Society

Friday

Helen Nugent

Rent deals, housing hot-spots and sneaky ways to save money

Rents have reversed their Spring trajectory as a tide of homes to let bought before the April Stamp Duty surcharge have reached the private rented sector. According to the latest Buy-to-Let Index from letting agents Your Move and Reeds Rains, average rents for homes to let across England and Wales now stand at £792 a month. This represents a drop of 0.2 per cent since April, and compares to a long-term average monthly rise of 0.4 per cent every May since the recession. Adrian Gill, director of lettings agents Your Move and Reeds Rains, said: ‘This is the equivalent of a flash flood for the rental market. Just a month ago rents were heating up

Thursday

Raymond Keene

Leningrad Lip

I had intended this week to write about the surprise surge by Mamedyarov which overturned all expectations in the elite Gashimov Memorial. Instead, the death of Viktor Korchnoi, known variously as Viktor the Terrible or the Leningrad Lip, represents a force majeure priority. An outspoken defector and three-times world champion contender, Korchnoi was one of the dominating figures of 20th-century chess.   This week, a win against the legendary Bobby Fischer and a puzzle position against his arch foe Anatoly Karpov. Comments based on those by Cyrus Lakdawala in Korchnoi: Move by Move (Everyman Chess).   Fischer-Korchnoi: Candidates Tournament Curacao 1962; Pirc Defence   1 e4 d6 2 d4 Nf6 3 Nc3

Raymond Keene

No. 413

White to play. This is from Korchnoi-Karpov, Candidates Final, Moscow 1974. White’s next move destroyed the black position and led to one of Karpov’s quickest ever defeats. What did White play? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 21 June 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 … Qxc4 (2 Bxc4 Bxc3+ 3 Qb2 Bxe1! 4 Bxe2 Bg3) Last week’s winner Mick Beirne, London E7

Dot Wordsworth

Little England

In the art of insult, the sting lies in the adjective, no matter how derogatory the noun. So it is ‘You stupid bastard.’ Last week, David Cameron, by calling opponents of the EU Little Englanders, wanted the epithet little to be transferred to them. He urged voters to say: ‘We don’t want the Little England of Nigel Farage; we want to be Great Britain.’ It recalled a remark from 2014 by Nick Clegg, who actually asked where voters wanted to live — ‘Great Britain or little England?’ Literally, that makes no sense. Great Britain is not a kind of Britain that one would like. It is a geographical term. In

The Spectator

Letters | 16 June 2016

The population problem Sir: Matthew Parris (11 June) dismisses worries over immigration as being based on race. This is a touch unfair. Although it would be misleading to deny that Brexiteers are concerned about cultural issues, especially when countries such as Albania are on the pathway to EU entry, there is also cause for concern over population density. England is already one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and the government’s own estimates (always an underestimate) show that the UK’s population increase (of which immigration would be a great part) will be half a million a year, equivalent to a city such as Leicester. This puts unsustainable

Mary Killen

Your problems solved | 16 June 2016

Q. My daughters and I were recently taking our seats on an aeroplane. From behind us came the recorded refrain ‘If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands’. Several further verses ensued. A toddler was watching something on his dad’s phone: he was too young for earphones. I turned and asked politely for the volume to be reduced or turned off. The dad replied, ‘Well, if you’d rather hear him screaming.’ I simply asked again that the volume be turned down, and it stopped shortly afterwards. No screaming ensued. But might there have been a better rejoinder to the father’s annoying response? — A.C., London A. Assuming a

Toby Young Toby Young

Who’s sabotaging my Leave campaign?

I’ve never been a great believer in karma. After all, in the absence of some kind of cosmic enforcer of karmic justice what guarantee is there that good deeds will be rewarded or bad deeds punished? Let’s not forget that Joseph Stalin was responsible for between 34 and 49 million deaths, depending on whose estimate you accept, yet died of natural causes in his own bed at the age of 73. Karma? What karma? But events of the past fortnight have caused me to revise my opinion. It’s all to do with the massive Vote Leave billboard outside my house in Acton, and an incident that occurred 42 years ago

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 16 June 2016

Just take the money! That’s the philosophy of many rubber bridge players when it comes to bidding — or rather not bidding — grand slams. Why risk going down in seven when a small slam will net you a large enough gain? I’m not of that school myself: so long as I trust my partner, I can’t bear to stop short of bidding grand slams. But trust — ah, there’s the rub. Who can you trust? Playing for £10 a hundred at TGR’s recently, I cut Maurice Esterson as my partner. I’ve known Maurice for 20 years, I like him enormously, and I trust him completely. He trusts me too.

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 16 June 2016

It was 41 years ago that The Spectator first urged its readers to vote Brexit in a referendum, but the circumstances were different then. In 1975 the Establishment was generally enthusiastic for Europe. Most of the Tory party, including its new leader, Margaret Thatcher, was keen to keep Britain in the Common Market it had only recently joined. The dissenters were few among the Tories and were mostly on the left wing of the Labour party and the trade unions, which saw Europe as inimical to socialism. Almost a third of Harold Wilson’s cabinet members were Eurosceptics, and he set the precedent (later followed by David Cameron) of suspending cabinet

Melissa Kite

Real life | 16 June 2016

‘This EU passport is an outrage. I want a British one!’ Not my words, Cydney’s. The spaniel is coming round to my way of thinking on the EU referendum after visiting the vet’s to get the necessary paperwork for her forthcoming trip to the Dordogne — or Dor-DOG-ne, as she prefers to call it. After spending a small fortune on her bed and board at the dogsitter the last time I went away, I decided she would come on holiday with me this summer. As soon as I have cast my Leave vote on 23 June, I shall be packing us into the Volvo and heading for the Eurotunnel and

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 16 June 2016

Michel is one of those Frenchmen one encounters now and again whose shining saintliness is beyond rational understanding. This great bear of a man, with heavy silver rings on his fingers and thumbs, is always cheerful, always kind, always puts others before himself. Whenever he speaks with me, it is always under the pathetic delusion that he might learn something from me that he did not already know. The only thing that makes him in any way contemptuous is my pointing out his goodness to him. Michel was a teacher. For many years, he taught English at a private school in Somerset. Now retired to his native Provence, he has

Taki

High life | 16 June 2016

Marion, Baroness Lambert, was hit and killed by a London bus last month while shopping in Oxford Street, a cruel irony if ever there was one. ‘At least it was Bentley,’ was how Steven Aronson, the writer, put it. Marion was a very old friend of mine. She had endured the worst tragedy that can befall a mother, having lost a beautiful young daughter to suicide. Philippine Lambert had been sexually abused by a family friend, a sordid story that I first broke in these here pages and later in the Sunday Times. It was a vile affair and I won’t dwell on it, but it cemented a very strong

The Spectator

Barometer | 16 June 2016

Houses of ill repute The Austrian interior minister has suggested that his government will demolish the house where Adolf Hitler was born in 1889. Some other properties which have succumbed to the architectural equivalent of the death penalty: — 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, home of Fred West, was demolished in 1996 and turned into a pathway into the next street. — 5 College Close, Soham, where Ian Huntley murdered the schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, was razed in 2004 and is now a patch of grass. — The cottage in Ceinws, Powys, where Mark Bridger murdered April Jones was demolished in 2014. — 10 Rillington Place, home to the serial killer

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 16 June 2016

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, threatened pensioners who voted in the referendum for Britain to leave the EU: ‘If we leave, the pensioner benefits would be under threat, and the “triple lock” could no longer be guaranteed.’ He also said he might take away their ‘free bus passes and TV licences’, even though the latter are paid for by the BBC. George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said he would put up taxes if there was a vote to leave the EU, but 57 Tory MPs said they would vote against what they called a ‘punishment budget’. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, thanked immigrants for the ‘fantastic service’

Doc

2265: Pouring

The unclued Across lights (two of two words) are of a kind, as are the unclued Down ones, all verifiable in Brewer 19th edition.   Across   1    Originally inexperienced, feels skill growing (12, two words) 12    Outlet I left, working out rota for a breather (10) 14    Some greet Andalusian character (3) 17    Lawgiver cut farewell (5) 18    Was embarrassed seeing dipso between the sheets (7) 19    Baboons that are boring (6) 22    Direction like that is right and comparatively simple (6) 24    Such ways, when filled with love, arouse pity (5) 26    Fish around my island in vessel (9, two words) 29    Parts or part Victoria reassigns (5) 31   

Doc

To 2262: Numbers game

The unclued Across lights are ANAGRAMS of French numbers (22: trente, 24: soixante, 26: sept, 29: onze, 43: trois) and the Down lights of German numbers (3: vier, 4: hundert, 10: sechs, 40: acht, 41: drei).   First prize G. Jones, London SW1 Runners-up Sue Topham, Elston, Newark; S.J.J. Tiffin, Cockermouth, Cumbria

Helen Nugent

PPI, poor service and mortgage lending down

The Financial Conduct Authority has caved in to banks over payment protection insurance compensation by backing their call for a two-year deadline for new claims, according to internal documents published in The Times. The paper says this is the latest example of the city watchdog softening its stance with banks and comes after a public row over its decision to scrap a review of banks’ conduct. After intense lobbying by lenders for a cut-off to be introduced for new claims over PPI — the mis-selling scandal that so far has cost £24 billion — the FCA said in November that a deadline accompanied by a marketing campaign to raise awareness would draw

The Spectator

After the breakthrough

From ‘Verdun’, The Spectator, 16 June 1916: As has been proved again and again in this war, if you are willing to pay the price you can always break the enemy’s line, and break it on a considerable front; but when you have broken it you are no better off than you were before. If you push on too far, you have only made a dangerous salient, from which you will probably be driven later by counter-attacks. Further, if, as in this case, it has taken some four months’ hard fighting to make your gap, you will discover that the enemy have had ample time to prepare fresh lines in front of

Andrew Watts

Daddy issues

Just in time for Fathers’ Day, when thousands of British men will receive cards addressed to ‘The World’s Best Dad!’, a new report from the Fatherhood Institute has come out demonstrating the statistical improbability of the claim. The average father in the UK spends only 24 minutes looking after his children for every hour their mother spends, the lowest ratio in Europe. And given that these figures are based on self-reporting questionnaires, rather than a researcher with a stopwatch, this is almost certainly an overestimate. The Fatherhood Institute concludes that government action is needed, in the first place by increasing the parental leave available to fathers. They argue, rightly, that