Society

Monday

Douglas Murray

Forget lobbying, the real scandal is that MPs don’t have enough to do and aren’t paid enough

I am sorry to hear about Malcolm Rifkind, though less sorry to hear about Jack Straw, whose ‘outside interests’ I have had cause to write about here before. How often do MPs fall for this sort of sting? Every six months? Every nine? Think of all the ones that don’t make it as far as our TV screens because their intended target cottoned on while being asked to speak more clearly into their interviewer’s tie? Anyway, for all the fun and damage these scandals create, the truth is that lobbying scandals are the gift that keep on giving because nobody will address the twin underlying problems that cause them. Plenty

Keith Cooper

The crisis of masculinity won’t be solved with antidepressants

There was much discussion recently about the rise in male suicide rates, after official figures published last week showed they were at their highest level since 2001. But one aspect of this has attracted little attention: the lack of support for men abused by their partners. In a poll of 130 Citizens Advice Bureaux workers, 63 per cent said it was easy to get help for women reporting domestic abuse, compared to 13 per cent for men. It’s bad enough that men struggle to find help once they pluck up the courage to ask for it. But they are also less likely than women to look for support in the first place – and more likely to be

Steerpike Steerpike

Guardian editors-in-waiting make their cases: ‘Wolfgang Blau is not a woman’

The statements are in. The four Guardian employees to make it to the staff ballot in their bid to become the publication’s next editor have released their manifestos, and there are some startling declarations. First Mr S sees that the only male horse in the race, Wolfgang Blau, has taken the bold step of acknowledging that he is not, in fact, a woman. ‘I want to acknowledge the obvious: I am not a woman and I have not grown up in the United Kingdom. I can only promise to you that as the Editor-in-Chief – should you vote for me and should the Scott Trust choose to appoint me – I will do everything

Dominic Raab

The henchmen who prop up Putin need to be hit where it hurts

If anyone thought Russian President, Vladimir Putin, was a strongman the West could do business with, that delusion has been punctured. Last week, Russian Bear bombers skirted by British airspace.  In January, a UK public inquiry into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, KGB agent turned UK-based dissident, heard he was murdered at Putin’s behest in an ‘act of nuclear terrorism’ on British soil. And Kremlin-backed rebels are ensuring a cease-fire with Ukraine crumbles, leaving the West looking impotent as Putin’s stare shifts menacingly to the Baltic countries of the European Union. But, are we in Britain doing everything we realistically can to curb Putin’s bullying? Putin’s kleptocracy blurs lines between

Sunday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

I’ve received a mystifying marriage proposal

I have had many proposals of marriage recently via the internet, most of them coming from young ladies in Nigeria, Ghana, the DRC and so on. Some of them haven’t even asked for my bank details. I assume that request will come later. Here’s the best one, though. And also the most mystifying. Hello Dear one, Hello,You have a wonderful and charming look of which every man that knows something good must appreciate the good creature of the Almighty. I must say that you are an epitome of natural beauty and I would like to know you better and I hope to be your very good friend. Since the first

Saturday

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition: ‘Shall I compare thee to a camembert?’ — new ways with Sonnet 18 (plus acrostic poets)

The challenge to put a fresh spin on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 was the most popular competition for ages. The brief was to replace ‘summer’s day’ with a trisyllable of your choice. A competitor emailed to ask if I’d meant a single trisyllabic word or a three-syllable phrase. I meant the former but perhaps that wasn’t clear so I allowed both. Objects of comparison ranged from ocelot to shaggy dog, from Shakespeare play to Theresa May. It was a dazzling performance pretty much all round. I’ve squeezed in seven winners, who take £20 each, but there could have been so many more — Ray Kelley, Philip Roe, Douglas G. Brown, Rob

Friday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Politicians needn’t be so afraid of saying what they think

Politicians know they need to be more natural, less spun, and more honest about what they think. But most of them carry on sounding unnatural, spin-doctored and cagey because they’re worried about the media will do to them if they speak their minds. They fear being pounced upon by journalists keen to write up their latest ‘gaffe’. But this week we’ve seen two politicians saying what they think without any major repercussions. Example one comes from Boris Johnson in his interview with Tim Shipman. The Mayor was asked whether he watched Coronation Street or Eastenders: ‘Um. What a world we live in where you are felt to be out of

Steerpike Steerpike

Virginia Ironside has no time for E L James’s ‘appalling’ prose

Fifty Shades of Grey has so far taken a record amount at the box office for an 18-certificate film. Virginia Ironside, however, will not be contributing to the film’s profits. The author writes in this week’s issue of the Spectator that she has no desire to see the film adaption of E L James’s novel, after being left unimpressed by the novelist’s ‘appalling writing’. ‘All this fuss about Fifty Shades of Grey! I wonder how many people have actually read all three books? Sado-masochism is only half the story. When you’ve waded through the entire oeuvre, if such appalling writing can be dignified with that term, you discover that the whole story

Tom Chivers

Teenage fathers and mental health: a true story unfairly reported

There’s a difference between something being true, and something being fair, as I’m sure you realise. I’m going to look at a story that is, on the face of it, probably true, but because of how it’s portrayed, less than fair. The story is that the children of teenage fathers are more likely to suffer from certain congenital health problems, including autism, schizophrenia and spina bifida. This is because, according to research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B and contrary to what has been believed, the rate of new mutations (which cause these problems) in sperm does not go up in a simple line as men get

Molly Guinness

The tragedy of these sex education plans is that five year olds might miss the joke

Most people look back fondly at their sex education classes, remembering the stammering, red faced teachers, the very silly jokes and the endless, irrepressible giggles. The real tragedy about this week’s proposals to teach five-year-olds about sex is that children that small may not see the funny side of it. Generations of policy makers, teachers and journalists have spent years agonising over the question, while generations of schoolchildren have spent the happy hours of the PSHE classes passing notes, thinking up absurd innuendoes and flirting outrageously, eyes shining with laughter. But perhaps the privilege of having whole lessons given over to such cheerful pastimes was only ever to be a

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Marching orders

From ‘The Psychology of Drill’, The Spectator, 20 February 1915: One is tempted to divide all men under drill into two classes—the precipitate and the tardy. Every one who has listened to a drill instructor’s words knows that the first part of a command is cautionary. For instance, in “Right—turn” there is a pause between the two words, and the movement to the right takes place on the word “turn.” Some men cannot prevent themselves from moving at the word “right” Others are late on the second word. Surely this tendency must correspond to some constitutional temperament or innate mental quality. Shall we call the early movers impatient men and

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: Camila Batmanghelidjh defends Kids Company

In defence of Kids Company Sir: Your piece ‘The problem with Kids Company’ (14 February) bears an important message: charities need to be transparent and accountable. That’s why Kids Company was independently audited twice last year alone, and our financial structures and functioning put to the test. We also have auditors working alongside us, verifying our outputs and outcomes in relation to our government grant. All such audits have been positive. Several pieces of independent research were carried out capturing our clinical work and our staff wellbeing — two of these found our staff satisfaction and productivity to be above 90 per cent. Some 600 staff, almost 10,000 volunteers and 500 clinical

Peter Jones

Julius Caesar could teach Isis a thing or two

Isis disseminates videos of beheaded captives to spread simple terror. Julius Caesar knew all about it. In his diaries of his conquest of Gaul (58–51 bc), he constantly acknowledges the power terror wielded. When it became clear, for example, that in 58 bc he would have to take on the powerful German king Ariovistus who had crossed the Rhine into Gaul, his ‘whole army was suddenly gripped by such a panic that their judgement and nerve was seriously undermined’. Caesar, naturally, rallied the troops and in the ensuing engagement drove Ariovistus’ army back across the Rhine with massive losses. Ariovistus had been a ‘friend of Rome’. That is what Caesar

Raymond Keene

Carlsen’s special brew

Magnus Carlsen has added another trophy to his cabinet by taking the honours at the Grenke tournament in Baden Baden, Germany. As at Wijk aan Zee, the world champion had to surmount an early loss with Black, on this occasion against his chief rival for glory, the German grandmaster Arkadij Naiditsch. But Carlsen clawed his way back to a share of the lead and finally emerged triumphant after a closely fought tie-break playoff.   A key moment of Carlsen’s fightback came in this tense position against former champion Anand. Here Anand appears to have a powerful attack, but Carlsen broke the back of his offensive with a stunning counter-coup.  

Raymond Keene

No. 350

White to play. This is from Anand v Kramnik, Zurich Rapidplay 2015. White has two ways to win this position, both using the same idea. Either move can be considered the correct solution. Can you see the idea? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 24 February 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 Rh8+ Last week’s winner John Nugée, New Malden, Surrey

Taki

The future was looking bleak for a poor little Greek Boy who had turned 30, but then I met Arnaud de Borchgrave

I hate to start with a cliché, but Count Arnaud de Borchgrave d’Altena, who died in Washington DC last week, aged 88, was the last of the great foreign correspondents — trench coat, suntan, title and 17 wars under his belt included. One accomplishment none of his obituaries mentioned (perfectly understandably, mind you) was his role in introducing to journalism, and subsequently mentoring, the greatest Greek writer since Homer, yours truly — something Arnaud kept quiet about throughout our close 48-year friendship. Here’s how it began: it was May 1967, the Greek junta had taken over the government the previous April, and Arnaud had flown in to interview the Greek

Toby Young Toby Young

I don’t know why I’m against tax avoidance (and I bet you don’t either)

On the face of it, the moral case against tax avoidance seems pretty straightforward. If you’re a UK taxpayer and benefit from public goods and services, then you should pay your fair share of tax. If you’re paying less than that, then you’re a free rider. You’re breaking the social contract. But what do we mean by ‘fair share’? The standard defence of tax avoidance is that it’s perfectly legal — if it wasn’t, it would be tax evasion — and the social contract only obliges people to obey the law, not to pay more tax than they have to. To maintain that people are morally obliged to pay an

Jeremy Clarke

This shower head should come with a health warning

This hotel is brand new. One half is a university students’ hostel, the other an apartment hotel. Car parking is ample and free of charge. The students we saw coming and going from the lobby were easily our social superiors. The check-in guy was clean and polite, and without being asked supplied us with a free map of the town centre and marked our position with a biro cross. Although a functionary, this man was also our social superior. ‘Are you here for business or pleasure, madam?’ he asked my companion. She and I hadn’t actually met until about half an hour earlier and our intention was to quickly get

Melissa Kite

Confessions of an insurance junkie

Never add up your insurance premiums. I just did and the annual cost of all of them came to more than the cost of most man-made or natural disasters. That means there really isn’t any point to any of them, statistically speaking. The problem is I’m an insurance junkie. I’m a born cynic, a pessimist, a worrier. Someone only has to ask if I have ever thought what would happen if… (insert improbable but horrendous mishap: the dog ingesting a rare kind of lungworm, Russian separatists misfiring a rocket at eastern Ukraine that lands on my roof) …and I’m ready to sign on the dotted line of any kind of

Alexander Chancellor

The elderly are society’s new baddies

The gulf in understanding between the old and the young has widened with the news that the young are beginning to turn teetotal. If there was one thing that the old thought they knew about the young, it was that they drank too much. British youth led the world in its enthusiasm for alcohol. Our cities swarmed with loutish binge drinkers. Yet now, all of a sudden, we learn that abstinence is becoming fashionable. The number of people under 25 who don’t touch a drop has increased by 40 per cent in eight years. More than a quarter of people in this age group now don’t drink anything at all.