Society

Thursday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Uniform behaviour

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 13 March 1915: We are glad to note that officers in uniform have been forbidden to visit night clubs in London. The gambling night clubs have ruined several young officers, and the dancing clubs are almost quite as undesirable in these times. But why does the order apply only to officers in uniform? Surely, if discipline requires that officers should keep away from these places, they ought to be forbidden to go whether in uniform or in ordinary clothes.

Keith Budge

Are the sciences and the arts a false dichotomy?

In late 2014, the Secretary of State for Education declared that the days when arts and humanities subjects could be relied on as useful were behind us, and that STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) were the way to go. For all of her subsequent backpedaling on this point, it remains pretty clear that arts and humanities are considered soft and irrelevant by this government. STEM subjects are vital, of course, and I welcome the Prime Minister’s recent announcement of a government push on maths, science and technology in schools, and a new national college for digital skills and coding. Nonetheless, I remain concerned about this instinct to promote

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Won’t someone please unleash the challenger banks?

In my Yorkshire town of Helmsley the NatWest branch, originally an outpost of Beckett & Co of Leeds, has closed down — collateral damage of its crippled parent RBS’s continuing struggle for viability. Our branch of the Australian-owned Yorkshire Bank, descendant of the West Riding Penny Savings institution, became an antique shop some time ago. HSBC, formerly Midland, is now a hairdressing salon. When they arrived a century ago, all three were ‘challenger banks’ of their day. But now they have gone, no challengers have ridden in to replace them — unless we count Handelsbanken, the progressively old-fashioned Swedish retail bank that has a thriving franchise down the road at

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

How to make Ukip supporters love green policies

Few people know this, but hidden within the FedEx logo, between the E and the x, there is a small white arrow, pointing to the right. I feel slightly guilty sharing this with you, since from now until your death you will find it impossible not to notice this device. It is something which once glimpsed cannot be unseen. Perception can be irreversible: when you first see that famous blue/black or white/gold dress it may be fairly arbitrary whether you see it one way or the other, but you cannot unlearn your first impression. The brain resolves the ambiguity by making a snap assumption about the light in which it

Melanie Phillips

The end of childhood – what we lost when we dropped the age of consent

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/the-death-of-childhood/media.mp3″ title=”Melanie Philips and Sarah Green discuss the end of childhood” startat=37] Listen [/audioplayer]In all the sound and fury about historic sex crimes against children, one crucial factor has been generally ignored. Last week, a review of the agencies dealing with the phenomenon of ‘grooming gangs’ in England said that more than 370 young girls in Oxfordshire had fallen victim to them over the past 15 years, and called for an urgent national debate into these ‘indescribably awful’ sex crimes. But the most shocking and overlooked aspect of the review was that, in Oxford, police and care workers dismissed evidence that girls as young as 11, 12 or 13

The Spectator

Officers’ off hours

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 13 March 1915: We are glad to note that officers in uniform have been forbidden to visit night clubs in London. The gambling night clubs have ruined several young officers, and the dancing clubs are almost quite as undesirable in these times. But why does the order apply only to officers in uniform? Surely, if discipline requires that officers should keep away from these places, they ought to be forbidden to go whether in uniform or in ordinary clothes.

Bruce Anderson

A dog to remember (and the wine he inspired)

Meeting to taste wine, we started by talking about dogs. Roy Hattersley is good on the subject, which ought to be impossible. For he is opposed to shooting, and the partnership between gun and gun-dog, the dog’s tail-wagging joy as it luxuriates in its master’s approval, is one of the highest expressions of man’s commonwealth with the animal kingdom. Well, tot sententiae. But Roy understands one point. Human life is enfiladed by tragedy and the brief span of animal life is one aspect of that. In our relationship with animals, love and loss are intertwined. There was a splendid labrador called Hector, bred in Lincolnshire by Sir Brian Wyldbore-Smith. A

Lucy Vickery

Acrostic | 12 March 2015

In Competition No. 2888 you were invited to submit a poem in the style of a well-known poet, the first letters of each line spelling out the poet’s name. I liked Jerome Betts’s follow-up to Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘The Deserted Village’ and Bill Greenwell’s Spenserian stanza in the manner of Wendy Cope — a parody within a parody. Barbara Smoker, Brian Murdoch and S.E.G. Hopkin also stood out in an impressive entry. The winners take £20. Basil Ransome-Davies earns £25.   Reading poetry’s a marvel when you’re back be’ind the line Under shelter, feeling ’uman, where the whizzbangs never whine. Donne can make you feel religious when you’ve seen the worst

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

It’s dark days for dogs and their owners

So who is poisoning all the doggies, then? I assumed, when the first horrible reports came through from Crufts, that it was either the Russians or the Muslims. Russians seem unable to go more than a few days without feeling the need to bump somebody off. Perhaps they’d run out of businessmen to kill and thought, during this morale-sapping lacuna, it would be wise to keep their hand in by murdering a few dogs. We were told almost endlessly during Channel 4’s coverage of this year’s tournament — won this year by a small and unpleasant black thing, some sort of painfully sculpted terrier with an embittered expression on its face — that

Rizwan Hussain

Jawaab explained

It is not easy to be young, British and Muslim. Since the atrocities of 9/11 and 7/7, the media has been awash with stories of the threat of terrorism and the ‘problems’ of multiculturalism. References to Islam or being a Muslim are rarely positive and Muslims are given few opportunities to respond. Those who do can end up in the firing line, especially from commentators quick to assume the worst. Rod Liddle’s column in this magazine last week was a case in point. Liddle made a grave error when referencing the work of Jawaab (see apology in Letters). We passionately believe in a Britain where people of all religious faiths

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

Ten years after the ban, why are there still hunt saboteurs?

If you don’t hunt or listen to The Archers, you might be forgiven for assuming that hunt saboteurs had become obsolete. Hunting with hounds was banned ten years ago, and the law is respected: convictions for illegal hunting against registered hunts are rare. But as this year’s season draws to a close, masked saboteurs are still a regular sight. Some made headlines in January when a video emerged of a group, faces covered, beating a hunt master unconscious with iron bars. What few people seemed to ask was: why? Why on earth do the protest groups still exist when the ban they demanded came in so long ago? And when you consider the

Simon Jenkins

When Isis destroy ancient monuments, it’s not always true that ‘people are more important’

Perhaps we need censorship. The Isis vandals now destroying the greatest sites in ancient Mesopotamia have no care for history, so why do they bother? The answer is to get publicity. As with beheadings, they want to taunt us with their outrages. So why give them what they want, which is our obvious dismay? Why encourage more destruction? To read of the loss of ancient monuments is heartbreaking. When they date from the dawn of western civilisation in the Mesopotamian valley, the pain is the greater. Nimrud, Hatra and Nineveh are 6,000-year-old bedrocks of our culture. Like the smashed statues in Mosul museum, their destruction tears at the roots of

Andrew Watts

Why I’m thankful that Atos found me fit to work

I was signed off work five years ago. I had lost my job and was, unsurprisingly, feeling low; I went to see my GP, as I was having difficulty sleeping. Rather than dishing out a few sleeping pills, as I had hoped, my doctor googled the letters PHQ-9 on his computer and quickly went through the multiple-choice test for depression he found. Within a few minutes, I walked out of the surgery with a diagnosis of depression and a sick note stating that I was, in his medical judgment, unfit for work. Looking at the Patient Health Questionnaire now, one thing immediately stands out: the copyright notice. The copyright in

Olivia Glazebrook

Exciting new ways of not writing a novel

I read that Damon Runyon, in New York in the 1930s, would get up at 1 p.m. for a breakfast of ‘fruit, broiled kidneys, toast and six cups of coffee’. Then he would read all the newspapers. Then he would bathe, shave, dress and go out for a long walk which would probably include some shopping — one of his favourite activities. (‘He wanted to buy prize fighters, and racehorses, and great houses, and stacks of clothes and jewellery for his lovely [second] wife.’) In the early evening he would return to his house to change into ‘an entirely different lounge suit’ before proceeding to a restaurant for dinner with friends,

The Spectator

A guide to Easter revision colleges

  Ashbourne College   17 Old Court Place, London W8 4PL | T 020 7937 3858 | E admin@ashbournecollege.co.uk | W www.ashbournecollege.co.uk Courses: All main subjects offered at all levels. Specific individual unit revision courses offered in mathematics; otherwise AS or A2 for specific sessions restricted to Ashbourne’s exam boards. Useful course pack provided and end-of-course report. Av. class size: 7 Dates: Monday 30 March to Friday 3 April; Monday 6 April to Friday 10 April; Monday 13 April to Friday 17 April Fees: £500 per course (15 hours’ tuition)   Bath Academy   27 Queen Square, Bath BA1 2HX | T 01225 334 577 | E revision@bathacademy.co.uk | W www.bathacademy.co.uk

James Delingpole James Delingpole

The joys of parent-watching

One of the most satisfying phrases in the English language is: ‘Sorry. I’m afraid I have to go to a parents’ evening.’ I love it because it’s such a perfect excuse for turning down dreary social engagements: you come across like someone who takes his parental responsibilities seriously but at the same time, if you use the right tone, as someone who’d much rather be doing whatever boring thing you’ve just been invited to, but you can’t, you simply can’t, because little Johnny and his teachers would never forgive you. And I love it because parents’ evenings are one of the few events in the school calendar you can really

Mark Palmer

Why you (maybe) shouldn’t skip that reunion

Thank goodness for name badges. There comes a time when they are indispensable — and none more so than at school reunions. Big lettering on the badges helps, too. It means you can read the name of Perkins minor at a distance before shuffling over to offer a friendly handshake or scurrying behind a pillar before the bastard spots you. Of course, there are those who resolutely refuse to go to reunions on principle. After all, if you really wanted to re-establish contact with that boy or girl you sat next to in Mr Winter’s history class, you would have done so ten, 20 or 60 years ago. Facebook, LinkedIn

Daisy Dunn

Reading about your school is always a terrible idea

Tom Brown’s Schooldays is a depressing book. It’s hard to see why anyone would encourage their child to read it before starting school, particularly Rugby, where the story is set. Tom Brown’s peers stand in the window near the school gates, surveying the town as if they own it. They fight behind the chapel, where the masters cannot see them, and bully and fag, day and night. Writing in The Spectator in 1956, Richard Usborne, the great scholar of P.G. Wodehouse, cursed the novel for inspiring fear in young boys. A present from his father, he read it shortly before starting prep school and, needless to say, understood why he’d

Eleanor Doughty

Diamond schools: the best of both worlds

Imagine a school that you could send your son and daughter to. A single school that fitted your ideal for both single-sex and co-ed education, operating from nursery to sixth form, covering all bases. One school — not three or four. A school that, for the final two years, allowed young adults of both genders to share lessons and facilities. But imagine no more, for these schools exist, and they’re called diamond schools. (So-called because of the shape of the structure: genders together at the beginning and end, but apart in the middle.) There are just 13 of them in the country. Blending single-sex and co-ed teaching in the same

Lydia Hansell

The rise of the ‘super-tutor’

‘Will Isis really use migrants as a weapon of mass destruction?’ asked one Common Entrance pupil in a tutoring session. Where such a profound question emerged from is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it was a cunning ruse to avoid analysing an especially tedious Wordsworth poem. But for a 13-year-old to feel comfortable enough to initiate a discussion about so politically sensitive a topic is becoming a rarity. We desperately encourage our children to ask such questions and then, when they do, tend to answer them with vague platitudes. It would be easy to blame ‘time-starved’ parents, or vilify the ‘pushy parent’ brigade stereotyped so brilliantly in Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of