willetts famously put it) the ‘baby boomers took their children’s’ future’ – and ‘should give it back’. I’ve been talking to various experts, being heckled at protest marches, wading through research and putting the established wisdom to the test. The result is on Channel 4 documentary:  The Wealth Gap. Only Channel 4 really does documentaries about ideas: the asset bubble, the relationship between wealth and longevity. What made this one tougher is that we ended up making a rather

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: how the aphid became and other creation tales

The invitation to take the title of a short story by Ted Hughes, How the Whale Became, substitute another animal or fish for ‘whale’ and provide a tale with that title brought in oodles of well turned entries bursting with charm. The comp was an absolute delight to judge, so well done, one and all. Special mentions go to C.J. Gleed, Michael McManus, Frank McDonald and Tracy Davidson, who were unlucky losers. The winners take £25 each. The bonus fiver belongs to Bill Greenwell. Bill Greenwell: How the Aphid Became Call me Nana. I was born when my mother was being born, into one gender, no need for more, only

Friday

Rob Crilly

Obama’s sky high approval rating spells good news for Clinton

Did you see the news? Hillary Clinton is a shoo-in to win the election. OK. No-one is saying it quite yet. Certainly not the TV channels in the US, which have their eye on Super Bowl-esque viewing figures for this Sunday’s presidential election debate. Calling it now would put a bit of a dampener on the final month of campaigning for everyone. But a poll released by CNN this week gives the clearest indication yet that Clinton has it in the bag. It is not a survey of voter intentions. It is not a question asking Americans who they want as their president. Instead, it is a poll showing Barack Obama’s approval ratings hitting a record

Helen Nugent

Is it impossible to dodge a dodgy builder? Finding a decent tradesman shouldn’t be this hard

As a species, we humans share many characteristics. Opposable thumbs, a love for pizza, a dislike of losing at football. Perhaps most common, though, is the ability to recount horror stories about tradesmen. I have yet to meet someone without a handyman grievance. You’ve got one, right? A plumber who did more harm than good, the builder who left a wall looking like a colander, an electrician who nearly electrocuted the cat. Needless to say, I have multiple gripes of my own. There was the plumber in my London flat who installed two taps and a massive hole in the wall. The decorator who charged £150 to paint one tiny wall.

Helen Nugent

Sterling, savers, pensioners and buy-to-let

The pound has dived on Asian markets with automated trading being blamed for the volatility. At one stage it fell as much as 6 per cent to $1.1841 – the biggest move since the Brexit vote – before recovering to $1.24, still down 1.5 per cent. It is not clear what triggered the sudden sell-off. Analysts say it could have been automated trading systems reacting to a news report. The pound has been volatile since the UK voted to leave the European Union. The 6.1 per cent drop in the pound against the dollar while we were all sleeping is the second-biggest intraday fall the currency has ever suffered, according to the

Thursday

Raymond Keene

no. 429

White to play. This is from Tal-Botvinnik, World Championship (Game 12), Moscow 1961. Tal’s next move did not force an immediate win but gained sufficient material for him to prevail. What was it? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 11 October or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk. There is a prize of £20 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 … Be7 Last week’s winner Graham Baker, Campsea Ashe, Suffolk

Raymond Keene

Tal order

As I write, the Mikhail Tal Memorial tournament in Moscow is still underway. The Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri stormed into an early lead, winning three games out of his first five. But he was toppled when coming to grief in the following dramatic situation.   Aronian-Giri: Tal Memorial Moscow 2016 (see diagram 1)   White has sacrificed a rook but can regain material with 31 Nc6 Qb6 32 Nxb8 Qxb7 with an extra pawn. Nevertheless, the Armenian triple olympiad gold medal winner came up with something far more dashing. 31 Qxb8 Rxb8 32 Rc8+ Qd8 Obviously forced. 33 Rxd8+ Rxd8 34 Nc6 Black resigns If 34 … Re8 35 Ne7+ Kf8

The Spectator

Letters | 6 October 2016

Studying grammars Sir: Isabel Hardman (Politics, 1 October) states that no reputable research backs up the belief that grammar schools promote social justice. I am not sure she is correct. For instance, Lord Franks’s 1966 report on Oxford University recorded an accelerating rise in the share of places taken by state school pupils at that university in the 1939–1966 period. This increased from 19 per cent to 34 per cent, excluding the semi-private direct grant schools. Include the direct grants and the figure rises from 32 per cent in 1939 to 51 per cent in 1965. This change, reversed in the comprehensive years after 1965, coincided with the introduction of

Taki

High life | 6 October 2016

New York Back in the Big Bagel once again preparing for the greatest debate ever, one that will decide the fate of the western world once and for all. In the meantime, the mother of my children is doing all the heavy lifting back in Gstaad, moving to my last address ever, that of my new farm, La Renarde. One of those American feminists remonstrated with me not long ago for making some chauvinist remark — on purpose, I might add —just to get her goat. My, my, how easy it has become to get that goat. In a 1939 film, Dodge City, Errol Flynn plays a Kansas marshal circa

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 6 October 2016

The first and only time I went to a meeting of Sex Addicts Anonymous, this chap stood up and gave a blow-by-blow account of his sexual history. He had started life as a heterosexual, he said, and became hopelessly addicted to pornography and prostitutes. Then he decided to give gay sex a try and soon became addicted to encounters with multiple partners in public parks. I forget how many times he said he was having it off every day, but it was heroic. He was out there day and night in all seasons and in all weathers and would go without lunch and dinner. In winter, he said, he was

Chris Mullin

Diary – 6 October 2016

Any day now, the government will make its long delayed announcement on whether a third runway should be built at Heathrow or Gatwick. Personally I am against both. During my 18 undistinguished months as an environment minister, I learned one thing about the aviation lobby: their appetite is voracious. They want more of everything. Runways, terminals, you name it. I also learned that in the end, often after initial resistance, governments always give way. Although from time to time industry representatives hint that they would be prepared to make concessions on the handful of night flights that come in over central London each morning, disturbing the sleep of several million

Melissa Kite

Real life | 6 October 2016

After a year dealing with estate agents I can only say: a plague on all their houses, except the one of mine they’re trying to sell. I do hate being obvious and lashing out at oft maligned groups because it really is too clichéd. I belong to several of these hated groups myself, after all. Journalists, they get it in the neck all the time. And hunters. See Rod Liddle last week or Liz Jones the weekend before that for some classic examples of how the left rip me to shreds whenever I dare to suggest that I would like to keep the countryside a nice place in which to