Society

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 10 November 2016

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said she still expected to start talks on leaving the EU as planned by the end of March, despite a High Court judgment that Parliament must decide on the invoking of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty that would set Brexit in train. Opinion was divided over whether the High Court had required an Act of Parliament or a vote on a resolution. The government appealed to the Supreme Court, which is to hear the case from 5 December. The judgment set off a confused game of hunt the issue. One issue was whether the press is allowed to be rude about judges. The Daily

Taki

High life | 10 November 2016

 New York Americans have been to the polls. Everything is over but the shouting — by the loser, that is: honest Hil. I predicted that the best Trump could have hoped for was winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College but I got it wrong: the Donald has triumphed. An underfunded campaign — he spent barely half of what she did — with a skeletal crew and without the party’s full backing won out because not all of America agrees with the values of Jay Z, Beyoncé, Springsteen, Hollywood in general and gay marriage in particular. Trump appealed to those who have been snubbed, the great ignored. They

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 10 November 2016

I didn’t fancy the hotel breakfast, so I wandered into Arles old town looking for a café. The weather and the season had changed overnight. The day before had been hot, golden and still. This morning an icy wind was yanking the last of the dying leaves from the plane trees and my thin canvas jacket was no defence against it. Choosing a café at random on the Place du Forum, I pushed through the glass door and took a seat in the warmth of the café’s conservatory. Three other customers were inside, lingering over their coffee. I chose a bench seat, from where I could look south across the

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 10 November 2016

At the beginning of November 1980, one week before Ronald Reagan won a landslide victory in the presidential election, Henry Fairlie, then writing regularly for The Spectator from Washington, finally slid off the fence and made a firm prediction. ‘Jimmy Carter will be the next President of the United States,’ he wrote in the first sentence of his column. Carter, he went on, was ‘personally a not very agreeable man’ but had a more persuasive ‘political character’ than Reagan, so would win the election. Although a much-admired political commentator, who had made his name as a columnist at The Spectator in London, where he first gave the name ‘the Establishment’

Robin Oakley

Twelve to follow | 10 November 2016

When Theresa May came to power the Turf community was full of hope. Had she not been, if only briefly and in partnership, a racehorse-owner herself? Perhaps, then, she might revive the question Margaret Thatcher used to put to her ministers about any intended senior appointment in Whitehall: ‘One of us?’ Sadly, those early hopes are evaporating fast. It is not just that the pound’s collapse since she confirmed that Brexit means Brexit has given foreign owners a 20 per cent advantage at the bloodstock sales. It is fear of the government’s puritanical streak, a streak that has led to a new gambling review and the suggestion that ministers are

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 10 November 2016

The last three weekends have not been relaxing for those of us playing the Premier League, with all its attendant dreams of promotion and nightmares of relegation. Last year’s winners were relegated to division two and Alexander Allfrey’s excellent team won. Today’s hand features (immodestly) moi and came from the second weekend in Manchester: First the bidding: my 2♣ is game forcing but that doesn’t count for anything these days. David Price, playing for Mossop, stuck in 3♦ putting paid to my partner, Artur Malinowski, responding with the relay bid of 2♦. He passed, as double (from either of us) would be for penalties. Paul Hackett, East, raised to 4♦

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 10 November 2016

Q. A man I know (but not very well) has invited me and another girl to stay in a villa he’s been loaned. He says the only thing I’ll have to pay for is my flight but I suspect that though we’ll probably have picnics on the beach each day for lunch, we’ll go to expensive restaurants at night and split the bill three ways. I like them both, but they are spoilt while I’m an artist and just can’t spend what they can. It would be so uncool to start saying, ‘But I only had the salad and water and you’ve had the oysters and champagne blah.’ Nor would

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

The cheesecake of the apocalypse

Harry Morgan is a Jewish delicatessen and restaurant in the style of New York City on St John’s Wood High Street in north London. St John’s Wood is home to wealthy Muslims and Jews, who are attracted by a lone mosque, many synagogues and more cake shops than even the greediest hedge-funder could eat his swiftly receding feelings in. I am aware I sound like an estate agent. It is really a stage set for the inter-faith organisation the Imams and Rabbis Council of the United Kingdom, about which the joke is, although it isn’t very funny: the Jews pay for it all. I am also aware that I am

Dot Wordsworth

Hygge

‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand,’ said my husband, ‘it’s scented candles.’ Now, we have never knowingly harboured a scented candle in the house. He was merely rebelling against the notion of hygge, named by Collins’ dictionaries as one of the words — English words — of 2016. The motive for naming it may stem from the dictionary wars mounted by rival publishers’ marketing departments, but hygge is indeed everywhere, not least bookshops, where the Christmas shelves offer Hygge, The Book of Hygge, The Little Book of Hygge, How to Hygge, Keep Calm and Hygge, The Cosy Hygge Winter Colouring Book. I’ll stop there. What does it mean? ‘Cosiness’.

Melissa Kite

Real life | 10 November 2016

A wonderful email has arrived from Airbnb entitled ‘Discrimination and Belonging — What It Means For You’. Having tried to make sense of it, I feel it can mean only one thing with any certainty. And that is that the Airbnb party is over. The web business started by a whizz kid in his New York apartment is about to feed itself to the ravening equality agenda wolves. Sadly, the once proud Airbnb corporation has decided to launch ‘a comprehensive effort to fight bias and inequality in the Airbnb community’. With abject hand-wringing, it says it wants to make sure that any householder joining its site to host tourists in

Doc

2286: B

The unclued lights are of a kind. Ignore one grave accent.   Across   1    Hails a picador, awfully exciting (13) 11    Difficult child had fun playing close to school (7) 12    Father has undone Turk’s head (5) 14    As You Like It — a piece of theatre by Shakespeare (6, two words) 16    Peg checks printer’s error in ‘Home on the Range’ (5) 17    Singer in the nude. Get her off! (4) 20    Wonderful rest is disturbed when everyone comes back in (7) 21    French composer having his bird nicely cooked, for starters (7) 23    Almost rescue girl in open country (7) 24    Some cheap oil upset French soldier (5)

Mike Fotis

Being boring has shielded the insurance industry for far too long

The insurance industry is the boring uncle of the financial services family – a little drab and likely to be found in a basement listening to Daniel O’Donnell on a Saturday night. By contrast, banking conjures up colourful images of Wolf of Wall Street excess, which has helped to fuel a healthy dose of scrutiny. Being boring has shielded the insurance industry from its fair share of scrutiny for far too long. Issues have emerged that don’t receive the level of scrutiny they deserve. Readers of this article will be all too familiar with freefalling savings rates. It’s a bitter pill, but we’ve swallowed it. Meanwhile, car insurance is clearly an

Doc

to 2283: be damned

The unclued lights are PUBLISHING FIRMS. Our apologies for the omission of clue 42 Across. It went missing during the production stage. It should have read: 42 Enticing action Latino attains oddly (13)   First prize Jenny Gubb, Uffculme, Devon Runners-up Philip Berridge, Spalding, Lincolnshire; Mrs E. Knights, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

Why the John Lewis Christmas advert is a mess

It used to be the Coca Cola advert that signalled Christmas was on its way. Holidays were coming, and Coke would deliver joy to the world. These days, it’s the John Lewis advertisement that everyone looks forward to. There’s a running theme to these Christmas adverts. A schmaltzy song, a sickly sweet storyline (often with a few animals thrown in, just to make it that bit sweeter), and a happy, Christmassy ending. Hurrah!! This year’s, which was released today, is no different. Personally, though, I’d say that whoever came up with this advert needs a serious dose of reality – and quick. Of course it’s a lovely image; the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed foxes; the

Alex Massie Alex Massie

America elected a man who believes in nothing but himself

In the aftermath of disaster, it is always easy – and perhaps even psychologically necessary – to suppose matters cannot be as bad as they seem. Surely President Trump can’t be as bad as candidate Trump suggested he would be? Perhaps not. And yet, really, why can’t he be? If you thought Trump deplorable on Tuesday morning he is not made more attractive simply because he has won an appalling victory. In any case, the things a candidate says on the election trail remain the surest predictor of what the candidate will do if he wins the election and it does Donald Trump a disservice to suppose he’s any different

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers are saying about Trump’s triumph

Trump’s win sent shockwaves around the world and today’s papers are dominated with news of the one of the biggest political upsets in modern history. Here’s what the papers are saying about Trump’s triumph: The Times describes Trump’s electoral triumph as heralding the start of ‘The New World’. It says that the president elect’s own words yesterday, that he wasn’t the head of a campaign ‘but rather an incredible and great movement’ is perhaps the best way of explaining why he won. The paper says that politics will ’never be the same again’; but whereas some panicky commentators insist that means bad news, the Times strikes a more upbeat tone in

Helen Nugent

Markets, banks, property and the pay gap

It’s the morning after an 18-month campaign – and the markets have started to digest Donald Trump’s surprise election as US President. In early trading, the FTSE 100 index jumped by 49 points, or 0.7 per cent, to 6960. The Dow Jones industrial average is on track to hit a new record high when the US stock market opens later today. Last night the Dow closed near to its highest levels. And, after touching almost $1,340 an ounce yesterday before falling back, gold is up slightly this morning at $1,291. Meanwhile, Dame DeAnne Julius, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, told the BBC Today programme: ‘The difficulty with

Harry Mount

The Marx Memorial Library

There’s a small corner of Clerkenwell where the communist dream never died. The Marx Memorial Library has been in its big, classical 1738 building — originally a school for children of Welsh artisans living in poverty — for 83 years. The library was set up in 1933, the 50th anniversary of Karl Marx’s death. British Marxism and communism have faded, but the library still has a brigade of staunch supporters. Jeremy Corbyn, whose constituency is just up the road in Islington, is a regular visitor. To tour the library is to return to the 1930s when communism was at its height — when Philby, Burgess, Maclean and Blunt were full of gleaming-eyed optimism about the

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Football’s new Special One

Jurgen or José: compare and contrast (and please write on as many sides of the paper as possible). Is there any more charismatic man in Britain right now than Jurgen Klopp? A real Special One and currently sitting on top of the Premier League. He gives good interview, loves his players, loves the fans (they love him back) and is gracious and cheerful in victory as well as the occasional defeat. He is building a Liverpool side that’s playing with buzz, flair and an exuberant joyfulness; a brilliant coach but one for whom football is still clearly a game. When I stood on the Kop in the early 1970s we