Society

2150: Content

Each of thirteen clues contains a superfluous word. Initial letters of these words spell the first four words of a quotation (in ODQ), the rest of which is supplied by two unclued lights (one of which consists of two words); another unclued light is the author’s surname. Clues in italics consist of cryptic indications of partial answers; in each case, the indicated part is to do as stated by the start of the quotation to create the full answer to be entered in the grid. Definitions of resulting entries are supplied by the remaining unclued lights.   Across   1 Interesting stone in river (5) 9 Can treatment yet help

Solution to 2147: Amazing Performance

Taking one unchecked letter from each across solution gives EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION, whose victims, according to Chambers 2011, include TERRORIST SUSPECTs. The initial letters of unclued entries were S,T,R,R,T,I,E,R,O.   First prize Michael Debenham, Shrewsbury Runners-up Mrs Jane Smith, King’s Lynn; Jamie Staveley, London SW15

Rod Liddle

What shall we do about Neknominate?

I wonder if we should start our own Spectator Blog NekNominations? Open to bloggers and readers. I nominate Daniel Maris to drink a small glass of Pinot Noir while watching the early evening news. And Alex Massie to drink a flagon of Teachers while standing on the up line somewhere between Edinburgh and Alnmouth. Maybe on that big bridge over the Tweed. No need to post any photos or film. I’ve written about this latest internet craze for the mag this week: it is the usual carefully and copiously researched investigation, devoid of bigotry and offensiveness. At least five people have died so far taking part in Neknominations and there

Steerpike

Business as usual at the Red Lion

Lamentations spread across Westminster when rumour had it that the Red Lion on Whitehall was to be reborn as trendy metropolitan wine bar. The old boozer was the scene of many a knifing (of the political variety) and much happy plotting, being a regular haunt for the bag carrying and spinning classes. Well, Mr S has some good news. After closing for refurbishment, the Red Lion has reopened and looks exactly the same. Nothing seems to have changed at all. Trebles all round. Picture via Political Pictures.

Welcome to Culture House Daily

From today, The Spectator’s gift for online enlightenment and trouble-making will now extend into the world of culture. Our aim is take the insurgent spirit of Toby Young’s Modern Review, and apply it to the digital world — that is, to provide low culture for highbrows, and high culture for lowbrows  Culture House Daily will be a deference-free, one-stop shop for the latest news and sharpest views on the arts. Unveiling a steady stream of fresh content each day, Culture House Daily will present a mixture of news, overnight reviews and opinion, alongside plenty of lovely images. It will be the perfect space to help you navigate the shifting sands of

Vladimir Putin’s new plan for world domination

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/Untitled_2_AAC_audio.mp3″ title=”Anne Applebaum and Matthew Parris discuss how far we should let Putin go”] Listen [/audioplayer]It’s been a generation or so since Russians were in the business of shaping the destiny of the world, and most of us have forgotten how good they used to be at it. For much of the last century Moscow fuelled — and often won — the West’s ideological and culture wars. In the 1930s, brilliant operatives like Willi Muenzenberg convinced ‘useful idiots’ to join anti-fascist organisations that were in reality fronts for the Soviet-backed Communist International. Even in the twilight years of the Soviet Union the KGB was highly successful at orchestrating nuclear

The Environment Agency cares more about wildlife than people

What do voles, beetles, mussels, trout and the golden plover have in common? Believe it or not, they have all been used as excuses by the Environment Agency not to improve flood defences. Travelling around the worst of the flooded areas last week, I met family after family who said their local rivers had been left to clog with debris — and always because of some critter or other. Somerset farmer David Gillard, for example, repeatedly begged the Environment Agency to dredge the River Parrett, which runs near his sheep farm just outside Burrowbridge. And last summer they did come and give it a go. But while they were at

Lonely hearts

In Competition 2835 you were invited to submit a profile for an online dating website for a well-known politician, living or dead. Unlucky loser John Samson’s Oliver Cromwell might, I suppose, appeal to those who like the masterful type: ‘That ye should seek matrimonial harmony by reading such vainglorious publications doth render thee unworthy of espousing this Puritan. Speak thus of me to thy more God-fearing sisters…’ Commiserations, too, to Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead and Hugh King. The winners take £25 each. W.J. Webster pockets the bonus fiver. Hi, my name is John. I’m from Yorkshire. We all know Yorkshiremen can be bluff and let me tell you straight out I’m 100

Investment trusts – the way the City saves

After years in the doldrums, investment trusts — those venerable pooled funds with names like Foreign and Colonial and City of London — are in danger of becoming fashionable. There are good reasons why they should be better known. They offer the possibility of high returns at low cost, as well as access to exotic asset classes that would otherwise be out of reach. They can be a way of spreading risk, if you do not have the time or the inclination to pick individual stocks for yourself. And they are generally cheaper than other vehicles for collective investment, such as unit trusts; the idea is that as little of

The Church should be employing its moral outrage to greater effect

Part of the role of the Church is to give the poorest in society a voice. It should be front and centre of the public debate about welfare reform, but the most recent intervention by Archbishop Nichols seems directed at the wrong target. The current disincentive for work in the welfare system is indefensible. It is telling that no voice has been heard in the debate on any side suggesting that it is a good idea to have a situation where people can earn more than the average wage on benefits or that moving to Universal Credit (a simpler system with a reduced disincentive to work) isn’t, at least in

Camilla Swift

Is the curling still on…?

The Winter Olympics have been going on for over a week now, and we’ve been treated to a good ten hours of winter sports per day by the BBC. But they have a very odd way of choosing what we’re allowed to watch; mainly, it seems, curling and skating. Brits have every reason to be proud of their curling teams, and of course they want to follow their progress. But why are there no other choices on offer? When Wimbledon’s on, we often have eight different courts to choose from via the ‘red button’, and for London 2012 the situation was the same. Hurrah, sports galore! No such luck in

Steerpike

Rebekah Brooks’s ‘Hutton style’ email

People pay Tony Blair handsomely for his PR advice; but, today, thanks to the hacking trial at the Old Bailey, we allegedly get to see a glimpse of the Great Man in action for free. The court was shown this email sent by Rebekah Brooks on the day after the last ever edition of the News of the Screws went to press; it is an account of a conversation she claims to have had with Tony Blair: Only got 10 minutes before I see Charlie for confiscation! I had an hour on the phone to Tony Blair. He said: 1. Form an independent unit that has an outside junior counsel,

Isabel Hardman

Want to make welfare a ‘moral mission’? Stop toting it as a weapon.

Quite naturally, a piece from the Prime Minister claiming that welfare reform is ‘at the heart… of our social and moral mission in politics’ is provoking hilarity from those who’ve never backed that moral mission in the first place. David Cameron is writing in the Telegraph as a response to the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols’ comments in the same paper at the weekend that the government’s welfare reforms were a ‘disgrace’. He argues: ‘Of course, we are in the middle of a long and difficult journey turning our country around. That means difficult decisions to get our deficit down, making sure that the debts of this generation are not

Melanie McDonagh

Did an archbishop really call for more public spending in response to food bank usage?

Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, has spent an awful lot of time since his recent interview with the Telegraph clarifying just what he meant when he said that the way welfare reforms have been implemented has left people destitute and relying on food banks. When I saw him earlier today, he wasn’t exactly tetchy about the coverage so much as tired explaining what he actually wanted to get across. ‘People should take the trouble to read what I said’, he said (a familiar refrain, that, from non-politicians who deal with journalists). ‘My concern – and it’s a privilege to be able to bring into the public square those are not

Nick Cohen

Taxpayers fund farmers to wreck their landscape and flood their homes

Go to Google Maps and type in Lechlade – the Cotswold town at the start of the navigable Thames. Instead of looking at it on the map, click the ‘satellite’ button in the top right-hand corner of the screen for an aerial photograph, and follow the river west towards its source near Kemble in Gloucestershire or east towards Oxford. You may notice something that is so commonplace in British river systems most people ignore it: the woods, marshes and wetlands are all but gone. Farmers have ploughed fields up to the banks. Because there is nothing – or next to nothing – to soak up the rain, water and silt

Steerpike

Matt Damon’s monumental diet

Mr S doesn’t usually notice A List waists, but he wasn’t totally surprised when he heard that Matt Damon was on a diet during the filming of Monuments Men. While your correspondent has no reason to be smug, he will say that Damon wasn’t looking quite his Jason Bourne self. Steerpike was surprised, however, to learn that Damon’s diet apparently consisted of just one thing: grapes. Speaking at the premiere, co-star Bob Balaban told me ‘Matt was trying to lose weight and was hardly eating anything, just grapes.’ Am I the only person who thought that Matt Damon preferred apples? ‘How do you like them grapes?’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

Why the Met Office has hung its chief scientist out to dry

Last week the Met Office and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology issued an admirable joint report on the floods and their possible connection to climate change, concluding that it is not possible to make such a link. ‘As yet’, it said, ‘there is no definitive answer on the possible contribution of climate change to the recent storminess, rainfall amounts and the consequent flooding’. In many ways this was not much of a surprise, since only the wild activist fringe among the climate science community have tended to try to make the link in the past. Taking such a level-headed view, the Met Office report represented a valuable opportunity to