Society

1D is the title of a work minus a word that is suggested by three further unclued lights. Other unclued lights include the person to whom the word refers, who is addressed in the work as ‘9’ (three words, one hyphened), and the addresser and his servant, both of whom are in disguise.   Across   1    Pricking pain has put out pint-size person (5) 6    Fashionable neckwear available for sale (7, two words) 11    Odd drop of arabica can’t top an afters (10, two words) 13    English form following story about bitumen (9) 16    ‘Groovy’ divorcée with active manner (7) 17    American Red Cross treats fatty deposits (7) 18   

The government is facing a fiscal crisis. In the face of that crisis David Cameron has promised to continue to raise pensions in real terms. The biggest item of welfare spending – it makes up around half – is therefore set to get bigger. Indeed, over the next 50 years, pensions spending will rise by £330 billion (in today’s prices) partly because of an ageing population, but also because of the coalition’s populism. It’s likely that the only safety valve left in the system – raising the state pension age – will be used more and more by the government to balance the books. As the IEA’s latest research Income

Digital Detox is grand even when, as this New Year, it’s partly unplanned. Back today from an extended break on the Isle of Jura which, like much of Britain, has been lashed by gales. Unlike most of Britain, however, this has meant a) no ferries running and b) not much in the way of internet access (thanks to said storms). There are worse places to be marooned even if, like George Orwell, we ran dangerously low on tobacco… Still, good to be back and all that. I trust you all had a splendid Christmas and an even finer New Year. Normal posting to resume forthwith. Meanwhile here, somewhat belatedly are

Simon Hoggart, one of the Spectator’s best-loved columnists, died yesterday after fighting pancreatic cancer for over three years. He began writing for the magazine in the mid-nineties, and started the column for which he was most well known in The Spectator – the Wine Club – in 2001. His last column was printed in our Christmas issue. Here are some of his contributions from our archive: Diary, 19 April 1996 ‘I’m just back from a week in France. Naturally I took a case of non-French wine over on the ferry so as to have something decent to drink. The French are terrifically complacent about their wine, believing that the worst they produce is

As Chris Turney and his colleagues make their way home from their failed adventure, the next question is: who is going to be paying for their folly?  It certainly isn’t the general public. The efforts by Turney and his co-leader Chris Fogwill to crowd-fund money have been an embarrassing failure. They were seeking to raise $49,000 in this way – a small fraction of the $1.5 million overall costs – but they managed to raise a mere $1,000 from 22 people. Not even the promise of a signed copy of Turney’s book, 1912: the year the World Discovered Antarctica was enough to tempt donors into action: not a single one