Society

Monday

John Raffles

This idiotic NHS ‘calculator’ can’t predict heart attacks. But it might well give you one

I can understand why the Tories have ring-fenced the NHS, but if they do want to indulge in a little trimming I know just where to start – with the moron who signed off on the online ‘calculator’ that assesses your risk of a heart attack. ‘Official NHS calculator predicts when you will have a heart attack,’ says a piece in today’s Telegraph. Actually, it doesn’t. Nor does it pretend to. But the NHS can hardly complain about being misrepresented for clickbait, since – even if you report its claims accurately – the ‘calculator’ is nothing more than an expensive PR gimmick. The NHS last week quietly abandoned its commitment to spend £243 million on

Alex Massie Alex Massie

‘We’ve got to look at the data’ – English cricket kills itself

“We’ve got to look at the data”. And so ended the Peter Moores era. Sure, Moores may yet remain the England cricket coach but he can never move on from the ignominy of this morning’s disaster in Australia. He could, at a pinch, remain in office but he’ll never again be respected. “We’ve got to look at the data.” If ever there was an appropriate epitaph or this era of English cricket this is it. England have, under Moores, known the price of everything but the value of nothing. The data has given them heaps of information; they’ve had no idea what to do with it. But why would they? Cricket

Steerpike Steerpike

Ruby Wax takes a swipe at Bill Gates

Mr S was a guest at the press night of Ruby Wax’s one woman show at the St James Theatre. The comedian gave the audience a break down of her best selling book Sane New World, which tells you how to train your brain to cope with the demands of the 21st century. The topic of ambition was raised, with Wax making the point that drive isn’t always a healthy thing to have. She cited Bill Gates, who she once attempted to interview, as an example of an ambitious person who might not have it all: ‘Social media, magazines and the internet can make you crazy to be the best or to be a winner like Richard Branson. We can’t have it

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tories and Labour warn of risks of voting for their opponents

The three main parties are in an aggressive mood today. TheTories have a new attack poster warning voters about the dangers of a Labour-SNP deal, while Labour is warning voters of the danger of ‘1930s’ Tory spending plans, and the Lib Dems are launching their own plans to grow the economy.  For Labour, today’s speech by Ed Balls is an attempt to give the party a foothold in the economic debate as the Budget approaches. Balls and colleagues saw an opportunity in the row last autumn over whether the Tories plan to take Britain back to the 1930s, with polling showing that voters were less enthusiastic about  George Osborne’s future

Steerpike Steerpike

Nigel Farage calls for Electoral Commission to be closed down after FUKP decision

Mr S’s disclosure that the Electoral Commission have approved Al Murray’s Freedom United Kingdom Party as an official party for the election has not gone down well with Nigel Farage. The leader of Ukip says the decision is a ‘disgrace’ as FUKP are a joke party. Speaking at the Ukip South West conference, Farage called for everyone in the commission to lose their jobs as a result of the decision: ‘If you add to that the scandal of postal voting fraud, I want everyone in the Electoral Commission fired and the organisation closed down.’ Farage will now have to compete against the comedian for the South Thanet seat. Ukip supporters have taken issue with the the Pub Landlord’s

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Fortress Europe

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 13 March 1915: The more the operations at the Dardanelles are considered the more clearly is their vast importance realized. If in co-operation with the Russian Fleet from the Black Sea we succeed in taking possession of what remains of Turkey in Europe, including the great fortress of Adrianople, and in holding securely both the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, the blow to Germany and Austria will be of the most tremendous kind. Apart, however, from the danger of counting your chickens before they are hatched, it would not be discreet to discuss the consequences in detail. Suffice it to say that whereas hitherto

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

With proper support, state-educated kids beat the privately-educated. Here’s the proof

The Sunday Times today reports proof of what many have long suspected: that if you give bright disadvantaged kids the same support that pupils get at private schools and they beat their privately-educated rivals at top universities. Get three decent A-levels at a private school and you’ve a 65 per cent chance of going to a Russell Group elite university. But state school kids helped by the Social Mobility Foundation have a 70 per cent change, according to a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (pdf). We at The Spectator are great supporters of the Social Mobility Foundation (I recent joined its advisory board). It identifies some of the brightest

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Prize rules

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 6 March 1915: The great German campaign against our shipping, under which we were to be cut off from all human aid and every merchant ship that dared to approach our ports torpedoed and sunk, has ended in what can only be called an amazing fiasco. In the first three days a little damage was done, but during the past week there have been no examples of the destruction of vessels by German submarines or even by mines. That no such losses are reported is not due, we are sure, to any economy of truth or holding back of news on the part

Saturday

Steerpike Steerpike

Good news for the Class War candidate in Kensington

After Mr S brought you the news last week that old-school anarchist and ‘Class War’ editor Ian Bone wanted to run in Kensington, his class struggle group – in a surprisingly officious process – held an ‘adoption meeting’ for him last night to make him their candidate. Bone updates Steerpike on his strategy: ‘If Dan Snow is adopted as Tory candidate there will be rioting in the streets – we’ll make sure of that. There is no way people here will tolerate the Duke of Westminster’s son-in-law being foisted on them.’ Well Mr S has good news for both Bone and the citizens of Kensington. Dan Snow is not going to be the

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition: lines on Heaven and Hell (plus: compose a lament for a defunct newspaper)

Nietzsche famously said that in Heaven ‘all the interesting people are missing’. To judge by the entries for the latest competition — which asked you to describe your idea of heaven or hell in verse — most of you agree that paradise might not be all it’s cracked up to be. It was a large and lively postbag. Commiserations go to Peter Goulding, Sylvia Fairley, Bill Greenwell and John-Paul Marney, who were unlucky to miss out on a place in the winning line-up. The poems below earn their authors £25 apiece. Congratulations to Philip Roe, who nabs £30. Philip Roe When the heavenly choir eternal sings a glorious    

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Kitchener’s conception

From ‘Lord Kitchener’, The Spectator, 6 March 1915: We are grateful to Lord Kitchener because at the very beginning of the war he formed what Mr. Bonar Law calls “a gigantic conception,” not only of the military needs of the nation, but of our ability to meet those needs. Other men and lesser men, even though they might have bad enough imagination to see what might and ought to be done, would in the emergency have been daunted by the task before them. They would have argued that it was too late to try any now system, that we were committed to great naval but only to small military action,

Friday

Andrew Langdon

Why is the NHS ring-fenced but the justice system isn’t?

Earlier this week, Sadiq Khan MP ‘admitted Labour could not reinstate £600m of legal aid cuts imposed by the government’. These are cuts which continue to have a very real impact on our society. They’ve left parents unrepresented when family judges are considering the future care of their children. They have deterred workers who are racially or sexually discriminated against in the workplace from bringing actions in the employment tribunals and priced out those who have suffered loss from bringing claims in the civil courts. The cuts have also driven the best lawyers away from publicly-funded civil work into private practice, and they have dried up the recruitment of junior barristers. We

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: The willing badge

From ‘The “Willing” Badge’, The Spectator, 6 March 1915: A final ground for giving badges to those who have offered themselves and been rejected must be mentioned. Under any scheme for the presentation of badges a register should be kept giving in general terms the ground on which each man was rejected—namely, medical reasons, such as heart weakness, and so on; physical defects, as, for example, some small deformity or some defect of vision; or, again, some such ground as inability to reach the standard of height or the standard of chest measurement. In the last two cases it may well be that the Government will come to see that

Thursday

Raymond Keene

Varsity

On Saturday 7 March the annual Varsity Match between the teams of Oxford and Cambridge takes place. The contest is at the Royal Automobile Club starting at noon, and spectators are welcome, though anyone wishing to attend should bear in mind the dress code of jacket and tie with no trainers or jeans. As usual, the match is supported by both the RAC and the doyen of RAC chess, Henry Mutkin, himself a former Oxford player in this match. The notes to the game this week are based on those in the book Cambridge Chess by Richard Eales, published by Hardinge Simpole. The puzzle is a win by a top board

Raymond Keene

No. 352

Black to play. This is a variation from Chandler-Whiteley, Brighton 1979. Here Black can bring his attack to a successful conclusion thanks to a fine tactical idea. Can you see it? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 10 March or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. The winner will be the first correct answer out of a hat, and each week I am offering a prize of £20. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery.   Last week’s solution 1 Nxd7 Last week’s winner Tony Watson, Twyford, Berkshire

The Spectator

The perils of planespotting

A dangerous hobby Three men from Greater Manchester were arrested and held in the UAE after being seen writing down the numbers of aircraft. — Plane-spotting can be risky. In 2001 14 Britons were arrested in Greece after allegedly taking photos at an air base in Kalamata. Eight were sentenced to three years; imprisonment for spying and the other six were given suspended sentences. (All were overturned on appeal.) — In 2010 two British men were arrested at Delhi airport after being seen taking photos of planes from a hotel room. — Trainspotters have had problems too. In 2008 a 15-year-old boy was held under terror legislation after taking photographs

Taki

Old age is not for sissies

The secret of eternal youth, according to Alice Roosevelt Longworth, is arrested development, and the penny dropped last week. The mountains were misty, snow was falling and I went to the dojo for some karate training. I was sparring with a tough, fifth-degree black-belt instructor, Roland, and kept nailing him, something I hadn’t been able to do previously. That’s when it dawned on me. Respecting my advanced age, he was taking a dive. ‘If you don’t stop this crap, I’ll beat the crap out of you,’ I threatened. He didn’t — and nor did I. We ended up laughing and doing kata instead. I felt great after 45 minutes of

Miriam Gross

Miriam Gross’s diary: Why use Freud and Kurt Weill to promote Wagner?

Last week I went to the exhilarating English National Opera production of Wagner’s The Mastersingers — five hours of wonderful music and singing whizzed by without a moment’s boredom. But there was one odd and perturbing factor, I thought. In place of a curtain, there was a huge ‘frontcloth’. It was covered with a collage of 103 faces of well-known artists. These same faces appeared again, during the finale, this time in the form of portraits held aloft by members of the cast. They included Joseph Roth, Stefan Zweig, Sigmund Freud, Kurt Weill, Billy Wilder, Richard Tauber, Oskar Kokoschka, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, Lotte Lenya, Max Ernst, Marlene Dietrich. According to

Jeremy Clarke

Mahler’s Fifth is the perfect soundtrack to a tooth extraction

Frantic chewing of sugar-coated nicotine gum had caused my left lower molar to go irretrievably rotten, and the dentist finally extracted it after a prolonged and heroic struggle. Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor was playing in the background and the extraordinary thing was that from start to finish the music exactly mirrored the vicissitudes of his battle to pull the tooth out. While we waited for the anaesthetic to take effect the music was gently soporific. As he applied his pliers to the tooth and carefully loosened it, the mood darkened and built to a turbulent climax until I gestured with an unhappy hand signal that I could

Melissa Kite

My life in ailments

My request to see my medical notes was granted in the end. I honestly don’t know why I wanted to see them, really. I’m just one of those people who suspects the worst of the state, and other large organisations, so if I get the chance to have a peek into what they’ve been up to behind my back I take it. This was my second Subject Access Request. The first was of the RSPCA, who I got a tad suspicious about after writing several critical articles and attracting weirdly sour-sounding complaints from them in which they claimed I was only criticising them because I was a supporter of hunting.