Society

Thursday

Digby Warde-Aldam

Happy birthday, spam! Do you mind if we don’t celebrate?

The other day, I got an email advertising ‘miracle’ weight loss. You know the sort: English as defined by Boggle and no way on earth that anyone would ever buy the product in question. I opened it without thinking, and was redirected to a blank page. Within minutes, my Hotmail, Twitter and WordPress accounts had gone haywire; I stared at my computer screen as the original message replicated itself and fired off to every single one of my contacts. My groan lasted about 20 minutes: why, I asked myself, would anyone bother doing this to me? It turned out I’d been hacked on a convenient anniversary. In April 1994, two

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

I’d rather have a German next door too — and I have the figures to show why

Should we be worried about the vast numbers of German-born people living covertly in the United Kingdom? The Office for National Statistics estimates that in 2011 some 297,000 Germans were resident here, the fifth largest non-British-born contingent (after Indians, Poles, Pakistanis and the Irish respectively). What the hell are they all up to? Sitting in smartly furnished homes, biding their time, and waiting, waiting. That’s what I suspect. A report in the Guardian a while back suggested that our German community tended to ‘stay under the radar’, an ability which mercifully eluded them 70 years ago. The paper also reported that while there were a few areas with significant German

Evan Davis

Has Thomas Piketty met his match?

I feel a certain disappointment with myself at the moment. On the big question of the day, ‘How worried should we be about inequality?’, I find myself miserably unable to give a simple answer. In the last few months, I’ve had a chance to speak to two notable economists on the topic, representing opposite extremes of the argument — both arguing their case so well that I can’t disagree with either. On one side of the debate, I got to interview the man of the moment, Thomas Piketty, author of the much talked-about Capital in the Twenty-First Century. In fairness, it was not much an interview: it was something of

James Delingpole James Delingpole

In praise of cyberchondria

There’s something perversely satisfying in discovering that your children have inherited your vices. That’s why I was so quietly pleased the other evening when Boy came to see me petrified that the huge fat spider with the sinister body-markings on the wall above his bed was in fact a deadly false widow with a bite — so the internet tells us — whose symptoms can range from ‘feelings of numbness, severe swelling and discomfort to various levels of burning or chest pains’. Though I’m not personally scared of spiders, I could most certainly claim proud authorship of the catastrophist tendencies Boy was displaying here. Also — being a fellow cyberchondriac

Lucy Vickery

Scottish question

In Competition No. 2848 you were invited to submit a poem commenting on Scottish independence in the style of William Topaz McGonagall. McGonagallesque long lines leave me space only to congratulate you on a vast and skilful entry before handing over to the man himself, hailed by the TLS as ‘the only truly memorable bad poet in our language’. Ralph Rochester takes the extra fiver; the rest nab £35. Bounteous Heavens, let us all rejoice! For the People of Scotland have been given a     Choice And there is to be a National Referendum For which we must thank the Scottish     Nationalists and London. But how many will vote No and

Merryn Somerset-Webb

They made me sit an exam on giving financial advice. And I’m glad

There was a time, not that long ago, when financial advisers as we know them today didn’t really exist. Pension and tax advice came from accountants. If you bought shares you bought them via a stockbroker (who gave you advice along the way). Unit trusts came directly — you responded to advertisements or perhaps got your accountant to do it for you. Occasionally you used an insurance broker. And that was that. It wasn’t particularly complicated and as a result no one (your accountant aside) was officially qualified to do anything. Brokers and dealers didn’t take exams to prove their proficiency and no one really thought they should. In the

Robert Cole

What is an investment trust?

A strange language is spoken on Planet Finance. It often seems designed to baffle the average investor, and save the richest pickings for the professionals. Take, for example, ‘investment trusts’ — they’re investments, certainly, but they are not trusts. And since blind faith is the last thing to invest in any money-making exercise, the two terms make an odd pairing. The most important decision an average investor has to make is to trust their money with a good manager in a promising sector. And this is the main attraction of Investment Trusts. If you fancied a bet on Japan, for example, your first thought may be a straightforward fund, like

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

How to win the World Cup (in the betting shop)

Summer is a difficult time for serious investments — it’s hard to be rational when hot — so why not try betting on the football world cup instead? Thanks to technology, sports gambling can feel a lot like investing these days. Internet betting exchanges are not bookmakers, but trading platforms. Any adult can buy or sell a bet — or position, if you prefer — and ‘trade out’ at a profit or loss before the match, race, or tournament even begins. Which means you are gambling less against sporting chance, more against the human whims of the market. Let me give you an example. If you had taken the advice of,

Matthew Lynn

Why education is no longer the best way to invest in your child’s future

Teenagers have never exactly been short of things to complain about to their parents. You didn’t give them enough support, sent them to the wrong schools, stopped them going to the right parties, or didn’t get them the latest iPhone. But Generation Rent, perhaps stirred up by too much time spent reading Ed Miliband’s Twitter feed, are likely to be especially aggrieved. To add to the traditional litany of charges from the younger generation against the older can be added one that might even have a kernel of truth in it — you stole our future. There is a case to be made that the big divide in British society,

Wednesday

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Is Richard Scudamore allowed private opinions? Apparently not.

There is, you know, quite a bit to be said for having a personal email account for getting stuff off your chest, such as comparing a former girlfriend to a double-decker (don’t ask) and talking about big-titted broads. Any work inbox that your secretary automatically is privy to is, well, not quite the same as one that’s all yours. I’ve taken soundings on this sensitive subject from a friend of mine who is a really good PA, mixes with the mighty and all the rest of it, and she tells me that it’s actually difficult to do the job from her point of view if you don’t have access to

Tuesday

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Dear Wonder Women; the doorman at Sushisamba was not sexist

Louisa Peacock of The Telegraph‘s Wonder Women desk has written of how a doorman who refused her entry to a London restaurant because she was not wearing smart enough clothes has lost his job. Peacock appears to think this a victory for the crusaders against #everydaysexism. I can’t agree. Ignoring the fact that the man probably wouldn’t have been sacked had Peacock not been a journalist, this piece sets a very worrying precedent. Louisa Peacock has mistaken a minor grievance for a political point, and a man has lost his job. Peacock did not intend it to be so; but that is what has happened. If you read her account of the affair

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Spot-a-doodle-do! Tony Blackburn’s spot the difference

‘Great meeting Rob Brydon at the Chelsea Flower Show today,’ tweeted veteran broadcaster Tony Blackburn earlier. ‘What a very funny and nice man’ he added with an accompanying picture of his new chum. Except the picture was of the ‘funny and nice’, though significantly blonder, taller and less Welsh Ben Fogle. ‘That is not Rob Brydon,’ he mused later. Yes Tony, we know. Is the heat getting to the old boy?

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

German or Romanian neighbour – which would you choose?

I would rather live next door to a German than a Romanian. I thought I’d just make that clear. I don’t mean I’d rather live next door to SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich than the humorously surreal dramatist Eugène Ionesco. I mean, in general, on average, given what I know about the people from both countries who have come here to live. Not all of them, obviously. Just as a generality, if you were to offer me the choice, without telling me any more about the respective merits of the people concerned, just here’s your choice, Rod – Germans or Romanians. I may be wrong, but I suspect most people in this country, if offered the same choice,

Andrew Montford

There is something very wrong with climatology

In the last few days climate scientists have found themselves back on the front pages, and once again it’s for all the wrong reasons. The furore this time has been prompted by an eminent climatologist named Lennart Bengtsson, who agreed to join the Academic Advisory Council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Nigel Lawson’s sceptic think tank. Within days of his agreement, Bengtsson felt obliged to resign, apparently having been subjected to a wave of protests and threats of ostracisation from colleagues, one of whom publicly insinuated that the 79-year-old Bengtsson was senile. When it also emerged that a reviewer of one of Bengtsson’s scientific papers had recommended its rejection

Julie Bindel

Masterchef is a food programme by tossers for tossers

There is so much to hate about massively successful TV series Masterchef that I have been glued to it for ten years. But then I always watch Nigel Farage when he pops up on TV, and even sit through that advert for Sheilas’ Wheels. But let me explain why I think Masterchef is so bloody annoying to me, a food-lover and enthusiastic cook. First there are the hosts, John Torode and ‘Mr Spanky’ Greg Wallace, and their parroting of puerile comments. You know what I mean: ‘Saltiness coming from the…’, ‘Sweetness running through…’, ‘Flavours of the sea’, ‘Tang of the…’, ‘ABSOLUTELY beautiful’. Then there is the question of John Torode’s upper lip: where

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Yorkshire village bans Nazis. Why didn’t Neville Chamberlain think of that?

D-Day would have been effected with far less trouble if, at the time, we had insisted on the same rules that pertain in Haworth’s annual commemoration of the event. The Yorkshire village holds what is now called a “1940s Weekend” – don’t mention the war – and people who wear Nazi uniforms, or the SS insignia, have been told that they are not welcome. This is because the uniforms “give offence”. Previously, people turned up dressed as Nazi soldiers and others as allied soldiers – much as actually happened the first time the event was staged, on the beaches of Normandy in 1944. But some people complained about the uniforms

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The danger for Miliband of being too confident about his anti-business stance

Why is Ed Miliband so content with accusations that he’s anti-business and a bit of a lefty? The Labour leader was grilled this morning on his relations with business leaders when he appeared on the Today programme, and while he did an adequate job of defending himself, he didn’t seem too perturbed by the questions levelled at him, nor the suggestion that his party is bleeding votes to Ukip. Why is he displaying such zen-like calm? listen to ‘Miliband: UK ‘one of worst developed countries’ over low pay’ on Audioboo The reason is not just the Labour leader’s intellectual self-confidence but also because the former is a way of solving

Sunday

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Diet secrets of the billionaires

The Billionaires’ Diet Book would not be a bestseller — or so I judge from limited experience of lunching with the denizens of this week’s Sunday Times Super-Rich List. They’re just not happy eaters. Lord Bamford (£3.1 billion) described the elegant little salad served in his office as ‘rabbit food’. In 48 hours of partying across India with Sir Richard Branson (£3.6 billion), I never once saw him tackle a sumptuous buffet. As for the list’s winners, Sri and Gopi Hinduja (£11.9 billion), they’re so fastidious that ‘when a dinner guest of the Queen, the teetotal and vegetarian Sri is said to bring his own food’: if I’d known that was the etiquette,

Saturday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

My verdict on Newsnight’s new face? Pretty — and awful

I hope you enjoyed the new post-Paxman Newsnight last night, if you still watch the programme. It was bad on a whole new level of badness (watch it here). Presented by an Afghan-Australian woman called Yalda Hakim, of whom I had never heard. Yalda was hampered in her presentational debut by being unable to string a sentence together; nor did she have the knowledge or acuity to ask interesting questions of her guests. On one cringing occasion, the reporter William Dalrymple asked questions on her behalf (of a supporter of the triumphant Indian politician Narendra Modi, who, of course, Newsnight REALLY loathes), because she was unable to. On another occasion, during

James Forsyth James Forsyth

An NHS tax is just another name for a tax rise

Finding a way to raise taxes that is popular is, for some on the centre-left, the Holy Grail. As the well connected Andrew Grice reports in The Independent today, a growing number of people on the Labour side are attracted to the idea of an NHS tax. Their logic is that the public value the NHS so wouldn’t mind paying more for it. They point out that when Gordon Brown raised National Insurance to fund extra spending on the health service there was none of the backlash you would normally expect to a tax rise. But the reality is that the introduction of a new NHS tax won’t be matched