Society

Thursday

Mark Palmer

Notes on…The Charm of the Dordogne

It’s only 150 years since a toff was roasted in the remote Dordogne village of Hautefaye. The poor soul was a French aristocrat resented by the locals. Perhaps he was an outsider. Perhaps he was a second-homer taking advantage of the delights of the Dordogne without ever turning up to any 19th-century equivalents of today’s wine and cheese festivals, arts exhibitions and boules tournaments. Silly fellow. Outsiders in 2013 — well, the Brits, anyway — are proper joiner-inners and the French are perfectly happy to have them around. But my goodness there are a lot of them. Never mind Chiantishire in Italy, this is where the 4×4 brigade decamp from

Simon Hoggart

May Wine Club | 23 May 2013

Corney & Barrow are proud to have the royal warrant, meaning that they provide the Palace with some of the greatest — and necessarily most expensive — wines from around the world. I am pleased to say that they also hold my own warrant, for providing exceptional wines at -surprisingly modest prices. For instance, this month’s offer is the perfect summer package, fine wines for the season, at a sum almost everyone can afford. As usual prices are reduced by 5 per cent from the list, and there is also the Brett-Smith Indulgence, whereby Corney & Barrow’s boss, Adam -Brett-Smith, offers an extra £6 a case -reduction if you buy three cases or

Leo McKinstry

Less alcohol, fewer drugs: how the British seem to be shedding their harmful habits

Gripped by his habitual despair, the French novelist Gustave Flaubert wrote to a friend in 1872, ‘I am appalled at the state of society. I’m filled with the sadness that must have affected the Romans of the 4th century. I feel irredeemable barbarism rising from the bowels of the earth.’ Warming to his bleak scatological theme, he continued, ‘I have always tried to live in an ivory tower, but a tide of shit is beating at its walls, threatening to undermine it.’ Many commentators would feel that exactly the same words could be applied to modern Britain. According to the pessimistic narrative of national decline, Britain is now drowning in

Matthew Lynn

Why Mark Carney’s Canadian success story may be about to fall apart

No Bank of England governor has ever been installed in office with quite so much advance hype as Mark Carney. When he moves from running to the Bank of Canada to his new office in Threadneedle Street, expectations will be running high. Carney arrives with a reputation as a master of economic strategy, a man who can single-handedly steer an economy through the most treacherous of waters, and get a country growing again with a few deft strokes of monetary magic. Certainly, George Osborne has invested his hopes in him. During Carney’s time as governor in Canada, the country was ‘acknowledged to have weathered the economic storm better than any

Lucy Vickery

Read all about it | 23 May 2013

In Competition No. 2798 you were invited to choose one of the following real headlines from regional newspapers — ‘W. Norwood “Curry Cat” murder latest’, ‘Badger shot by St Ives locksmith’, ‘“Smug” Swans attack dalmatian’ — and to submit the full report behind one of them. ‘Smug Swans attack dalmatian’, from the Ham & High, features in a collection of choice local-paper headlines entitled Whitstable Mum in Custard Shortage (other nuggets include ‘Oven removed from home’ and ‘Road stays open’). The winners earn £25. Adrian Fry takes £30. Wendy Sownder yesterday found herself the terrified witness of an attack on her dalmatian Lewis by the increasingly eccentric swans of Swindon’s

Leah McLaren

Congratulations, Rob Ford: you’ve finally made me despise you

The first thing you see after leaving the baggage carousel at Toronto’s Pearson airport is an enormous photograph of Mayor Rob Ford. In it, the former high school football coach grins in his blingy regalia, teeth yellowed, one eye squinting in a semi-wink. His scalp is flushed and shiny through a receding blond hairline and his excessive girth spreads well beyond the frame. The overall effect is of a bloated albino lab rat on the wrong side of a thyroid drug trial. I always felt a bit sorry for him looking at it. Not any more. Last week details of a video emerged that features the mayor, shirt unbuttoned, apparently

Bruce Anderson

The lesson of France and Italy – the worse the country, the better the wine

Although I promise to move on to drink, forgive me for beginning with a less interesting but even more complex subject: government. It is easy to patronise the Italians. The Risorgimento was a failure (See David Gilmour’s superb The Pursuit of Italy). Since the days of Cavour’s Machiavellianism and Garibaldi’s Cav and Pag bravura, the Italian political system has suffered a steady haemorrhage of authority and prestige, with the partial exception of the Mussolini era. By the 1950s, the serious people in Italy had come to one of three conclusions. The first lot decided that the Italians were not fit to govern themselves. This explains the Euro-enthusiasm of the Montis,

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The ludicrous 20-year timescale for HS2 is reason enough to abandon the whole thing

If I stand on the forecourt of Euston station tomorrow morning, I will be able to get to Manchester by high-speed train in 20 years, one hour and eight minutes. That’s only 19 years, 364 days and 23¾ hours longer than it took me last month. But at least we know that 17 June 2033, the day earmarked for the opening of the London to Manchester High Speed Rail service, will be a nice, sunny day. As the inaugural train pulls out of Euston, it will travel under clear blue skies until the train reaches Birmingham (scattered clouds: chance of precipitation 20 per cent). We know this, because, of course,

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

What you believe has everything to do with how old you are

We’ve got bogged down, that’s the thing. Bogged down and caught up, all at once. The Prime Minister is rude about people and people mind, even if they’re the sort of people who are habitually rude about him. Europe is a mess we either need or we don’t, and the notion of chaps marrying other chaps gets everybody terribly excited, whether they’re in favour or against. And so travelled are these paths of debate, and so much fun do we all have having them, that I suspect we’ve lost sight of the biggest political fight of all. Which isn’t really about any of these things at all, but about people.

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

I’d rather be selling Tumblr than buying it

I haven’t used Yahoo as a general search engine since an American friend introduced me to the miracle that was Google in November 2000, but I do use Yahoo Finance for share price data, and the clunky BT Yahoo email service. All this points me to one conclusion: Yahoo is as middle-aged as I am, and the decision by hot new ex-Google chief executive Marissa Mayer to seek brand rejuvenation by buying the unprofitable blogging site Tumblr for $1.1 billion may not end well. It’s like me deciding to get one of those big, wavy ‘tribal’ tattoos on my neck: it might get me laid, but more likely it will

Andrew Craig

Revealed: Harvard University’s failsafe investment strategy

With the Dow Jones scaling new heights, and other markets not far behind, investors face a dilemma. Is this a time to buy? Or, for those who have suddenly found themselves sitting on a profit for the first time in a decade, is it time to sell? This is the question that faces most investors in good times and bad, but in 2013 the anxiety seems particularly acute. Many have been burned so badly in recent years that they have given up, preferring to keep their cash in bank accounts. But in the era of negative real interest rates, even this is dangerous. In 1981 the investment analyst Harry Browne

Jonathan Ruffer

When cautious-looking investments are the riskiest option

When can a famine taste pretty good? The answer is when you are eating the cattle which have just died of thirst. And that’s where we are today in the investment market. The famine is a lack of income — cash held in a completely safe bank, or in short-term government securities, earns almost nothing. Where’s the feast? The answer is in yield-bearing investments, into which savings are pouring — they produce a modicum of yield, to be sure — but that is dwarfed by the capital gains which have accompanied them. Those who have already made this switch are understandably rather pleased, and often rather pleased with themselves. Both

Stuart Wheeler

Stuart Wheeler – the secret to making money from spread betting

Well, there are two ways. You can own a chunk of a successful spread-betting firm or you can be a spread-better and get things right. Miraculously, I have managed to do both. I shall come back to that. First, let me tell you how it works. How many runs will England make in the first innings of their next Test match? The bookmaker — all spread-betting firms are bookies, whatever gravitas they may attempt to assume — might quote 260–270. You think they will make more than 270. So you ‘buy’ at 270, staking £10 a run. England make 350 runs. So you are right by 80 runs and, at

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

‘Not in our name’ – British Muslims denounce the Woolwich attack on Twitter

The Muslim Council of Britain has denounced the Woolwich murder and has been joined by hundreds of Muslims who have taken to Twitter to voice disgust over the idea that Islam could have been be invoked in such a barbaric act. Here are a few of them: I can’t tell you how sick I am of having to tweet every time that these are NOT Muslims. This is NOT Islam. These are f***** up barbarians — Sabbiyah Pervez (@sabbiyah) May 22, 2013   The horrific attack in Woolwich had nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with the scum who say they do this in the name of

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Sweet Sorrow of following Somerset Cricket

Marcus Trescothick. Nick Compton. Alviro Petersen. James Hildreth. Craig Kieswetter. Jos Buttler. When all troops are fit and available Somerset enjoy a batting line-up one might compare favourably to this summer’s visiting New Zealanders. Today they were dismissed by Sussex for 76. At Horsham. Granted, Compton and Kieswetter were absent but, even so, this was a dismal showing.  Somerset, damn it, won the toss and chose (rightly!) to bat. At the time of typing Sussex are 241/7. The best that may be said of it is that this year the Wurzels are not teasing their supporters. A season that began with hopes that – at last! – the Cider Men

The Spectator

‘Soldier beheaded’ in Woolwich, south London – live reaction

Summary: A British solider has been reported to have been beheaded on the streets of Woolwich, south east London by two men at 2:20pm afternoon. The BBC is reporting the murder may have been filmed over cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ . ITV has released footage of a man carrying a bloodied knife saying ‘remove your governments – they don’t care about you.’  Home Secretary Theresa May chaired a meeting of Cobra, the government’s emergency response committee, suggesting that the incident was a terrorist attack. Police shot two men, who had lingered at the scene. They are receiving emergency treatment at separate hospitals.  2121: Theresa May has made a short statement following the Cobra meeting earlier: ‘What happened

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Exclusive: Clement Attlee backs Michael Gove’s free schools

Great news for all progressives: a private school has been effectively been nationalised. Queen Elizabeth Grammar in Blackburn, founded in 1509, is to enter the state sector as one of Michael Gove’s free schools. Education that had previously been affordable only by the rich will now be open to all in Blackburn. It’s one of 104 free schools expected to open in 2014, bringing choice in education to a total of 130,000 pupils. This policy stands  firmly in the progressive tradition. Clement Attlee put it clearly: ‘There is plenty of room for pioneer work and experiment. The Working Men’s College, Morley College, the Polytechnics and the University Extension Lectures, all

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

IMF verdict on the UK economy: the good, the bad, and the ugly

The International Monetary Fund published its long-awaited Ofsted report on the UK economy this afternoon. As usual, the written assessment contains enough to keep everyone on all sides of the debate happy, but while avoiding telling the government to abandon Plan A, it does instruct George Osborne to invest in supply-side measures to boost growth, warning that ‘planned fiscal tightening will be a drag on growth’. Here’s a summary of the good bits from the IMF’s concluding statement, the awkward bits, and the downright bad news. You can read the full concluding statement here. The Good The Government’s ‘essential’ plan for cutting the deficit has earned it credibility, the IMF

Tuesday

The Spectator

Same Sex Marriage Bill: how MPs voted

This is the full Hansard of list of how MPs voted on tonight’s third reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. It was a free vote, and the Bill passed 366 to 161. AYES Abbott, Ms Diane Abrahams, Debbie Alexander, rh Danny Alexander, rh Mr Douglas Alexander, Heidi Ali, Rushanara Allen, Mr Graham Andrew, Stuart Ashworth, Jonathan Bailey, Mr Adrian Bain, Mr William Baker, Norman Baldwin, Harriett Balls, rh Ed Banks, Gordon Barclay, Stephen Barker, rh Gregory Baron, Mr John Barron, rh Mr Kevin Barwell, Gavin Bayley, Hugh Beckett, rh Margaret Begg, Dame Anne Benn, rh Hilary Benyon, Richard Berger, Luciana Betts, Mr Clive Blackman-Woods, Roberta Blenkinsop, Tom Blomfield, Paul

Miles Windsor

David Cameron has caused a crisis in conservatism

David Cameron’s letter to party members added insult to injury after a week of headlines about ‘Loongate’ and the Tory leadership’s decision to bulldoze through the Same Sex Marriage Bill with the help of Labour. He suggested that ‘you change things not be criticising from your armchair but by getting out and doing’. Who does he think is knocking on doors week after week, taking the flak for his unpopular lurch from ill-conceived policy to ill-conceived policy? Many of us have been involved in the fight for conservatism all our lives. But under Cameron’s watch we are seeing a crisis in conservatism and polling results which would have been unthinkable