Society

Thursday

Nigel Lawson

Nigel Lawson’s diary: My secret showdown with the Royal Society over global warming

The long-discussed meeting between a group of climate scientists and Fellows of the Royal Society on the one side, and me and some colleagues from my think-tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation on the other, has now at last taken place. It was held behind closed doors in a committee room at the House of Lords, the secrecy — no press present — at the insistence of the Royal Society Fellows, an insistence I find puzzling given the clear public interest in the issue of climate change in general and climate change policy in particular. The origins go back almost a year, to a lecture by the president of the

Raymond Keene

Song of Norway

Magnus Carlsen has become the 16th world chess champion, taking the title with three wins, seven draws and no losses, the most convincing win in a title match since Capablanca defeated Lasker in 1921. Norway’s Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, congratulated the new champion on live TV, Scandinavian Airlines decorated a plane in chessboard livery in Carlsen’s honour, while Norway in general erupted in wild jubilation. I left the match last week before games seven and eight, which resulted in steady draws, then in game 9, on the precipice of defeat, Anand went for the jugular.   Anand-Carlsen; Chennai (Game 9) 2013   (diagram 1) In the above position, with chances

Peter Jones

Barometer: How the new ‘third class’ would be worse than the Victorian version

The grim tales of ‘modern slavery’ that are currently emerging across the UK make one wonder whether ancient Roman slavery was preferable. The fact that it was institutionalised means that it could, if you were lucky, be endurable. There was nothing secretive about slavery in Rome. It was felt to be part of the natural order of things — some people were ‘born’ to be slaves — and that was that. As ‘property’, without any legal status, a slave could be treated in any way his or her master liked: tortured, whipped or executed. Over time, however, some degree of legal protection was permitted. Nero ruled that slaves could bring

The Spectator

Letters: In defence of the Revd Paul Flowers, cyclists vs lorry drivers, and more

Scandal at the Co-op Sir: Martin Vander Weyer makes a good point. The Revd Paul Flowers may be a flawed individual, but he is not responsible for Co-op Bank’s woes (Any Other Business, 23 November). His appointment might be symptomatic of a complacency about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ banking that suited certain politicians, but surely now we need a full inquiry into the Lloyds takeover of HBOS and the Co-op takeover of Britannia. I would also like to see the terms compared to the Santander acquisition of Bradford & Bingley. The true scandal is the collusion of politicians, regulators and senior bankers. In the meantime, I hope Paul Flowers gets the

Toby Young Toby Young

Toby Young: Why I’m not going to be an MP

Damn and blast. I was quite keen on becoming the Conservative candidate for Hammersmith, but the timing isn’t going to work. My hope was that the local association would delay advertising for a candidate until next year, at which point I would have thrown my hat into the ring. Unfortunately, they’re keen to get someone in place straightaway and I have too much on my plate at present. That sounds like an excuse, but it isn’t. If the Conservative candidate in Hammersmith is to have any hope of overturning Andrew Slaughter’s 3,500 majority, he or she must devote themselves body and soul to the fight. Slaughter has no life outside

Raymond Keene

No. 294

White to play. This position is a variation from Anand-Carlsen, Chennai (Game 9). White is on the verge of delivering checkmate but the Black b-pawn is about to promote. White needs an accurate move here. What is it? Answers to me at The Spectator by Monday 2 December 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 … Ne5 Last week’s winner Jeff Aronson, Oxford

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I tell my mother-in-law she’s being mean?

Q. My egregious mother-in-law turns 80 this December. She is not short of a bob but for one of my birthdays (the big one) she sent me a card with the equivalent of A$20 (£12). This is normally what your children receive from their grandparents, not what a mature adult expects. I normally do not send her anything for her birthday but what would be the best way to make a point for her 80th? Send her a card with the same amount of money? Or could you propose an alternative strategy to show her that her gesture was, to say the least, the action of a stingy and parsimonious

The Spectator

Barometer | 28 November 2013

Third-class thinking A report by the Institute of Economic Affairs recommended standing-room-only third-class carriages as an alternative to longer trains and platforms. What was third-class rail travel originally like? — Until the 1844 Railway Act third-class travel generally meant an open carriage with holes drilled in the floor to let the rainwater out. The Act demanded that all carriages conveying humans be covered. Seats were usually provided. — In 1872 the Midland Railway became to first company to abolish second class, by removing leather seat backs from second-class carriages and adding leather upholstery to the seats of third-class carriages. Of human bondage Three women were found apparently living in slavery

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Tanya Gold: Eating in the lobby at Canary Wharf

One Canada Square was the original glass house in east London’s Gotham City, a thrilling tower with a flashing pyramid on that part of the Thames that looks like a despairing U-bend. The Daily Telegraph used to live here, on floors 11 and 12, when I was a gossip columnist; there was no floor 13, architects being afraid of beauty, and also of witches. I love Canary Wharf, and One Canada Square in particular; I always wonder — will it ever be an ancient building? Or will the flood waters overwhelm it? It is like midtown Manhattan, but less substantial, and twice as lost. It is the second tallest building

Dot Wordsworth

Dot Wordsworth: Don’t call him Revd Flowers!

‘Here,’ said my husband, chucking a folded-back copy of the Daily Telegraph to me, ‘this’ll interest you.’ For once he was right. It was a reader’s letter. ‘My distress at the Paul Flowers debacle (I am a Methodist) has been increased by the BBC and others referring to “the Reverend Flowers”,’ wrote Lesley Barnes of Henfield, West Sussex. ‘As your paper, at least, is aware, this man is the Revd Paul Flowers or Mr Flowers, but never Revd Flowers. Even our Eton-educated Prime Minister seems not to know this.’ It distressed me too. Even George Parker of the Financial Times was at it on Radio 4. Where have these people

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 28 November 2013

Home Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland, outlined Scottish National Party plans for independence, which included keeping the pound and armed forces of 15,000, replacing the BBC with the Scottish Broadcasting Service and introducing random breath tests. The Ministry of Defence said it would investigate claims that in 1972 an Army plainclothes undercover unit shot dead people in Northern Ireland unconnected with paramilitary activity. A bomb containing 132lbs of home-made explosives failed to go off properly in a car parked at Victoria Square in central Belfast. Rape at the hands of under-age perpetrators is seen as ‘normal and inevitable’ among children in some areas, according to the Office of

The Spectator

Our enemy is not global warming. In Britain, people are dying of the cold

Fanciful predictions of all the deaths that will result from climate change, decades into the future, are regularly thrown into public debate. Less attention has been given to a real statistic from the here and now, released by the Office of National Statistics this week, which shows the effects of one of the policies designed to tackle climate change: high energy prices. It emerged this week that there were 31,000 ‘excess’ deaths in England and Wales last winter, almost a third more than the previous year. Almost all were, in effect, British pensioners who died of the cold. It’s odd: Britain is a rich country with a massive welfare state

Doc

2141: Megacant

The unclued lights (all but two of two words) are of a kind, listed in Chambers 2011. Elsewhere, ignore one accent.   Across   1    Race to leave car in protected area (12, two words) 10    Regular car rides to Irish peninsula (4) 12    Able to include one opposing support (10) 14    Everything’s satisfactory returning the acacia (3) 17    Pillar of Hercules unknown in Gaelic Scotland, on reflection (5) 18    Reversion to type in songbird, head to tail (7) 22    Phoenician goddess is with husband, 28 (6) 24    Bird in river and lough (5) 29    Diminutive confection without number, it may

Doc

to 2138: Hundred centimes

The unclued Across lights are words abbreviated by C (= 100) and the unclued Down lights are abbreviated by c (= centimes).   First prize Mrs P. Bealby, Stockton-on-Tees Runners-up Jacqui Sohn, Great Yarmouth, J. Murray, Exmouth

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Net migration is bogus. Gross migration is what affects communities

Just over half a million people migrated to the UK in the year to June. And half a million the year before – actually, it was 517,000, but let’s not quibble. A million, then, in two years…that’s quite something. But you wouldn’t have known from the news about the new immigration stats from the Home Office, which focussed instead on a rise in net migration to 182,000 (ie the number of people arriving, less the number of Brits leaving). Now, for all the noise about Bulgarians and Romanians coming to Britain, about half the new immigrants were from outside the EU – 242,000, down from 282,000 the previous year. You’d never think

Ben Lazarus Ben Lazarus

Plain packaging of cigarettes is based on pseudoscience and speculation

It has been a bad week for smokers. In yet another skirmish in the war against the vice, it was announced late last night that the British government is pressing ahead with Soviet-style plain packaging of cigarettes, despite Cameron’s decision to shelve the policy in July. Australia is the only country currently with plain packaging, after enacting it in December 2012. The results have been less than impressive. Indeed, as I wrote about earlier this month for the Telegraph , the accountancy firm KPMG released a report on 4 November, which highlighted how the Australian government has lost $1 billion Australian dollars in the 12 months ended in June, as a

Ed West Ed West

Ex-Muslims are living the British dream – Britain should support them

There was an excellent Radio 4 documentary on yesterday in which Sarfraz Manzoor interviewed a group of people you don’t hear much about – ex-Muslims. Like all good radio documentaries, it left me wanting to know more about the individuals involved, feeling more confused about the world, and with mixed feelings too. On the one hand I can understand that Dover Beach sadness of people falling away from religion, and why the parents of those interviewed would feel devastated by that loss. On the other hand, the ex-Muslims are right. They’re right to question the beliefs they were brought up with, and they’re right to see the inconsistencies and those

Sebastian Payne

The Spectator podcast: ‘You can’t say that’, Osborne’s challenge and Obama’s struggle

Are there truths in modern Britain we can’t speak about? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Spectator columnist Rod Liddle discusses his cover feature on why we  are so reluctant to talk about certain topics. Was Dominic Grieve right to apologise for his comments last week? Is this a case of political correctness getting worse? And is it too late to do anything about it? James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman also look at George Osborne’s preparations for the 2013 Autumn Statement. According to James’ column, he was recently caught filming Bono and Bob Gedolf at a party  — what does this say about the man? What can we expect to see from the Autumn