Society

Thursday

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 Some of my annoyance came from a vague apprehension that criticise had recently been replaced by critique partly to avoid the negative connotations of the former, yet here the connotations were as negative as the blackest black hole.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

The Spectator

Barometer | 6 October 2016

Tenement Scots John Cleese referred to the editor of this magazine as a ‘tenement Scot’. Do more Scots live in tenements? — The term tenement became associated in Scotland with 14-storey blocks built in Edinburgh in the 18th and 19th centuries. One collapsed in 1861, killing 35 residents and leading to an Improvement Act which largely did away with the old blocks. — Today, 38% of homes in Scotland are flats or maisonettes, markedly higher than the 21% in England and Wales. But only 14,900 (0.6%) are ‘buildings in multiple occupancy’, with shared facilities like the original tenements. More than a landslide Hungarians voted by 98% to 2% to reject

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 6 October 2016

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said at the Conservative party conference that hers was now the party of ‘working-class’ people and would occupy the ‘new centre ground’. She announced that Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty would be invoked by next March, beginning the formal process for Britain to leave the European Union. The pound fell to a 31-year low and the FTSE 100 index rose above 7,000 to an 18-month high. Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: ‘We will no longer target a surplus at the end of this Parliament,’ as his predecessor George Osborne had promised, but would spend on housing and transport. More than

Columba

2281: Fail

Each of eleven clues comprises a definition part and a hidden consecutive jumble of the answer including one extra letter; the extras spell a three-word phrase. Clues in italics consist of cryptic indications of partial answers; in each case, the indicated part must do as stated by the phrase to create the full answer to be entered in the grid. Definitions of resulting entries are supplied by the remaining unclued lights. Elsewhere, ignore three accents.   Across 1    Underwear, designer’s best, needs publicity (14, hyphened) 11    Quiet soak 12    Hills near empty ravines (4) 14    Be ahead, going west, and see town (6) 17    Son and father

Columba

to 2278: Will Alterations

Concealed Shakespearean characters were Rivers, Celia, Celia (again), Hamlet, Costard, Polonius, Snug, Hero, Gallus, Martius, Pistol, Collatine (The Rape of Lucrece), Bushy and Hermia. ‘Disguises’ spelt Midsummer Night.   First prize John Honey, Brentford Runners-up Geran Jones, London SW1; D. Rosendorff, Coogee, NSW, Australia

Douglas Murray

The great conundrum for the Islamophobia lobby

It is a shame that ‘subversion’ of the state is no longer a crime in Britain.  One result of it not being so is that people have become blind to the idea that it is even going on. The other day I wrote about the ‘academics’ who had signed a letter to the Guardian insisting that Britain should not have a counter-terrorism policy, a view which is increasingly echoed at the top of the Labour party.  Interestingly enough, since pointing out that the letter’s signatories included people who are not only not academics, but extremists, I have learnt a most interesting thing.  A signatory informs me that letter was not just

The Spectator

Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet reshuffle in full

Jeremy Corbyn has begun a shadow cabinet reshuffle. Follow the details here. IN: Nick Brown has been appointed as Winterton’s successor. A former Gordon Brown loyalist, the MP for Newcastle upon Tyne East will be responsible for instilling discipline in the increasingly divided party. On accepting the role, Brown said he hoped to ‘play a constructive role in providing the strongest possible opposition to this Tory government’. Shami Chakrabarti has been appointed to the post of shadow attorney general. The newly appointed peer says ‘it is an enormous privilege to take up the post of Shadow Attorney General in Jeremy Corbyn’s new team. I hope to follow in a great tradition

Ruth Sunderland

How to understand the human side of a financial crisis: read a book

One of the occupational pleasures, and occasional hazards, of being a financial journalist is the need to keep up with your reading. I’ve consumed a stack of books about the financial crisis and its aftermath, including Michael Lewis’s The Big Short and Vicky Ward’s riveting account of the downfall of Lehman Brothers, Devil’s Casino, notable for its portrayal of the designer clad bankers’ WAGs, whose minutely-observed social hierarchy mirrored the ups and downs of their husband’s careers. (At a City dinner a few years ago I sat next to a former Lehman banker who appeared fairly prominently in the book – to my amusement, he was not remotely mortified but

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Spectator podcast: Syrian nightmare

The Syrian initiative to retake the last remaining rebel stronghold of Aleppo, following a two week ceasefire, has proved controversial in the international community. Images of children bloodied, bruised and painted with masonry dust have decorated the front pages of British newspapers, but is there anything that can help ease the pain of ‘Syria’s Guernica’? These are the issues raised in Paul Wood’s cover piece this week. Speaking to the podcast from Washington, he said: “This has been going on for five years now and there have been surges from both sides. We happen to be in the middle of a surge by the regime attempting to take the last

The Spectator

Conscription in Ireland

From ‘More men’, The Spectator, 7 October 1916: Are we or are we not to apply compulsory service to Ireland? The difficulties, we admit, are very great. Personally, we dislike the idea of seeing the privilege — for such it is — of defending the Empire accorded to men who have disgraced themselves as did the Sinn Feiners and the disloyal population of Ireland in the recent revolt. At the same time, it does seem a gross injustice that the Irish people should not bear their share of the common burden.  

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Wine Club 8 October

Although many wine merchants are tightening their post-Brexit belts and rationalising their cellars, Yapp Bros have thrown their net ever wider. They might be the 2016 International Wine Challenge Loire Specialist of the Year and ditto for the Rhône, but Yapps have recently been fishing outside their traditional waters, making first-time forays deeper into France and into Germany and Spain. Wise old truffle-hound that he is, Jason Yapp’s touch clearly hasn’t deserted him and we at The Spectator are the beneficiaries. All the wines below are completely new both to Yapp Bros and The Spectator and each and every one is a delight. And to tempt us even further, Jason

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Let there be light, and at better times of day

We already drive on the left, give road distances in miles and drink pints. So one good feature of Brexit is that Britain will be able to develop a whole series of exciting new idiosyncrasies to annoy continental Europeans. For instance, I am planning to bring a private petition to Parliament demanding that Britain formally adopt the UK tabloid approach to metrication, where all low temperatures are reported in Celsius and highs in Fahrenheit. A colleague of mine, Pete Dyson, has an idea that might raise the eyebrows of our continental chums. He points out to me that the EU sanctioned dates on which we change our clocks for daylight

Bruce Anderson

Eat, drink and be worried

We were surpassing Sydney Smith. His idea of heaven was pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets. Our version was an un pâtéd foie: even more delicious. Though no one had laid on Jeremiah Clarke, there was music: a bottle of Doisy Daëne ’75. In most of the Bordeaux area, 1975 was an austere year, and the fear was that the wines would live and die as sleeping beauties. Well, the Dozy Dean had awakened, to a harmony of structure and sweetness. There seems only one sensible response to such pleasures: ‘God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.’ Instead, however, the conversation took a melancholy

Michael Henderson

A pint of Landlord

Down a lane in Keighley, in the old West Riding of Yorkshire, they brew the greatest ale in the world. Timothy Taylor, the brewery is called, or Timmy Taylor’s, should you feel sufficiently familiar. And if you are not familiar with the ales brewed by these modest Yorkies, you’re clearly not an ale-drinker. And if you’re not an ale-drinker then you’re not properly English. Modest Yorkies, you may say: that’s a new one. Well, they are. If you excel as they do, you don’t need to blow your own trumpet. Paul Tortelier, the great French cellist, was once asked to nominate his favourite composer. ‘Bach,’ he replied. ‘And if any musician

Simon Jenkins

Why cathedrals are soaring

Something strange is happening in the long decline of Christian Britain. We know that church attendance has plummeted two thirds since the 1960s. Barely half of Britons call themselves Christian and only a tiny group of these go near a church. Just 1.4 per cent regularly worship as Anglicans, and many of those do so for a privileged place in a church school. Yet one corner of the garden is blooming: the 42 cathedrals. At the end of the last century, cathedrals were faring no better than churches, with attendances falling sometimes by 5 per cent a year. With the new century, everything changed. Worship in almost all 42 Anglican

Jenny McCartney Jenny McCartney

The parenting trap

Out of the fog of rumour and accusation surrounding the melancholy break-up of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, one source of contention seems distinctly modern: the couple rowed most fiercely, apparently, over ‘parenting styles’. Where once the public divided into ‘Team Aniston’ and ‘Team Jolie’ on loyalties in love, it’s now ‘Team Jolie’ and ‘Team Pitt’ on parenting. According to ‘friends’ and ‘ex–nannies’, it appears that Jolie dealt with their six children in an easy-going, continent-hopping manner which aspired to their graduation as ‘children of the world’. Pitt, it seems, yelled more and tried to enforce bedtimes, manners and chores. Things reportedly came to a head on a private jet

Lucy Vickery

Creation story

In Competition No. 2968 you were-invited 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. This comp was an absolute delight to judge. There were oodles of well-turned entries bursting with charm. Well done. Special mention go to C.J. Gleed, Michael McManus, Frank McDonald and Tracy Davidson. The winners take £25 each. The bonus fiver belongs to Bill Greenwell.   Call me Nana. I was born when my mother was being born, into one gender, no need for more, only the cycle, the cycle of endless begetting. When I was a