Society

Thursday

Dumpynose

2217: Poem

Unclued lights (one hyphened) are words from a poem whose subject appears in the completed grid. A clued light is an anagram of the poet’s name and must be shaded. Elsewhere, ignore an accent.   Across   7    Pass through range heading west (3) 11    Any chap can empty nappy (6) 14    Gigs annoy heartless Giles (7) 15    Possibly enough said about dipsticks (5) 17    Dumpynose is punching person who’s still more acid (6) 18    Girl rebuffed game statesman (5) 20    Pearly queen in wild dance (6) 22    Instrument jingled needling capuchin (7) 28    Trumpet blasts needing prime instruments (7) 31    Mobile mat one folds (6) 34    Behave no longer

Dumpynose

To 2214: What’s Up?

The theme word is CLIMBER. All unclued lights are therefore entered going upwards. There are three different types of climbers: plants (1, 8 and 22), mountaineers (4 and 27) and social climbers (14 and 18). First prize Andreas Fabian, Dunsden, Oxon Runners-up Hugh Aplin, London SW19; Sandra Speak, Dursley, Glos

Kate Maltby Kate Maltby

Since when was the hijab a feminist statement?

Over ten years ago, the satirical American magazine the Onion published an article under the headline: Women Now Empowered By Everything A Woman Does. If you’ve ever heard someone insist that pole dancing is empowering, the Onion predicted it. In a take-down of the lazy gluttony of ‘choice-feminism’, it told us: ‘Whereas early feminists campaigned tirelessly for improved health care and safe, legal access to abortion, often against a backdrop of public indifference or hostility, today’s feminist asserts control over her biological destiny by wearing a baby-doll T-shirt with the word “Hoochie” spelled in glitter.’ I thought I was reading the Onion all over again yesterday, when I stumbled across the

Douglas Murray

Some gay people are right-wing. Get over it!

Is being gay ‘left-wing’?  You wouldn’t have thought so.  If being gay is something which some people just are then there is no obvious reason why gays should not be of every political persuasion and none.  Why should the fact that you are attracted to members of the same sex mean that you are in favour of higher taxes?  Or entirely open borders?  Should being gay affect your attitude towards the European Union (in any case hardly a left/right question)? I ask because this weekend the annual ‘Gay Pride’ event happens in London and the organisers have tried to ban Ukip from attending.  The sweeping generalisation – not to mention political

Samantha Callan

The poverty of the UK poverty measure

It’s sad to see so many genuinely well-meaning people judge the fight against poverty by the publication of a massive spreadsheet, but that’s the trap the UK government has been caught in for years. The Child Poverty Act is about income redistribution, and success is judged by how many people are seen to be below an arbitrary threshold: 60 per cent of average income. The figures came out today, and show that the number in poverty has barely shifted – which will surprise those who thought government cuts would push poverty figures higher. But is this really much cause to celebrate? There are still 2.3 million (17 per cent) of children in

Oliver Kamm

Ignore the ‘good grammar’ crowd and your prose will be better for it

‘Few things,’ says Toby Young, ‘are more likely to provoke the disapproval of the bien-pensant left than criticising someone’s grammar.’ I haven’t consulted all my colleagues in the Metropolitan Media branch of the bien-pensant left so speak for myself. Young is wrong. I have no objection to criticising someone else’s grammar, and I’m a zealot for English language teaching in schools. What I won’t do is cede that field to people whose complaints are unwarranted and – on matters of fact, not opinion – untrue. That category includes purported traditionalists who have secured the undeserved attention of Michael Gove, lord chancellor and former education secretary. NM Gwynne, author of a

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Angela Merkel’s burden, Ukip’s American flirtation and Gove’s grammar rules

This podcast is sponsored by Berry Bros, The Spectator’s house red. Germany has just as much to worry about from a Grexit as Greece. On this week’s View from 22 podcast, economist Fredrik Erixon and James Forsyth discuss this week’s Spectator cover feature on the challenges Angela Merkel faces to keep her beloved European project on the road. It also presents an opportunity for David Cameron to get a better deal for Britain during his renegotiations — can he make the most of the present situation? Freddy Gray and Owen Bennett, author of Following Farage, also discuss Ukip’s flirtation with the American right and the impact it had on the party’s election performance. What role did Farage’s ex-senior adviser Raheem Kassam

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Good sons and noble mothers

From ‘Humours of War Relief in the East End’, The Spectator, 26 June 1915: There may be often in the minds of the mothers and wives a little confusion as to what their menkind are actually doing at the war, but they frequently give a dashing and graphic description of what they imagine it to be, such as “Quelling them Turks,” or “following up the Indians and Russians,” while another said her son was “driving a motor in the mountainous parts of Paris.” Anyhow, they make a better shot than the Hampshire farm yokel, who said he “’eard ‘ow as our Bill is in the Sewage Canal, because o’ them

Christopher Caldwell

If Merkel shrugs…

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/angelamerkel-sburden/media.mp3″ title=”Fredrik Erixon and James Forsyth discuss the challenges facing Angela Merkel” startat=36] Listen [/audioplayer]German chancellor Angela Merkel may still be the most formidable politician in Europe, but this week she lost a bit of her reputation as the scourge of Mediterranean debtor nations. Greece’s firebrand leftist premier, Alexis Tsipras, actually gets on well with Merkel, however much his countrymen enjoy burning her in effigy and adorning her portraits with Hitler moustaches. In a recent profile of their relationship in Der Spiegel, Tsipras gushed, ‘She has this East German way of telling you honestly and straightforwardly what she thinks.’ His top adviser Nikos Pappas also admires Merkel, calling her

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Tiger, Tiger, burning out

A car crash is a terrible thing, but hordes of people still slow down to cop an eyeful on the motorway. Car-crash sport is equally compelling. In the US Open, up at Chambers Bay, Tiger Woods opened with two of the worst rounds he had ever played: 80, with eight bogeys and one triple bogey, and 76 before heading home. But no matter how dismal his performance, he had a huge number of spectators shouting in support. Fellow players refuse to write him off, former golfers are less amiable. One-time Open champion Tom Weiskopf said Woods ‘had gone from the top of Mount Everest to the bottom of a coal

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

June Wine Club II | 25 June 2015

We’ve a selection of simple summer quaffing wines this week, full of bright flavours, courtesy of our old chums Tanners of Shrewsbury. I am confident that you will find the wines as amenable and easy to get on with as I did and that you will find them very keenly priced. Indeed, there must have been something of a heatwave in Shropshire because Tanners’ private sales director, Robert Boutflower, has clearly had too much sun. With barely any recourse to thumbscrews or water-boarding, he offered generous discounts on the already remarkably modest RRPs, ensuring that every wine is well under eight quid. This means that the mixed case comes in at paltry

Simon Barnes

Champions of hypocrisy

Wimbledon next week. Like the tournament dress code, all sports want their heroes white. In terms of virtue rather than skin colour. Sport demands the appearance of righteousness. Its default position is to pride itself on the moral lessons it teaches the rest of us. All of which makes sport one of the great hypocrisy opportunities of modern times, lagging behind only religion and politics. A sports star who wants to make serious money must set himself up as a ‘role model’. So when the great tennis player Andre Agassi was a boy in ‘hot lava’ shorts, he set himself up as a lovable ‘rebel’ who embraced Christian virtues. He

The Spectator

The Russians are coming

From ‘The Inexpugnability of Russia’, The Spectator, 26 June 1915: At this moment, after nearly a year’s fighting, Russia is only just beginning to be mistress of her resources in men and munitions. The hardy soldiers of her Far Eastern provinces are in many cases only just beginning to be got ready for the firing line. But though Russia is slow ‘she gets there just the same’. Her hundred and seventy millions of population have not yet really begun to make their presence felt in Poland, though we may be sure that they will do so before many months have passed. The giant limbs are stirring, even though the giant is

Melissa Kite

‘Oh André!’

When I first encountered the global phenomenon that is André Rieu, I had my heart set on hating him. If that seems unkind, you have to understand that I had been forced to watch hour upon hour of his concerts on the Sky Arts channel that is all but dedicated to him and plays on a constant loop in my parents’ home. The moment my mother discovered the classical music impresario, our lives were never quite the same. Every time I went home to visit, I would find her glued to the television watching Rieu conducting an orchestra full of ladies in crinoline dresses every colour of the rainbow. And

Mark Mason

Poor form

Not long ago, I woke up in hospital, in pain, with a damaged back, but grateful for the sleep that a couple of doses of morphine had secured. ‘Morning,’ said a sixtysomething man who appeared by the side of the bed. ‘I’m Derek, I’m a volunteer here.’ ‘Hello Derek.’ ‘I’ve bought you some cornflakes.’ I wanted to hug him. ‘Also…’ He produced a sheet of paper. Oh no. ‘There are a few questions here about how you’ve found your stay with us. I can fill them in for you if you want…’ Luckily I was too weak to get angry. ‘Could you just leave it there, Derek? I might look

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

How Taylor Swift socked it to Apple over a weekend

All hail Taylor Swift. How she must give baby boomers the fear. Not just baby boomers. Also those who came next, the Generation Xers, who seemed to define themselves culturally mainly via goatees, apathy and heroin. And my own rather listless, half-generation thereafter, with our bigger beards and binge-drinking. Taylor Swift makes us all look old. Because we are old and the world will be hers. You will have heard about her victory over Apple this week — you must have heard about it, because an opportunity to put Taylor Swift on the front of a newspaper is an opportunity not to be missed, particularly now that Elizabeth Hurley is

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Spy if you must, but don’t give the game away

The Snoopers’ Charter. I ought to care about this. I’m a sort of libertarian. I believe in personal freedom. I’m a trustee of Index on Censorship. The state as Big Brother is everything I’ve always fought in politics. So why can’t I quite summon the requisite indignation? Why do I find all this Edward Snowden stuff vaguely irritating? Why does the crusading column for the Times, railing against state surveillance, somehow keep failing me, though time and again I’ve opened my laptop and tried to make a start? Partly, I think, because as a longstanding and vehement opponent of British military adventuring in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’ve believed (and always

Lucy Vickery

Off colour | 25 June 2015

In Competition No. 2903 you were invited to provide an extract from an article in an interiors magazine featuring some paint-colour names of your own invention that rival the ludicrousness of the real-life likes of ‘potentially purple’, ‘salty tear’ and ‘likeable sand’. High points in a patchy entry were Adrian Fry’s ‘Dresden licht’, John O’Byrne’s ‘failed rouble’, Alan Millard’s ‘hectic cockerel’, Mike Morrison’s ‘Magaluf mea culpa’ and Bill Greenwell’s ‘tartar’s lips’. Chris O’Carroll nabs the bonus fiver. The rest take £25 apiece.   The entryway is done in this season’s all-the-rage shade of über-sunshiny yellow, Flower Formerly Known as Rape, with bold highlights in Vein of Stilton and Real Bitter.

Wednesday

Ed West Ed West

Western idealism is making the jihad problem much worse

I’ve just been reading Jonathan Sacks’ excellent new book, Not in God’s Name, which sets out to explain why people kill for religion. Although he explores the theology of the Old Testament, Rabbi Sacks also looks at evolution and evolutionary psychology to explain the unending human tendency to have in-groups and out-groups. This will be familiar to people who have read The Righteous Mind or Big Gods, which the former chief rabbi cites. What’s especially interesting is that he argues that the prevailing ideology of the west – a sort of liberalism that aims at abolishing identity and replacing it with individualism – is actually part of the problem. This