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Society

Wednesday

Stephen Robinson

Zac Goldsmith’s London campaign has been a toe-curling embarrassment

Zac Goldsmith spent almost every day out on the stump during his London mayoral campaign dressed in the formal dark suit he inherited from his father, and had recut on his death in 1997. At least that is what a member of his team told me as I was out observing proceedings one day. I think that detail was offered as a bit of journalistic ‘colour’ to show Zac’s sense of filial duty, but that was the only sense in which his painfully understated campaigning could be said to have owed anything to Sir James Goldsmith’s bombastic, manic style when he ran the Referendum party. Some political campaigns are failures;

The Spectator

It’s Trump vs Hillary: a race that should terrify all conservatives

This morning, Ted Cruz bowed out of the race. Now, John Kasich has given up. As a result Donald J. Trump, the most grotesque candidate ever to have run for the Oval Office, is now the only candidate still running for the Republican Party’s  nomination. And so the most powerful country on earth, a nation teeming with talent, will this November be asked to choose between Hillary Clinton or the egregious Trump. It cannot be assumed that Trump will be defeated in the presidential election itself. This week, for the first time, a poll put him ahead of her. The bookmakers give him a 30 per cent chance: this time last year, he had

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ministers have lost the political argument on child refugees

Why is the government preparing for a U-turn on accepting more unaccompanied child refugees? George Osborne was speaking this morning on television about the ‘discussions’ that the government is having on this matter, which underlined that ministers are indeed going to announce concessions before MPs force them into accepting the Lord Dubs amendment to the Immigration Bill. He said: ‘Britain has always been a home to the vulnerable and we’ve always done what we need to do to help people who are fleeing persecution. That’s why we are taking people from the refugee camps as a result of this terrible Syrian civil war and we’re working with others, with charities,

Simon Read

A wake-up call for women: act now or you will suffer in retirement

Are women sleepwalking into a retirement nightmare? That’s the suggestion behind new research published by investment group Fidelity. It revealed that while women’s average retirement income is likely to be around £5,000 less than men, almost twice as many women have no idea about their pension pot or its payout. It’s not the first time similar worrying research has been published. Last year Scottish Widows reported that women save 38 per cent less than men and that the gap that has been getting wider in recent years. More worryingly, 21 per cent of women have no pension savings at all, compared with just 9 per cent of men, reckoned Prudential.

Helen Nugent

Money digest: today’s need-to-know financial news | 4 May 2016

Yesterday we reported that the ‘bank of mum and dad’ is now the equivalent of a top ten mortgage lender in the UK. Today comes the news that one of Britain’s biggest lenders has launched a new ‘bank of mum and dad‘ deal for people with wealthy parents. The new mortgages from Barclays have reduced the deposit homebuyers need from 5 per cent to 0 per cent of the purchase price, as long as their parents agree to save at least 10 per cent in a special savings account. This marks a return to what some commentators view as the dark days of the 100 per cent mortgage, common before the last housing

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Farewell then, Ted Cruz

Farewell then Ted Cruz, who has now accepted the inevitable and suspended his candidacy for the Republican Party Nomination. Cruz ran a brilliant campaign but was endlessly undermined by his own unattractiveness as a human being. It wasn’t just his looks, and his unfortunate physical awkwardness. He came across as a duplicitous evangelical preacher, despised by everyone but his own flock. Donald Trump, who has genius for spotting weakness in others, nailed his opponent’s greatest flaw when he called him ‘Lyin’ Ted.’ ‘Nobody likes him,’ he said, and he was right. Trump is a dishonest monster, too, of course, but in 2016 he is the right kind of dishonest monster. As for

Tuesday

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

Britain’s Christian culture has risen above the recent religious brawl

Our political culture contains some tension between Jews and Muslims. And some secular anti-Semitism, particularly on the left, and some Islamophobia. But, at the risk of getting Pollyannaish, let us see the positive. This country’s main religious culture, Christianity, is not involved in any of this nastiness. It does not contain any substantial prejudice against Muslims or Jews. It is not significantly invoked by our (rather mild) nativist movement, Ukip. Yes, Farage sometimes says that he stands for Christian values, but this is just a harmless and desperate bit of rhetoric. The louder message is that the Queen asked that lovely Muslim baker to her party. Let us be quietly proud that our

Steerpike Steerpike

Listen: schools minister fails Sats test for 11-year-olds on World at One

Today thousands of children are taking part in a ‘kids strike’ so as to avoid taking their Sats. The strike action comes following concerns from parents that Sats are putting too much pressure on young children and making them overly-stressed and anxious. With Nick Gibb claiming it is wrong for parents to let their young children strike, the Schools Minister appeared on the World at One to defend the Government’s policy on primary school testing. However, the Conservative MP got more than he bargained for when Martha Kearney turned the tables on Gibb by asking him a Sats question: MK: Some parents have been tearing their hair out about all of

The Spectator

The other leagues that Leicester tops

A sneak preview from the ‘Barometer’ column of facts and figures in the next Spectator, out on Thursday… Other remarkable things about Leicester:  28% of the population is made up of ‘Asians’ or ‘British Asians’, higher than any other district in England and Wales.  Leicester has the highest percentage of residents born in India and also the highest percentage born in Zimbabwe. 51% of children have tooth decay, the highest in England and Wales.  41% of children reached the expected level of attainment in the Early Years Foundation Stage, the lowest in England.  Leicester has 289 tennis courts, the most in any city except London, Sheffield and Ipswich.

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Very funny Barack, but can our politicians start taking themselves a bit more seriously?

Tell me something. When you watch the above video of Justin Trudeau, does it warm your heart? Do you think it funny and therefore good? Do you say to yourself, ‘Aww, isn’t it great that our politicians don’t take themselves too seriously? It’s all in a good cause, too, bless!’ Or do you cringe and think, ‘You vain prat Justin! You are a politician not a light entertainer. Stop degrading us with this cutesy comic crap! Don’t you have anything better to do? Stop using charity as an excuse to celebrate your narcissism and get back to work!’ If, like me, your reaction is the latter, then consolations, comrade. We

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Zero tolerance for anti-Zionists? The right is now as PC as the left

So now we know: the right and the respectable left are just as good at PC purges as potty, radical students are. In fact they’re better. The effective exiling of Ken Livingstone from polite society; yesterday’s almost hourly toppling of Labour councillors who once tweeted or Facebooked something ugly about Israel; the scouring of social media in search of Zionist-haters we might expose and shame and crush… all this zealous speech-policing, this crusading against people who said the unsayable, has made the intolerant, No Platforming student left look like amateurs in comparison. The right is out-PCing the left. I know what the warriors against anti-Semitic idiocy in sections of the

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

Leicester City’s title win is the worst thing to have happened to football

[audioplayer src=”http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/262486539-the-spectator-podcast-erdogans-europe.mp3″ title=”Roger Alton and Nick Hilton discuss Leicester’s title win” startat=1063] Listen [/audioplayer] Jean-Philippe Toussaint, in his recent book Football, observes that the sport is ‘measured and appreciated’ in the imagination. Toussaint, an intellectually fanatical supporter of the Belgian national team, is used to failure. Indeed, he is an acolyte of the view that football support is built on failure. After all, aren’t the grown men and women on the terraces of English stadia simply not good enough for a place on the pitch? Am I not, in writing passionately about football, merely replacing the frustration of not being the world-class midfielder that I was born to be? Leicester City are living

Ruth Sunderland

Marathon mortgages you’ll be paying off for life

When the baby-boomer generation bought their first homes they were typically in their twenties, took out a 25-year loan, and fully expected to be mortgage-free long before they hit the big Six-Oh. Bring on the cruises and the two-seater sports cars. With an empty nest, no debts to speak of and a final salary pension, life for some really could look like those ads where elegantly greying couples wandered hand-in-hand on the beach. Ha! That was then. Today’s first-time buyers are far more likely still to be paying off a mortgage well into their sixties and possibly beyond. Borrowers are signing up in ever greater numbers to ultra-long term loans of 30

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Is Indiana the end of the road for Ted Cruz?

Today’s Indiana primary is Ted Cruz’s last chance of disrupting Donald Trump in his bid to wrap up the Republican nomination. Cruz knows that if Trump wins, barring what will be seen as a Republican coup, his rival will be facing off against Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House. Whilst the results from Indiana aren’t in yet, the early signs do not look good for Ted. The polls show that Trump is the favourite to win the contest in Indiana. Real Clear Politics, which provides an average of various polls, puts the Donald on 42 points, with Cruz trailing on 32.7. Cruz has spent his time in

Helen Nugent

Money digest: today’s need-to-know financial news | 3 May 2016

If you’re a parent then today’s housing news may come as little surprise: the ‘bank of mum and dad’ is now the equivalent of a top ten mortgage lender in the UK. Research by Legal & General and the Centre for Economics and Business Research has found that parents helping their children on to the property ladder have become such a crucial part of the housing market that they will be involved in a quarter of all property transactions this year. Rising house prices, years without real-terms wage rises, a shortage of supply and tougher mortgage regulations since the financial crisis have made it difficult for first-time buyers to get on the ladder.

Monday

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

The BBC should commission a Christian version of Woman’s Hour

In his new book God is No Thing: Coherent Christianity, Rupert Shortt notes that religion is in some ways taken more seriously now than a decade or two ago. But huge habits of ignorance and condescension remain: ‘When secular humanists attack Christianity, they often fail to realise that it is the gospels which provide unseen elements in their own outlook.’ He rightly draws attention to the ‘tension between the enormous cultural footprint of Christianity on the one hand, and its concealment in a secular multicultural society such as Britain on the other.’ And he tentatively criticises the subtle marginalisation of Christianity from public discourse. This is a difficult thing to

Dominic Midgley

Republished: the business article that someone wants you not to read

Note from the editor. The Spectator has been informed that, due to an EU Court ruling, the below article will now longer show up under Google search results. Here’s the rather creepy email:- So someone, somewhere, doesn’t want this article to show up when you Google for a certain name, or company, or somesuch. We had received no complaint about the article, and have no idea why someone went to the lengths of applying for the original URL to be struck off. It is now The Spectator’s policy, on receiving such notifications, to republish automatically under a new URL (this one), so the article will never disappear from Google. We have left the original headline on,

Steerpike Steerpike

Why does Nicholas ‘fatty’ Soames want to muzzle the press over gastric band surgery?

A few weeks ago, the Sunday Times had an amusing story by the estimable Tim Shipman about Nicholas Soames MP having lost weight – thanks (it was rumoured) to a new gastric band. All very jolly, but it seems to have sent Soames into a fury. He’s no fan of press freedom (he was one of the MPs who was urging Cameron to adopt state regulation) and complained to IPSO, the new regulator, about an invasion of his privacy. Weirdly, it upheld his complaint (in a ruling that repeated the very information he wanted repressed). Worse, the offending article appears to have been purged from the Sunday Times website. This is a

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

The death of investment banking as we know it? Bring it on

Oh woe. Investment bank profits are evaporating after a disastrous contraction of trading revenues reflecting zero-to-negative interest rates, weak commodity prices and worries about China and other emerging markets. Not to mention the stagnant eurozone, the possibility of Brexit, increased capital requirements (which will rise further for banks that must ‘ringfence’ their trading operations) and the demoralising impact of regulatory moves to cap and force clawback of bonuses. Across the Atlantic, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citi and Bank of America have felt the chill, as have Credit Suisse, UBS and Deutsche in Europe. Barclays, the last British contender in this arena, was expecting a stormy AGM this week as shareholders

Simon Barnes

The world will rejoice with Leicester City

It’s one of the oldest stories of them all, deeply embedded in our nature and our culture. In some ways it’s the story that defines our humanity and we have told it a thousand times in a thousand different ways. It’s in the Bible with Joseph and his coat of many colours, it’s King Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, it’s the ugly duckling,Cinderella, Great Expectations, Moll Flanders and Jane Eyre. It’s Clark Kent becoming Superman, it’s Harry Potter leaving the cupboard under the stairs to become the greatest wizard of them all. It’s Rags to Riches. And it’s the tale of Leicester City. Sport retells all our most