Society

Alex Massie

Last night’s debate was Donald Trump vs Himself. And Trump lost

As a general rule, presidential debates don’t change much. The winning and the losing matters much less than you think. Besides, most of the time partisans on either side can make a semi-decent case their candidate did what he had to do. The debates tend to reinforce existing notions more than they create new impressions. Last night’s debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton might have been different. Because it wasn’t a debate in the normal, accepted, sense of the term. There were two candidates on the stage at Hofstra University but only one plausible president of the United States. It wasn’t so much Trump vs Clinton as Trump vs Himself.

Property funds, equity release, debt and pensions

Standard Life Investments has become the latest financial institution to announce plans to reopen its suspended property fund after declaring that the commercial property market had stabilised, The Times reports. The announcement that its UK Real Estate Fund and associated feeder funds would be reopened on October 17 is regarded as an important move as it was the first fund to suspend trading after the Brexit vote. It was one of several funds to apply discounts and suspend trading in July after what it described as ‘an unprecedented level of redemptions’ after the European Union referendum. Equity release Annual growth of £198 million in equity release lending between the first

When Boris finally meets Erdogan, I hope they discuss his rude poem

In March of this year the Turkish government complained about an item on German television which was critical of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  A fortnight later – to prove that Germany was a free country – Jan Boehmermann read out a poem that was rude about Erdogan on his evening comedy show.  Not only did the Turkish government complain but the government of Germany acceded to the prosecution of Boehmermann in Germany. Boehmermann himself had to enter police protection. Happily the fate of poets is different in Britain to that of our kind in Germany and in the wake of the affair I instituted the ‘President Erdogan Offensive Poetry Competition’ to celebrate this

Brendan O’Neill

If archaeology students can’t cope with ‘scary bones’, they really are doomed

Just when you thought the trigger-warning trend on campus couldn’t get any more bonkers it’s reported that archaeology students are being allowed to dodge discussions of ‘traumatic’ historic events. Yes, students  whose entire academic mission is to dig up bones, pore over old stuff and work out what the hell mankind was doing / thinking a thousand-odd years ago are being warned that such excavations can uncover ‘disturbing’ stuff that might ‘traumatise’ them because ‘bones can be scary’. So they should feel free to nip out of class if it gets too much. Archaeology students being told archaeology is a scary pursuit — I think we’ve reached peak campus madness.

In an endless sea of financial press releases, there’s always a gem

When you write for The Spectator, it’s tempting to stick to the more cerebral issues of the day. As money editor, this can include tracking the progress of Sterling post-Brexit, ruminating on the downward trajectory of house price growth or reflecting on the merits of equity release. Some days, however, that’s the last thing you want to do – Monday mornings being a case in point. We’re only a few hours in to the working week and already I’ve been invited to breakfast with the Austrian federal minister of finance, Hans Jörg Schelling, to an obesity lecture, a hotel show, and a FinTech launch. Sometimes I wish I’d never gotten out

Business pessimism, pensions, tax credits and online banking

UK financial services firms are becoming more pessimistic about their prospects in the wake of the Brexit vote, an industry survey suggests. Optimism fell for the third consecutive quarter according to the CBI employers group. It is the sector’s longest period of falling sentiment since 2009 – in the midst of the financial crisis. The survey of 115 companies found low interest rates and potential restricted EU market access were seen as risks. But while 28 per cent of the respondents were gloomier, 15 per cent were more optimistic. And almost 40 per cent of the firms surveyed reported healthy profits in the last quarter. Meanwhile, Sterling is trading near a five-week low as lingering

Steerpike

Alan Duncan struggles to preserve his modesty

In the EU referendum campaign, Alan Duncan penned a piece for the Telegraph entitled ‘why this lifelong Eurosceptic is now voting to stay in’. In this, the Conservative MP explained the heartfelt reasons he backed Remain. Alas, these were later placed in doubt when Vote Leave’s Matthew Elliott claimed that Duncan had met with him prior to as for a position on their board and then plumped for the In camp after his request was refused. Now it turns out that Duncan’s interactions with the Remain camp weren’t all plain-sailing either. In an extract in the Mail on Sunday from Craig Oliver’s new book on the EU referendum Unleashing Demons,

Spectator competition winners: politically correct nursery rhymes

For the latest competition you were invited to filter popular nursery rhymes through the prism of political correctness. Some years ago, CBeebies came under fire when it took all the fun out of ‘Humpty Dumpty’ by changing the words to give it a happy ending. And it wasn’t just Humpty; Little Miss Muffet and the spider lived nauseatingly happily ever after too. Now that this culture of avoidance has well and truly taken hold, with the explosion of safe spaces and trigger warnings, it felt like high time to invite you to recast other favourite rhymes into a format that will be acceptable to the offspring of Generation Snowflake. The

Alex Massie

Another glorious year of County Championship cricket; another glorious failure for Somerset

Nearly fifty years ago, CR Poole published a short work entitled ‘The Customs, Superstitions, and Legends of the County of Somerset’. Inexplicably, he omitted the foremost of these customs: Somerset will never, ever, win the County Championship. For a while this week, I and many others dared to dream this year might be different. This could be the week, the day, the moment, history might be made. Somerset have been tilting for the championship since 1891 and only rarely been in with a chance of glory on the final day of the season. More often, as a dozen wooden spoon finishes attests, the situation has been hopeless but never serious. Today

Julie Burchill

Women – and transwomen – should fight on the frontline

My favourite quote of all time comes from John Stuart Mill: ‘War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.’ The willingness of the British armed forces to sacrifice their lives on a daily basis – not for their country these days,

Current accounts are a salvation for savers

Spenders and savers alike would no doubt appreciate some kind of reward for staying loyal to their bank or building society, but it’s highly unlikely that they will be able to get a better deal than if they were to switch. Savers At a time when savings rates are hitting new lows, consumers who have managed to rustle up a sizeable nest egg have had little to celebrate. In addition, those who are considering putting money aside are starting to lose the confidence to do so – an attitude that was highlighted in a recent study by GfK. This is likely to be a result of the Brexit vote, but at

Fraud, renting, property and energy

UK banks should do more to protect customers tricked into transferring money to fraudsters, according to a consumer body that has lodged a ‘supercomplaint‘ with financial regulators. The move by Which? means banks could now face a formal investigation into whether they can continue refusing to reimburse victims. The Guardian reports that the organisation submitted its first supercomplaint this year in the same week that official data revealed that fraud in the UK payments industry had soared by 53 per cent as criminals develop increasingly sophisticated tactics to steal bank customers’ cash. Renting New research released today has revealed that in the last year alone over a million – or one in

High Life | 22 September 2016

Sicily   Under the watchful eye of Mount Etna the storied past of the island lies parched and yellowish, but as one gets nearer to the fiery growling giant the air turns cool, the sun glistening against black volcanic rock. Sicily is of two minds. Orange groves and beaches galore, then dank forests and the possibility of lava flows. Sicily’s history resembles its landscape: peaceful and religious; violent and vengeful. I first sailed to Taormina back in the Sixties, visited the ancient Greek amphitheatre and listened to Dvorak’s New World Symphony while breathing in the smells of history. It was an extraordinary spectacle: beautifully dressed people, a great Italian symphony

Low life | 22 September 2016

One side of the hostel overlooked Waterloo station’s 22 platforms. Trains departed and arrived at the rate of two or three a minute. Another side abutted a Victorian cast-iron girder bridge over which suburban trains arrived and departed with rolling thunder, to which was added that fingernails-dragged-down-a-blackboard, pigs-screaming-at-feeding-time, metal-on-metal noise as the trains negotiated a bend whose curve was at the very limit of what was geometrically feasible for fixed, in-line bogies. On the remaining side of this discordant triangle was an arterial road hazy with diesel particulate through which heavy traffic accelerated and braked between traffic lights. I arrived here mid-morning after a Spectator party wanting only to lie

Real life | 22 September 2016

Out of the blue, I woke up one morning and my feet didn’t work. I opened my eyes, swung my legs out of the bed, and at the very moment my feet should have begun walking nothing happened and I promptly fell flat on my face. I asked Dr Google and he was unequivocal. If your fortysomething feet won’t flex in the morning then you are suffering from a condition called plantar fasciitis, inflammation of the soles. There is, naturally, no cure other than to stop using your feet. However, you can help yourself by wearing trainers. ‘I am going to have to venture into one of those sportswear superstores,’

Bridge | 22 September 2016

I’ve been in a bridge bubble in Wroclaw for the past two weeks, playing in the World Bridge Games. I competed in the Mixed Teams then the Mixed Pairs, playing against nations from across the world, each wearing their own distinctive shirts (Japan’s pink and blue gets my vote for the most stylish). I wish I’d made fewer mistakes and done better, but it was a privilege to be there among the greats, from veterans like Hamman, Meckstroth and Versace, to younger stars like Dennis Bilde and Justin Lall. And I’m firm in my resolve to take everything I can from the experience, up my game, and try again at

Olympiad | 22 September 2016

The 42nd Chess Olympiad in Baku, Azerbaijan, ended in a narrow victory for the USA. Having tied with Ukraine, the American team qualified for the gold medals by virtue of a superior tie-break. The critical factor in the American success, their first gold medals in the Olympiad since 1976, was the acquisition for the team of two superstars, namely Fabiano Caruana, formerly of Italy, and Wesley So, who had represented the Philippines. So, in particular, distinguished himself by winning a second gold medal for best performance on board three.   The top five teams were: 1.USA 2.Ukraine 3.Russia 4.India 5.Norway (England finished a respectable ninth.)   In the parallel Women’s

No. 427

White to play. This position is from Heredia-Videnova; Women’s Olympiad, Baku 2016. Can you spot the White continuation that enabled her to emerge with a decisive material advantage? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 27 September 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 Qe6 Last week’s winner Stewart Reuben, Twickenham, SW London

Pericles vs Juncker

The hopelessness of the EU is well demonstrated by the current rhetoric issuing from its inner chambers: that Britain must be punished for the ‘crime’ of leaving it. What sort of message does that send out to the world, let alone other EU members, about the value that the EU places on liberality and freedom? In his funeral speech in 430 BC over those killed in the war against Sparta, Pericles hymned not so much the dead as the city of Athens itself, describing ‘the way of life that enables us to pursue our objectives, and the political institutions and national character that made our great achievements possible’. One of the central themes