Society

Unless you bet your life savings on gold some time in the past three years — after its price had passed on the way up the level to which it has now fallen back — there’s no need to be distressed by headlines about a ‘gold rout’, nor even the prospect of a ‘bear embrace’. The impulses behind this sudden downward lurch are positive for expectations of economic revival. Gold is the timeless safe haven for those who distrust governments and fear inflation, so a stampede of sellers — on Monday there seemed to be virtually no buyers — indicates an ebb tide in those sentiments. In the US in

The number of people in work in December to February was 29.698 million — lower than last month’s 29.732 million and representing a very slight 2,000 quarter-on-quarter fall — according to today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics. Of course, 2,000 is just a 0.008 per cent drop, and since the margin of error for that change is ±139,000, the quarter could yet turn out to have been one of reasonable jobs growth. But in today’s figures, the lack of employment growth, while the economically active population continued to expand, meant that the unemployment level rose by 70,000 — its biggest quarter-on-quarter rise since September to November 2011. The

One of the government’s lesser known reforms, the GOV.UK website, has just been named as the 2013 Design of the Year. Before the coalition, the public sector was represented online by nearly 1,000 websites. Under the auspices of the Government Digital Service — a newly recruited band of nerds based outside of Whitehall — GOV.UK has been an attempt to reboot the government’s web presence with a slicker site under a single unifying brand. This award suggests that the project has been a success. Up against tough competition from the Shard and Olympic cauldron, the win is a triumph for the GDS. George Osborne is certainly keen to tout it,

A BBC source tells me that James Harding is the BBC’s new Director of News. There is no official confirmation yet, but it makes sense. Just a few months ago, he quit as editor of The Times – with the praise of Fleet St ringing in his ears and a £1.3 million payout in his pocket. The Guardian had reported that he had been approached to be deputy to Tony Hall, the new BBC director-general. (The no2 job has not been filled since Mark Byford quit a couple of years ago.) But DDG, for all its nominal seniority, would not have been as powerful position as Director of News (vacated

This year’s Grand National meeting attracted an exceptional amount of press attention, much of it due to a number of changes which were introduced in a bid to make the race safer. As a reaction to calls from animal welfare charities such as the RSPCA and Animal Aid – the latter of whom run a ‘racehorse death-watch’ website – Aintree organisers changed the cores of the fences from wood to flexible plastic, levelled out a number of the landings on jumps, and moved the start of the race away from the crowds. So did the changes make a difference to the race? Saturday’s Grand National race was for many an

Summer, or rather the hint or promise of it, only arrives with the publication of Wisden. The cricketers’ almanack – the venerable almanack – celebrates its 150th anniversary this season. It has been quite an innings. John Wisden (pictured above) created an institution that, happily, shows no sign of flagging. This year’s almanack clocks in at a chunky 1584 pages and is a fine edition that pays proper tribute to the Yellow Brick’s past. This second edition stewarded by Lawrence Booth confirms the impression fostered last season that his editorship is a considerable upgrade upon his predecessor’s. His prejudices are sound. Quite correctly, Booth is a conservative but not a

Magnus Carlsen has qualified from the London Candidates tournament to earn a title match against the incumbent world champion Vishy Anand of India. Final scores were as follows: Carlsen and Kramnik 8½; Svidler and Aronian 8; Grischuk and Gelfand 6½; Ivanchuk 6 and Radjabov 4. Kramnik tied for first and in my opinion played better chess but all the tie-breaks were in Carlsen’s favour. I would like to have seen a play-off between Kramnik and Carlsen. However, the 600 million worldwide who follow chess (the figure from the latest YouGov poll), will doubtless enjoy 22-year-old Magnus challenging Anand, who is twice his age. Here is one of Kramnik’s best wins