Society

Thursday

Peter Jones

How Plato and Aristotle would have tackled unemployment

Labour is up in arms because many of the new jobs currently being created are among the self-employed. This seems to them to be cheating. Quite the reverse, ancients would have said. Ancient thinkers knew all about the needs of the poor and were worried about their capacity to cause trouble (as they saw it) by revolution. So in a world where everyone lived off the land (the wealthy by renting it out), Plato thought there should be a law that everyone should have a basic minimum of land to live off, and no one should own property more than five times the size of the smallest allotment; any excess

Taki

Being the father of the bride has matured me – as I discovered in the nightclub afterwards

So the wedding of my little girl to Andy Bancroft Cooke went off without a hitch, a wonderful ceremony in a beautiful Catholic church off Manchester Square, and even the weather played ball and gave us the most perfect spring day imaginable, cloudless and cool. Green Park was at its most glorious as we drank outdoors on the long terrace and lunched in Spencer House, which pulled out all the stops. It’s hard to believe but as I was leaving the church, having performed my duties as father of the bride, a Speccie reader approached me and asked if I had walked her down or had been walked down by

Jeremy Clarke

In the soft Cornish air, with the pressure off, I caved in

Just when I was beginning to think I’d had enough, I was offered a free week in a caravan. I took it like a shot, threw a few shirts in the boot of the car, and buggered off down to Cornwall. I arrived in darkness and couldn’t find the electricity switch. But I was so tired I simply climbed into a sleeping bag by the light of my phone and fell asleep. I was woken by sunshine and the cawing of rooks. At this caravan, there is no internet, no phone signal for miles, no telly, no radio. And the air I swear is soporific. It was like crawling out

Melissa Kite

A&E is no place for the over-tens

‘Ouch!’ said the ex-builder boyfriend. ‘I think something’s bitten me.’ And a few seconds after that, something bit me too. We had been walking in the woods with the spaniel, when a winged creature of some sort, or possibly an agile snake, decided to take a chunk out of us both. Within a few hours, the builder was complaining of feeling sick. And my leg started swelling. I’m allergic to mosquito bites, or at least I suspect I am because whenever I get one, it grows to a carbuncle. This time, the bite left an angry raised red patch on the back of my thigh that just grew, and grew,

The Spectator

A Romanian neighbour? Most people wouldn’t even notice

Parliamentary privilege Some facts and figures about the European Parliament, according to the parliament: — The parliament annually costs €3.10 per citizen in EU member states (compared with €7.30 for Westminster). — It received 1.4 million visitors over the past four years, with 790,400 visiting the Parliamentarium. And some facts from Single Seat, the campaign for the parliament to stop shuffling between Brussels and Strasbourg: — It costs an extra €180 million a year to have more than one seat. — The Strasbourg parliament building is empty 317 days a year. — Hotel prices in Strasbourg increase 150% when the parliament is in town. Raising the floor Ed Miliband has

Alexander Chancellor

Why do consultants write such scary, incomprehensible letters?

There is a kind of letter designed to bewilder, upset and possibly terrify its recipient, and this is the standard letter sent by specialist medical consultants to the victims of disease. Actually, the letter is usually addressed to the sufferer’s GP, but a copy is always sent to the patient as well; and because of this it usually begins with a flattering personal reference just to soften him up (‘It was a delight to meet this charming old gentleman’, or some such phrase). Thereafter, it may propose some little variation in the person’s treatment, but its main purpose is to describe in lurid and impenetrable detail the symptoms of his

Peter Mckay

Peter McKay’s diary: Is Kate and William’s Scottish trip a pro-union initiative?

Having dampened local republican ardour during their recent tour of New Zealand and Australia, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit thinking-about-breaking-away Scotland next week. They’ll tour Glenturret Distillery near Crieff, Perthshire, next Thursday, to ‘bottle their own Glenturret whisky’, if you please. Sounds like a pro-union royal initiative, but what will First Minister Alex Salmond have to say? He claims he’d like the Queen to continue as Scotland’s head of state, although some of his supporters disagree. When HM said in her letter to the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly last week that she prays everyone ‘will work together for the social good of Scotland’, whatever the outcome of

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 22 May 2014

There’s no point in soft-soaping it: however long you’ve been playing bridge, however well you think you play, if you’ve never had regular lessons, or played with experts, sorry, but you probably aren’t much good. Bridge is an endlessly complex, multi-layered game, and there’s no way of improving without enlisting help. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with ‘kitchen-bridge’ — but if no one ever notices your mistakes, it’s easy to be deluded. Hiring a top-class player is not only about improving your game, though: it’s just such fun to play with someone better than yourself. And it has become a lot easier thanks to a new agency —

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I make my polite English husband interrupt like a German?

Q. My dear English husband has never mastered the knack of timing his interventions in conversation. He hesitates politely, and by the time somebody pauses, his comments are no longer to the point so he shuts up. After 45 years I always know when there’s something he wants to say, and it’s become a sort of party turn that I butt in and call for order for the next speaker — which doesn’t reflect well on either of us. Any ideas, Mary? Should he signal, for example by raising his right forefinger, the hand resting on the dinner table? — B.D., Frankfurt A. This gesture is too puny to halt

Dot Wordsworth

‘Basta’ must be the Queen’s English — a Queen used it

My chickens do not usually come home to roost so rapidly. Only a fortnight ago I wrote that ‘some people use basta in English, but to my ears it sounds like saying ciao — inauthentic’. Then I went back to reading Jane Ridley’s Bertie, the life of Edward VII (and how much I enjoyed it too). What should I find on page 357? I found Queen Alexandra writing about what she would wear at the coronation in 1901. ‘I know better than all the milliners and antiquaries,’ she wrote. ‘I shall wear exactly what I like, and so shall all my ladies — Basta!’ I can hardly accuse a queen of England of speaking

Toby Young Toby Young

Chasing Pulitzers has ruined American journalists. That’s why they’re edited by Brits

I was interested to read a story by Michael Wolff in USA Today saying that Graydon Carter may be about to step down as editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair. Carter has been at the helm for 22 years and was my boss during the three years I spent there between 1995 and 1998. According to Wolff, himself a columnist at the magazine, the runners and riders to take over are nearly all British. Wolff thinks this is mainly because power within Condé Nast, the publishing company that owns Vanity Fair, has shifted from New York and towards London, home of Condé Nast International, a subsidiary that is now more profitable than

The Spectator

The slow death of Nato

The Cold War was won by 26 words contained within article five of the Treaty of Washington, which founded Nato in 1949: ‘The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.’ There was no wriggling and no qualification. The message to Stalin was perfectly clear: you nibble at one inch of Western Europe and you won’t just get an ad hoc response from war-weary Europeans; you will have to face a nuclear-armed Uncle Sam. The last time Britain held a Nato summit, in 1990, the organisation was triumphant. Little wonder that the newly

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 22 May 2014

Home Demand for housing posed ‘the biggest risk to financial stability’ according to Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England. House prices rose by 8 per cent in the year to the end of March, according to the Office for National Statistics, and in London the increase was 17 per cent. The annual rate of inflation rose to 1.8 per cent in April from 1.6 per cent in March, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index; it remained at 2.5 per cent as measured by the Retail Prices Index. The underlying annual profits of Marks & Spencer fell by 3.9 per cent to £623 million, putting them behind

Dumpynose

2163: Muscle

Six unclued lights (one hyphened) suggest words each differently formed from the same 13 22, which appears as a clued light and must be shaded.#   Across   1    Common choir dressed in black and white (11) 11    Thing every elder has about yellow waistcoat (6) 15    Message in letter about this month in Paris? (5) 16    Bard’s encounter in narrow passage (5) 17    Trumpet introduces king and queen – I lie in wait (6) 18    Posh man in warship (5, hyphened) 20    Pothead strong individual curbed (6) 21    Morose and without doubt lacking in energy (5) 27    African ruler hid a misguided prophet (7) 29    Tons o’ bananas beasts

Dumpynose

to 2160: 18 down

The unclued lights are all CHARACTERS (18D) in Plato’s dialogues, all but SOCRATES (1A) appearing in titles. In six cells, clashing letters could be combined to form letters of the Greek alphabet (e.g. LAMB + DA = LAMBDA) — these six characters spell out the name PLATO in Greek (Πλάτων, using lower case letters, was also acceptable).   First prize Sandra Speak, Dursley, Glos Runners-up S.J.J. Tiffin, Cockermouth, Cumbria; M. Puttick, Montpezat, France

Steerpike Steerpike

Why should the licence fee payer fund the BBC’s cultural imperialism?

Picture the scene. BBC executives convene in a glass think pod in Salford to consider the latest expensive external report commissioned by Director of News James Harding. The report states that Auntie, despite its vast budget and massive staff, is ‘punching well below its weight in the digital world.’ That was what Sir Howard Stringer’s report, published today, found. The fact that Buzzfeed gets 10 million more pageviews than the Beeb every month seems to be a particularly sore point: ‘Given Buzzfeed, for example, was only founded in 2006, this raises the question of why the BBC’s global digital reach is not more significant. It is impossible to escape the

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Ukip’s triumph, predictions for this week’s elections and the return of the cad

Has Ukip been a good thing for British politics? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, political commentators Peter Oborne and Matthew Parris debate the topic of this week’s Spectator cover feature. Has Nigel Farage reinvigorated democracy in this country? Can Ukip still be described as a ‘Tory sickness’, a ‘protest party’ or something entirely different? Can the rise of Farage be attributed to the other parties not discussing issues like immigration? And do Peter and Matthew both intend to vote Conservative today? Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth also discuss what will happen in today’s local and European elections. Will Ukip’s momentum of the last few weeks push them into

Allison Mcvety

Landings

On our anniversary, you drag the sofa-bed   into the old conservatory. The January moon     swells to cliché and under a ten-tog duvet   we shiver. Frost plays havoc with the view. Years slip, sheets cool, the roof weeps and timber withers   in its frame. We are unhinged, the window slides,     the stars keep their distance, and we, still lovers  of the moon, cling to landings, wipe the rime. A mist of words mixes up the messages   between us. You step outside to clear the glass,     your uncertain face fills the pane and I see   man and marriage eclipse and pass. I know how Lovell must have felt on Odyssey:         the moon

Alan Judd

Goodwood Festival of Speed

You smelt them, it was said of the Mongol hordes, before you heard them, and by the time you heard them it was too late. At the Goodwood Festival of Speed it’s the other way round: you hear the intoxicating yowl of high-revving engines before you’re close enough to smell the heady mixture of high-octane, burnt oil and hot rubber.  But by then it’s too late — next year you’ll be back for more. Goodwood is motoring’s Glyndebourne, glamorous, smart and bucolic with the South Downs as backdrop and its origins in aristocratic hedonism. On Revival days you wear period costumes to go with your car, assuming you can find