Society

Friday

James Moore

Is a fairer financial future for savers on the cards?

Regulation as red tape that ties up business and strangles the economy. It is a transatlantic political trope. Said Javid, the ambitious business secretary, is just the latest to attempt to garner political capital by promising to cut through it and save £10 billion as a result. However, on the same day came a report that demonstrated how very necessary some regulation is. The Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates the financial services industry, published a review yesterday of the treatment of people holding old fashioned life insurance policies – pensions, endowments, bonds and their like. Those that hold them are often locked in for the long term. If they want to take their

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Zoe Williams says ‘rugby is just a weird thing that posh people play’

Last night’s Question Time panel saw David Dimbleby joined by John McDonnell, Dominic Raab, Ukip’s Louise Bours, Jermaine Jenas and Zoe Williams. As the group ran through a range of topics from the refugee crisis to the rise of Donald Trump, the last question was about the proposed ban of rugby in schools. After 70 doctors and academics signed an open letter to ministers calling for the ‘high-impact collision sport’ to be banned, what did the panel think? Raab, the Minister for Human Rights, said that while safety issues do need to be taken into account, the positive effects of contact sports cannot be ignored: ‘These kind of sports have

Helen Nugent

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

With a blanket of snow covering parts of Northern England this morning, gas and electricity bills are uppermost in many people’s minds. A new report by Which? says that millions of people are paying ‘way over the odds’ for their energy. According to the consumer group, only a tiny fraction of the cuts in energy costs have been passed onto customers by the big six firms. Which? says that people who change their supplier could save about £400 on their annual bill. Meanwhile, the Competition and Markets Authority is expected to announce next week that it has scrapped plans to introduce a wide-ranging price cap on energy bills after fierce lobbying from

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 3 March 2016

What might have been Sir: Harry Mount points out that Boris Johnson is two years older than David Cameron (Diary, 27 February). Both, however, began their careers in the same year. On 15 June 1988 I interviewed David Cameron for a post in the Conservative Research Department; on 26 July it was Boris’s turn (‘Johnston’ in my diary). The former was signed up to cover trade and industry issues (memorably forgetting the trade figures when Mrs Thatcher asked him for them). Boris was invited to follow in the footsteps of father Stanley, who had been the department’s first environment expert in the Heath era. But journalism lured him away. Would

Raymond Keene

Varsity match | 3 March 2016

On Saturday 5 March the 134th Varsity Match between the teams from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge takes place at the Royal Automobile Club, Pall Mall. As has become traditional, the annual clash between our premier academic institutions is supported by Henry Mutkin, the doyen of the RAC chess circle. The scores so far are 58 wins to Cambridge, 53 to Oxford with 22 draws. Spectators are welcome, although standard dress rules for London clubs are in force. It is a source of constant bemusement to me that although Cambridge award half-blues for representation in the Varsity Match, Oxford still deny that honour to their chess representatives. Given Oxford’s great

Raymond Keene

No. 398

Black to play. This position is from Scibior-Chiu, Varsity Match 2013. Black now powered through into the white position. What was the key move? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 8 March 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 … h2 Last week’s winner Mary Davis, Salthouse Haven, Hull

Peter Jones

People power then and now

It does seem extraordinary that the increasingly puce-faced Mr Cameron offered us an ‘in-out’ referendum and is now telling us that ‘out’ would mean the end of the world as we know it. What on earth did he think he was doing? His reaction is to eviscerate MPs who support ‘out’, and intentionally deprive us who will actually make the decision of information enabling us to do so. People power is clearly not for him. One of the great virtues of 5th-century bc Athenian direct democracy was that those who made the policy decisions were citizens meeting weekly in Assembly. Parties did not exist. So there were no such things as

The Spectator

Barometer | 3 March 2016

You can’t do that there ’ere Some of the things which have been banned under Public Spaces Protection Orders, according to a report by the Manifesto Club: Kettering More than four people standing within vicinity of a motor vehicle. Guildford Shouting. Hillingdon Gathering in groups of more than two unless waiting for a bus. Blackpool Engaging in card tricks. Birmingham Wearing face coverings. Shepway Sleeping in a public place. Brent Offering casual work. Shop talk The British Retail Consortium has claimed that 900,000 jobs could be lost by 2025 thanks to the minimum wage and the shift to online sales. Who are the 2.9 million people who work in the retail

Taki

High life | 3 March 2016

The rich are under attack nowadays, never more so than in America, where The Donald continues to trump his critics, amaze and surprise his fans, and drive his haters to paroxysms of sexual fantasy, with Trump as the main actor. National Review, where I got my start 40 years or so ago, devoted a whole issue to rubbishing Donald Trump. There were contributions from great conservatives, such as Thomas Sowell, and great clowns, like John Podhoretz. It was an issue that inadvertently looked in opposite directions while hating The Donald. William Kristol’s bit was in there — the one where he calls Trump vulgar. That he may be, but coming

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 3 March 2016

Before we left for Sunday lunch at the Les Deux Garçons restaurant, Aix-en-Provence, I checked the reviews on Tripadvisor. I’m mildly addicted to Tripadvisor restaurant reviews — I enjoy their Pepys-like unselfconsciousness — and never before have I seen opinion so equally divided between praise and censure. According to the dissenters, Les Deux Garçons is ‘a worst nightmare’, ‘absolutely horrible’, ‘a fraud and a scam’, ‘a theatre of clowns’, ‘the perfect place to while away a few hours — if you are on death row’. The waiters are ‘imperious’, ‘churlish’ ‘stuck-up’, ‘aggressive’, ‘abusive’, ‘absolutely unbelievable’ and ‘the rudest outside Paris’. Michelle from London reported that they had ‘looked down on

Melissa Kite

Real life | 3 March 2016

Darcy trod on a screw. Five little words which, if Darcy was anything other than a thoroughbred horse, might signify nothing more dramatic than a rummage through the medicine cabinet and the application of a plaster. But of course Darcy is a thoroughbred horse. And I did end up mothering equine and not human children. Remind me, please, why I did that? Oh yes, something about me never quite working out how to do life like normal people do it, and finding myself, as middle age bore down on me, only able to commune with creatures possessing four legs. Four very delicate, finely balanced legs in Darcy’s case. An expensive

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Easy to swallow

Pharmacy 2 is the reanimated child of Damien Hirst; it lives inside the Newport Street Gallery in a forsaken patch of Lambeth by the railway arches. This makes it look, inevitably, like the set of The Bill, but with a painting of Damien Hirst on a nearby wall, which would surely confuse the Bill. Pharmacy 1 was, for five years until 2003, in Notting Hill. So we are already doing better. It is said that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain complained about Pharmacy 1, and worried it would confuse people looking for a real pharmacy, but I do not know if this was true. If it was, they were too stupid

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 3 March 2016

On Monday I went to the newsagent to buy the newspapers and picked up the first issue of a new one calling itself the New Day. This is the creation of the company that publishes the Daily Mirror, and it is, the publishers say, intended to appeal to people who have given up reading newspapers, people now so numerous that they are rapidly bringing the industry to its knees. The paper’s rather odd title is reminiscent of the carefree song ‘Many a New Day’ from Oklahoma!, and it is presumably intended to emphasise what the publishers call its ‘optimistic approach’. ‘We like to think we’re a modern, upbeat newspaper for

Robin Oakley

Nice guys do finish first

Richard Johnson, possibly the nicest man to occupy a saddle and certainly the most modest, once said of his Irish rival Ruby Walsh, ‘Ruby never seems to fight horses. It never looks forced with him, he never throws the kitchen sink. But I do — metal ones and porcelain if necessary.’ There weren’t too many of us there to see it but there was a trademark kitchen-sink job in Warwick’s third race last Friday, the Listers Audi Novices’ Handicap Steeplechase, worth just £2,972 to the winner. Johnson’s mount Cheat The Cheater shared the lead much of the way but before the last turn the nine-year-old was passed by three horses

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 3 March 2016

So many tournaments — so little space. Last week saw two of the very best London has to offer: Terry Hewett’s ninth and final Night of the Stars, a charity event that auctioned off 56 ‘Stars’ to club players for a night of fun, excitement and glamour — and all at the bridge table. The incomparable Terry has built NoS up from £4,000 in its first year to a whopping £65K — all the proceeds going to four worthy and grateful charities. My teammate Thor Erik Hoftaniska won convincingly, playing with his excellent sponsor John Cumming, whom the exacting TE, not known for gushing pleasantries, called ‘card perfect’. Crikey —

Dot Wordsworth

Leap in the dark

‘They all laughed at Christopher Columbus,’ sang my husband flatly, ‘when he said the world was round.’ I wasn’t going to tell him yet again that George and Ira Gershwin were wrong and everyone knew the world was round when Columbus set off. But there is a connection between Columbus’s name and the leap in the dark that he took in his voyage — and which David Cameron says ‘outers’ want to take today. I’ll stick to language, since this is not a political column. That very English word leap has no affinities in languages outside the Germanic family, unless, some scholars say, it is related in origin to the

Mary Killen

Your problems solved | 3 March 2016

Q. Re. your letter from F.C. about the boyfriend leaving lids off (20 February), I have a similar problem. My husband has developed the habit of leaving all doors, drawers and cupboards open. I don’t want to nag, because he gets ratty when I do. I don’t think I can scatter insects in all the drawers and cupboards. We are 75 and 79. Any suggestions other than an old people’s home? — G.F., Woking, Surrey A. Why not use an aversion-therapy expedient? Explain to your dear husband that you don’t want to be a nag, so you are just going to accept that he leaves things open. Unfortunately, it means you will

Toby Young Toby Young

What would my socialist dad think of me now?

On Tuesday night I went to a birthday party for my father at the House of Commons. Hosted by the Labour MP Rushanara Ali, it was an enjoyable affair, full of left-wing journalists and maverick social entrepreneurs. I chatted to the Independent’s Andy McSmith, Prospect founder David Goodhart and the newly ennobled Lord Bird of Notting Hill, who set up the Big Issue. My dad wasn’t there, unfortunately. He died in 2002 and this was an event organised by the Young Foundation, a sort of incubator for social enterprises that he set up in 1954 and which is still going strong. It was to celebrate the centenary of his birth and

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 3 March 2016

Home An official analysis by the Cabinet Office said that if Britain left the EU it would lead to a ‘decade of uncertainty’. Opponents of Britain remaining in the EU called the report a ‘dodgy dossier’. George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that the economy would suffer a ‘profound economic shock’ if Britain left, echoing a communiqué of the G20 which referred to ‘the shock of a potential UK exit’. Boris Johnson revised his suggestion that a vote to leave could bring about a better deal from Brussels; ‘Out is out,’ he told the Times. Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, declared that ministers opposing government policy on

Tucker Carlson

Diary – 3 March 2016

Just as the presidential race in America started to get really crazy, I left for India. On the morning of the South Carolina primary, I interviewed Donald Trump from a restaurant near the state capitol. By the next afternoon I was dodging mopeds in a traffic circle in Mumbai. I’d imagined the trip as a respite from the campaign, much needed after weeks of immersion in a world where Bernie Sanders is considered charming and Hillary Clinton is regarded as an intellectual. Yet I found that I couldn’t stop thinking about the race. If you’re brooding about the future of your country, a former British colony is the wrong place