Society

From The Spectator, 21 November 1914: If nations obtain the Governments that they deserve, it may be hoped that they do not always deserve their postage-stamps. If that were so, we should be a less deserving nation than we were in the twenty or thirty years which followed the introduction of “adhesive labels” in 1840, when we had some of the finest stamps that have ever been issued. The black penny, the red penny, and, above all, the blue twopenny stamps of 1840 to 1880 have never been surpassed for strength of colour and simplicity of design. When 1880 brought the brick-red penny, and 1881 began a pale procession of

Most weeks there is a demonstration of some sort in Parliament Square. I can hear the noise from my office and occasionally read the odd banner or two. Some are confusing, occasionally amusing, often serious, but always important to the supporters. Most make me think a bit about the cause being championed. But each one reminds me of the time when it was me out there. Me and thousands of others trying in the only way we could to attract the attention of the then Labour Government and divert it from its hostile attack on the countryside and hunting in particular. Here in London we marched in record numbers, but

At 8pm tonight, I’m presenting a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on inequality, entitled How The Rich Get Richer. In 27 fact-filled minutes, I go through a lot of things – arguing that inequality is about more than tax receipts, and tackling it means more than complaining about rich people. In fact, I’d argue that the chief sponsor of inequality in Britain is state education. Everyone knows that, in general, state schools are better in leafier areas. That’s why wealthy parents pay so much for houses in a good catchment areas: make no mistake, they’re buying their school place as surely as someone who sends their child to Eton. Ch4 Dispatches commissioned the

From The Spectator, 14 November 1914: THACKERAY dealt a blow at domestic service which it has never quite recovered. He made it ridiculous. It was the one bad turn that he did to English society. The litera- ture of his day reflected his point of view. Servants did not then read novels—they were 31s. 6d. each—neither did they belong to lending libraries. The derisive smiles of their employers were hardly understood by them. By now the employer has forgotten that he ever laughed, though it is impossible to deny that some very faint aroma of ridicule still clings to his mind in connexion with the thought of domestic service, at

We at 22 Old Queen Street have never been great fans of Rowan Williams. At a time when strong ecclesiastical leadership was needs he served up abstract, pew-emptying waffle. But as this week’s leading article in the magazine argues, his successor Justin Welby has taken a more subtle, serious and successful approach — which bears fruit, as we saw last week with the government’s crackdown on the most sharkish of the payday lenders. ‘Welby’s intelligence on financial matters stands in direct contrast with that of his predecessor, Rowan Williams, whose pronouncements on current affairs so often came across as those of a lofty professor who had found himself in the wrong lecture hall. Straying

This article first appeared on Apollo magazine’s website We often think there is something reassuring, even comforting, about the art of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Life goes on, in a rather jolly way, oblivious to the great dramas of history, he seems to be telling us. ‘How everything turns away quite leisurely from the disaster,’ as W.H. Auden famously observed in his poem ‘Musée des Beaux Arts‘. We are fond of Bruegel’s paintings, not because they speak to our own age, or pre-figure modern attitudes, but because they are so deeply rooted in their own time. Odd, therefore, that Christie’s should seek to set up a dialogue between Bruegel and

The common feature of the first two games of the World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen in Sochi has been that play was decided in a major piece endgame consisting of a queen and rook each. I have often maintained that Emanuel Lasker (world champion from 1894 to 1921) has been the role model for Carlsen’s style. Lasker was the leading exponent of such refined endgames where manoeuvring and filigree technique was of particular importance. In major piece endgames the slightest inaccuracy can spell either reversal of fortune or complete disaster, as we shall see from these extracts. Anand-Carlsen; World Championship, Sochi (Game 1) 2014 I join