Society

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 5 May 2016

Home Naz Shah MP was suspended from the Labour Party after the blogger Guido Fawkes revealed that in 2014, nine months before she beat George Galloway to win the seat of Bradford West, she had posted on Facebook a proposal to ‘relocate Israel into the United States’, adding the comment: ‘Problem solved and save you bank charges for the £3bn you transfer yearly.’ Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, said: ‘It’s not a crisis. There’s no crisis.’ Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, said on the wireless: ‘When Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism —

Doc

2259: Eco

The unclued lights (one of two words) can be preceded by the same word which is hidden in the completed grid. Solvers must highlight this word appropriately. All resulting phrases are verifiable in Brewer. Elsewhere, ignore one accent. Across   1    Ought to be quiet when dreadfully loud (6) 7    Elysian areas of knowledge? (6) 12    Board for one in mental hospital? (9) 15    Governor’s gun brought back by a hill (9) 16    War god with worker bully (6) 20    Porridge making good man throw up (7) 21    Could be guaranteed this is treeless country? (6) 24    This could provide Mum with pie or stew (8) 27    Measure reflected in

Doc

To 2256: 11 x 11

The unclued lights reveal ELEVEN (five English and six Scottish) league football teams (3/38, 4/1D, 10, 14, 18, 18/28, 19, 26, 27/1D, 28, 36 {City}). 1 Down has to become ROVERS. First prize Margaret Shiels, Edinburgh Runners-up Sandra Speak, Dursley, Gloucestershire; Roderick Rhodes, Goldsborough, N. Yorkshire

Douglas Murray

President Erdogan won’t let anyone stand in his way – including Turkey’s Prime Minister

Is Turkey part of Europe? For most of our civilisation’s history, to have even asked such a question would have been to invite derision. The Ottomans were kept out of Europe not by some early-onset prejudice, but by the armies of Europe having to beat back their repeated invasions. The question became slightly more plausible a century ago with the rise of Ataturk and the modern Turkish state (one of the only successful efforts to reconcile the Islamic religion with state power). For a brief period around the turn of the millennium, some serious people (including the British government) supported Turkey joining the EU. But today, the question has become

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Sir Philip Green should not be stripped of his knighthood

Possibly Sir Philip Green has behaved disgracefully in the matter of BHS. It does not follow that he should be stripped of his knighthood. Think of the consequences. At present, the promise of a knighthood can keep people who might otherwise be independent in line. But once a knighthood has been granted, it can hardly ever be revoked. This means the power of patronage dies. The recipient is no longer in the control of the patron. If knighthoods can be removed, then the power of patronage never goes away and people can be controlled by the government for the rest of their lives out of fear they might lose their

Steerpike Steerpike

Asian Awards founder hits out at Zac Goldsmith over car-crash Bollywood interview: ‘it felt like a slap in the face’

Oh dear. This week an awkward interview of Zac Goldsmith attending the Asian Awards has been doing the rounds on social media. In this, the Tory mayoral hopeful tells an interviewer at the event that he is a big Bollywood fan. Alas when pressed, he isn’t able to name a single Bollywood film or actor. While Goldsmith has since been ridiculed for his insincere answer, Paul Sagoo — the founder of the Asian Awards — has just published a blog post on why the incident demonstrates that Goldsmith ought not to be mayor. In this, Sagoo says that he had told both Khan and Goldsmith’s campaign teams that their candidate could attend on two conditions: ‘I said

Laura Whitcombe

Taken for a ride by car finance

It’s official. I’m a grown up. I have a baby on the way and my husband and I have just ordered a new family car. We checked it had the Isofix car seat fitting system, selected the window blind option for the rear seats and made sure that our travel system (which seems to be the new name for a pram) fitted comfortably in the boot. The make and model we’ve gone for is a bit of a step-up from the 11-year old Ford Focus we’ve been tearing about in for the past six years, so rather than wipe out our entire cash reserves we decided to go for a

Helen Nugent

Money digest: today’s need-to-know financial news | 5 May 2016

If you’re frustrated about the slowness of your internet connection, take heart from this morning’s news that BT is to spend £6 billion over the next three years to roll out faster broadband and mobile phone services. BT has reported a 15 per cent rise in annual profits to £3.03 billion, helped by stronger demand for broadband and TV services despite criticism by consumer groups for high prices, slow broadband speeds and poor customer service. Total sales rose 6 per cent to almost £19 billion. Meanwhile, another £450 million is being set aside to compensate Clydesdale Bank customers for mis-sold payment protection insurance. It will take the total cost of mis-selling various financial

Bruce Anderson

White mischief | 5 May 2016

I promised a return to Burgundy and the 2014 vintage, which becomes no less impressive when recollected in tranquillity. We started at Marc Morey, where Sabine Mollard presented her Bourgogne Blanc. How did it compare with Pierre Bourée’s similar wine, often praised in this column? (We had sampled his ’15 the previous evening.) There is a simple answer: I would prefer the one I had tasted most recently. We are dealing with village wines, along the foothills of greatness. But in their delightful harmonies of butter, lemon, hay and spring flowers, there are hints of the grandeurs of Montrachet. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Not quite, but

Henry Jeffreys

Beware the Lycra louts

Spring is here and the air is alive with the sound of sweaty manmade materials rubbing together, as middle-aged cyclists fill every road, dressed head to toe in Lycra. They whizz along, jumping red lights, weaving in and out of the path of trucks, screaming at pedestrians and taxi drivers; barely evading death three times a morning. Lycra isn’t just a fabric; it’s a state of mind. At work, these often portly, always angry, red-faced individuals might be mild-mannered middle managers who work in marketing. But in their cycling kit they are superheroes who happen to swear a lot. The double Olympic champion Laura Trott was once asked to help

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Tea and honesty

We recently moved -offices from Canary Wharf to Blackfriars bridge. When you move after a long time in one place, you notice the surprising ways in which your behaviour is subliminally affected by your surroundings. On my second day in the new office, someone came from Victoria to meet me. After about 25 minutes of useful conversation, I thanked them and they left. Something about the encounter seemed strange; I suddenly realised that, back in the old office, I’d never had such brief meetings. Instinctively it felt discourteous to give anyone who had made the longer trip to Canary Wharf any less than 45 minutes of your time. This sense

James Delingpole James Delingpole

The slow death of environmentalism

Would you describe yourself as an ‘environmentalist’? I would, mainly to annoy greenies, but also because it’s true. If your definition of an environmentalist is someone who loves immersing himself in the natural world, makes a study of its ways and cares deeply about its future, I’m at least as much of one as David Attenborough. But I can see why many fellow nature lovers might balk at the term, especially now that it has become so grievously politicised. That would explain the recent Gallup poll — it was taken in the US but I suspect it applies to Britain too — showing how dramatically this label has plunged in popularity. In

Misti Traya

The axeman next door

When I moved to London, my husband Henry gave me a copy of Kate Fox’s Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour. He was hoping the gift would avoid an awkward conversation about our cultural differences. As an American, I cannot think of anything more English than that. Fox’s chapter about introductions bothered me. The brash American approach: ‘Hi, I’m Bill from Iowa,’ particularly if accompanied by an outstretched hand and a beaming smile, makes the English wince and cringe. I had never known friendliness to be cringeworthy. I felt sorry for Bill from Iowa. I pictured him arriving in my neighbourhood and being scorned for enthusiastically introducing

Allan Massie

Clumber spaniels

For the first time in more than 30 years we have no Clumber spaniel. We have had five: Henry, Judith, Laurie, Persephone and Wattie. The last of them, Wattie the gentlest and sweetest of dogs, died a few months ago. We feel bereft. Clumbers are special: beautiful, affectionate, wilful, sometimes difficult, never dull. They take their name from Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire, once the seat of the Dukes of Newcastle. Different in appearance from other English spaniels — heavier, low-slung, with large sagacious heads — their origin is uncertain. According to one story, they came from France, being a gift from a French friend, the Duc de Noailles, to his

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Let’s make assisted dying legal for Brightonians

I am having terrible trouble with my hair at the moment. It is lank, flat and lifeless. There are split ends. Also, it doesn’t smell too good. What’s that appalling stench, my wife asked recently while sitting next to me on the sofa as we watched a rerun of the old racist editions of Midsomer Murders starring the excellent John Nettles. ‘Probably the dog, again,’ I replied — but I knew that was a lie. I knew it was my hair. It smelt like that rotten cheese Italians eat. I don’t know why, because I wash it frequently enough. Maybe, to adapt Orwell’s mordant observation, at the age of 56

Lucy Vickery

Post mortem

In Competition No. 2946 you were invited to supply a verse obituary of a well-known person who has died in the past year. There’s certainly no shortage of candidates. Whether more famous people than usual are dying or whether it just seems that way I don’t know, but hardly a day goes by without one of the stars of light entertainment who provided the cultural backdrop to my formative years — Ronnie Corbett, Victoria Wood, Paul Daniels, Anne Kirkbride, Terry Wogan, Cilla Black, Keith Harris — checking into the horizontal Hilton. Alanna Blake and Max Ross were clever and touching on Ronnie Corbett; Chris O’Carroll, Martin Parker, D.A. Prince and

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Scrapping RBS’s toxic brand should be a step towards a final break-up

Royal Bank of Scotland is at last about to dump the ‘RBS’ logotype promoted by its fallen chieftain Fred Goodwin, who thought ‘Scotland’ too parochial for a bank with global ambitions, though he was famously keen on royal connections. The wonder is that this decision has taken seven-and-a-half years since the bank was saved by £46 billion of taxpayers’ money.I suppose Goodwin’s successors, now led by Ross McEwan, have had too many other fires to fight, what with losses piling upon losses (first-quarter results twice as bad as last year’s), delays in the spin-off of the Williams & Glyn subsidiary, computer problems, and a looming scandal in the Swiss branch

Wednesday

Toby Young Toby Young

The moronic middle-class Sats warriors are entrenching class divisions

Tuesday’s protest against Key Stage 1 Sats was moronic on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to start. For one thing, it wasn’t a ‘kids’ strike’. Did a national committee of six- and seven-year-olds get together and decide on a day of action? Even in Brighton, the centre of the boycott, that seems a bit far-fetched. The grown-up organisers of the protest clearly believed that was a cute way of packaging it for media consumption, but the thought of such young children engaging in political activism is actually a bit sinister. It’s like something out of a dystopian satire — a cross between Brave New World and

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;