Society

Thursday

Ysenda Maxtone Graham

The truth about private school admissions

In recent years I’ve started putting the verb ‘to get in’ (when it refers to the action of being offered a place at a sought-after school) into capital letters: ‘To Get In’. It seems to merit capitals, so much has it become the defining verb of one’s child’s success and therefore future happiness, as perceived by the desperate parent. ‘He Got In to Eton.’ ‘She Got In to Latymer.’ Or (whispered only to one’s most trusted friends), ‘He didn’t Get In to St Paul’s.’ I suppose it’s quite amusing that being able to Get your child In to the private school of your dreams is the one prized item that

Sophia Waugh

State schools are ‘character building’ too

In tough times, we have to be persuaded to buy the non-essentials in life. While no one would deny an education is essential, many parents are beginning to question whether paying tens of thousands of pounds for a clutch of GCSEs is really worth it. Therefore public schools are having to come up with ever more selling points to draw in the punters. Anthony Seldon, the never willingly underquoted Master of Wellington College, has a new reason to encourage you to send your children to his school. He claims that his establishment, and others like it, can offer to teach your children ‘character’ in a way that no state school

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Why Scottish public schools are in a field of their own

In 1919 the literary critic G. Gregory Smith coined the term ‘Caledonian antisyzygy’, by which he meant the ‘zigzag of contradictions’ that so dominated the national literature that it might be reckoned a useful summation of the Scottish character itself. ‘Oxymoron,’ Smith observed, ‘was ever the bravest figure, and we must not forget that disorderly order is order after all.’ Perhaps so. Certainly, the Scottish public schools endure an often ambivalent, even awkward, relationship with their native land. The most prestigious are outposts of England in Scotland, custodians of an idea of Britishness that’s increasingly out of favour north of the border. Schools such as Fettes, Loretto, Glenalmond and Merchiston

The Spectator

Uncommon entrances

Getting your child into a decent school has long been high on a parent’s list of priorities, and British parents now have to compete with foreign parents for whom £30,000 a year is small change. It is for people like these, Will Heaven explains, that many of our top schools are opening branches as far afield as Seoul, Kazakhstan and Shanghai. Even if you can afford the fees, getting your child into a good private school is hard, because the best ones are vastly oversubscribed, as Ysenda Maxtone Graham writes. What can you do about it? Lydia Hansell suggests the new ‘super-tutors’, who do far more than your child’s maths

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

A deserving winner – and undeserving losers – from last night’s UK Press Awards

Last night’s UK Press Awards stood out for deserving winners – and some undeserving losers. Andrew Norfolk of The Times won two gongs for his extraordinary investigation into child abuse in Rotherham, which exemplified what good journalism can achieve. Norfolk ploughed away at this for years, often as the only journalist in the courtroom putting together a picture that the authorities did not want to see: Muslim men abusing white girls. His investigation triggered an inquiry which exposed a crime and some 1,300 victims. It’s lonely work, and pretty depressing to spend months on end acquainting yourself with every detail of a story that involves the basest human behaviour. But Norfolk’s reporting established what the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: the NHS report that Labour tried to block

It emerged this morning that Labour MPs took the extraordinary step of blocking the publication of the Health Select Committee report into the NHS – because the conclusions backed up government reforms. I have just been handed details of this report, and it’s clear why Labour wanted it suppressed: it contradicts the party’s attack message. Here are the main points: No sweeping privatisations: there has been little increase in private sector providers since 2010. Nor has there been an extension of charges or top-ups during the current parliament, and that these are not planned. Less red tape: a general trend of declining administration costs in the NHS. No evidence that

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Yes, Scotland does receive an unfair share of public spending. Probably

Gulp. But what about England? That’s one of the questions to be asked in the aftermath of the latest Scottish spending and revenue figures, published today. The figures do not lie. Even when North Sea oil figures are taken into account – a geographic accident that, while welcome, remains an unearned accident – England (as a whole) subsidises other parts of the United Kingdom. This is a good thing. This is the way it is supposed to be. But – double gulp – shouldn’t Scotland be subsidising other parts of the UK too? Identifiable spending per capita in Scotland is a bit higher than in Wales, London and north-eastern England,

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The Domino’s effect: Can fund managers tell a pizza from a printer?

There have been many occasions since the financial crisis that I have been led to question the calibre of the more-than-amply remunerated  ‘masters of the Universe’ who inhabit the City. But this morning brings a fresh insight into the competence of the fund managers who look after our pensions and investments. Biggest riser in the FTSE250 this morning is Domino Printing Services, a Cambridge-based company which makes machines to print barcodes and other rather dull stuff like that. It is up over 30 per cent after confirming that it has accepted a takeover from the Japanese company Brother. Second highest riser in the FTSE250 is the rather better-known Domino Pizza Group,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Do we really need more physics teachers?

The government has today announced a drive to get more physics and maths graduates into teaching. It’s a good idea, given the struggle that many headteachers report in recruiting teachers with those backgrounds. The package includes £15,000 for students to help with their university costs in return for them teaching for three years post-graduation; fast-track retraining for professionals already working in medicine and engineering; and one-to-one support for those who have already trained as teachers and are considering returning to the job. The reason it is becoming even more important to encourage more numerate people to become teachers is that by 2030, the science-based industries are expected to employ more than

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Dining with the enemy

From ‘Prisoners of War’, The Spectator, 13 March 1915: Let us mention also a passage from Hume’s history quoted by Sir Graham Bower in an excellent letter to the Morning Post of Wednesday. Hume is describing the campaign of Edward III :— “The French officers who had fallen into the hands of the English were conducted into Calais, where Edward discovered to them the antagonist with whom they had had the honour tabs engaged, and treated them with great regard and courtesy. They were admitted to sup with the Prince of Wales and the English nobility, and after supper the King himself came into the apartment and went about conversing familiarly?’

Tuesday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Who on earth does Margaret Hodge think she is?

Most people, when they hear the word populist, will think of Marine Le Pen going mad about Muslim immigrants or a Ukipper saying he wouldn’t want an Albanian living next door. But yesterday we witnessed a different kind of populism: the deceptively right-on variety, which aims its black-and-white moralistic fury not at cash-starved people at the bottom of society, but at wealthy individuals at the top. The purveyor of populism this time was Margaret Hodge, panto queen of the Public Accounts Committee, her target was some HSBC suits, and it made for an unedifying spectacle. Hodge has in recent years become Parliament’s poundshop Robespierre, a one-woman mopper-up of moral rot in

Steerpike Steerpike

Alan Rusbridger vs Max Hastings: round two

After Max Hastings wrote a column for the Daily Mail arguing that civil liberties groups should not get in the way of government security, Alan Rusbridger took the former Daily Telegraph editor to task for his comments. Speaking at a Big Brother Watch event last month, the Guardian editor offered up four reasons why Hastings was wrong to say that he could not ‘imagine what harm can result from MI5 accessing the phone calls, bank accounts, emails of you, me or any other law-abiding citizen’. Rusbridger couldn’t resist taking another pop at Hastings this morning for a column in today’s Mail on the police ‘witch-hunt’ which saw Field Marshal Lord Bramall’s home searched. In

Daniel Jackson

The Apple Watch could have been a proper health-monitoring device. But the FDA won’t allow it

Apple’s new smart watch, unveiled by Tim Cook yesterday, had incredible potential. But its functionality has been hindered by technical hitches – and, especially, overzealous legislators. Their cloying presence must have been felt at every product meeting. Engineers working on Apple’s watch did so with the rasping breath of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the back of their necks. The result? Apple is nowhere near giving us a device that allows comprehensive self-monitoring of health – thanks to federal regulations. Public health services everywhere tell us that prevention is better than cure. But the FDA doesn’t trust Apple, or any manufacturer of wearable tech, to gather the sort of intimate

Douglas Murray

A new low: Charlie Hebdo’s murdered staff receive an ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ award

I have always treated the ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ event with the scorn it deserves. Not least because each year this fantasy prize for a fantasy concept is run by a British Khomeinist organisation laughably named the ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission.’  The nominees include anybody opposed to the agenda of Islamic extremists, including Muslims.  Of course each year, whilst laughing at it, those of us who are regular nominees also regard it as being to our great good fortune that the IHRC is a British charity operating in the United Kingdom rather than an Islamic charity operating in an Islamic country.  If the latter were the case then rather than laughing

Steerpike Steerpike

Knopa-gate: Could Crufts winner be stripped of her title?

This year’s Crufts has been something of a doggy disaster with one canine competitor dead from an alleged poisoning and six more cases being investigated. Now, Mr S has got wind of a new scandal engulfing the dog competition. A petition has been launched calling for the winning Scottish Terrier Knopa to be stripped of her Best in Show award. However, rather than Knopa, who beat 21,000 dogs to the title, being at fault, it is the Scottie dog’s handler Rebecca Cross who has provoked ire from the public. Viewers have complained after Cross, who is American, appeared to pick the dog up by the neck and tail. This is forbidden in Britain under show rules, and many see

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: A German view of the war

From ‘The Military Situation’, The Spectator, 13 March 1915: How does the war look as a whole? The best way to answer this question is to consider it from the point of view of some perfectly impartial person living in Germany, but with intellect and judgment unaffected by any patriotic emotions. What would such a person tell us of the war? Germany has been called a besieged country. With that epigram he would probably agree, except that he would add the word “partially.” He would say she was closely besieged on her water front and on the western and eastern fronts, even though in the east the besieged were capable of

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