Society

Mary Wakefield

Would you let parents destroy ‘gay’ embryos?

Because I’d like to have a child, and I’m getting on a bit, my husband and I have spent time recently with consultants. They’re an odd breed with distinct and shared characteristics. Invariably, after we’ve all sat down, their first move is to tilt their chair back, or give it a little twirl (design permitting), just to signal how free and easy it is at the top of the medical tree. When they speak it’s with a sort of hurried condescension, as if giving career advice to a hopeless niece. And they scribble as they go, on some scrap of paper. Ovary, ovary, arrow, hieroglyph, arrow, ‘Got that? Hmmm?’ Follicle,

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes: What’s the difference between the Sachs case and sexual harassment?

It is 15 years since the publication of the Macpherson Report into the investigation of the death of Stephen Lawrence. The report may have done some good by making the police take crime against black people more seriously, but its main legacy is bad. Macpherson promulgated the doctrine that ‘A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.’ If the incident is thus defined then there is literally no end to racist incidents; and if the (self-defining) victims — or anyone else — can define a racist incident thus then the person alleged by them to be guilty is automatically convicted. This

Niall Ferguson’s diary: Brazil is overtaking us – but it no longer feels like that

 São Paolo It was back in 2001 that my good friend Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the acronym ‘Bric’, short for Brazil, Russia, India, China. These were the emerging markets that were going to surpass the developed economies. And so they have. Well, nearly. I, too, am partial to a good acronym and it has always seemed to me very unfortunate that there isn’t a matching one for the four biggest established economies. According to the International Monetary Fund, these are currently the United States, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom (based on last year’s GDP figures). I therefore propose ‘Juugs’. The rise of the Brics and the fall

Stop bribing Ukraine – and start helping

The last time Viktor Yanukovych was removed from power in Ukraine, following a corrupt election nearly a decade ago, it was called the Orange Revolution. This time around it should be called the Golden Revolution. Never has an episode of political upheaval been followed quite so sharply by offers of riches from abroad. The past few days have resembled one of those charity auctions where high-net-worth individuals, tanked up after a good dinner, whip out their chequebooks and try to outdo each other’s generosity. The only differences are that in this case it is our money that they are brandishing, and that instead of going to a children’s hospital or

The night that saved England

Thanks to the centenary of the first world war, counter-factuals are much in vogue. How different might history have been had Archduke Franz-Ferdinand never been assassinated, had Britain kept out of the conflict, had the Allies been defeated? Questions such as these are more than just a parlour game. They serve to cast the shadow of contingency over events that otherwise can seem all too predetermined. Deep and strong though the tides of history are, there have indeed been moments in the past when their flood-surge might have been diverted along profoundly different courses — moments when the fate of nations did truly hang in the balance. The protagonists of one

Spectator letters: EDF answers Peter Atherton, Christopher Booker on wildlife

Nuclear reaction Sir: Peter Atherton questions whether a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point is a fair deal for the UK (‘Nuclear fallout’, 22 February). However, his conclusion is based on some unvalidated assumptions. In May 2012, he wrote that EDF would need £166 for each megawatt hour of electricity produced to get a ‘realistic return’. Now he says that an agreed price of £92.50 offers rewards which are ‘eyewateringly attractive’. Neither claim is justified. It is a balanced deal which will unlock £16 billion of investment at the lowest possible cost for consumers. He claims returns to investors of up to 35 per cent. As reported last October,

From Caligula to Yanukovych

Tyrants never learn, do they? From Caligula through Gadaffi to the ex-Ukrainian prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, they rule not to serve the people but themselves — and all in virtually identical ways. The emperor Tiberius populated Capri with palaces and grottos where lovers entwined themselves for the pleasure of his guests, like Yanukovych’s gardens dotted with love-seats and colonnades. Caligula had built a vast barge in the form of a floating palace on a lake, complete with marble, mosaics, and a hot and cold bath system; Yanukovych had a floating restaurant designed as a galleon. When Rome burned down in ad 64, Nero collared the grounds in the centre to construct

Watching car crash compliations with my grandson

My boy was downstairs cooking Sunday roast. Earlier, I had been clambering about on a woodpile, stepped awkwardly, and twisted my knee. So I was upstairs lying on my bed stinking of Deep Heat. Then my grandson appeared in the doorway to report that lunch would be ready in an hour. I held out my arms to him. The lad dutifully removed his shoes and came and lay next to me. I cuddled him passionately until he’d had enough of it, then I reached for the iPad and asked him what he would like to watch on YouTube. ‘Car crashes,’ he said. Apart from making Batman attack vehicles out of

Bridge | 27 February 2014

To any player with even the smallest sadistic streak, squeezing your opponents is hugely satisfying. But there’s something even more enjoyable: pseudo-squeezing them. With a genuine squeeze, you make them squirm, but they can console themselves afterwards that there was nothing they could have done. That’s no fun. With a pseudo-squeeze, you get to see them squirm and kick themselves when they realise they’ve been duped. On this recent deal, the UK star Gopal Venkatesh was hoodwinked by Bulgaria’s Valio Kovachev: [*2♠ was a game try; 2NT a relay; 3♣ asked for help in clubs] Venkatesh (West) led the ♥9.  Even with the ♥K onside, Kovachev had only nine tricks:

No. 303

White to play. This position is from Moiseenko-Noah, Khanty-Mansisk Olympiad 2010. Even though the game is not yet out of the opening, Black has already blundered. What did White now play? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 4 March or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. The winner will be the first correct answer out of a hat, and each week I shall be offering a prize of £20. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery.   Last week’s solution 1 Nxf6 Last week’s winner James O’Fee, Bangor, Northern Ireland

The question that Dear Mary refuses to answer

Q. One of my best friends, who knows I don’t have a great social life at university, has a brother in a band which is touring and will have five nights of gigs at my university town. He is offering me a free ticket for any night that week and to hang with the band backstage. But I cannot bear this artist’s music or voice, and couldn’t sit through a concert, let alone socialise with him. My friend knows very well I won’t have anything else on. Is there a tactful way to extricate myself? — Name and address withheld A. Yes, but it would do you no favours were

Why does everything suddenly need ‘resilience’?

They were talking on the wireless about Brazilians in the flooded areas, or so I thought. Once the kettle had finished boiling, it turned out that they wanted resilience in new houses in floody places. That meant fitting electrical sockets above waist height and not using plasterboard downstairs — things they have been doing in Venice for years. Schoolchildren should have resilience too, according to the MP Tristram Hunt, who, I always have to remind myself, sits on the Labour benches. ‘The teaching of resilience and self-control and character is more and more important,’ he said a couple of weeks ago. You can’t have too much of it these days.

Portrait of the week | 27 February 2014

Home Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo detainee who won substantial compensation after suing the British government, was arrested in Birmingham on suspicion of terrorism offences relating to Syria. John Downey, accused of killing four soldiers in the IRA Hyde Park bombing in 1982, will not be prosecuted, because he was given, in error, a guarantee he would not face trial; an Old Bailey judge ruled it was in the public interest to make state officials keep their promises. Harriet Harman, the deputy leader of the opposition, said she had ‘regrets’ that the Paedophile Information Exchange continued to be affiliated to the National Council for Civil Liberties during her time as

2151: Sources

Three theme words which must be deduced each suggest three unclued lights (including one of two words and ignoring one definite article). The word which connects the three theme words must be highlighted in the completed grid. Unchecked and cross-checking letters in all unclued lights could spell: KOREANS CAN SOON LEARN.   Across   1    Sadly embracing such silly sweethearts (8) 8    Bit of door said to stick (4) 11    Refined orgy’s rendered with Homeric adjective (12, hyphened) 14    Cut segment of mollusc is sore (7) 17    Bone a northern Parisian’s read about (4) 18    Speed ingested by extremely naughty old slapper (6) 22    Publish English Scriptures (8) 23    They

to 2148: Eighth of February

Unclued lights can each be abbreviated so that together they give the letters of FEBRUARY: FAHRENHEIT (19), EARTH (32), BASS (35), RÖNTGEN UNIT (41), UNIVERSITY (1D), ATOMIC WEIGHT (4), RECTOR (12) and YEN (7A). First prize Hilda Ball, Belfast Runners-up Roderick Rhodes, Goldsborough, N. Yorks;B. Taylor, Little Lever, Bolton

Alex Massie

Standard Life becomes the latest firm to bully Scotland. But is it bluffing?

No-one should be surprised that Standard Life has warned it might leave Scotland should the country vote for independence later this year. It is not exactly a secret that Edinburgh’s financial services industry is concerned by the possible – indeed plausible – implications of independence. The suggestion – sorry, the threat – that it might leave Scotland is already being characterised by nationalists as yet more bullying, this time of the corporate rather than political kind. No doubt this is a blustering bluff too.  But what if it isn’t? The sorry truth is that Edinburgh’s financial sector is not quite what once it was. The Bank of Scotland is a small part of the

Mary Wakefield

Would you screen for the ‘gay’ gene?

How would you feel about a couple doing IVF just in order to find the embryos most likely to to be gay… and chuck them out? Does that sound like eugenics to you? What about the other way round: what if a gay couple wanted to maximise their chance of a having gay baby — would you let them screen for and select embryos with the genes that made it more likely they were gay? Then bin the rest? It’s time to make your mind up because after decades of panic about ‘designer babies’ (remember Gattaca?) the future is finally here. On the one hand, as I write in the