Society

Thursday

The Spectator

Four stories the EU would like the right to have forgotten

Memory holes The EU wants to introduce a law which would force Google to delete from its searches old information that individuals and organisations would prefer forgotten. Some things that come up when you write ‘EU’ and ‘scandal’ into Google: — A 2009 EU document advising officials to write two minutes of every meeting: a full one and a ‘neutral’ one, with the juicy bits taken out, in case it has to be released in a Freedom of Information request. — European Commission president José Manuel Barroso’s £24,600 hotel bill for a four-day stay in New York. — A former European commissioner’s appointment of her dentist as a highly paid

Columba

2162: Stand in

In each of eleven clues the definition part contains a superfluous letter.  These letters, in clue order, spell a three-word phrase.  Clues in italics consist of cryptic indications of partial answers; in each case, the indicated part must do as stated by the phrase to create the full answer to be entered in the grid.  Definitions of resulting entries are supplied by the remaining unclued lights.  Elsewhere, ignore an accent.   Across   1    Pieces of news I sift (5) 4    Dance cut out, not unknown, to protect bones (9) 10    A denial in confusion 11    Judge, with conclusion brought forward, speaks impertinently (6) 14   

Columba

to 2159: Wine, woman & song

The three groups associated with EMPEROR (24) were MOTHS (1A, 25D, 39), PAPER SIZES (9, 16A, 44), and PENGUINS (13, 19, 43).  The title suggested another grouping, STRAUSS WALTZES.   First prize Sue Topham, Elston, Newark Runners-up Christine Twickel, Tidmington, Shipston on Stour; John Light, Addlestone, Surrey

Steerpike Steerpike

PR killed the Twitter star

‘I am ceasing to tweet’ wrote Matthew Parris in The Times this morning. ‘Life’s too short,’ he said. ‘Reluctantly last year I was persuaded to venture into the twittersphere; and built a herd of followers; but (as Milton might have tweeted) the hungry sheep look up and are not fed.’ So what happened? It seems that Parris objects to the colonisation of Twitter by the global PR machine: ‘If you’re commissioned to write something these days, or perform in a debate, or whatever, the client emails asking you to tweet that you’ll be doing it, or have done it, or re-tweet someone else’s reference to it, or tweet positively about

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

The Times’ shocking revelations about ‘dark deeds’ at St Paul’s School are anything but

Shocking revelations in the Times about St Paul’s and Colet Court, the schools that George Osborne attended (along with me). Someone called Adam Barnard has exposed the terrible goings-on behind the façade of educational excellence in leafy Barnes. Perhaps his most serious allegation is that, after sport, boys were made to shower naked, and there was some sick freak of an adult lurking in the changing room, ostensibly checking that this happened, but in reality perhaps harbouring dark, dark thoughts. Also, Barnard reveals that some of his teachers were a bit scary, and that he sometimes felt a bit uneasy – these were the sort of teachers who probably would

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Charles Moore’s tax avoidance tip

Last week, volume one of my life of Margaret Thatcher won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography. This made me feel greatly honoured, because I knew and loved Elizabeth — she was our country neighbour — and admired her own biographies greatly. It is also undeniably pleasant to get £5,000 without having to do any extra work, or even apply. This is the third monetary prize that my book has won, and I have been thrilled to discover that prizes attract no tax at all, so £5,000 is £5,000. Since ‘aggressive’ tax avoidance is the in thing, I would recommend that organisations wishing to confer extra rewards on staff

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

May Wine Club II

Like many who started their drinking careers in the late Seventies, I grew up – and threw up – on Mateus Rosé. I’ve still got the bottle lamps to prove it (in the attic somewhere, along with my flares and cheesecloth shirts). In those days, rosé was as naff and as cheap as could be and not only would no self-respecting wine lover touch it, no self-respecting winemaker would produce it. How times have changed! Pink is no longer the rinky-dink drink it once was. Sales have rocketed over the past year or so and show no signs of slowing down. Wine lovers have cottoned on to the fact that

Nicholas Wade

The genome of history

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_15_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Nicholas Wade discusses what we’ve learnt from decoding the human genome” startat=44] Listen [/audioplayer]Ever since Darwin published his uncomforting theory, people have been trying to exempt themselves from one or another of its unwelcome consequences. Today’s equivalents of the 19th century’s outraged clerics include the many social scientists, economists and historians who insist that evolution is of no relevance to their disciplines. In the United States the leading social science organisations proclaim that race is a social, not a biological construct. They reject the obvious notion that races differ because the populations on each continent have been evolving independently of one another for the last 50,000 years. Economists

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nick Clegg’s weird war with a former Gove adviser

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_15_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Miranda Green discuss Nick Clegg’s war with Dominic Cummings” startat=590] Listen [/audioplayer]We’ve come to expect strange things from coalition government, but the events of the last few days have been particularly odd. On Saturday, several newspapers contacted the Department of Education about a story claiming that its budget was in chaos. Officials set about drafting a clear rebuttal. But this was vetoed by David Laws, the Liberal Democrat schools minister, preventing his department from denying a damaging story. This act of self-harm was just the latest twist in the spat between the Liberal Democrats and Michael Gove’s former adviser, Dominic Cummings. Following Cummings’s revelations about

Lucy Vickery

Double celebration

In Competition No. 2847 you were invited to submit a poem celebrating a famous duo. You wheeled out a colourful cast of pairings. Ray Kelley sang the praises of Flanders and Swann: ‘Never was there a sweeter fit/ of wit to melody, melody to wit’. Brian Allgar proposed a toast to that gruesome twosome Burke and Hare. And Martin Parker saluted south London kings of retail Arding and Hobbs: ‘Posh Knightsbridge had Harrods for nabobs and nobs./ The folks down at Clapham had Arding and Hobbs.’ Hugh King was impressive, as were Michael Swan and Alanna Blake, but they were edged out by this week’s overall champ, Chris O’Carroll, who

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Sport’s greatest winning streaks

Sport is all about streaks, winning and losing, though whether one of the gloomiest runs in world sport — England’s footballing failure to reach the final of a major tournament for nearly half a century — can be brought to an end by Roy’s Boys remains to be seen. It seems unlikely, but how nice for to be going into a tournament with so little expectation and a team full of youth and vigour, playing without fear. Much better to be under the radar than being hyped out of sight. Can’t wait myself. Certainly one of the most remarkable winning streaks in sport came to an end last weekend —

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The curious case of Mo Ansar

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_15_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Haras Rafiq discuss how Mo Ansar came to prominence” startat=1154] Listen [/audioplayer]If a curious stranger asked you to name a British Muslim commentator, I guess you would name Mo Ansar. So omnipresent has he become, he seems at times to be Britain’s only Muslim commentator. ‘Mo Ansar: Open for business,’ read his first tweet on 8 August 2011, and business has been rolling in ever since. Ansar understands better than most that if you want to exploit the media you must always be available to harassed researchers on rolling news programmes. ‘He invented himself as a rent-a-quote commentator,’ says the LBC broadcaster Iain Dale. ‘We know

Matthew Kroenig

Would Obama bomb Iran?

What is worse: Iran with the Bomb or bombing Iran? This is a question we must reconsider as diplomats return to Vienna this week to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme. Of course, we all hope that the negotiations will result in a lasting diplomatic accord that resolves the Iranian nuclear challenge once and for all. The election of a new and more pragmatic Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, last August and the successful conclusion of an ‘interim’ nuclear pact in November mean that the prospects for a ‘comprehensive’ settlement have never been brighter. President Obama has called the Iranian nuclear issue ‘one of the leading security challenges of our time’, and a

Nigel Evans

Rape suspects need anonymity

As I came into Parliament last Thursday, I swung by the newspaper stand  to take a brief look at the headlines. ‘Oxford Union president, 21, arrested on suspicion of rape and attempted rape,’ said one. My heart sank. A photo of the beaming Oxford Union president, Ben Sullivan, dominated the front page in his swanky dinner jacket. He looked as if he had the world before him — until, that is, the police knocked on his door, warrant in hand. ‘Are you Ben Sullivan?’ they would have asked. The long, lonely journey to the police station would have followed, leading him in the opposite direction to his ambitions. I should

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Scotland’s fate is more important than David Cameron’s

‘It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.’ So wrote P.G. Wodehouse, and he wasn’t just talking about nationalists. And right now, that thunderous cloud is me. What I would like, you see, is for English pundits to stop connecting with the Scottish independence debate merely in terms of what it means for David Cameron. It’s an interesting question the first time, and not long ago my colleague Matthew Parris crafted a must-read column out of the idea in the Times. Otherwise smart and sensible people keep wanting to bang on about nothing else, though, and it makes me want to

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Are we killing investment banking? And if we are, should we care?

Do we really mean to kill investment banking, or are we trampling it by accident in a fit of righteous zeal? By ‘we’ I mean politicians, regulators and public opinion, and by ‘kill’ I mean rendering it unattractive or unviable for any shareholder-owned financial business except on the most limited scale — and as uncertain a career choice as, say, Liberal Democrat politics or freelance journalism. The announcement last week of a radical scaling back of Barclays’ trading and deal-making arm has stoked a debate that had been smouldering for some time; for background reading, I recommend recent articles by Philip Augar in the FT and Frances Coppola in Forbes.

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

From Bletchley Park to Take Your Pick – this baroness’s memoir is a blast

Jean Trumpington’s memoir, published as she closes in on her 92nd birthday, is an absolute blast from the opening page. She was born in 1922 to a posh but poor English father and a loaded but nouveau American mother. ‘The paint business’ filled the coffers. They lived in a Georgian townhouse with ten servants, just north of Hyde Park. ‘Kensington and Chelsea were not posh at all then. Kensington was very much cheap flats for the respectable retired.’ The money vanished in the Wall Street crash and they moved to a smaller place in Kent. At 15, Trumpington left school without a qualification or a care in the world,  and

Wednesday

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Is a suntan worth skin cancer?

In a report released today, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Skin (APPGS) outline their recommendations to the Department of Health on extending sunbed regulation. The report comes at a time when rates of malignant melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, are five times higher in the UK than they were in the 1970s. According to Cancer Research UK, the dramatic rise can be attributed partly to the rise of package holidays, the fashion for a ‘healthy’ tan, and a boom in sunbed use. Increased rates of melanoma Cancer Research states that sunbed use raises the chance of developing a melanoma by nearly 59 per cent in first-time

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Women will inherit the earth

Mr S unleashed his inner-feminist at the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Awards last night. Veuve Clicquot president Jean-Marc Lacave was clearly feeling equally empowered by the opposite sex, telling Mr S ‘in sixty years my dream is to have a businessman awards because the world will be run by women.’ Mr S, a convinced feminist, concurs entirely. The awards, at Claridge’s, were graced by today’s – and tomorrow’s – female entrepreneurs. Easyjet CEO Carolyn McCall, designer Lulu Guinness OBE, Martha-Lane Fox CBE (co-founder of lastminute.com and founder of JoJo Maman Bébé), and previous winner Laura Tenison MBE were all in attendance. Jenny Dawson, founder of Rubies in the