Society

Tuesday

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The lies of meritocratic Britain

In England after the Norman Conquest the worst insults you could throw were class insults. So long has feudal prejudice survived that we unconsciously echo the Anglo-Norman aristocracy when we use ‘villainous’ (from villien) and ‘churlish’ (from ‘churl’). The churl of the 1300s might have reflected that, however miserable his life, it was not his fault that he had been born into servitude. His suffering was the result of an unjust society not a real reflection of his worth. No one shouts ‘churl’ or ‘rustic’ or ‘villien’ today.  We live in a meritocratic country and feudalism is long gone except for a few gaudy spectacles around the monarch. So they

Monday

Emma Simon

New government pension freedoms will fail

The pension revolution rolls on. Next year more than five million retired people will be able to enjoy the new ‘pension freedoms’ and cash in their annuity. I imagine the daytime TV ads are in the pipeline already, showing cheery pensioners completing the Daily Telegraph crossword in their new conservatory, or heading off into the sunset on a luxury cruise. It’s not hard to see why many pensioners might be looking forward to this opportunity. Not because they want to waste their hard-earned savings on fripperies, but because many will be unhappy with the annuity they were forced to buy at retirement. Until recently most people bought an annuity with

Helen Nugent

Money digest: today’s need-to-know financial news | 23 May 2016

Britain moved another step closer to becoming a cashless society last year. According to Payments UK, which represents the major banks, building societies and payment providers, 2015 was the first year that cash was used for less than half of all payments by consumers. The story made it to the front page of The Guardian. The paper reported that cash usage will be eclipsed by debit cards and contactless payments by 2021. As for 2015, cash made up 45.1 per cent of payments, compared with 64 per cent in 2005, and is expected to fall to just a quarter by 2025. More than one billion ‘wave and pay’ transactions took place last year.

Sunday

Douglas Murray

al-Baghdadi, luvvies and affordable housing: the worst predictions of the EU referendum

It’s that time of the week again, when I promised to round up the worst contributions to the Brexit debate. The Prime Minister got the week off to a good start by claiming that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the famed head of ISIS, is a supporter of ‘Vote Leave’.  In fact the putative world Caliph has yet to come out for either side in the UK referendum, though the attacks in Paris last November suggest that the EU’s weak external borders and absent internal borders have been working out nicely for the terrorist chief.  As a result the smart money is on al-Baghdadi coming out for ‘Remain’, though I’m sure nobody

Ed West Ed West

Facebook is helping the left to eat itself

I hate Facebook, mostly because it’s full of other people’s happiness. I appreciate this makes me a terrible person, but it’s a bit like being at the wedding of a contemporary whose life has panned out perfectly, leaving you to reflect on your own inadequacies and failures. I know half the happy people on Facebook are probably dying inside, but that’s no consolation. I’ve long suspected that the site is terrible for people’s mental health, but it’s probably also terrible for the political process, too, helping to drive polarisation, especially in the United States. It’s something that people really don’t appreciate the danger of. Normal decent people who would be horrified

Saturday

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

The Spectator podcast: Hillary’s America | 21 May 2016

To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. What should we expect from a Hillary Clinton presidency? The Democrat frontrunner is now the firm favourite to win the White House, assuming that she can defeat her Republican rival Donald Trump. But what would her victory mean for America? In his Spectator cover piece this week, Christopher Buckley says one of Hillary’s prevailing characteristics is her ability to bore. He also argues that Clinton’s politic shapeshifting over the years may have enabled her to stand the test of time, but it’s also

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: my life as a skunk

The latest competition was inspired by the endeavours of Charles Foster, who, in his fascinating, funny book Being a Beast, recounts his attempts ‘to learn what it is like to shuffle or swoop through a landscape that is mainly olfactory and auditory rather than visual’. As a badger he took up residence in a hole and ate earthworms (they taste of ‘slime and the land’). And as an urban fox he ‘lay in a backyard in Bow, foodless and drinkless, urinating and defecating where I was, waiting for the night and treating as hostile the humans living in terraced houses all round — which wasn’t hard’. It’s a mighty tall

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Paul Mason puts number of immigrants in Toxteth down to the slave trade

Yesterday Pat Glass came under fire after she described a voter — who expressed concerns about a ‘scrounging’ Polish family — as a ‘horrible racist’. With the Labour MP since criticised for refusing to listen to voter concerns about immigration, the topic was at least up for discussion on last night’s Question Time. As David Dimbleby chaired a panel — which included Amber Rudd, Ukip’s Paul Nuttall and Paul Mason — in Walsall, an audience member raised concerns that immigration in the UK disproportionately effects places like Walsall and Toxteth rather than Islington and Morningside. At which point Mason — a former member of the Trotskyist Workers’ Power group — interjected, telling the man that the

William Kay

Paying for financial advice: whose job is it?

Buried in the Queen’s Speech this week was an unassuming little sentence that could transform our collective ability to deal with the ruthless financial services industry – but don’t hold your breath. The Government signalled that it is bracing itself to take on the challenge that has defied all of its predecessors – to produce a widely accessible, State-backed source of financial advice. The Queen said: ‘A new money guidance body would replace the Money Advice Service and be charged with identifying gaps in the financial guidance market to make sure consumers can access high-quality debt and money guidance.’ Details so far are sketchy, suggesting that the new scheme has

Helen Nugent

Money digest: today’s need-to-know financial news | 20 May 2016

As the digital revolution continues apace, it has emerged that Britons over the age of 60 are the fastest growing group of people taking to contactless card payments. According to Barclaycard, contactless spending within the older age group has more than doubled in the last year. Its growth has been most noticeable in Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff and Edinburgh. Separate figures showed that total spending on contactless cards hit £1.5 billion for the first time in March. The Barclaycard data suggests the number of silver surfers using ‘touch and go’ payments increased by 116 per cent over the last 12 months. The Times reports that British shoppers have provided a glimmer of

Thursday

Peter Jones

How Rome did immigration

Last week it was suggested that the questions asked of London mayor Sadiq Khan had nothing to do with racism, but more with multiculturalism. As St Ambrose could have said, ‘If you live in Rome, live in the Roman way; if elsewhere, as they do there.’ Until the large-scale irruption of Germanic tribes fleeing the Huns in the 4th century AD, eventually ending the Roman empire in the West, Romans had been fairly relaxed about immigrants, temporary or permanent. Many came under compulsion: hostages, prisoners of war and slaves, this last group keeping wages low across a range of service industries. Rome itself actively welcomed foreign doctors and teachers, while lawyers, diplomats,

Joan Collins

Diary – 19 May 2016

Not only are today’s young girls having to work hard on their abs, butts and glutes, now the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Kim Kardashian are instructing the poor lambs in the art of keeping their ‘lady garden’ in mint condition. Subject to the approval of their best mates, apparently, the formerly taboo subject of ‘down south’ is now open for discussion. Some celebs now cultivate, manicure and moisturise the ‘no-fly zone’ with as much effort as they put into their faces. Whatever next? Will Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt suddenly inform all studs how to take care of their gentleman’s gentleman? I’ve been on Twitter for four years now

Raymond Keene

Cyrus the Great

I think I hold the world record for the greatest number of chess books written (or co-written) and published. At the last count I managed to identify 199, with several of them translated into a total of 13 different languages. Last week, a new book by the prolific Cyrus Lakdawala dropped through my letterbox. Lakdawala seems to be producing a book every month and I fear he is threatening to overtake me. His latest tome is an exposition of various methods of combating the Sicilian Defence. These include an early c3, in order to build up a formidable pawn centre for White, a quick Bb5 and the feared Morra Gambit where

Raymond Keene

No. 409

White to play. This position is from Dubov-Yandemirov, Russian Team Championship, Sochi 2016. How can White exploit the unfortunate placing of the black pieces? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 24 May 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 Rd8+ Last week’s winner Peter Fellows, Oxford

The Spectator

Barometer | 19 May 2016

Name check 306 business people signed a letter to the Daily Telegraph saying that Britain would be better off outside the EU. Some notable collections of signatures: — 364 economists signed a Times letter about the dangers of monetarism in 1981. — 5,154 physicists signed a paper in Physical Review Letters last year reporting a more accurate recording of the mass of the Higgs boson particle. — 75,000 people signed a petition protesting against the government’s leaflet on why we should vote to stay in the EU. — 540,000 signed a petition demanding a stay of execution for Beau, a Missouri dog accused of killing a duck. — 1m Spaniards

Taki

High life | 19 May 2016

   New York I have never seen anything like it. If Adolf Hitler were running for president, he would match Donald Trump’s negative coverage. If Benito were in the race, his notices would be far more favourable. When The Donald emerged as the last man standing, certain New York Times columnists became unhinged. One hysterical woman pundit accused Trump of …not having any money. The one I liked best came from a colleague of hers, who is usually unreadable because of his wordy and flat prose. That particular fool had declared that the word Trump would never appear in his column. Once Donny baby had wiped the floor with his

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 19 May 2016

A fresh start in a new gym in a foreign country. The serious young gym attendant didn’t speak a word of English, so we did the best we could using my limited French. He weighed me then asked me to hold a device that measured my body mass index via my palms — how it does that I can’t even begin to guess — and he carefully wrote down the result on the induction form. Had I ever exercised before? I had, I said, but about three years ago, after a cancer diagnosis, I had lost heart and stupidly given it up. What kind of exercise did I used to

Dot Wordsworth

Exclamation marks

‘Like eating in the street,’ said my husband. Astonishing! He’d said something not only coherent in itself but also connected to a remark I’d been addressing to him. I had just said that at school I had been taught that the use of the exclamation mark was vulgar or rude. Observant readers will have noted that I have already used one exclamation mark in this column. My defence is that I exclaimed. I agree that exclamation alone does not constitute conversation. On Twitter, a new and annoying cliché, often appended to a photograph, is the bare exclamation: ‘Wow! Just wow!’ It usually belongs to the genre ‘clickbait’, disappointing the reader

Melissa Kite

Real life | 19 May 2016

Some people call their house Dun Roamin’ to sum up their state of mind. After ten weeks ministering to my horse’s tendon strain, I’m thinking of putting up a sign outside my house saying Dun Bandagin’. Wrapping Darcy’s front legs painstakingly morning and night for several months has been an interesting experience. In a way I shall miss it because it has taken me out of my own worries, apart from the main one, which is sinking into horse-induced poverty after attempting to train Darcy for the racetrack. I’ve said it before, or if I haven’t I ought to have: a thoroughbred is like a Porsche 911 — when it’s

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 19 May 2016

Sometimes Janet teases me that this should be called the David Gold Column, as I mention his name so frequently. It’s true — David is a good friend as well as my bridge mentor, so he often points out interesting hands for me to write about. But it’s also true that over the past few years, David — who is still only 36 — has become one of the leading lights in world bridge, and an absolutely pivotal member of the England team. He also can’t stop winning things. The latest notch on his belt — as part of Alexander Allfrey’s team — is the Spring Fours in Stratford which,