Society

The Spectator at war: At home in England

From ‘Some reflections of an alien enemy: the contradiction between being and feeling an Englishman, by a Czech’, The Spectator, 17 April 1915: What I most regret having lost is my previous unawareness of there being any difference between me and Englishmen. In saying we, I used to mean we English people; somehow or other I find myself now compelled to distinguish between me, a foreigner, and you, English people. Quite proper that it should be so; yet at the same time I feel as though I had lost my birthright. The disappearance of my instinctive sense of identity with my fellow-men, qnite irrespective of their nationality, fills me with

Isabel Hardman

Iain Duncan Smith is right about zero hours contracts – he’s just far too late

Into each day, outrage must fall. Today Iain Duncan Smith has performed the service of upsetting everyone by telling Sky News that zero-hours contracts should be rebranded ‘flexible-hours contracts’. The Work and Pensions Secretary said: ‘I think, with respect, the media and others have got this completely wrong, the flexible-hours contracts I’m talking about which are named ‘zero-hours contracts’, they are taking by people who want that flexibility. The reality is what we’ve had from Labour is a series of scare stories about these.’ Whatever you fancy calling these contracts, they have been rising in salience as a political issue to the extent that the Tories, who did regard them as

Rod Liddle

It takes guts to stick it to the stuck-up BBC audience

I thought Farage was rather good in that debate yesterday. It’s about time someone stuck it to the bovine, self-important, audiences – it takes a bit of guts to do that. My suspicion is not that the audience was unrepresentative (although it often is in these shows) but that the liberal left simply will not listen to views with which they disagree and feel a childish need to boo. It is the mindset which insists not that other people may be mistaken, but that they are foul for having the views they hold and should be subjected to spite and nastiness. As you are aware, I hate these totalitarian people

Is Douglas Carswell avoiding the HIV question — or should he be given a break?

Does Douglas Carswell agree with Nigel Farage’s controversial comments on treating foreigners with HIV? When I asked the Ukip leader, Farage responded ‘Yeah of course, he thinks we should have a national health service not an international health service.’ The question was put to Carswell directly on Question Time last night, when Piers Morgan took him to task if he was ‘ashamed’ at the comments. Carswell responded: ‘I think it’s entirely legitimate and right that we should expect that our National Health Service is a national health service and not an international health service. Now if someone was to fly into this country with no prior connection here at all and to fly in

The Spectator at war: Papal infallability

From ‘The Pope and the War’, The Spectator, 17 April 1915: The result of the war may prove that motives which we had supposed to be secured by Christianity are after all to be of little account in directing human actions. That is the situation stated without exaggeration. And in the world in which this gigantic crisis is about to be decided there is a spiritual Power which claims infallibility in any judgment it may choose to deliver ex cathedra on matters of faith or morals. We say nothing about faith, but surely if ever there were a plain occasion for moral direction and moral judgment this war provides one.

Letters | 16 April 2015

The real road menace Sir: I write in anger after reading Mark Mason’s malicious attack on mobility scooters (‘Hell on wheels’, 11 April). The motorcar has, since its invention, killed many hundreds of thousands of innocent pedestrians. Meanwhile, whole tracts of our beautiful and productive countryside have been flattened or destroyed to accommodate its traffic. I have been a devoted walker for over 80 years and remember how many favourite walks have been erased or spoiled for the construction of motorways. Now that I am unable to do more than dodder, I get about on a mobility scooter. I like it even less than the pedestrians I may inconvenience, but my only alternative is

Hit for six

The Hamilton Russell trophy for London clubs has been dominated in the past by the RAC. This year, though, they were knocked for six in the final decisive match by the MCC. The full scores (out of a possible 14) were as follows: 1st Marylebone Cricket Club, 14; Joint 2nd Oxford & Cambridge Club and Royal Automobile Club, 11; 4th Athenaeum Club, 7; Joint 5th Hurlingham Club and Oriental & East India Clubs, 4; 7th Chelsea Arts Club, 3; 8th Reform Club, 2. The crucial game which helped the MCC to take the cup was the following clash between an international master and a former Spectator editor. Dominic Lawson has supplied the

No. 358

White to play. This is from Lee-Zakharov, Vrnjacka Banja 1963. Black has just captured on c3 and now 1 Qxc3 runs into 1 … Qxf1 mate. However, White can do rather better than that. Can you see how? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 21 April or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk. 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 … Nxh3+ Last week’s winner D.V. Jones, Llanfair, Caereinion, Powys

Demosthenes vs Michael Fallon

Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon’s claim that Ed Miliband, having practised on his brother, would also stab his country in the back by not renewing Trident has not gone down well. As a classicist, Mr Fallon should surely know there is a more effective rhetoric at hand. When an ancient Greek wanted to attack a political opponent, two particular angles were popular: whose interests does he have uppermost in his mind — his own or the city’s? And has he any track record of being useful, (or as we might say, ‘adding value’), to the city? Both angles were superbly marshalled by the Athenian statesman Demosthenes in 330

Low life | 16 April 2015

To say that Oscar was warmly welcomed as he stepped through the massive oak door into a chilly House of God for the first time in his life on Easter day would be an understatement. Delighted crones came bounding up, mewing and moaning at the rare and unexpected appearance in their midst of an innocent child. One of them thrust her face in his and excitedly interviewed him. ‘What’s your name then, my dear?’ she said, thrilled to meet someone under 70. Oscar diffidently but courageously answered that he was called Oscar. ‘What? What?’ she said, deaf as a post. ‘Do you know what the little chap’s name is?’ she

Real life | 16 April 2015

By and large, I’m not really sure the world is ready for me to join the steering committee of a community project in Lambeth seeking Lottery funding. It sounds like I might end up punching someone who is left-wing in an argument over how to spend public money. That said, I was mildly inspired when a disused cricket pavilion in my local park went up for tender and some stalwarts of the community started to have worthy ideas for its future use. They approached me to help and so I am considering how I could safely (for all concerned) become involved. I should explain, unless you happen to remember, that

Long life | 16 April 2015

No sooner had I written last week’s column about the sad disappearance of the two tortoises in my care than they suddenly showed up. The sun had shone for two days, and that was enough to bring them out from underground. I had become convinced that I would never see them again. They had vanished from sight nearly five months earlier, and the expert websites that I consulted not only said this was longer than tortoises normally hibernate but also made clear that I had been an utterly irresponsible tortoise-keeper. They should have been starved before hibernating, they should have been measured, weighed and minutely inspected, and then they should

No fairy tale ending

It all depends how you like your fairy tales. OK, so we would have loved the retiring Tony ‘AP’ McCoy, 20 years a champion, to have won his last Grand National on Shutthefrontdoor, owned by his long-time patron J.P. McManus, jump racing’s biggest benefactor. But fate rarely reads the full script and this year’s National went instead to the talented Many Clouds, owned by Trevor Hemmings, another who has poured a fortune into racing. Many Clouds was trained in Lambourn by the generous-hearted Oliver Sherwood, a man claimed truly as a friend by more people in racing than anyone else I know and who has in his choice of riders

Bridge | 16 April 2015

When I was growing up, the loudest, most explosive arguments erupted when my parents played bridge together. Not surprisingly, when my father offered to teach me I made my excuses and ran. Jasmine Bakhshi is in the lucky position of having David for a father. Not only is David on the England Open team that wins practically everything they enter but he is also an excellent teacher. And what a pupil he has in ten-year-old Jasmine. At the Easter Festival in London she played with 15-year-old Isaac Channon in the Under 19 Pairs Championship, which they won, making her the youngest ever holder of that title. She first showed an

Dear Mary | 16 April 2015

Q. I have moved from London to the centre of a historic market town, now becoming famous as a foodie destination. For some reason people who would never have dreamt of dropping in without ringing when I lived in Kensington now think it almost de rigueur to knock on my door without warning when they are staying locally for the weekend. I like many of these people — but such unplanned visits are disruptive. Can you suggest a way I might retrain people to give me notice without seeming middle-aged and crusty? — Name and address withheld A. Make it a policy to always put on a coat and hat or sunglasses before

Tanya Gold

Sharing Caring

The Ivy Chelsea Garden is a restaurant inside an Edwardian house disguised as a Tudor house on the King’s Road; it was formerly the fetid Henry J. Bean’s American Bar and Grill, which was a sort of magnet and sex market, with cheeseburgers, for Chelsea teenagers. It sits in a row of babywear shops and artisan bakers — why Chelsea needs bakers I know not, because no one here is fat enough to eat bread. Perhaps it bespeaks a psychic insecurity that even the rich of SW3 feel — for the bread is the life? It is the third instalment of Richard Caring’s growing Ivy franchise, because Caring — catering’s

Diary – 16 April 2015

To the dentist. And for an extraction. I hadn’t had a tooth out in decades. But the twinges when I bit on a nut warned me that my problem molar — much abused by a badly fitted bridge in the 1970s — had finally given way. My usual dentist confirmed as much with a poke and an X-ray. Then came the surprise. ‘I’m going to hand you over now,’ he said. Having a tooth out has ceased to be a hazard of life to be borne and grinned at. Instead it’s become dental surgery. And it requires a specialist. Mine was a man with a mission. ‘My job is to

Passion | 16 April 2015

‘I long for spontaneous passion but I will never get it with my husband because I think he has Asperger syndrome,’ wrote a reader of the Sun to Deidre last week. I noticed this because the leading article in The Spectator earlier this month said that David Cameron needs ‘more passion’. It was right, of course. Deidre’s reply suggested that ‘specific requests could help him, such as “Please give me a cuddle in bed”.’ I don’t know if a similar suggestion has been made to Mr Cameron. But Tony Blair said in his recent speech: ‘I believe passionately that leaving Europe would leave Britain diminished.’ Does believing passionately that something