Society

Wednesday

Helen Nugent

Inflation, house prices, pensions and car insurance

UK inflation will quadruple to about 4 per cent in the second half of next year and cut disposable income, according to a leading think tank. The rise in prices will ‘accelerate rapidly’ during 2017 as the fall in sterling is passed on to consumers, according to the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. The revised figure is significantly higher than the 3 per cent it forecast in August. ‘Households have really got a choice. Do they spend less or do they start saving less?’ Angus Armstrong, director of macroeconomics at NIESR, told the BBC’s Today programme. Meanwhile, ratings agency Moody’s is thinking about downgrading the UK over Brexit fears.

Tuesday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Je suis Louis Smith: why we must be free to mock Islam

If you thought the public shaming and punishment of people for ridiculing religion was a thing of the past — a dark past when you’d be put in the stocks, or worse, for failing to bend your knee to certain gods and beliefs — then think again. Just look at the treatment of Olympian gymnast Louis Smith. Since a video of him taking the mick out of Islam was leaked in October, he’s been pilloried in the press, pressured to recant his heretical humour, dragged on to TV to repent before the Loose Women (the new guardians of public morality, apparently), and now he’s been suspended from his job for

Jeff Prestridge

Are you driven mad by nuisance calls? There are steps you can take to stem the tide

Nuisance calls are the bane of my life – as are unprompted texts. They assault my mobile at all hours, night and day. I find the calls so annoying and invasive that I now leave my phone on permanent silent which kind of defeats the object of a mobile (I don’t have a landline at home). No wonder most of my friends have given up on me – ‘unsociable ginga, never answers his phone’. Of course, my mother, still as matriarchal as she was 50 years ago when I was wearing shorts,  isn’t impressed at all. Voicemail message one:  ‘Jeffrey, why didn’t you answer my last call?’ (Jeffrey, as opposed

Helen Nugent

Tax, energy bills, pensions and broadband

HMRC is chasing almost £2 billion that may be owed in taxes by Britain’s wealthiest people, according to the public spending watchdog. The National Audit Office said HMRC’s specialist unit recovered £416 million in 2015 from 6,500 high net worth individuals’ with wealth of more than £20 million. The BBC reports that efforts are ongoing to recover an estimated £1.9 billion. Energy bills Major energy suppliers have ditched controversial tariffs that denied their existing customers their cheapest prices, amid speculation over a political crackdown on the sector, The Telegraph has learnt. Four of the Big Six suppliers  – E.ON, SSE, EDF and Npower – and the leading independent supplier, First Utility, all

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: The ‘posturing governor’ stays put

Mark Carney’s decision to stay on as Bank of England Governor until 2019 has been widely welcomed. But not everyone is happy about the news. The Daily Mail accuses Carney of being a ‘posturing governor’ and says the staging of his announcement yesterday was in line with much of his conduct: ‘designed to generate maximum publicity’. The paper says that while some were concerned at the possibility of uncertainty in the markets if he’d walked away, would it be any worse than ‘his relentless doom-mongering’? The Mail suggests Carney will be forever tainted by his conduct during the referendum, which it says was at its worst when he joined in with George Osborne’s

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Jeremy Clarkson takes one last swipe at Danny Cohen

Although Jeremy Clarkson has now moved to Amazon Prime to host a new car show, it appears that the BBC is never far from the former Top Gear host’s mind. In an interview with the Sunday Times over the weekend, Clarkson couldn’t resist revisiting his ongoing feud with Danny Cohen, the former director of television at the BBC. With Cohen — a darling of the liberal elite — thought to be instrumental in his sacking, it comes as little surprise that Clarkson is boosted by the news that Cohen, too, has now departed the Beeb. Speaking of the former director of television’s exit, Clarkson says it was ‘inevitable’. ‘Of course he’s

Matthew Lynn

The markets couldn’t care less whether Mark Carney stays or goes – and neither should we

A crash in the pound, with sterling trading down at $1.15, and heading to parity. A spike in gilts, and a flight by bond investors in a panic over the state of the British economy. As the headlines are dominated by reports that the Governor of the Bank of England might decide to pack his bags and return to his native Canada as early as next year, there has been lots of speculation about the havoc that might inflict on our already jittery post-Brexit economy. Right now, no one seems to know whether Mark Carney is likely to stay on as Governor beyond his initial five-year term or not. But

Lynne Bateson

Safe as houses? The real cost of a home burglary

My heart aches for the one in eight people so traumatised by a burglary that they move house, for they risk further emotional and financial pain. New research from Churchill Insurance paints a terrible picture of the aftermath of burglaries. People feel violated and vulnerable in a place they should feel most safe. Many can’t sleep. Some lose confidence in themselves, and can’t bear to be alone in the property. Some take medicine. A stranger has gone through their possessions, and they could have come face to face with them. Saying goodbye to sentimental items hurts more than the loss of expensive but replaceable stuff. Homes feel tainted or spoiled,

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Should Carney stay?

Mark Carney’s appointment in 2013 as Governor of the Bank of England was almost universally applauded. Yet more recently Carney has become something of a divisive figure. His interventions during the referendum campaign angered many. While his economic policies have also come in for criticism, leading some to call for Carney to quit. So should the Bank of England chief listen to his critics or is it best for Britain’s economy that he stays put? The Daily Telegraph says Carney has been hit by ‘referendum shockwaves’ and suggests that the attacks levied against him during the referendum – whether true or not – have undoubtedly placed him in an uncomfortable position.

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The white left has issued its first fatwa

I have never advised anyone to use the English libel laws. I spent years helping the campaign to reform them, and am proud of the liberalisation I and many, many others helped bring. I have to admit, though, our achievement was modest. Libel in England remains sinister in intent – the defendant has to prove he or she was telling the truth – and oppressive in practice. Parliament and the asinine Leveson inquiry into the press failed to tackle the horrendous costs, and kept libel as the preserve of the rich and the reckless. You can risk spending £1 million before a case comes to court. Despite reform, libel courts

Sunday

Douglas Murray

Stand by your imam: Shakeel Begg and his apologists

There have been two fascinating developments in the case of Shakeel Begg, the Imam of the Lewisham Islamic Centre. As I described here on Friday, Begg sued the BBC for describing him as an extremist, only for the judge in the case to last week dismiss the claim and confirm for the whole world to see that Begg is indeed an extremist. On Friday I mentioned that industry of clueless klutzes and sinister beards who make up much of the ‘interfaith’ racket in this country. Paragraphs 33 and 34 of the judgement in the case of Begg vs Beeb might serve as the purest distillation of this phenomenon.Under the heading

Friday

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

How ‘spiritual’ people are spreading anti-Jewish poison on Facebook: a vicar blows the whistle

Nazi-inspired conspiracy theories are gaining popularity among liberal Facebook users who think of themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious’. That’s the claim made by the Rev Ravi Holy, a Church of England vicar from Kent, in the new episode of the Spectator’s Holy Smoke religion podcast. He’s alarmed and depressed by the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that his own middle-class friends are trying to force on him. And it also awakens uncomfortable memories. As a young man, Ravi was a punk, an anarchist, a drug user – and a passionate conspiracy theorist who (unaware of the Nazi roots of some of his ideas) believed that the world was controlled by the Illuminati. You can hear my fascinating interview

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The Uber ruling will change little

So the GMB and the two Uber drivers who thought they ought to receive holiday pay and be guaranteed the national living wage have won their case. An employment tribunal has ruled that Uber was wrong to classify them as self-employed as their contracts placed too much demand on them to work at particular times – a condition which indicates employment rather than self-employment. What the other 40,000 Uber drivers think of the case is not clear. On the one hand, having status as employees would offer them a guaranteed £7.20 an hour and paid holidays. On the other hand, it would mean paying higher National Insurance contributions and less flexibility

William Kay

Penny-pinching, the 21st century way: are we taking it too far?

A growing number of Brits would rather throw a party than turn on the central heating a few days early, according to a survey out today from TopCashback.co.uk, the cashback and comparison website. To cut heating bills, seven in 10 are taking the obvious step of wearing extra layers of clothing and, slightly less obviously, moping around the house in hats, scarves and gloves. Pubs are increasingly being shunned in favour of drinking at home with friends and family. One in ten are taking the chance of holding homemade cocktail nights and, in a touch evoking echoes of Abigail’s Party, the classic Mike Leigh study in embarrassment, to save on

Helen Nugent

Pensions, RBS, current accounts and bonds

Thousands of small companies have been fined for failing to enrol staff in a workplace pension as firms struggle to deal with the most significant overhaul to retirement savings in generations. According to The Times, an increase in enforcement action by the pensions regulator resulted in more than 3,700 businesses being issued with penalties between July and September, compared with 861 in the previous three months. RBS Unlike other major banks which this week announced extra provisions for the mis-selling of payment protection insurance, RBS said today it has not set aside any extra cash. It did, however, report an attributable loss of £469 million for the third quarter. That loss reflects

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Life’s Too Short to Drink Bad Wine

We had a fine party at 67 Pall Mall last night to launch the new edition of Simon Hoggart’s Life’s Too Short to Drink Bad Wine, a cult classic which I have had the great pleasure of revising and updating. Not that it needed much of either. All I really did was to write a foreword and add twelve new wines to the 100 or so wines that Simon had chosen ‘for the discerning drinker’. I first met Simon decades ago when I was in my early twenties. He and my father – Cyril Ray – were colleagues on the late, lamented Punch magazine and my father was keen for

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 27 October 2016

Bear baiting Sir: I couldn’t agree more with Rod Liddle’s exposé of western politico-militaristic hypocrisy (‘Stop the sabre-rattling’, 22 October). We’ve already poked the Russian bear way too hard — unnecessarily so. What Rod could have also highlighted was that Nato has spread so far eastwards that it’s a blessed surprise the next world war hasn’t already started. It almost did in 1962 when Khrushchev tried to move nuclear missiles into Cuba. The same principle applies to what ‘we’ are doing now — frontline, aggressive technologies, nuclear-implied, established in the old Soviet states of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and even Poland. In Moscow, the memory of 20 million dead Russians and their

Taki

High life | 27 October 2016

I was not on the winning side of the debate, despite giving it the old college try. Thank god for my South African friend Simon Reader, who coached me just before I went on. Mind you, my side felt a bit like Maxime Weygand, the French general who, in June 1940, was happily smoking his pipe back in Syria when he got the call to take over the French army. The Germans had already taken Holland and Belgium and had breached la Ligne Maginot, Gamelin had thrown in the towel, and Paul Reynaud had called for a fresh face to stop the mighty Wehrmacht. ‘Gee, thanks a bunch,’ said Weygand,

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 27 October 2016

There were six of us round the table to celebrate Trafalgar Day. We ate the same dinner served to Her Majesty the Queen aboard HMS Victory for the bicentennial: smoked salmon with two sauces (lumpfish caviar and dill); roast beef on a bed of cabbage with Dauphinoise spuds; and plums poached in red wine. We drank gin, home-made red wine, white Burgundy, Madeira and Marsala. Our host, chef and chief inspiration wore the HMS Jupiter T-shirt presented to him on his voyage from England to the first Gulf war. Our hostess wore an unprecedentedly slinky black cocktail dress. Catriona’s hair was in plaits. Tom and Tessa, whom I had not

Melissa Kite

Real life | 27 October 2016

Coffee shops are becoming impossible. I had been standing in the queue at Caffè Nero on Battersea Rise for nearly half an hour behind a man ordering a round of coffees that were so complex, so detailed and intricate, so different from each other, so bespoke and unique, that it would have been quicker to get served if I had been standing behind a man ordering a helping of weapons-grade plutonium and a custom-made Range Rover. I had nipped in to buy a coffee and a croissant. Silly me, for wanting a coffee and a croissant. The man in front of me was ordering something like, from memory: ‘One regular