Society

Thursday

The Spectator

Podcast: naked selfies, happy Tories and divorced Catholics

Why is everyone obsessed with taking naked photos of themselves? From celebrities to politicians, people can’t seem to stop taking explicit ‘selfies’. It’s the ultimate expression of our increasingly puerile and narcissistic society, says Rod Liddle in this week’s issue. Rod joins Freddy Gray on this week’s podcast, along with Maria Miller MP, the former culture secretary, who is currently campaigning for a change in the law to make revenge porn illegal. From sex to politics. The Tory party conference finished yesterday, and James Forsyth, our political editor, and Isabel Hardman, our assistant editor, join the podcast from Birmingham. They take a look at the highs and lows of the

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Slow and steady

From The Spectator, 3 October 1914: Quick results must not be expected. It must be remembered that in military as in political affairs it is a comparatively easy task to prophesy, but in both cases the prophets are always apt to have much too ambitious a time-table. Events which are expected to happen in a few days or a week take a month or a couple of months to arrive. We expect movements to mature to-morrow which, in fact, are not carried out till the prophets have almost forgotten their predictions. A notable example occurred at the beginning of the present week. The optimists were all talking about envelopments, but

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The age of selfie-obsession

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_2_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Rod Liddle and Maria Miller discuss selfie obsession” startat=85] Listen [/audioplayer]So it now seems pretty clear to me that we can no longer send women photographs of our genitals without worrying that we might be the subject of some horrible sting operation and consequently suffer public humiliation and possibly lose our jobs. One by one, the harmless little pleasures in life are being withdrawn from us. It is even being said that we would be wise not to photograph our own genitals at all, let alone send the snaps to anyone, because a third party might somehow acquire them and cause us mischief. If this is true, I

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

October Wine Club I

It’s fair to say that they let their hair down a bit in the Spectator offices on a Thursday afternoon, the magazine having gone to press, and it could have been a rash move to hold a wine tasting in the boardroom. As it was, everyone behaved impeccably and went about the task of tasting 18 different wines on behalf of the Wine Club with commendable attention and diligence. We all took notes and gave the wines marks out of ten. The following six wines were our favourites and they did well to shine amid some pretty stiff competition. The 2013 Wide River Viognier (1) from Robertson in South Africa

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Please don’t let the Ryder Cup go the way of football

Well, that was a lot of fuss wasn’t it? The Ryder Cup is a strange old creation, only fractionally less momentous than D-Day, judging by some of the hoo-hah, but it can turn even Nigel Farage into a proud European. The Little Englander agreed, very gamely, to appear in a Paddy Power advert, for which I’m told he didn’t get paid a bean, and urge everyone to ‘swing for Europe’. Mocking Americans called Hunter, Webb and Bubba — ‘those aren’t names, they’re noises’ — Nige sighed for heroic European names, such as Henrik, Sergio and Justin. Sometimes you think it is all going the way of football, with ugly tribalism,

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

The lost horses of London

The days when horses and humans lived cheek by jowl in the capital are unarguably over. Brewers’ drays have disappeared, and most people would argue that the black cab does a far better job than the hansom cab ever did. But the ghosts of horses past still inhabit the city. Statues of kings atop their chargers take pride of place in squares and parks, water troughs are scattered about the place, and the more recent Animals in War memorial on Park Lane is a reminder that our dependence on them lasted until less than a century ago. Not all of the reminders are visual, either. Many street names pay homage

Simon Heffer

What will it take for us to stop doing business with Qatar?

On 17 June, a meeting of the Henry Jackson Society, held in the House of Commons, discussed (according to the minutes published on the society’s website) how a tribal elder in northern Cameroon who runs a car import business in Qatar has become one of the main intermediaries between kidnappers from Boko Haram and its offshoot Ansaru and those seeking to free hostages. It was alleged that embezzlement of funds going to Qatar via car imports might be disguising ransom payments. It was also alleged that Qatar was involved in financing Islamist militant groups in West Africa, helping with weapons and ideological training, and (with Saudi Arabia) funding the building

Louise Mensch

I’m a divorced Catholic. And I’m sure it would be a mortal sin for me to take Communion

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_2_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Cristina Odone and Luke Coppen discuss divorced Catholics” startat=1056] Listen [/audioplayer]I am a divorced and remarried Catholic. I attend Mass every week. When my children want me to take them up to Holy Communion, I walk along behind them and cross my arms over my breast. My youngest is particularly keen on going up for a blessing, although he wants to know when he can get ‘the bread’. I say, ‘When you understand why it isn’t “the bread”.’ It has never occurred to me to present myself for Communion when I have not sought — for various reasons that I won’t discuss here — to have my first

Jonathan Mirsky

Am I wrong to fear another Tiananmen?

For Beijing, the tens of thousands of protestors choking the centre of Hong Kong are such a dangerous outrage that mainland media cannot report on them. The real outrage is this: China agreed to hold free elections in 2017, but now a Beijing-appointed committee will determine whether candidates for chief executive can be relied on to toe Beijing’s line. On 6 September, a Chinese embassy official wrote to the Times that in 2017 there would be a one-man one-vote election in Hong Kong. He omitted to mention that Beijing has selected the committee that will approve the candidates. On 15 September, Ambassador Liu Xiaoming wrote to the Daily Telegraph attacking

Claire Stevens

My boy the radical Muslim

Two years ago this week, my stepson came home wearing an Arabic black thawb. He walked into the sitting-room, smiled defiantly at me and at his father, and asked us how he looked. We were a little shocked, but being English of course we said he looked very nice. Our boy had never shown any interest in religion before he found Islam at 16. We’re atheists, and we raised him to be tolerant of all faiths but wary of anyone selling easy answers. It all began after he left school. He was feeling slightly isolated, depressed and vulnerable after breaking up with his first girlfriend, so we were pleased when

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Why my friends love the idea of a nasty, stupid mansion tax

I see all the flaws with a mansion tax, I really do. And yet some little piece of me, some tribal chip within my soul, rejoices at the thought of one. So do not expect the sympathy of the young, you owners of ‘perfectly normal houses’, now classed, however bizarrely, as the homes of the super-rich. For they will turn away from you when the taxman comes knocking, with a sudden geronticidal steel in their eyes. And you may be hurt, and you may feel righteously aggrieved. But do not be surprised. I live in London, in a house which is not a mansion. Indeed, it is probably not even

The Spectator

From the archives | 2 October 2014

From ‘Voluntary and compulsory service’, The Spectator, 3 October 1914: We do not suggest that the voluntary principle should be abandoned during this war. The system is being worked for all it is worth; it is answering well, thanks to the splendid spirit of the country; and it would be absurd to change it mid-way for another system. But we cannot help reflecting that if we had had the scheme of National Service — of compulsory training for home defence, which is a different thing from conscription — recommended so earnestly and powerfully by Lord Roberts we should not now be in the throes of painfully improvising an Army… When

John Fuller

Serenade

Come to the garden, that familiar place Where life renews itself against all odds. Untightening buds act out their memory, And dying seems a momentary pause. Our star that took an afternoon to sink Hangs in reluctance from the darkening tree Like an amused and philosophic eye Penning his treatise of the out-of-doors. We are the topics of his arguments, Enduring his extemporised revisions. We are reminded of our natural ends And of our origins, and of their laws. The knotted plum has dared at last to bloom: Its blossom has no other mind but yours. The yellow spray will lean down just for you And though its petals scatter,

Douglas Murray

Clive James on his late flowering: ‘I am in the slightly embarrassing position where I write poems saying I’m about to die and then don’t’

Clive James has published a new poem days before we meet. It opens, ‘Your death, near now, is of an easy sort’. It is about a Japanese maple his daughter has planted in the garden of his Cambridge home where we are sitting, and whether the poet will live to see the leaves flame red this autumn. The poem has made news. ‘At the moment,’ he says, laughing, ‘I am in the slightly embarrassing position where I write poems saying I am about to die and I don’t. My wife is very funny on that subject.’ It is part of an astonishing late body of work. This month there is

Lucy Vickery

And another thing | 2 October 2014

In Competition No. 2867 you were invited to add a final stanza to a well-known poem. Nicholas Stone imagined how Coleridge might have continued had it not been for the intrusion of the Person of Porlock. Tracy Davidson’s coda to ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ painted a picture of interspecies conjugal bliss turned sour. And Penn Harvey added a final instalment to Wallace Stevens’s chilly modernist masterpiece ‘The Emperor of Ice-Cream’. There were strong performances all round this week and it was difficult to whittle down the entry. Bill Greenwell, Katie Mallett, Alanna Blake, Mike Morrison and Brian Murdoch were pipped to the post, but only just, by the prizewinners

Wednesday

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Politicians’ pyjamas: Cameron wears satin, Balls prefers a string vest and Hague, a kaftan

Let’s talk pyjamas. Specifically, let’s talk paisley pyjamas. Never mind what poor Mr Newmark had hanging out of his; concentrate on the garment itself. You never think of politicians in pyjamas. Although now I’ve started, and I just can’t stop. David Cameron, I suspect, used to sleep in tracky bottoms and a Smiths T-shirt until really quite recently. These days, though, it’ll be a suit of something expensive and slinky, maybe black satin, or green. While Ed Miliband’s pyjama situation you just know will be chaos. Possibly he still wears the now tight and farcical Thomas the Tank Engine ones he had when he was 11. Keeps meaning to buy

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Podcast special: David Cameron’s speech

Has David Cameron just delivered his best-ever speech as party leader? I discuss it with James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman in this View from 22 podcast special. My write-up is here, James’s here and Isabel’s is here. listen to ‘Podcast special: David Cameron’s speech’ on audioBoom

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Birthday wishes

From The Spectator, 3 October 1914: All Britain and all the Empire have during the week been congratulating Lord Roberts on his eighty-second birthday. His vigour, physical, intellectual, and moral, is marvellous. In spite of his years, he is able to give an enormous deal of help to the nation in its need. His suggestion for the supply of saddles and bridles was specially useful. But though there has been a good response, many more are needed. It is a disgrace just now to have a full saddle-room. The simplicity and nobility of Lord Roberts’s character and his unaffected goodness of heart recall to us once more the wonderful lines

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tories will keep NHS ring fence, Cameron to announce

The Tories will protect the NHS budget, David Cameron will announce in his speech to his party conference today. Extracts of the Prime Minister’s speech, which he will deliver in Birmingham later today, include a promise to ‘protect the NHS budget and continue to invest more’. Cameron will repeat George Osborne’s argument that ‘you can only have a strong NHS if you have a strong economy’, and will also mention his own personal commitment to the health service, saying: ‘From the country that unravelled DNA, we are now mapping it for each individual. Cracking this code could mean curing rare genetic diseases and saving lives. Our NHS is leading the

Dr Michael Banna

Has Cameron actually considered the realities of his seven-day GP access scheme?

David Cameron’s seven-day opening scheme for GPs sounds like an excellent idea for patients, but I’m not convinced it is. I’d be lying if I said that I wanted to work weekends, but that is genuinely not my concern here — though it will be for many people who make up the bedrock of general practice. My concern is how we can possibly make it happen. General practice is currently on its knees. We are facing increasing demand from both patients and the government, and a steadily decreasing income which has resulted in practice closures and mergers. To top it off, we are in the middle of a recruitment crisis