Society

Friday

Simon Read

Lenders are forcing people into a vicious cycle of deepening debt

When you drift into debt, it’s not easy to get out of it. Many end up in financial trouble for years because, instead of confronting their problems, they meander on paying a little bit back here and there. For many it becomes a way of life. I interviewed a lot of different people about their finances for a television programme this year and one of the first questions I asked was ‘what debt do you have?’. I was staggered by the number who said they didn’t have any debt and later admitted they owed a couple of thousand on credit cards. It wasn’t that they were lying or even trying to

Helen Nugent

Fears over pension freedoms, rent rises and financial advice

Cracks are beginning to show in the new pension freedoms, hailed by the Chancellor as a ‘pensions revolution’. About 160,000 people have had to pay fees to access their pensions since these freedoms were introduced in April 2015, with some seeing more than 10 per cent of their retirement pot swallowed up by charges. The study by Citizens Advice and published in The Guardian said that those with smaller pots were the group hit the hardest. Last month, the Financial Conduct Authority announced that exit charges for people cashing in their personal and stakeholder pensions are likely to be capped at 1 per cent of the value of a member’s pot. These early exit fees are

The Spectator

Podcast: Jeremy Clarke’s Low Life

When The Spectator ran a readers’ survey to ask your opinion of the magazine, which writers you like and what you’d like to see more of, an overwhelming number of your responses said ‘more Jeremy Clarke’. So here it is: you can now listen to Jeremy read a selection of his columns – from his starting in 2001 – in our podcast, ‘Jeremy Clarke’s Low Life’. To listen and subscribe in iTunes, click here (and please, if you enjoy the podcast, do leave a review). Here’s our RSS feed to subscribe in almost any podcast app. Or listen in your browser on SoundCloud. You can already enjoy Jeremy suffering from pot paranoia, meeting

Thursday

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Diary – 9 June 2016

When an old friend X came to dinner in London, I sampled what it must have been like during the American Civil War, when families were split asunder from aligning on opposite sides of the Mason-Dixon. Lo, this warm-hearted, well-read, intelligent Midwesterner is backing Donald Trump. This was my husband’s introduction to X, whose electoral preference clearly queered the first impression. Our threesome didn’t talk long on the matter. The disconnect being so absolute, there was little to say. X is the only Trump supporter I wittingly know. But I was chilled by the difference between this and countless heated-but-civil suppers of yore, at which a dinner guest plumped rambunctiously

The Spectator

Barometer | 9 June 2016

Boxing brains Muhammad Ali died aged 74, after more than 30 years with Parkinson’s Disease. How many boxers suffer brain damage? — A 1969 study by A.H. Roberts examined 250 retired boxers and found 17% had lesions of the nervous system. Many had started out in the 1930s, when a professional boxing career could involve over 300 bouts; it’s fewer than 20 now. — However, brain examinations are now much more sensitive. A 2012 study by the University of Gothenburg of 30 Swedish boxers found that 80% had protein changes indicating brain damage. Hideously white? A BBC memo revealed it was seeking an ‘ethnically diverse’ presenter with a ‘northern accent’.

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Un-Italian job

I have been waiting, like a heroine in fiction, for the specialist lasagne restaurant. London has long been heading this way for the benefit of the consumer-simpleton who can only process one piece of information at a time. It is clearly a response to the glut of choice in late capitalism, and so close to Karl Marx’s home in Dean Street that I can almost feel his cackling shadow. Less choice for your aching head, child, but isn’t it really more choice? The choice not to choose? That phenomenon brought us the pop-up Cadbury’s Creme Egg restaurant, which only served food made with Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Because people are mad,

Mary Killen

Your problems solved | 9 June 2016

Q. When going out to dinner I’ve found some people will send everyone a list of the other guests so we can avoid the ‘What do you do?’ questions. I’ve now taken to doing it myself. I like this approach. However, when I asked a friend to tell me who my fellow guests would be at her dinner party, she became very angry and refused. As a result I missed talking to someone I really wanted to meet until we were putting out coats on to go. Is it very naff to provide pre-lists? J.T., London W11 All guests would much rather know who else is coming, what they do

Toby Young Toby Young

Confessions of an England fan

[audioplayer src=”http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/268140526-the-spectator-podcast-brexit-strategy-what-would-the.mp3″ title=”Toby Young explains his excitement at Euro 2016″ startat=1096] Listen [/audioplayer] If you’re a proper football supporter, getting excited about England on the eve of a major tournament is considered uncool. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tried to engage people in conversation about England’s chances, only to be greeted with a look of bored condescension. ‘I’m not really interested in international football,’ is the inevitable reply. Well, sorry, but I’m pretty fired up about the Euros — although, to be fair, I do conform to the stereotype of the inauthentic, prawn-sandwich-eating fan. When people are polite enough to respond to my opening gambits, it

Raymond Keene

No. 412

Black to play. This is from Arnason-Keene, London 1981. How did Black bring his bishops to life? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 14 June or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. 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 … e4+ Last week’s winner Jason Beech, Bristol

Raymond Keene

Edgehogs

Last week, commenting on Nigel Davies’s new book The Pirc Move by Move (Everyman Chess), I wrote about my win against Dr Jonathan Penrose which clinched the British Championship title for me. I want to expatiate further on the black defensive strategy which is predicated on flank development with the aim of destroying White’s pawn centre from the edges of the board. The Pontifex Maximus of this wing strategy was Duncan Suttles, the Canadian grandmaster, whose exploits are recorded in the multivolume Chess on the Edge: 100 Selected Games of Canadian Grandmaster Duncan Suttles by Harper and Seirawan (available on Amazon). My main contribution to the theory of this edgy branch

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 9 June 2016

Many top-class bridge players enjoy flirting with poker, making it their bit on the side. I can certainly see the attraction. No partner shaking their head. No misunderstandings in the bidding. And no teammates rolling their eyes when you bring back a lousy result. We all know that bluffing is an essential part of poker but not many people have the expertise to use it at the bridge table. Under its more serious title of ‘Deception’ top players employ it when they have the imagination to spot the play at speed. Hesitate and you give the game away. My teammate Nick Sandqvist likes nothing better than a great deceptive play.

Robin Oakley

Girl power | 9 June 2016

How much strength do you need to win a horse race? Do women have enough? And if they don’t should they be given an allowance to help them in one of the few sports where they compete professionally against men? The question came up as I shared a farmer’s platter with champion trainer Paul Nicholls in his Ditcheat local at the end of the jumping season. Paul is no softie: one of the things he most admires in Ruby Walsh is his toughness, win or lose, and the end was signalled for one young rider in the Nicholls yard because he came into the unsaddling enclosure in tears after a

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 9 June 2016

I’m back in England after travelling from Italy by railway, because I have been forbidden to fly in case the altitude affects my wobbly brain. It was rather a complicated train journey, involving changes in Florence, Milan and Paris, but rather exciting. Florence looked wonderful, as did Paris, and, perhaps because of my brain damage, even Milan seemed rather beautiful. Only London appeared dull and drab on arrival. The other excitement was that I travelled as an invalid because of the brain haemorrhage suffered during my holiday in Tuscany. I can in fact walk perfectly well; but, thanks to the members of my family who had made meticulous preparations and

Melissa Kite

Real life | 9 June 2016

Would you like a Labour party manifesto with your breakfast?’ the tattooed, multi-pierced waitress might as well have asked as she served me the most left-wing breakfast in the world. What on earth is going on when Balham becomes so avant-garde that it negates the very reason a curmudgeon like me moved there — to be as far as possible from the trendy, liberal intelligentsia that rules most of London? If I had wanted my local cafés decked out in reclaimed wood and serving quinoa specially flown in from the Amazon rainforest on Air Hypocrisy, then arranged on a pile of pea shoots according to a recipe by Gwyneth Paltrow,

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 9 June 2016

Showered and shaved and wearing a stiff new Paul Smith candy-stripe shirt, I took an Uber to the party. I love London and it was grand to be back and to be driven through the sunny streets by Yusef, one of the many new arrivals adding vibrancy, energy and diversity to our great city. Diversity is strength! Diversity is our greatest strength! (I used to believe that unity is strength, but I have lately recanted of this foolish and evil idea.) ‘Will you be voting in or out, Yusef?’ I said in a comradely manner, as one perplexed citizen to another. ‘I think stay in, sir,’ he said. ‘Better for

Taki

High life | 9 June 2016

Shelter Island is nestled in the Long Island Sound, ten minutes by ferry from Sag Harbor and a good 30 from the horrible Hamptons with its Porsches, mega-mansions and celebrity trash. It is where, on my last week in the Big Bagel, I was taken back to the Forties and Fifties for a weekend. Shelter Island is what the Hamptons used to be: tranquil, beautiful, rustic, unspoiled, with lovely ponds bordered by shady oaks and maples. The pace slows the minute you get off the ferry and step into the peaceful enclave. There are forested hills, secluded coves and quiet beaches. The sea is hardly the Mediterranean, but there are

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 9 June 2016

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, caused mild surprise by cancelling a cabinet meeting and hastily convening a press conference on the roof of Savoy Place, where he warned against ‘taking a leap in the dark’, urging voters in the referendum on EU membership to ‘listen to the experts’ about the risks of leaving. Some supporters of the Leave campaign began to think they had a chance of winning. The campaign had already taken a turn towards reciprocal accusations of dishonesty between Conservatives. Boris Johnson MP, speaking in favour of leaving the EU, said: ‘The botched bureaucratic response to the migration crisis means the Eurocrats are demanding even more of

Pabulum

2264: The A-Team

Six unclued lights, the sixth spelt in its original way, are members of a team proclaimed dramatically at a venue given by the remaining pair. The proclaimer and team leader appears diagonally in the completed grid and must be shaded. Elsewhere, ignore an accent. Across 1    Minister and unknown independent in conflict (5) 9    Eyelid injured fixing jerk’s wheel (10, two words) 11    God cardinal had cheered (5) 14    Treacherous Scots not wearing blue (5) 15    Fine leapers must clear tops of houses (5) 16    Stick in this place east of Hoosier State (6) 21    Being from Iceland with mobile home? (8) 22    Skittish Catherine with large number of yen