Society

Monday

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Books podcast: The Masculinity Problem

We hear a lot about a “crisis of masculinity” these days, but nobody seems to be in agreement about what it consists of. On the one hand, we hear of “rape culture”, absent fathers and everyday sexism; on the other, complaints of the feminisation of society, political correctness and the disappearance of traditional male role-models. Are men a gender that has – to adapt Dean Acheson — lost its empire and still not found a role? In this, the second of our weekly Books podcasts, I asked two writers of recent books on the subject to talk about it. One is Rebecca Asher, author of Man Up: Boys, Men and

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The truth about young people’s pay? It’s up, significantly, over a generation

Right at the start of filming for Dispatches on the generation wealth gap (8pm on Ch4 tonight), we were working around a striking claim: that the young were so shafted that people in their 20s are earning less now that they were 20 years ago. I asked the Office for National Statistics to check this out and when their figures came back, it was the opposite to what I expected – and to what everyone seems to believe. Not only are the 20-somethings paid more, but their disposable income is up by a third on where it was two decades ago. The idea that the young ones are paid substantially

Helen Nugent

Will a new financial advice body actually work? For all our sakes, let’s hope so

Consolidation. It’s a word used widely in financial circles. Consolidation of debt (translation: combining lots of different credit cards into one seemingly simple yet unmanageable whole). Consolidation of assets (translation: combining liabilities into one seemingly simple yet unmanageable whole). You get my drift. So, consolidation is not always a good thing. I wonder if this will prove to be the case for a new government-run financial advice service. Although it has yet to be given a name, this brand spanking new single advisory body will, according to ministers, be more efficient than the organisations it, er, consolidates. Financial experts agree that we are better off without one of these: the

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The complicated truth about generational inequality in the UK

I’ve spent the last few weeks making a documentary for Channel 4’s Dispatches on what I regard as one the biggest new arguments of our times: the generation wars. The idea that (as David Willetts famously put it) the ‘baby boomers took their children’s’ future’ – and ‘should give it back’. I’ve been talking to various experts, being heckled at protest marches, wading through research and putting the established wisdom to the test. The result is on Channel 4 documentary:  The Wealth Gap. Only Channel 4 really does documentaries about ideas: the asset bubble, the relationship between wealth and longevity. What made this one tougher is that we ended up making a rather

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: how the aphid became and other creation tales

The invitation to take the title of a short story by Ted Hughes, How the Whale Became, substitute another animal or fish for ‘whale’ and provide a tale with that title brought in oodles of well turned entries bursting with charm. The comp was an absolute delight to judge, so well done, one and all. Special mentions go to C.J. Gleed, Michael McManus, Frank McDonald and Tracy Davidson, who were unlucky losers. The winners take £25 each. The bonus fiver belongs to Bill Greenwell. Bill Greenwell: How the Aphid Became Call me Nana. I was born when my mother was being born, into one gender, no need for more, only

Friday

Rob Crilly

Obama’s sky high approval rating spells good news for Clinton

Did you see the news? Hillary Clinton is a shoo-in to win the election. OK. No-one is saying it quite yet. Certainly not the TV channels in the US, which have their eye on Super Bowl-esque viewing figures for this Sunday’s presidential election debate. Calling it now would put a bit of a dampener on the final month of campaigning for everyone. But a poll released by CNN this week gives the clearest indication yet that Clinton has it in the bag. It is not a survey of voter intentions. It is not a question asking Americans who they want as their president. Instead, it is a poll showing Barack Obama’s approval ratings hitting a record

Helen Nugent

Is it impossible to dodge a dodgy builder? Finding a decent tradesman shouldn’t be this hard

As a species, we humans share many characteristics. Opposable thumbs, a love for pizza, a dislike of losing at football. Perhaps most common, though, is the ability to recount horror stories about tradesmen. I have yet to meet someone without a handyman grievance. You’ve got one, right? A plumber who did more harm than good, the builder who left a wall looking like a colander, an electrician who nearly electrocuted the cat. Needless to say, I have multiple gripes of my own. There was the plumber in my London flat who installed two taps and a massive hole in the wall. The decorator who charged £150 to paint one tiny wall.

Helen Nugent

Sterling, savers, pensioners and buy-to-let

The pound has dived on Asian markets with automated trading being blamed for the volatility. At one stage it fell as much as 6 per cent to $1.1841 – the biggest move since the Brexit vote – before recovering to $1.24, still down 1.5 per cent. It is not clear what triggered the sudden sell-off. Analysts say it could have been automated trading systems reacting to a news report. The pound has been volatile since the UK voted to leave the European Union. The 6.1 per cent drop in the pound against the dollar while we were all sleeping is the second-biggest intraday fall the currency has ever suffered, according to the

Thursday

Raymond Keene

no. 429

White to play. This is from Tal-Botvinnik, World Championship (Game 12), Moscow 1961. Tal’s next move did not force an immediate win but gained sufficient material for him to prevail. What was it? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 11 October 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 … Be7 Last week’s winner Graham Baker, Campsea Ashe, Suffolk

Raymond Keene

Tal order

As I write, the Mikhail Tal Memorial tournament in Moscow is still underway. The Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri stormed into an early lead, winning three games out of his first five. But he was toppled when coming to grief in the following dramatic situation.   Aronian-Giri: Tal Memorial Moscow 2016 (see diagram 1)   White has sacrificed a rook but can regain material with 31 Nc6 Qb6 32 Nxb8 Qxb7 with an extra pawn. Nevertheless, the Armenian triple olympiad gold medal winner came up with something far more dashing. 31 Qxb8 Rxb8 32 Rc8+ Qd8 Obviously forced. 33 Rxd8+ Rxd8 34 Nc6 Black resigns If 34 … Re8 35 Ne7+ Kf8

The Spectator

Letters | 6 October 2016

Studying grammars Sir: Isabel Hardman (Politics, 1 October) states that no reputable research backs up the belief that grammar schools promote social justice. I am not sure she is correct. For instance, Lord Franks’s 1966 report on Oxford University recorded an accelerating rise in the share of places taken by state school pupils at that university in the 1939–1966 period. This increased from 19 per cent to 34 per cent, excluding the semi-private direct grant schools. Include the direct grants and the figure rises from 32 per cent in 1939 to 51 per cent in 1965. This change, reversed in the comprehensive years after 1965, coincided with the introduction of

Taki

High life | 6 October 2016

New York Back in the Big Bagel once again preparing for the greatest debate ever, one that will decide the fate of the western world once and for all. In the meantime, the mother of my children is doing all the heavy lifting back in Gstaad, moving to my last address ever, that of my new farm, La Renarde. One of those American feminists remonstrated with me not long ago for making some chauvinist remark — on purpose, I might add —just to get her goat. My, my, how easy it has become to get that goat. In a 1939 film, Dodge City, Errol Flynn plays a Kansas marshal circa

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 6 October 2016

The first and only time I went to a meeting of Sex Addicts Anonymous, this chap stood up and gave a blow-by-blow account of his sexual history. He had started life as a heterosexual, he said, and became hopelessly addicted to pornography and prostitutes. Then he decided to give gay sex a try and soon became addicted to encounters with multiple partners in public parks. I forget how many times he said he was having it off every day, but it was heroic. He was out there day and night in all seasons and in all weathers and would go without lunch and dinner. In winter, he said, he was

Chris Mullin

Diary – 6 October 2016

Any day now, the government will make its long delayed announcement on whether a third runway should be built at Heathrow or Gatwick. Personally I am against both. During my 18 undistinguished months as an environment minister, I learned one thing about the aviation lobby: their appetite is voracious. They want more of everything. Runways, terminals, you name it. I also learned that in the end, often after initial resistance, governments always give way. Although from time to time industry representatives hint that they would be prepared to make concessions on the handful of night flights that come in over central London each morning, disturbing the sleep of several million

Melissa Kite

Real life | 6 October 2016

After a year dealing with estate agents I can only say: a plague on all their houses, except the one of mine they’re trying to sell. I do hate being obvious and lashing out at oft maligned groups because it really is too clichéd. I belong to several of these hated groups myself, after all. Journalists, they get it in the neck all the time. And hunters. See Rod Liddle last week or Liz Jones the weekend before that for some classic examples of how the left rip me to shreds whenever I dare to suggest that I would like to keep the countryside a nice place in which to

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 6 October 2016

In olden days, before the internet arrived, shopping was quite simple. You’d go into a shop and buy something, and that was it. If you liked the shop, if it sold things you wanted to buy at a fair price, and if the shopkeeper was efficient and agreeable, you might return. But otherwise you wouldn’t. The shopkeeper might hope for your custom, but there wasn’t much else he could do about it. The customer was not only always right, as tradition dictated, but was also left in peace. How different things are today. The customer is constantly harassed. Anyone who has ever bought anything on the internet has had his

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 6 October 2016

It often strikes me that learning to bid is just like mastering a language. As you take on new conventions and deepen your understanding of what different bids convey, you can begin to communicate properly. Things are complicated by the fact that there are so many different dialects — how much simpler life would be if we could all play the same system and the same conventions, instead of having to agree on them afresh with every new partner. All the effort is worthwhile, though, when you realise the eloquence that can be achieved. At the top level, well-honed partnerships are able to convey their hands so accurately that they

Dot Wordsworth

Critique | 6 October 2016

‘Americans,’ said my husband in much the same tone that Betsey Trotwood said ‘Donkeys’. It was his way of explaining my dislike of the verb critique. I had bridled most recently in reading a rather good review by Professor Sir Paul Collier in the TLS, where he said that ‘leading economists have critiqued the euro’. Some of my annoyance came from a vague apprehension that criticise had recently been replaced by critique partly to avoid the negative connotations of the former, yet here the connotations were as negative as the blackest black hole. At the same time, critique belonged, to my mind, strictly to the world of literary criticism and was

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: Your problems solved | 6 October 2016

Q. A family of five from Brazil who are close friends of mine are visiting London next week. They have been kind and generous to me in the past so we arranged to take them to lunch at a Michelin starred restaurant. However since this plan was made, in true Latino fashion they have invited four others to join the party, two of whom I have never met. Mary, how can I now a) change the venue to a less expensive option, and b) ensure they do not stray off the set menu? —Name withheld, Wiltshire A. I know you are well connected, so why not commandeer a friend’s central London premises

Toby Young Toby Young

A good read… but I don’t buy the plot

I’m writing this from the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham where the mood is buoyant, to put it mildly. Everyone seems delighted with the new captain and completely unfazed by the perilous waters ahead. If anyone is sad about the demise of David Cameron and some of his key lieutenants they’re not letting on. It’s a case of Le roi est mort, vive le roi! In my spare time I’ve been reading Craig Oliver’s referendum diary, Unleashing Demons, and reflecting on the events that led to Cameron’s demise. As a Remainer, Oliver is in no doubt about why his side lost: the mendacity of the Leave campaign. His lot were