Society

Saturday

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition: provide a publisher’s blurb for a cookbook with a twist (plus your elegies for Jeremy Paxman)

In Competition No. 2851 you were invited to mark Jeremy Paxman’s departure from Newsnight by supplying an extract from an interview with a politician or statesman in which the interviewer doggedly but unsuccessfully attempts to get a straight answer to a straight question. Even if you didn’t specify Paxo as your questioner, I was looking for something of the spirit of the man in your inquisitorial style. You didn’t hit his contemptuous, eyebrow-arching heights—who does?—but you provided an entertaining feast of mealy-mouthed obfuscation. The winners take £30 and W.J. Webster nabs the extra fiver for an entry that features a slippery Boris Johnson. W.J. Webster I. Would you like to

Friday

Michael Henderson

Michael Gove and the Ship of Fools

It lies rigged and fully masted in the harbour, the Ship of Fools, and soon it will be crewed by some of our favourite smarties. Is that Shami Chakrabarti charging down the gangway? It surely is. Those sharp elbows can be identified at a hundred paces. And is she being followed by Hanif Kureishi and Jeanette Winterson, eyes bulging like bulldog’s whatsits? Yes, they’re on parade too. Oh look, they’ve brought a chaplain, the Rev Giles Fraser. All shipshape and Bristol-fashion. Now they can cast off. If a person may be judged by the quality of his enemies then Michael Gove currently rests only slightly lower than the angels. As

Sally Coates

How should we respond to events in Birmingham?

As metaphors go, calling the alleged plot to take over schools in Birmingham a ‘Trojan Horse’ is a pretty powerful one. This allegedly was a devious attempt by a group of extremists to invade a protected space, ousting headteachers, making false allegations against staff and employing dirty tricks with the aim of imposing a fundamentaist Islamic ideology. I agree with David Cameron when he states: ‘…the issue of alleged Islamic extremism in Birmingham schools demands a robust response.’  So how should we respond? In 2011 I was privileged to chair the independent review into teacher standards, a document that details the minimum requirements for teachers’ practice and conduct.  As part

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Interest rates are poised to rise – which means we’ll find out how much of the recovery is real

Mark Carney’s hefty hint that interest rates could rise sooner than markets anticipate is politically awkward but important, as until they do so, we shall have very little idea of how much of the recovery is based simply on cheap debt and how much of it is real. The car industry and house sales, for instance, benefit from ultra-low interest rates, and while they appear to be booming, it’s not clear how much of that boom is pushed by the bellows of cheap debt. What’s more, the current situation punishes those who are doing exactly what the government wants them to do. When he announced the ‘savings revolution’ in this

The Spectator

Save on your energy bills with The Spectator – and help fix the broken market

In a healthy, competitive market, prices go down when costs go down. Not in the energy market. As Ofgem announced this week, the wholesale cost of gas and electricity has dropped by more than a third since this time last year, but our bills have increased. Wholesale power is the cheapest it’s been since 2010, so why haven’t the savings been passed onto consumers? The energy industry usually blames price rises on increasing wholesale costs, so the announcement those costs are going down is tricky for them. This week Energy UK, the Big Six trade body, said: ‘Wholesale energy is just one of a number of costs outside of an

Ed West Ed West

Don’t apologise for holding The Sun, Ed

I’d like to say that when I’m low and feel I can’t go on anymore that it’s the thought of a child’s smile or a better future for humanity that gets me through, or maybe one of those inspiring Maya Angelou quotes people were sharing last week: but to be honest, it’s actually that picture of Ed Miliband trying to eat a bacon sandwich. I know that certain Labour commentators are unhappy with Ed’s performance, and many Tories are concerned about him actually running the country, but his visual mishaps do provide such cheer during these dark periods. A friend of mine brought a copy of the bacon picture to

Rory Meakin

A pound of state benefits has less impact than a pound from independent earnings

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF)  published a paper on Wednesday comparing a range of policies to help low paid workers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they conclude that increasing benefits is the best option. Like so much analysis on poverty, the report suffers from policy myopia in two respects. First, it looks only at cash benefits and direct taxes, ignoring the policy choices which set the constraints of the problem. Secondly, wider implications of the options are ignored. Cost of living The report uses a basket of goods which determines a ‘minimum income standard’. But no attention is paid to policies which increase the cost of goods in that basket, save for childcare.

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

World Cup diary: Was the ref playing for Brazil?

Suspicions that FIFA is an organisation given, occasionally, to a bit of corruption will not have been allayed by the first match of the 2014 World Cup. Brazil won with two goals from a player who should have been sent off, including a penalty which clearly wasn’t a penalty, while Croatia had a perfectly good goal disallowed and were denied a rather more clear cut penalty themselves. Incidentally, I say “Brazil” – and so do ITV. So do FIFA. And so does the OED, Wikipedia and Google. But not the BBC. The BBC says “Brasil”. Of course it does.

Thursday

Raymond Keene

Vlad the Impaler

As I write, the former world champion Vladimir Kramnik is leading in the Norway tournament in Stavanger. The line-up is impressive, including Magnus Carlsen, Lev Aronian, Fabiano Caruana and Sergei Karjakin, and missing only Viswanathan Anand, who was defeated in last year’s World Championship match by Carlsen.   At his best Kramnik is a subtle tactician, with a penchant for extraordinarily complex middlegames. Sometimes the search for complications lets him down, as in his notorious last-round loss to Ivanchuk in the final round of last year’s Candidates tournament in London. This deprived Kramnik of the right to challenge Anand for the world title, ceding the palm to Carlsen, who went on

Raymond Keene

No. 318

White to play. This is a variation from Karjakin-Grischuk, Norway 2014. What key move allows White to deal with the threat to his bishop and emerge with a winning position? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 17 May 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 shall be offering a prize of £20. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery.   Last week’s solution  1 … Kh7 (plans … Kh6) Last week’s winner  Anthony Bolchover, London NW2

The Spectator

Spectator letters: The trouble with religion, alternatives to HS2, and whisky-drinking dogs

A history of persecution Sir: Colin Brown (Letters, 7 June) ignores some good reasons for keeping religion out of society. Small groups of believers are fine, but not totalitarian dictatorships. The early Christians were treated as heretics until 313 ad, when Constantine made what became the Roman Catholic Church the official religion of the Roman Empire. The church promptly started persecuting all other religious groups. In the Middle Ages the Church let loose the Inquisition and decimated civilised communities such as the Albigensians. As for his statement that ‘all religions have provided society with ethical and moral rules’, how ethical were the laws and morals that subjugated women and slaves

Taki

Like Murdoch, I’m an old man with an eye for beauty. But Wendi Deng? Seriously?

 Gstaad A slight bump at 30,000 feet concentrates the mind, as the good Dr Johnson said about an appointment with the gallows. Halfway over the Atlantic and lost in a fantasy, I came back in a hurry as the plane shook and trembled; yet my first thought was to show off, pretend I hadn’t noticed, exhibit a kind of brazen indifference while my co-passengers nervously tightened their seat belts. It was only a bump, the nose dipped and then pulled up rather violently, and it lasted less than half a minute, hence my bravado. (I suspect the automatic pilot was the culprit.) They say that when one is about to

Jeremy Clarke

A free gin, a cheeky joint: welcome back to the local

My first time back in the local for eight weeks. The manageress lifts the flap, comes around to my side of the bar and kisses me on the lips. We can’t hear ourselves speak as there is a ska DJ barricaded into a corner behind a waist-high wall of speakers and the bar is small and the ceiling low. She indicates that my gin and tonic is on the house. I take it outside and take a seat on one of the picnic benches on the patio. This hippie guy is prancing ecstatically around the tables with fluttering fingers. A couple sit themselves down opposite me and the bloke starts

Peter Jones

The true gods of football (hint: they don’t work for Fifa)

The World Cup has started, and the gods of football will be in their heaven for a whole month. Not the players, of course: the spectators. Ancient gods, wielding absolute power, expected to have that power acknowledged. This was usually done by their adherents carrying out specific rituals at the right time and the right place. Do that, and the gods would smile favourably upon them, offering them personal benefits and even immortal glory in the eyes of the world. Fail, and that would be an affront, an insult to the gods’ dignity: their wrath would be unconditional. So when, in the course of the Trojan war, Paris, seducer of

Melissa Kite

Volvo 1; Melissa Kite: 0

‘And for my next trick,’ said the Volvo, as I parked at the supermarket and pulled the handle of the door to get out, ‘I shall refuse to open while you are inside.’ ‘What the…?’ I said, after pulling the handle a couple of times. I clicked the lock button by the window just in case I had inadvertently managed to child lock the driver’s door. Then I clicked the unlock button on the key. Then I turned the ignition on and off. Then I tried the handle again. Then I decided to have a good scream. I had only just had the 72 fault codes cleared by Karl the

Alexander Chancellor

Young Italians flock to London – for just the same reasons it scares me

Although I live in the country in Northamptonshire, I go to London often — almost once a week — and I find it more and more intimidating. This isn’t just because of the skyscrapers that spring up boastfully everywhere, parading one’s own insignificance, but also because of the aura of terrifying wealth that pervades its central area and now even its inner suburbs. Fifty years ago, when I got married, my wife and I bought our first London house in Kensington Park Road, Notting Hill, for £9,500. I wonder how many millions it is worth now. My parents, who were quite well off if not exactly rich, lived in Knightsbridge

Robin Oakley

Cambridge, meet your first professor of racing lore

Watching the contestants parade at Epsom for this year’s Oaks, I remembered the great D. Wayne Lukas’s pronouncement on selecting fillies: ‘She should have a head like a princess, a butt like a washerwoman and walk like a hooker.’ The John Gosden-trained Taghrooda, listed a month earlier as the first of our Twelve to Follow this season, ticked all those boxes. I doubled my bet and cheered her home nearly four lengths clear of the biggest Oaks field in 40 years. Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum, an owner who gives much to the sport, has had a lean few years and it was good to see another Classic success for his

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Something wild – well, wild for Claridge’s – in Gordon Ramsay’s old cave

Fera is in Gordon Ramsay’s old cave at Claridge’s. His red and yellow room, like a ripped-off arm, has been annihilated; here now is ‘restful’ green, and food by Simon Rogan. His cooking apparently ‘never stands still’. (I am quoting a website.) Fera means ‘wild’. In Latin. I am not sure a restaurant can be wild, but it can be needy. I request a table online. Fera says no. I telephone. Fera says yes. I give my credit card details because love is always conditional. I am then invited to confirm, reconfirm, and re-reconfirm, in the manner of a restaurant impersonating a woman requiring reassurance from a green lover. It

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 12 June 2014

The final match in the second division of Young Chelsea’s London Super League was as exciting as it gets. Two teams (out of ten) were going to be promoted, and four teams were within a gnat’s whisker of each other. We were narrowly leading and were playing McGuire, lying second. We needed to secure a 16–4 victory to be sure of going up to Div One. When you are under pressure, it’s time to wheel out The Great Malinowski, part illusionist, part con man and part downright genius. Here he is on the very first board of the match, unfazed by the obvious bidding screw-up: First the bidding: Artur thought

Dot Wordsworth

Why would a Danish queen say ‘basta’?

My husband heard me in the kitchen exclaim: ‘What would I do without you?’ He curiously imagined I was referring to him. But it was of you, dear readers, that I spoke, and in particular Elizabeth Maynard from Oxford, who wrote explaining the use of the Italian word basta by Danes. Well, how was I to know? I’d supposed that Queen Alexandra, who used the word in 1901 (Mind your language, 24 May), had picked it up from the Italian opera. Not at all, Mrs Maynard tells me, since her own Danish mother’s elder sister — born in 1893 — used it too. She would rap the table, to end