Society

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Finally, a tax cut that Kevin Maguire supports

Last night’s Public Affairs News awards in Whitehall was, as usual, an orgy of back-slapping and smooching for the lobbying industry. Mr S chuckled when the compere for the evening, Kevin Maguire, had to hand over an award to the Taxpayers’ Alliance – a bête noire of the Mirror’s tribune of the people. Maguire never misses the chance to bash the TPA on Twitter and in print; but he was on his best behaviour while handing out the gong. The TPA won for its ‘Mash the Beer Tax’ campaign. Our Kev grudgingly admitted: ‘It’s the only tax cut I’ve ever supported’.

Carola Binney Carola Binney

Rowing at university is most fun when there’s no rowing

I remember telling my friends that I was going to row at Oxford. I could picture myself in flattering Magdalen College Boat Club lycra, a rosy glow on my cheeks as I enjoyed boat-based camaraderie with my team mates on a crisp spring morning. I didn’t even make it to the river. After a week of leaving grimy gyms with sore muscles and a sense of inadequacy, I jumped ship. My only contact with the sport since has been bumping into the rowers on my corridor on the way to the shower, on the rare occasions when I’m up before 10. Back from their 6am appointments with frostbite on the

John O'Neill

Poinsettias are just one victim of the energy crisis. Who’ll be next?

‘For millions of families’, the Telegraph reports today, poinsettia ‘is as much a festive favourite as turkey and Christmas trees’. Which is odd given that they’re tropical plants which like to be grown at a balmy 20 degrees. But we can expect fewer of them this year because the UK energy crisis means energy bills are up by almost a third for some growers this year. The plants aren’t worth heating. We could see a million fewer of them grown here this Christmas than five years ago, so suppliers are having to bring in lower-quality stock from the continent to meet demand. Will Ed Miliband pledge a price freeze on poinsettias? And show

Douglas Murray

The Muslim Brotherhood thrives in Britain

The Muslim Brotherhood aren’t doing so well in Egypt at the moment. Happily they are making some gains in Britain. On Tuesday the organisation’s dauphin – Tariq Ramadan, famous Islamist ideas man, grandson of the Brotherhood’s founder and prominent double-speaker gave the Orwell prize’s annual ‘Orwell lecture’. I wonder which direction Orwell’s body is spinning in? And elsewhere, at London’s SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies, better known as the School of Organised Anti-Semitism) a speaker who is opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood was chased from the stage by Muslim Brotherhoood supporters. It is worth watching the video of what turned into an Islamist rally just to remind

David Blackburn

The return of the family doctor?

Ministers have described the deal on GP contracts, negotiated by the government and the British Medical Association (BMA), as a return to the days when GPs were family doctors. Certainly, it is a step in that direction. The contract, which will come into force next April, revives the personal link between doctor and patients aged 75 or over, and makes GPs responsible for out of hours care. The Department of Health says that GPs will also be: offering patients same-day telephone consultations; offering paramedics, A&E doctors and care homes a dedicated telephone line so they can advise on treatment; coordinating care for elderly patients discharged from A&E; regularly reviewing emergency

Thursday

Raymond Keene

Sanjuro

In Kurosawa’s samurai warrior classic Sanjuro, the hero, a wandering Ronin played by Toshiro Mifune, ends the film in a face-off with his mortal enemy Hanbei Muroto. For a long moment the two martial swordsmen face each other in total immobility. Then, in a flash, a movement known by Samurai as Debana-Waza, Mifune slices his opponent in two, creating a violent fountain of blood.   There is an analogy to be made with the world chess championship, currently in progress in Chennai. After two quiet draws, the players are in a Debana-Waza state of immobile preparation, while awaiting the sudden stroke that will break the deadlock and propel one of the two

Raymond Keene

No. 292

White to play. This position is from Anand-Ding Liren, Alekhine Memorial, Paris 2013. White’s next destroyed the already compromised black position. What did he play? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 19 November 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 Rxa7 Last week’s winner Guy Faithful, Hove, East Sussex

The Spectator

Barometer: David Dimbleby is not alone (unfortunately)

Whose tattoos? David Dimbleby, 75, has had a scorpion tattooed on his right shoulder. Some more tattoo-wearers who perhaps ought to know better: —  Lady Steel, 71, wife of former liberal leader David Steel (pink jaguar on left shoulder). — Vanessa Feltz, 51 (photographed with Bob Marley on left arm, although it’s not known to be permanent). — Vladimir Franz, 54, composer and university professor who came fifth in this year’s Czech presidential elections (entire face covered with swirling motifs). — John Fetterman, mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania (town’s postcode on his left forearm; dates of five murders in the town on his right). — 21% of US adults, according to

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Boulestin has nothing to do with Marcel Boulestin — but could entice Mary Berry

Boulestin is a pretty restaurant on St James’s Street, between the posh fag shop (Davidoff) and the old palace, which the Hanoverians thought so ghastly that they moved out to Kensington Gardens, a fresher hell full of squirrels. This is one of the more fascinating West End streets because it is 300 years old and is, as such, the only street in the West End in which the ancient nobility look safe, or even human; you pass tourists, rats and also dukes wafting towards White’s gentlemen’s club, which is duchess-free and where a grown man can be treated like a baby, and not in a perverted way. So Boulestin, named

Dot Wordsworth

Dot Wordsworth: Is M&S really ‘Magic & Sparkle’?

‘Believe in Magic & Sparkle,’ says the Marks & Spencer television Christmas advertisement. The phrase is meant to suggest the shop, but it seems rather distant to me, either verbally or associatively (the shops, being lit by fluorescent tubes, are staring rather than sparkly). The popular name is Marks and Sparks, but merely as a rhyme. There is already an outfit called Believe in Magic. ‘Believe in Magic is a charity,’ its website says, ‘that spreads magic to the lives of seriously and terminally ill children.’ It takes them on outings for a treat. There is little chance of Believe in Magic being confused with Marks & Spencer. There is

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I be ready when Cupid strikes?

Q. Walking at a local beauty spot the other day, I passed a handsome young man. We exchanged a few words and both laughed. Afterwards I wished there had been a way of getting in touch again. How can I ensure that such opportunities for romance do not go wasted in future? — Y.P., Malvern, Worcs A. Never leave home without carrying a dog lead in your coat pocket. If Cupid’s arrow should strike while you are out walking, you may, by this simple expedient, give your telephone number to any handsome young men you like the look of. Just take out the lead and inform the Adonis that you have

Toby Young Toby Young

Toby Young: Tristram Hunt, the Spectator’s ‘Newcomer of the Year’?

I love The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year Awards. On the face of it, they’re a great advertisement for just how broadminded and sophisticated the editors of this magazine are. We’re able to rise above the political fray and generously acknowledge MPs on both sides of the House, regardless of which party they belong to. But at the same time, it’s also a way of drawing attention to the fact that we Tories aren’t as parti pris as our lefty opponents. Unlike us, they’re far too bogged down in the petty bickering of daily politics to pay tribute to their enemies. And in this way we’re able to score a

The Spectator

Letters: Cyclists reply to Rod Liddle, and an MP replies to Hugo Rifkind

Rod rage Sir: Like most cyclists, who also own a car and pay road tax, I enjoy a pedal along the lanes where I act with consideration for other road users, and the vast majority of them treat me likewise. Cycling in traffic is quite scary but now I know that Rod Liddle could be behind the wheel of an approaching car it becomes positively terrifying (‘Off your bike!’, 9 November). Anyone who can express such road rage on a keyboard is hardly fit to drive. How fortunate that he is part of a minority. Oh, and I wear Lycra for comfort, a helmet for safety and am 71 years

Taki

Taki: Why JFK wouldn’t have steered clear of Vietnam if he had lived

Everyone’s doing it, so I might as well jump in too. After all, I knew so many of the people involved, including JFK and his widow Jackie, and — sorry for the name-drop — even the actor Rob Lowe who plays the slain president in the film that’s coming out for the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. I met Senator John Kennedy one year before he became president, at a party thrown by Alice Topping, a society dame of the time. The first and lasting impression was of his charisma and good looks. He was 39, the room was full of beautiful women, but he did take a minute or

Jeremy Clarke

Jeremy Clarke: Why has Ed Miliband hidden his comic genius from the world?

Theresa May must have been a little disappointed. Her government limousine rolled silently to a halt at the rear entrance to the Savoy hotel, she got out, and the only people around to witness her latest fashion statement were a top-hatted doorman and your Low life correspondent having a fag. She was again wearing what the Daily Mail describes as her ‘zany, patterned’ coat. I confided to the doorman how upset I was that she wasn’t wearing those shiny, over-the-knee S&M boots. Something about the doorman suggested a vast and perhaps dangerous hinterland that only a top hat and Regency-style coat could keep from spilling out into everyday life. He

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 14 November 2013

Home EDF Energy said it would put up prices by 3.9 per cent. BT Sport spent £897 million on the rights to show Champions League football for three years, provoking a 10 per cent fall in BSkyB shares. The rate of inflation fell from 2.7 per cent to 2.2, as measured by the consumer prices index; as measured by the retail prices index, it fell from 3.2 per cent to 2.6 per cent. Unemployment fell by 48,000 to 2.47 million. Barratts, with 75 shoe shops, went into administration. Flybe, the Exeter-based airline, announced plans to cut 500 jobs. Plans were published for an airport on an artificial island off Sheppey in the Thames Estuary,

Melissa Kite

Melissa Kite: I don’t mean to make the transport secretary run across the Savoy ballroom, really I don’t

‘Do you know…?’ said the Tory MP I was sitting next to, as he tried to introduce me to the transport secretary. But the transport secretary didn’t even wait until the Tory MP said my name. The transport secretary starts turning a funny colour whenever he sees me. On this occasion he hurried past saying, ‘Ah ha ha yes ha ha ah, erm…’ Before he got past, I grabbed his hand and shook it. I suppose I wanted to assure him that the small matter of him putting a high speed railway past my parents’ back garden needn’t necessarily mean he has to run across the Savoy ballroom. Or look

Celia Walden

Celia Walden’s diary: Have I finally caught my husband in an affair?

For a minute I just stood there with my back against the wall, staring at the credit card receipt. Then I slid down into a crouching position on the kitchen floor. ‘So this is it,’ I thought to myself. ‘This is really going to be how I find out.’ I’d found the receipt in the front pocket of one of my husband’s suitcases on Tuesday morning. It was for dinner for two at the Four Seasons Hotel in Santa Barbara — a place he’d told me he’d never been. He’d had the Merlot and the rib-eye; she’d had the cucumber martini and a Caesar salad. I’m guessing that she waived

Alexander Chancellor

Alexander Chancellor: Can one be addicted to making emergency calls?

The police have been complaining a lot lately about frivolous calls to the emergency services. All over the country people in their thousands are calling 999 for the weirdest or silliest reasons. In Gloucestershire one man called to say that his wife was a werewolf, and another that he was being poisoned by a satellite controlled by witches. In Scotland someone rang to complain about the service he had received at a hamburger joint; another to ask where he could buy some milk. The police have been publicising such incidents in the hope that we will stop wasting their time in this way, but it seems most unlikely that we

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 14 November 2013

My plan this week was to write wittily, but modestly, about our rise from the bowels of relegation after the first two disastrous weekends of the Premier League. I was going to tell you how important it is not to give up, to have faith in yourself and your team-mates and to keep on fighting for every small victory. Well that was the plan. The reality is that we have gone far lower than the bowels of relegation — right to the very pits of the sewer, in fact. Guys — we are well and truly relegated! Alexander Allfrey’s National Team led all the way and won easily, so they