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Society

Saturday

Candice Holdsworth

Rhodes Must Fall activists have become the very thing they hate

A cruel stunt by a group of Rhodes Must Fall activists has exposed just how detached from reality the regressive left’s ‘privilege’ narratives are. Ntokozo Qwabe, one of the most prominent figures of Oxford’s ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ movement, has been publicly gloating on social media about humiliating a white waitress in Cape Town. Showing a stunning lack of self-awareness, Qwabe, in his recollection of the incident, does not recognise that as a student of law at one of the world’s most prestigious universities, he is probably more privileged than a waitress working a minimum-wage job. Even if she is white and he is black. Qwabe recounted on his Facebook page how he

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

Louis Theroux has brought honest humanism to our screens

Louis Theroux’s latest documentary on alcoholism confirms the fact that he has become an interesting broadcaster. He has grown up. This was already clear from his last couple of films from America, on a secure mental hospital, and on transgender children. This might sound excessive, but he has become capable of expressing a more nuanced humanity than the average television journalist. In his callow youth he was fun to watch, but overdid the sneering ironic act. He kept a straight face in order to allow idiots to expose themselves. Such an approach is tainted by a sort of self-righteousness: let’s look down on these ridiculous human specimens. Then he began

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: how to get rid of an unwanted guest

The invitation to suggest remarks guaranteed to get rid of a guest who is outstaying his or her welcome drew in the punters. Leading the pack as surefire ways to get lingering visitors reaching for their coats were birth videos, Estonian whisky, Stockhausen, didgeridoo recitals and Rolf Harris’s greatest hits. Also popular were suggestions along the lines of Basil Ransome-Davies’s ‘While you’re here, how about a spot of anal sex?’ and Tracy Davidson ‘Fancy a threesome?’, both of which struck me as somewhat risky. If all else fails, there’s always Graham Pirnie’s admirably uncompromising ‘Fuck off you boring old cow/git.’ Those printed below are rewarded with £5 apiece. Nicholas Hodgson

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

The Spectator podcast: When the right goes wrong | 30 April 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. Is crazy all the rage in today’s politics and are conservatives going a little bit mad? That’s the topic for this week’s Spectator cover piece in which Freddy Gray argues that in America and in Britain, the right is tearing itself apart. Whilst Brits might be busy pointing and laughing at Donald Trump, all over the world conservatism is having a nervous breakdown, says Freddy. And the EU referendum is starting to prove that British Conservatives can be as barmy as everyone else.

Friday

James Bartholomew

The Spanish argument for abolishing government

On 26 October last year, the Spanish government shut up shop in preparation for a general election. This duly took place in December but then a strange thing happened: after all the build-up, the arguments, the posters and the television coverage, the result was… nothing. The various parties were so balanced, so mutually distrustful and ill-assorted that no government could be formed. Since last October, therefore, there has been no government in Spain. One can imagine that the average political correspondent would think this a terrible problem, maybe even a crisis. The Financial Times has referred to Spain ‘enduring’ months of ‘political uncertainty’. This is assumed to be a matter

Sophie Robson

Intergenerational unfairness is creating a lost generation of young people

Monday’s Work and Pensions Committee session on intergenerational fairness further ignited the debate about the hardships facing today’s younger generation. Views from witnesses, including Paul Johnson of the IFS, Shiv Malik of the Guardian and Philip Booth of the IEA, did little to dispel the perception that as far as the intergenerational fairness debate goes, the older generation are winning hands down. Today’s pampered pensioners currently enjoy a raft of benefits including non-means tested fuel allowance and a triple-lock protection on their state pension. This ensures their state pension rises every year by the highest of price inflation, earnings growth or 2.5% and has been described by experts as both

Violet Hudson

Money digest: today’s need-to-know financial news | 29 April 2016

April is traditionally a squally month; it seems that there’s a shadow over our confidence as well. The Guardian reports a survey from market researchers GfK which shows that Britons have lost faith when it comes to personal finance, the UK economy and shelling out on big investments. The index was showing 0 in March, but for April has dropped to -3, down seven points from last year. There can be no sweeter feeling that putting your hand in the pocket of a long-neglected coat and feeling your fingers brush against a crisp banknote. But we’re stashing our cash in more and more bizarre places, according to the Daily Mail

Thursday

Raymond Keene

Evolution

World champion Magnus Carlsen takes much inspiration from the games of the former champion Emanuel Lasker. Lasker and Carlsen share the ability to manoeuvre at length in approximately level positions, without letting the situation dry up and become devoid of winning prospects. Such a style does not always lead to attractive games, and some of Carlsen’s victories have become so obscure that Viktor Korchnoi even accused the champion of hypnotism. Nevertheless, as Carlsen has become more confident, his style has evolved. As can be seen from the following game from the powerful Norway tournament which finishes this week, he is beginning to take risks and play in the sharp style

Raymond Keene

No. 406

White to play. This is a position from Bjornsson-Sigurdsson, Iceland Team Championship 2016. How did White make the most of his passed pawn on f7? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 3 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 Nd5 Last week’s winner Patrick Staunton, London NW1

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 28 April 2016

Home Junior doctors went on strike for two days, refusing to provide even emergency treatment. The 96 Liverpool fans who died in the Hillsborough football stadium disaster in 1989 were unlawfully killed, an inquest jury found. Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, contemplated British forces being sent to Libya, but said ‘if there were ever any question of a British combat role in any form — ground, sea or air — that would go to the House of Commons’. Big Ben is to be silenced for months while its clock and tower are restored. ‘The UK is going to be in the back of the queue’ to make a trade agreement

Taki

High life | 28 April 2016

I read this in an American newspaper (it was written by a woman who used to edit my copy for a New York glossy, but I will withhold her name to save her embarrassment and social atrophy): ‘He’s hosted Kim Kardashian and Kanye West for Thanksgiving, regularly cruises with Justin Bieber on his party yacht…’ The mind boggles. Is it possible to read such crap without throwing up? How would you, dear reader, like to spend Thanksgiving with Kim and Kanye, or go cruising with Justin? (I’d rather fail a syphilis test than have a Kardashian as a guest.) I suppose that the selfish generation, whose motto is he who

Michael Dobbs

Diary – 28 April 2016

I’m a lucky man. My novel House of Cards transformed my life, yet I wrote it almost by accident nearly 30 years ago. It wasn’t intended to be anything other than a hobby but thanks to the limitless skills of Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, backed by the reach of Netflix, it now spans the globe. We’re into our fourth season, preparing the fifth, but it never ceases to surprise. A little while ago during his official visit to Britain I was invited to meet President Xi of China. In order to mark the occasion I decided to give him an original and now rather rare hardback copy of the

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 28 April 2016

I drank Bombay gin and Fever-Tree tonic on the half-empty easyJet flight to Gatwick. I was even offered ice cubes. I was dressed like a peon, so as soon as I arrived in London I went into the nearest Gap superstore and bought jeans, a shirt and a jumper in the sale and threw away the clobber I was wearing. The only items in the sale were either small or extra small so I looked a bit like a frogman, but felt much happier. I had another large one in a pub with overflowing flower baskets, then checked into the hotel, where a decision had been made, said the receptionist,

Melissa Kite

Real life | 28 April 2016

The gloves are off in my battle with the two brothers who live in the flat upstairs. They have just socked me a brutal left hook. And so no more am I going to be the neurotic, menopausal fruitcake downstairs. From now on I am going to unleash my difficult side. It’s a shame, because when they first moved in I thought they were going to be the neighbours I had always dreamed of: handsome and polite, with a look of dread in their eyes whenever I banged on their door. When I explained that the wheelie bin must be put out at right angles to the kerb at 8

Robin Oakley

Sandown thrills

The difference between praying in church and praying at the racecourse, a gnarled old punter once said, is that at the track you really mean it. At Sandown last Saturday, the last day of the jumping season, all our prayers were answered: you simply could not have asked for a better day. One reason we were all there was to celebrate Richard Johnson’s first jockeys’ championship after 16 times finishing a good-tempered and sporting second to his friend A.P. McCoy. In between the autograph-signing, Dickie Johnson provided the perfect seasonal sign-off by winning the bet365 Oaksey Chase on Menorah for trainer Philip Hobbs in the familiar blue colours of Diana

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 28 April 2016

The day before the London Marathon, Young Chelsea BC held its spring half-marathon. Eighty-seven boards were played over 12 hours (it used to be a full 24 hours), the scoring was IMPs and 30 pairs took part. It was won by Colin Simpson and David Kendrick, two extremely good players with donkey’s years experience behind them and not in need of a lot of sleep. But it isn’t only about playing well, you have to know how to take advantage of tired and despondent opponents. Interestingly, it also attracted some relative newcomers who are clearly hooked on bridge. One of them was Natalie Shashou, who played with my teammate (and

Dot Wordsworth

Queue

The language that President Barack Obama used was evidence of skulduggery, Nigel Farage declared. ‘The UK is gonna be in the back of the queue’ if it leaves the European Union, Mr Obama said, standing next to David Cameron in front of a gilt and stencilled Victorian wall in the Foreign Office. There! Americans say stand in line, Mr Farage suggested, so Mr Obama must be delivering words fed to him by the snake Cameron. Some reports had Mr Obama saying at the back of the queue, unconsciously adjusting his words to the British English idiom, rather than in the back of it, as though it were an estate car

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Lost in Piccadilly

Batman owned the Criterion in The Dark Knight, but could he do anything about British Telecom? Savini at Criterion, an Italian restaurant, waited four months for an internet connection and telephone line as they prepared to launch this year; when it arrived they gave BT what must be the worst review in the history of telecommunications: ‘This wouldn’t happen in Italy.’ It ruined the launch, they said. They couldn’t invite actors, except by pigeon post. And because actors are, in restaurant marketing terms, signposts — and they do look like signposts, specifically Monagasque signposts — no one knew Savini was there. It has no constituency. It is George Galloway, who

Mary Killen

Your problems solved | 28 April 2016

Q. How does one go about getting invited to a wedding? Two friends of mine from university, who I have not managed to stay in touch with since we left three years ago, are getting married this summer, and I would very much like to go to their wedding but, understandably, have not been invited. The thing is, I knew them both separately, and was there when they first met each other, so it would feel appropriate to be at the wedding as well! And it would be lovely to see them. Any ideas? — Y.O., by email A. A two-pronged attack should be used. Send an email, ideally enclosing

Toby Young Toby Young

What if Murdoch owned the Beeb?

A new book published today by the Institute of Economic Affairs called In Focus: The Case for Privatising the BBC includes a chapter by the economist Ryan Bourne on the BBC’s left-of-centre bias. As you’d expect, Bourne’s contribution includes plenty of fascinating data, such as the fact that ‘Thought for the Day’ contributors are eight times more likely to offer a negative view of market-based and capitalist activity than a positive view. However, Bourne doesn’t accuse the Beeb of straightforward left-wing bias. Its partiality is more subtle and complicated than that. He cites an example of the BBC’s coverage of immigration provided by Roger Mosey, a former editorial director. In