Society

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Another day, another departure at Newsnight

Since Ian Katz took over as editor of Newsnight, an illustrious roll call of staff have left the flagging current affairs show, including presenters Jeremy Paxman and Gavin Esler. Now, one of Katz’s newest recruits has jumped ship. Mr S hears that Newsnight deputy editor Rob Burley has handed in his notice. Burley is leaving the show to succeed Barney Jones as editor of The Andrew Marr Show. The news will come as a blow to the former deputy editor of The Guardian given that Burley started work on Newsnight at the same time as him. One of Burley’s former Newsnight colleagues certainly thinks his departure is a one-sided loss. @RobBurl

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Feeling morally superior? Time to sign an online petition

Purely for the purposes of argument, it would be handy if Ched Evans had said sorry for the rape for which he was convicted. He hasn’t, for the simple and sufficient reason that he believes he is innocent and is challenging his conviction. So in this case, it’s not possible to argue for a repentant sinner to be readmitted to the fold. But it’s still possible, isn’t it, for someone to serve their time for a crime and to be readmitted into society, on the basis that justice has been served? Well no, not if it’s rape rather than, oh homicide or GBH, that they’ve done time for. It’s the

Saturday

Martin Gayford

Martin Gayford’s five favourite exhibitions of 2014

1. Late Rembrandt, National Gallery (15 Oct – Jan 18) (see image above) Some achievements, and some exhibitions, are virtually beyond criticism, and this is one: a superb assortment of works by a supreme artist. 2. Anselm Kiefer, Royal Academy (Sept 27 – December 14) A revelation – to the British public at least – that Kiefer is a great living artist, and above all a painter. 3. Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs, Tate Modern (17 April – September 7) In his old age Matisse was an invalid, confined to a wheel chair, but succeeded in escaping triumphantly into a world of exuberant light and form: this exhibition was a triumph

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The bleak calculation made by the passengers on the Ezadeen

Well, thank God they made it. The Ezadeen, formerly a livestock carrier and now adapted for its human cargo of 360 people, has arrived today at Corigliano Calabro near Lecce. The Italian coastguard, which brought the vessel into port, has been conspicuously humane in its treatment of the refugees. The newborns are to have the best of care; the other migrants – abandoned, it would seem, by the crew at some point in the voyage from Turkey – have been given a courteous reception, rather than treated as criminals. Yet these 360 Syrians follow the 796 individuals, many also from Syria and from Eritrea, abandoned by the crew of their

Friday

Molly Guinness

The joys of unrealistic New Year’s resolutions

There’s something so depressing about the newspapers’ tips for sticking to your New Year’s Resolutions that to shield yourself from boredom and irritation, you may decide not to make any at all. But they can be rather romantic; the diplomat Harold Nicolson had a tender affection for resolutions, much preferring them to Christmas. How far more delightful, how far less cumbersome, is the search for New Year’s resolutions. No careful planning is required for this catalogue; the resolutions trip merrily along together, as gay as a group of children leaving school…One should realise that the ease with which they buzz and settle implies an equal capacity for being able, in

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: A flying visit

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 2 January 1915: The first German aeroplanes which have visited us since the beginning of the war appeared on Thursday and Friday of last week. On Thursday week, about eleven o’clock in the morning, an aeroplane circled over Dover and dropped a bomb, which fell in a garden and did very little damage. British aircraft started up from the ground in pursuit, but the German aeroplane disappeared in the mist over the sea, after having been visible for only a few seconds. The aeroplane of Friday week appeared near Sheerness, about 12.30 p.m., flying very high—as German airmen generally do—from east to west.

Thursday

Raymond Keene

Ave et vale

2014 was the year in which Magnus Carlsen confirmed his position as world champion, and also the year in which the dynamic new star, Fabiano Caruana, rose to the rank of world no. 2. For my game of the year I am choosing the crucial encounter from the Carlsen-Anand world championship match where Anand failed to spot a winning opportunity and went on to lose. This was a massive turning point, ensuring that a contest which had seemed within Anand’s grasp was decided in favour of the reigning champion. Traditionally, my game of the year is a brilliant example of the creative heights to which chess can aspire. In this instance,

Raymond Keene

No. 343

White to play. This position is from Caruana–Ponomariov, Dortmund 2014. The structure is symmetrical but White’s pieces are very active. How did Caruana make the most of this with a stunning combination? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 6 January 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 Qf6+

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: What can I do about my neighbours’ downmarket recycling?

Q. Since recycling was introduced in our village, the wall at the end of our drive has become the depositing point for some neighbours as well as for us. Unfortunately their detritus is not sophisticated and while our green boxes are filled with wine bottles of respectable appellations, theirs is crammed with cheap lager tins. The recycling lorry comes before our friends are up so I’m not concerned about them, but more distant acquaintances on their way to work inevitably see the boxes, and we can’t invite them all to dinner to establish our credentials. How can we persuade our neighbours to keep their empties to themselves? — J.C., Taunton,

Dot Wordsworth

How ‘data’ became like ‘butter’

Someone on Radio 4 said she had heard about the sexism of Grand Theft Auto on ‘Women’s Hour’. It is called Woman’s Hour, though the other is possible, on the model of Children’s Hour. But I was struck in 2014 by a slide in certainty about singulars and plurals. The three shakiest plurals are data, criteria and bacteria. Data has become not so much a singular noun as an uncountable one, like butter. So speakers can say ‘all the data collected is reliable’. Datum and criterion are almost extinct. A daily paper used a bacteria on its front page to mean a kind of bacterium. This shakiness is made worse

Taki

Warning: these books could seriously damage your health

Welcome to 2015, the year that speaking and writing freely had to stop. Anything that might cause trauma to anyone of any race except the white one will be expunged, and the perpetrators of politically incorrect speech or written word will be airbrushed for ever. The word trauma derives from the Greek and means wound. The literary canon will be the first to bite the dust as it’s one big trauma, especially for feminists. The Great Gatsby, for example, is bonfire material because of a variety of scenes ‘that reference gory, abusive and misogynistic violence’. And let’s not forget The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as racist a book as ever

Jeremy Clarke

That’s another year gone and, against the odds, I’m still here

A fruity voice on the train’s announcement system said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, make sure you have all your belongings, family members and what have you with you when alighting from the train. We are now arriving in the naughty little station of Newton Abbot.’ This carriage was empty. The Teign estuary sparkled in the Sunday morning sunshine. The line from Totnes in Devon to Paddington is a lovely journey at any time of the year across the farms and pastures green of Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire and Berkshire. Always I have good intentions to read, but usually I rest my chin on the heel of my palm and look out of

Melissa Kite

Draft and save is as good a New Year’s resolution as any

Draft and save. That is as good a New Year’s resolution as any. Never send an email or letter in anger. Always leave it a few hours. Sleep on it if you can. You know it makes sense. The same goes for notes through doors. I know this because I have been experiencing some intermittent next door neighbour noise. First, it was incessant dog barking. I went out of my house and peered over the wall of my neighbour’s house and, sure enough, sitting on the back of the sofa in the window was a pretty little dog barking his head off. ‘Sshhh! There, there, doggy. Don’t worry,’ I cooed

Alexander Chancellor

I think I’ve found a miracle cure for a bad back

I’ve had various ailments during my first 74 years — the worst being those induced by smoking, such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis — but never before have I suffered from back pain. I know many people who have, and I have witnessed the miseries they have suffered — their months spent lying on the floor, their desperate search for suitable treatments, their failed operations. I had begun to think that I might be immune to this particular affliction, attributing this to the fact that I have rather a short back. But suddenly, before Christmas, my back started to ache when I got up from a chair, and soon afterwards

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 1 January 2015

It’s surprising how many perfectly good bridge players lack confidence when it comes to squeeze plays. They seem to think a squeeze is some sort of dark art which experts alone can master — a view no doubt reinforced by all that technical jargon about ‘rectifying the count’ and ‘isolating the menace’. But the truth is that many squeezes are within any reasonable player’s grasp — in fact, even beginners have a chance of executing one simply by playing off all their winners and hoping for the best. My favourite example of a near-beginner pulling off an intricate squeeze by fluke was shown to me some years ago — I

Peter Jones

An ancient Olympic tradition that Fifa would love

Those nice people at Fifa seem to be having a terrible time from the British press, which never stops accusing them of bribery and corruption. What on earth is our problem? Of course games are corrupt. In the ancient world, we now know they could be legally corrupt. Perfect! The Greek comic poet Cratinus invented three goddesses of political bribery: Doro, St Give, Dexo, St Receive and Emblo, St Backhander. Courts described such ‘corruption’ in terms taken from the despised world of trade — ‘buying’, ‘selling’, ‘profit’ and so on. In the real world, however, it was more usually described as ‘giving’, ‘receiving’ and ‘persuading’. One Greek orator argued that personal advantage

The Spectator

Letters: Why Ofsted should be disbanded

Disband Ofsted Sir: Dennis Sewell’s damning indictment of Ofsted (‘Ofsted in the dock’, 13 December) stopped short of the logical conclusion of disbanding it, arguing instead that the chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, should be supported in his efforts to purge inspectors promoting the progressive educational agenda that the coalition inherited. We’ve been here before. Chris Woodhead was chief inspector for six years, and despite his best efforts concluded that his organisation had ‘become a part of the [progressive] establishment, and arguably the most lethal part…’. Wilshaw has been chief inspector for almost three years, and apparently is only just discovering the extent to which his inspectors are still promoting

Toby Young Toby Young

A year ago, I had big plans to unite the right. This year, I’m keeping my ambitions more modest

This time last year, I wrote an article saying my main project in 2014 would be to unite the right. That is, I would start a political movement that would bring together Conservative and Ukip activists in a tactical voting alliance. We would select a few dozen battleground constituencies and campaign for whichever candidate was best placed to win in each seat, whether Ukip or Tory. The name for this movement was to be ‘Country Before Party’. The initial response was encouraging. Hundreds of people emailed me offering their support, including MEPs, members of the House of Lords, ex-MPs, and so on. I set up a website, assembled a steering

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 1 January 2015

Home King’s Cross railway station was out of operation, stranding thousands, and Paddington saw badly delayed services after Network Rail engineering works overran beyond Christmas and Boxing Day. Connection with the internet for Xbox and PlayStation games consoles was disabled on Christmas Day and a group of hackers called Lizard Squad said it had interfered. Before the end of 2014, Mandy Rice-Davies, who had come to public attention during the Profumo scandal of 1963, died, aged 70; John Freeman, the journalist and interviewer on the BBC television programme, Face to Face, died, aged 99; and Jane Bown, the outstanding black-and-white photograph portraitist, died, aged 89. Sales of sherry rose 15 per cent

Bruce Anderson

Bruce Anderson’s diary: If you want to understand the SNP, it helps to be an ex-Trot

An embarrassing confession: in the late 1960s, I was a Trotskyite. But that period of political adolescence has its uses. It made me aware of the methods employed by extremist parties such as the Scots Nats. Trots wanted to encourage ‘the workers’ to make impossible demands, including ludicrously high wage rates, in order to bring down capitalism. But the workers were too wise to fall for that, until Arthur Scargill came along. Now, the Nats are playing a similar game, discussing the terms on which they might support Ed Miliband — as if they would like a stable government in London. That is nonsense. They want confusion and chaos in