Society

Thursday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Diarmaid MacCulloch: Am I anti-Catholic?

Does being gay make you a better historian? ‘Immensely, immensely,’ says Diarmaid MacCulloch. ‘From a young age, four or five onwards, I began to realise that the world was not as it pretends to be, there are lots of other things there. You learn how to listen to what is being half-said or implied, and that’s a transferable skill.’ MacCulloch knows what he’s talking about. He’s Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford and one of Britain’s most distinguished living historians. In academic terms, he’s on a par with David Starkey, who also happens to be gay. Like Starkey, MacCulloch is a Tudor specialist who has branched into

Roy Kelly

The Property of Michael Gray, If Found

A sample of things people should know about, or have heard of, whether they’re 12 or not: George Washington, George Gershwin, George Eliot, Henry Ford, Charlie Chaplin, Elvis Presley, Jane Austen, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Muhammad Ali, Roger Federer, Queen Victoria, Snow White, Bing Crosby, Saint Paul, Emily Bronte, the dromedary, the Wall Street Crash, William Gladstone, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Benjamin Disraeli, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Isle of Skye, Sanskrit, Alexander the Great, devilled eggs and lard. You should not be reviled for being unfamiliar with Willie Nelson, the Scissor Sisters, Stefan Edberg or floc. Of course there are subjective edges, but there is,

J. Meirion

How NHS health tourism is costing us billions: a surgeon’s story

When David Cameron proposed toughening the rules that govern foreign nationals being treated for free by the National Health Service, he faced — as one might expect — a barrage of criticism. The Prime Minister was accused of tilting at windmills. The threat exists only in the minds of xenophobes, said his critics. The actual levels of abuse are minimal, so why is he scaremongering? A few weeks earlier, I had written a piece for The Spectator from a different perspective; that of an cancer specialist who has spent his career in the NHS. I wrote for one reason only: that I cherish the NHS, and wish to stop its abuse. My

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

If Paolo Di Canio is a fascist, he should recognise the totalitarianism of his hysterical critics

I’ve often thought that British football needed a good dose of fascism — and now at last it has exactly this, in the form of the combative and somewhat eccentric Italian chap Paolo Di Canio. He has been installed as the manager of Sunderland, and all hell has broken loose. Di Canio has described himself as a fascist — but definitely not a racist, which shows that he is at least au fait with the current dictum that there is but one crime and one crime alone that matters. He has a couple of fascisty tatts on his muscular shoulders, one of which seems to be invoking the late, controversial politician

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Is Lord Mayor Roger Gifford finally unleashing his inner Boris?

A short stroll from Poultry to the Mansion House offers vistas of the old and new City. The fortress of the Bank of England awaits its new Governor while the Royal Exchange earns its keep, like much of the modern Square Mile, as an upmarket nest of boutiques and eateries. The Lutyens-designed headquarters of the long-gone Midland Bank stands apparently abandoned by its oligarch owner, facing the avant-garde pink edifice that replaced the Victorian ‘Mappin & Webb Corner’. The skyline gives glimpses of the Lloyd’s Building from 1986, the Gherkin from 2003 and the ‘Walkie-Talkie’ conceived in 2007, due to be completed next year; each a monument to the boom

Candy Neubert

long back yard

This must be how we die, a Sunday train, late afternoon, November, Basingstoke. This must be how the heart falls out of reach where it won’t be warmed, too many faces at the window getting on, getting off, while we are all always between stations staring out at hedges in case a fox saves us. Here’s a row of blue trampolines in the long back yards, someone’s bath cleaner on an inside sill; here against this glass in front of each of us the self’s own shape delivers a skull. Then out through the town; an odd stark tree illuminates the dark, the smell of leaf on stone, a reprimand.

Jane Ridley

‘Holland House: A History of London’s Most Celebrated Salon’, by Linda Kelly – review

Holland House, which was bombed in 1940, was a large, rambling Jacobean mansion off Kensington High Street. In 1800 it was still in the country, surrounded by leafy woods and fields. Here Lord Holland and his wife Lady Holland created a glittering and influential salon. For over 30 years before the 1832 Reform Act, Holland House was the headquarters of the Whig party. Lord Holland was the nephew of Charles James Fox, and at Holland House the Whig aristocracy — ‘they are all cousins’, as someone said — dined and talked and plotted. An intellectual nerve centre, Holland House was the place where the new men with the new thinking

Lucy Vickery

Another country | 4 April 2013

In Competition No. 2791 you were invited to provide a poem in praise of a country other than the United Kingdom. Thanks to John Whitworth, who suggested the topic. It generated a wave of love-thy-neighbourliness, albeit with an undercurrent of mischief, that is a welcome antidote to the prevailing mood of xenophobia. I liked Ray Kelley’s hymn to Australia — ‘Oz, Oz, glorious Oz,/ Got-the-lot country if ever there was!’ — and was equally impressed by Nigel Mace, Rob Stuart and  Charles Curran. The winners, below, earn £25. Basil Ransome-Davies takes £30. Michael Myers Leslie Nielsen Gotta love ’em, haven’t you? Raymond Burr and Leonard Cohen David Cronenberg woo-hoo. Céline

Wednesday

David Blackburn

The renewal of the class system

Fun can be had by playing with the BBC’s new class calculator. The calculator, which was designed with the help of several eminent sociologists, replaces the 3 classes with seven stratifications, drawing on social criteria (such as taste, accent and hobbies) as well as more tradition measurements (such income group and upbringing) to determine membership. Toby Young writes about the demise of the three classes in tomorrow’s magazine. Here is a preview of what he has to say: ‘One advantage of moving beyond the socio-economic definition of class is that you end up with a less inflammatory portrait of modern Britain. Yes, the social elite are quite numerous, but it’s better

Tony Devenish

6 steps to out-fox local government’s Sir Humphreys

Shortly after the 2010 general election I attended an event where mandarins complained of ‘swingeing cuts’. Then one NHS boss admitted that he had so much cash sloshing around he was having trouble spending his multi-hundred million budget. Local government, which accounts for one quarter of government spending, has the same mindset. Despite the rhetoric of cuts, little has actually changed. I have watched Sir Humphrey Whitehall and local government (both as a private contractor and as a councillor), and each year we witness a rush before the financial year ends to spend money which, if cuts were actually deep, would not exist. Fraser Nelson spelt out this reality before

Douglas Murray

Surely Katie Price demeans marriage more than gay marriage ever could?

The right of gays to have a civil marriage in a non-religious service is once again an issue. There have been large and slightly violent protests in Paris as well as on-going judicial contortions in the US. I know my support for gay marriage appears to put me in a minority among conservatives. But perhaps I could ask a question of my opponents? One of the things that opponents of gay civil marriage always say is that gay marriage would ‘undermine’, ‘distort’ or otherwise ‘demean’ existing marriage. Many people – continuing to mix up civil and religious marriage – claim that the ‘sanctity’ of religious heterosexual marriage will be undermined

Tuesday

Sarah Spickernell

The dangers of cancer screening

Within five years, we could find out how genetically predisposed we are to developing certain types of cancer. Through DNA screening, the most susceptible of us will be prompted to adapt our lifestyles accordingly and ultimately reduce the risk of developing the disease. The breakthrough has been hailed as the ‘the biggest leap forward yet in understanding the genetic basis of cancer’. But at what cost? The good news is clear enough. Researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research and Cambridge University have identified 74 ‘single nucleotide polymorphisms’ – small physical elements found on human DNA – that correlate with the probability of developing ovarian, breast and prostate cancer.  Of these, 16 are

Nicholas Farrell

Paolo Di Canio is right — Italian Fascism was not racist

The truth is that the new Sunderland manager Paolo Di Canio is right: Italian Fascism was not racist — at least not until its fatal alliance with German National Socialism. In truth, there is nothing necessarily racist about Fascism. That many football hooligans and the entire Liberal Left disagree is irrelevant — irrelevant, that is, to the truth. Racism in the context of Fascism essentially means hatred of Jews rather than, say, of blacks. But here’s the funny thing: Fascism, unlike National Socialism, was not anti-Semitic. True, the words ‘Fascist’ and ‘Nazi’ are interchangeable these days, and often synonymous with the word ‘racist’. But Benito Mussolini, who founded Fascism, was not anti-Semitic. Indeed,

Jonathan Jones

Two versions of Osborne’s benefits speech

The Times’ Sam Coates picked up on a couple of discrepancies between the text of George Osborne’s Morrisons speech sent out by CCHQ, and the one published by the Treasury. Here’s the CCHQ text: ‘In 2010 alone, payments to working age families cost £75 billion. That means about one in every seven pounds of tax that working people like you pay was going on working age benefits.’ But the Treasury version reads: ‘In 2010 alone, payments to working age families cost £90 billion. That means about one in every six pounds of tax that working people like you pay was going on working age benefits.’ Osborne actually delivered the Treasury

David Blackburn

Mixed messages on the minimum wage

The government has managed to upset its own apple cart while trying to walk in a straight line. The indefatigable Paul Waugh inquired about rumours that the government was considering cutting or freezing the minimum wage. The spokesman replied: ‘It’s something we are looking at. We need to make sure that it’s working.’ This caused something of a stir. Then there was a clarification, which Waugh reported as: ‘No.10 stresses: It’s for Low Pay Commission to report back to ministers before decisions taken.’ The clarification did not dispel my confusion. Last week, business minister Matt Hancock said that Conservatives should ‘strengthen’ the minimum wage. The consensus is that the minimum

Steerpike Steerpike

Chin chin, my dear friend

It was a heavy weekend for actor Richard E Grant. Toasting the life of his old friend and Withnail and I co-star Richard Griffiths, the famed teetotaler found his own way to say goodbye, in character: ‘Here’s the plan. Going to fire up a Camberwell firm young carrot in memory of my ‘Uncle Monty’ and raise a figurative glass of sherry to him’. Fast forward thirty-six hours and it seems that the ‘Camberwell carrot’ took it’s toll on the 55 year old actor: ‘Total sloth. Just got out of the scratcher. Not done this since the last century. Do I feel guilty? Fuck no!! Ha ha’ That’s the spirit.

Douglas Murray

Trenton Oldfield makes about as much sense as the entrails of a chicken

I trust everybody enjoyed the boat race this weekend  Last week the editors of this magazine made me go through the purgatory of speaking with the person who disrupted last year’s race. Listeners may come away with the idea that, contrary to reports, Trenton Oldfield was coshed most terribly upon the head by last years’ varsity oars. This would be a mistake. As a graduate of the London School of Economics, he has simply imbibed each and every one of the stupidities which the modern university has it in its power to bestow. The claims are general enough that they cannot be investigated (Britain has terrible ‘poverty’ and ‘elitism’ for

Monday

David Blackburn

Council tax increases, but might councils spend more wisely?

One development that IDS and George Osborne did not dwell upon in their Telegraph piece mentioned earlier was council tax, which, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, is due to increase by £140 for the average poor family. The government has defended its spending settlement by donning its localist garb, for a moment, to argue that councils should marshal their resources with more care to protect rate payers. The government’s aim is to shift responsibility from Whitehall to town halls in the hope of also shifting blame for unpopular policies. Local government resists. Sir Merrick Cockell, the Conservative chair of the Local Government Association, has been at pains to point

David Blackburn

Osborne and IDS promise a ‘better deal’ for working families. But a better deal is not necessarily a good deal

As Fraser says, the welfare changes, cuts to legal aid and so forth, which have come into force today, have got a universal thumbs-down in the left-wing press. I expect that the barrage of negative headlines will please No.10 (you cannot make an omelette etc.). It also has the comfort of knowing that the public is broadly in favour of reform. But the government might be disgruntled at the comparatively muted reaction of the right-wing press. The Telegraph’s coverage is intriguing. It concentrates on the Tories’ clash with the church over benefit cuts, which was mentioned by Christian Guy in a post yesterday. There is also some coverage of Grant Shapps’s attempt

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why are the left so angry about today’s welfare reform? Because it’s popular – and right.

It’s tough being a supporter of this coalition government. Mishap and omnishambles have come to characterise its first three years in office – but you can almost forgive all of this given the progress being made on education and welfare. Reforming the latter is the toughest mission in politics, and another phase of that reform comes into effect today. But here’s the thing: the welfare reform is not causing mass outrage. Of course, Polly Toynbee is furious – but to the bafflement of the chattering class, the masses seem to think the reform is long overdue. Study after study confirms this. There was that  YouGov/Prospect study suggesting that three in four