Society

Who’s more hysterical: the Daily Mail for branding three judges ‘enemies of the people’ or the Dailymailphobes who have spent the past three days promiscuously breaking Godwin’s Law and accusing the Mail of being a paper-and-ink reincarnation of Hitler, an aspiring destroyer of judicial independence, and a menace to British civilisation that ought to be boycotted by all decent people and no longer handed out on British Airways flights because it is ‘against democracy and the rule of law’? I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it’s the latter. And that the irony is delicious: the very people accusing the Mail of being unhinged have themselves given new

You’d never think the country’s short of foster parents, would you, though we’re 9,000-odd short at the last count.  I wouldn’t qualify myself, even if I were solvent. Because if you open your trap in the presence of a social worker to say that a child is best off with a father and a mother, viz, probably the view of most actual parents, you can kiss goodbye to your chances of looking after a child unless it’s one you have given birth to. I refer, obviously, to the case of the Catholic couple who’ve been told they can’t adopt a couple of children they’ve been fostering since the start of

Growing up as a Jew in England, I’ve always felt proud of my heritage. The ugly spectre of anti-Semitism seemed a thing of the past – and it felt safe to share my faith and ancestry with the world. But not any longer. It’s not difficult to see why. In the first half of 2016, there was an 11 per cent spike in the number of anti-Semitic incidents. Britain might still be one of the safest places in the world to be a Jew, but Jews here are increasingly becoming a target. Last year saw the third-highest annual total of anti-Semitic hate incidents in the UK ever recorded. The same

For the latest competition you were invited to compose odes on a Grayson Perry urn. Jonathan Jones memorably described being in a roomful of Grayson Perry’s pots as ‘like being trapped in a room full of trendy folk talking bollocks’. Frank McDonald obviously agrees with this assessment. His ode begins: ‘Do Grayson Perry urns deserve an ode?/ Has modern art not shamed the Muse enough?/ That looks for beauty in a tortured toad/ And loads our galleries with frightful stuff?’ Elsewhere, the entry was chock-full of adroit Keatsian references. Honourable mentions go to Frank Upton, G.M. Davis, Sylvia Fairley and Graham King. The deserving winners below take £20 each. W.J.

For one in seven people alive today, Facebook is their window on the world. More than one billion of them log onto the social network on their mobiles each and every day. Facebook knows their hopes, dreams, secrets and fears. It knows who their friends and family are and what they look like. It knows what interests them and who they are likely to vote for. Armed with this vast amount of information about the real-time behaviours, likes and dislikes of users, Facebook will have a very good picture of personality and attitude towards risk. That insight will become increasingly valuable, as we shall see. This week, the insurer Admiral

Black to play. This position is from Nakamura-Carlsen, chess.com Blitz Final 2016. The position looks quiet but after Black’s next move White resigned at once. Can you see it? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 8 November 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 Rxg7+ Last week’s winner Ian Johnson, Cambridge