Society

Thursday

Dot Wordsworth

The hidden depths of ‘deep dive’

My husband has taken to crying out or braying ‘Haar, ha!’ at the wireless whenever he hears something particularly foolish, which is quite often. His bray was even louder than usual when one of those endless trailers invited us all to ‘dive deeper’. Like a tornado, this figure of speech has thickened into reality within the lifetime of most of us. No example earlier than 1986 has been found by the Oxford English Dictionary, which quotes a New York Times review of a television programme of that year, ‘a deep dive into nostalgia’ with the help of ‘old newsreel and movie clips’. The metaphor is intended to convey the sense

The Spectator

2661: Spectrum – solution

The unclued lights are French words or phrases which include a colour: 2, 10/32, 21A/7D, 21D, 28/8, 36/11, 37/8 and 38/15. Bleu at 8 does double duty, and ‘noir’ and ‘noire’ are the two forms. First prize Jeremiah Carter, Cambridge Runners-up Ian MacDonald, East Grinstead, W Sussex; C.R. Haigh, Hassocks, W. Sussex

The Spectator

After Rwanda: what will Labour do now?

Keir Starmer is advertising for someone to head his newly created Border Security Command. The salary is higher than his own: the person in charge of stopping the boats would earn between £140,000 and £200,000. According to the ad, the job of patrolling the English Channel can be done remotely from any one of 12 cities, including Edinburgh and Belfast. It will require coordination with the Home Office, parts of the navy and even MI5. Never mind that this goes on already, with no discernible effect. The key requirement for the job, it would seem, is to be the fall guy, someone ready to take the blame for a policy

Michael Wolff

The mystery of Melania Trump

While everybody at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee was preoccupied with Donald Trump’s triumphal story after the assassination attempt and the prospect of near-certain victory in November, I dwelled on that low-rumble question of the 2024 election: where’s Melania? She had not made one campaign appearance, nor been at her husband’s side for his myriad courtroom dates. A theme of the proceedings was the adoration of Trump family members for their patriarch. From the stage, his sons and their wives extolled him as the greatest family man of all time. But no Melania. Finally, at the last moment on Thursday, when her husband had already left the VIP box,

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Joe Biden was never quite all there

As President Biden sank more deeply into the mire this month, kind friends kept urging me to write in his defence, because respect for the old must be maintained in our discourteous society. ‘And why does it matter,’ they added, ‘if he muddles up everyone’s name? We know who he means.’ ‘It’s like sacking the warden of New College for Spoonerisms,’ said one. I nearly succumbed; but since I had observed as early as the mid-1980s that Biden was not quite all there, I did not feel I could stick up for his underlying cognitive coherence nearly 40 years later. Besides, if Donald Trump wins, America will still have an

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

The plotting to find the next Pope

The Hollywood adaptation of Conclave, Robert Harris’s thriller about a conspiracy to rig a papal election, won’t be in cinemas until November. But judging by the trailer released last week, its starry cast, crafty plot and spectacular cinematography – jets of smoke scattering cardinals as an explosion shatters the Sistine Chapel – will instantly erase memories of The Two Popes, Netflix’s risible Oscar-nominated fantasy in which Benedict XVI secretly chooses Cardinal Bergoglio as his successor. Perhaps only four cardinal-electors are conservative Latin Mass ritualists, and none stands a chance Harris’s novel was published in 2016 and diplomatically set some years in the future, since the unnamed Holy Father lying dead

The Spectator

Has the cruise industry recovered from the pandemic?

1968 again An incumbent who drops out of the race for re-election and a candidate who gets shot; this year’s US presidential election bears similarities to that of 1968. Lyndon Johnson had won the 1964 election by a landslide and was expected to win another term. But in April 1968 he withdrew from the race, under pressure over the Vietnam war and his own failing health. Vice president Hubert Humphrey was immediately touted as Johnson’s successor, although Robert Kennedy put up a strong showing in the primaries before being shot soon after winning the nomination for California. He died a day later. Less remembered about the 1968 election is how

Justin Marozzi

A visit to the world’s worst capital city

Nouakchott in Mauritania is often referred to as the ‘worst capital city in the world’. That may be a little harsh, but it is difficult to recommend it to Spectator readers as a must-visit destination. The heat is savage, the poverty endemic, corruption is off the scale and this west African country is one of the last on Earth where you can still find hereditary slavery. Which is why I’m here. Troubles begin on arrival. A succession of three police officers grill me in the airport. Why have I come to Nouakchott, who am I working for, who am I planning to meet, why, what are their telephone numbers, what

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: IT meltdown, riots in Leeds and the wrong kind of pandemic

Home Britain enjoyed its share of the worldwide failure of 8.5 million computers reliant on Microsoft, through a faulty update of the CrowdStrike antivirus software. On the first day, 167 air departures were cancelled in the United Kingdom – 5.4 per cent of those scheduled. (Worldwide it was 5,078 – 4.6 per cent of those scheduled.) Doctors’ appointment systems stopped working and customers at Gail’s bakery could not pay for their pains au chocolat. BT was fined £17.5 million for a ‘catastrophic failure’ on 25 June last year that led to 14,000 999 calls not being connected. National debt, which fell from 251.7 per cent of GDP in 1946 to

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Why there’s rioting in Leeds

As something of a fan of riots and social unrest I was interested to know who, precisely, had gone doolally in the Harehills area of Leeds last week and started setting fire to buses and so on. The local police announced that it was a ‘serious disorder incident’, but I could find no information at all about who it was doing the rioting. Just people, I suppose – and we are all people, aren’t we? Still I scoured the paper – and nope, no enlightenment. Perhaps it was just northerners – Leeds is full of them, after all, and they can be fractious and violent when the mood grips hold

Wednesday

Lara Brown

There’s nothing ‘offensive’ about Prince Albert’s Memorial

The Prince Albert Memorial is the latest target of activists seeking to denigrate our past. The Memorial has stood in London’s Kensington Gardens for over 150 years as a moving tribute to Queen Victoria’s love for her husband. But now it has been branded ‘offensive’. Apparently, the sculptures at its base draw on ‘racial stereotypes’. Visitors were warned in a post – which has since been taken down – on the Royal Parks’ website that the memorial represents a ‘Victorian view of European supremacy’ which many today consider ‘problematic’. Really? Royal Parks have chosen to hunt for remnants of Empire in order to condemn them Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy announced

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

The Charlotte Dujardin whipping video is a disaster for equestrian sports

With just three days to go until the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, the equestrian world went into meltdown last night. The first sign of any upset was a statement issued by Team GB equestrian star Charlotte Dujardin: ‘A video has emerged from four years ago which shows me making an error of judgement during a coaching session’, she wrote. As a result, Dujardin – who has won six Olympic medals – has withdrawn from all competitions, including the Paris games, until the FEI (International Federation for Equestrian Sports) complete their investigation. The video shows Dujardin during a coaching session for a horse and rider, in

Debbie Hayton

What Elon Musk gets right about the plight of trans kids

Elon Musk is the richest person in the world but it’s clear that money can’t always buy happiness. The X/ Twitter owner spoke movingly of his family, in particular his eldest surviving child, during an emotional interview with Jordan Peterson. ‘My son Xavier is dead, killed by the woke mind virus’, the father-of-12 lamented. ‘The people who have been promoting this should go to prison,’ said Musk  Musk claimed that he had been ‘tricked’ into allowing one of his children who transitioned from male to female to take puberty blockers after hearing that the child might otherwise be at risk from suicide. The billionaire now appears to regret that decision

Andrew Tettenborn

Letting the worst universities collapse would be an act of kindness

Nobody said much about it before the election, but the new government inherits a ghastly financial problem with the higher education system. Rising costs, stagnant tuition fees, and a big drop in foreign student enrolments have left several universities tottering like ivory Jenga towers. We probably have too many universities This week we got an inkling of what education secretary Bridget Phillipson and higher education minister Jacqui Smith are thinking of doing about this mess. Not surprisingly, big money bail-outs are out (chancellor Rachel Reeves won’t allow them), as are increases in student fees (which backbenchers wouldn’t stand for). Instead, apart from telling the institutions in trouble to tighten their belts, the

Monday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Keir Starmer has made his first misstep as Prime Minister

In dodging calls from his party to remove the two-child cap, Sir Keir Starmer is making one of his first noteworthy mistakes as Prime Minister. Both John McDonnell, the far-left former shadow chancellor, and Anas Sarwar, the soft-left Scottish Labour leader, have called for the Coalition-era policy to go. The cap limits the payment of Universal Credit to a family’s first two children, with subsequent offspring meriting no additional payment. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, keeping the cap will mean an extra 670,000 children worse off by the end of this Parliament while scrapping it would reduce relative child poverty by half a million. The annual cost of

Eliot Wilson

Starmer needs more than money to solve his Northern Ireland problem

Keir Starmer has been in office for less than three weeks, but his government has spent an unusually large amount of time and energy on matters in Northern Ireland. With his newly appointed secretary of state, Hilary Benn, the Prime Minister visited Belfast within days of kissing hands, despite a schedule which also included the Nato summit in Washington. The administration faces a number of pressing problems in Northern Ireland which carry substantial price tags as well as powerful symbolic importance. Harland and Wolff was one of the great icons of Protestant industrial Belfast When Starmer and Benn met Northern Ireland’s first minister, Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Féin, one of

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Why the punishment fits the ‘crime’ for Japan’s smoking gymnast

Japan’s Olympics have got off to the worst possible start. The captain of their women’s gymnastics team Shoko Miyata has withdrawn, or more accurately been obliged to withdraw, after admitting breaking the team’s code of conduct while at their training camp in Monaco. Her Olympic dream is over and she leaves in disgrace. So, what was this unacceptable behaviour? Well, it appears Miyata smoked a cigarette and drank alcohol (once, for each). Smoking and drinking are prohibited for anyone under the age of 20 in Japan. Miyata is 19. Miyata’s Olympic dream is over and she leaves in disgrace JGA’s (Japanese Gymnastic Association) president Tadashi Fujita offered a grovelling apology

Sunday

Graham Watts

The dark side of Strictly Come Dancing

Wallowing in the cosy entertainment of Strictly Come Dancing has been a staple Saturday evening ritual for millions during the autumn months of the past 20 years. For the BBC, it’s a prized cash cow, having been exported (under the Dancing with the Stars brand) to around 60 other countries. It’s a show built on schmaltz and competition as celebrities (mostly with no dance experience) are paired with professional dancers in a weekly gladiatorial contest where one couple is routinely eliminated by a mix of public vote and the imperial thumbs-down from the judges. It’s a self-inflicted recipe for tough love in the rehearsal room Preparing for the twentieth anniversary

Saturday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Kate Andrews, Adam Frank, David Hempleman-Adams, Svitlana Morenets and Michael Beloff

40 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Kate Andrews argues vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance is more MAGA than Trump (1:27); Adam Frank explains how super-earths could help us understand what life might look like on another planet (5:15); David Hempleman-Adams recounts his attempt to cross the Atlantic on a hydrogen ballon (14:31); from Ukraine, Svitlana Morenets reports on the battle to save Kharkiv (20:44); and, Michael Beloff takes us on a history of the Olympics (30:12).  Presented by Patrick Gibbons.  

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Joe Biden and the truth about old age

Observing the tremulous travails of Joe Biden, I reflected that we’re in two minds about old age. On one hand we pay stiff-upper-lip-service to the stoicism of old people; on the other they’re a warning about what awaits us. (I say ‘us’ out of habit; I got used to always being the youngest person in the room having won my dream job when I was just 17, but I turned 65 this month so I’m officially old.) Perhaps because I so thoroughly got what I wanted, I’m not sad to see the back of youth Not wanting to see the gory details of what we can expect, we (understandably) stash