Society

Thursday

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 10 January 2013

Here is my eagerly awaited New Year’s List of the most infuriating things partner can do: 1. Bid ridiculously to game, get doubled, go for a telephone number and say: ‘Sorry, partner, I could have made that.’ 2. Double the opps into game, and when it makes, as it ALWAYS does, say ‘Sorry, partner, I could have beaten it.’ 3. Balance in pass-out seat when the opps have stopped in a part score, get doubled and go for 500. Or 800. Or 1,100. These things happen so regularly that they have become a standing joke, not to mention the butt of my most withering sarcasm. But for once my team

The Spectator

Letters | 10 January 2013

The aid argument Sir: ‘The great aid mystery’ (5 January) presents the development sceptics’ case — which in five years in opposition (2005-2010) the Conservative party set out to address head on. Although the huge changes in British development policy over the last two and half years appear to have eluded Messrs Foreman and Shaw, they are real and fundamental and genuinely provide grounds upon which most people on either side of the debate can camp. I learned in two-and-a-half years as Britain’s Development Secretary that both the extremes in this debate have deaf ears. The coalition government has reduced the number of aid recipient countries supported by Britain from

Toby Young Toby Young

Deep-sea fiasco

I’m currently in Kenya with my wife and four children and have just returned from the coast where we spent four nights at the Serena Hotel in Mombasa. My only complaint is that all the DVDs in the Kids’ Club were pirate copies — a bit off, considering the hotel is owned by the Aga Khan. Every morning I was approached by an employee of the hotel’s aquatic centre who asked if I wanted to go deep-sea fishing. I said no because the cost of renting the boat was £220, but on the last day he told me that someone else was interested and willing to stump up half the

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 10 January 2013

Q. Just before Christmas I ran into a senior executive at a rival firm to the one where I currently work. She asked would I be interested in a job she thought she might have coming up and I said yes. I have heard nothing and I cannot casually inquire when bumping into her as, although we work in the same building, she is 20 floors up and our paths never cross. I dare not make discreet enquiries, as someone might talk and alert existing colleagues that I was being disloyal enough to consider leaving. Nor do I fancy ringing her directly and being humiliated to hear the job has

The Spectator

Troubles ahead

If the Belfast riots were happening in any other city in the United Kingdom, there would be uproar. For almost five weeks there have been violent clashes each night. Live rounds have been fired on city streets, politicians’ houses set ablaze, petrol bombs thrown at police and over 60 officers hurt. David Cameron seems to be doing his best to pretend that nothing is happening. The Prime Minister, like most in Britain, appears to be clinging to the lie that the 1998 Good Friday agreement somehow brought peace to Northern Ireland. There is sadly nothing anachronistic about the loyalist riots and they are only tangentially related to the alleged cause

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 10 January 2013

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that, for the ‘coalition government with a full tank of gas, it’s full steam ahead’. He announced a ‘mid-term review’, but an audit that showed which pledges had not been met was held back. ‘We are married, not to each other,’ he said at a joint press conference with Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, ‘So, to me it’s not a marriage, it is, if you like, a Ronseal deal — it does what it says on the tin.’ He promised details in coming weeks on such things as ‘capping the potentially huge cost’ of social care, and extending the HS2 high-speed rail line

Bruce Anderson

Diary – 10 January 2013

There is a lesson to be learned from the Francis Report into the NHS in Mid-Staffordshire, and from the police force’s current travails. Nigel Lawson once said that the NHS had virtually become a state religion, and until recently, most of us held the British police in complacent esteem. This is dangerous. Left unchallenged, highly admired by the public, it is easy for any bureaucracy to drift into bad habits (cf. the Irish Catholic church), especially if it is immune to competition and market forces. But waste, inefficiency and corruption are no less acceptable when they are perpetrated by institutions with noble goals. Once their standards slide, these bodies can end

The Spectator

Barometer | 10 January 2013

Welfare state The government was attacked for wanting to increase benefits by less than inflation. How have benefits changed in real terms since they were introduced? — Unemployment benefit began with the National Insurance Act 1911, when unemployed workers became eligible for payments of seven shillings a week for up to 15 weeks in the year. In 2013 prices seven shillings equates to £33, compared with £71 for Jobseeker’s Allowance. — The state pension began in 1909 when people over 70 with an income of less than £21 a year became eligible for five shillings a week. In 2013 prices this equates to £24, compared with the basic state pension

Peter Jones

Fatbusters

The government is having its annual fit about the fat. In the ancient world, most of the population worked the land, while aristocrats kept trim in the gymnasia. Only the militarily obsessed Spartans made it government business, inspecting their warriors naked every ten days for signs of excessive thinness or corpulence. But ancient doctors were aware of the problems. While no one mentions anorexia or slimming for aesthetic reasons, the famous 5th C. bc Greek doctor Hippocrates commented that ‘dieting which causes excessive loss of weight, as well as the feeding-up of the emaciated, is beset with difficulties’. He was also aware that sudden death was more common in the

Mr Magoo

Christmas crossword winners

The first prize of £100, three prizes of £25 and six further prizes of the Chambers Crossword Dictionary are awarded to the following. The first four prizewinners will, in addition, each receive a bottle of champagne.   First prize Seamus McNeill, Belfast   Runners-up Ms H. Piper, Chessington, Surrey; Sue Topham, Elston, Newark; Rhidian Llewellyn, Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire   Additional runners-up Brian Dice, Beaconsfield, Bucks; T.M. Crowther, Winchester; Brian Midgley, Ettington, Warwickshire; A.C.R. Bull, Canterbury; Michael Grosvenor Myer, Haddenham, Cambridge; Roger Baresel, London SW7

Mr Magoo

2095: Getting around

The unclued lights (one of three words, one of two words and three doubly hyphened) might be named in a given order.   Across 11          A large one, with fruit syrup in place of fruit (9) 12          What might go with rugby league? (5) 14          Respect the creeps (4) 15          ‘Slipper’, and what it ’asn’t got? (3) 18          Plug covers lying in protective gear (7) 19          Check on heartbeat (7) 22          Don’t go upsetting me in the shower (6) 23          Phone company ultimately quibbled about fare to Japan (6) 24          Daily temperature diagram (5) 27          Australian puts on pleasant accent (5) 29          Pedestrian admitting animal transporter is stationary (6) 31         

The Spectator

Christmas

DING DONG MERRILY ON HIGH (2A), SEE AMID THE WINTER’S SNOW (118), ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID’S CITY (1) and WHILE SHEPHERDS WATCHED (19) are the opening words of Christmas carols, as are ‘I saw three ships come sailing in’. SIGHT (53) and ROUND WINDOW (8/92) each define ‘eye’, which sounds like ‘I’; GANG (39), PIT (72) and SEE (110) may each precede ‘saw’; KINGS (75), WISE MONKEYS (95/54D) and GRACES (97) are associated with ‘three’; CRARE (37), GALLEASS (52A), GRAB (4), DROMON (43), SAIC (47D), PRAM (68), BRIGANTINE (74) and TERN (107) are ‘ships’; ‘come’ is part of LOCOMEN (57), UNCOMELY (77) and COMEDIC (99); ‘sailing’ is an anagram of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

MPs: We’re underpaid and worried about Christmas

Are MPs paid too little? Quite a few of them seem to think so. Parliamentary expenses watchdog IPSA released the results of a survey today which found 69 per cent of MPs think they are underpaid. If that wasn’t quite enough to light the touchpaper, Tory MP Andrew Bridgen very bravely appeared on PM this evening to make the following rather provocative comments: ‘We work in the constituencies and we work in Westminster. In the city of Westminster average salaries are well over £100,000. We work in both those spheres. Now I know MPs who will say in private that every year they are getting poorer. Most of my colleagues

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Housing: the south’s difficulty is the north’s opportunity – Spectator Blogs

Three cheers for Isabel’s post on the difficulties Nick Boles faces in pushing through his plans to make is slightly easier to build houses in Britain. I would add only this: people who already own their houses have more power and much greater access to important media outlets than people who do not own their own homes. Today’s wrangling about planning reminds me I meant to write something about Neil O’Brien’s excellent recent Spectator article on the north-south divide. To put the matter in the broadest terms, the south’s difficulty is the north’s opportunity. As O’Brien wrote: The North can gain advantage where it offers something the South doesn’t. Take

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick Boles is ballsy, but his planning push faces some big blockages

Nick Boles is to be applauded and rewarded for being so ballsy on housing need. It is heartening to read the minister describing current housing shortage as ‘immoral’ and a ‘threat to social justice’. I could write a long post about why Boles’ latest push for more homes (which involves a ‘Boles Bung’ of money that communities can use for their own benefit in exchange for new local housing developments) is wonderful, and how he should win all sorts of political prizes and promotions if he succeeds, but I’ve already done that. Instead, it’s worth examining the tricky problems which will mean the Planning Minister needs to keep wearing his

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

Can you help Andrew Mitchell?

Andrew Mitchell, formerly of DFID, urgently needs Coffee Housers’ help. It seems he won’t believe DFID wastes money, unless he sees actual, concrete examples. Last week, in the magazine, we ran a foreign aid special in which Jonathan Foreman and Justin Shaw  showed us how and why we waste so much on ineffectual aid. In principle of course aid is a wonderful idea, but it can also be a blight: propping up dictators and entrenching corruption in the countries that are struggling most. We identified two major concerns: A lack of DFID due diligence The daft ring-fence around aid ­ 0.7% of GDP ­ which means the DFID has its

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Luton is changing. But it’s still a dump

Does it matter that white Britons are now a minority in three towns or cities in this country? The latest census figures suggest that whitey is outnumbered in Leicester, Luton and Slough. I assume the reason for this is that lots of Asians have colonised these places and as a consequence many of the whites have got the hell out. They have always been fairly awful places, mind, in any case – Luton in particular. Those who welcome more and more immigration usually wave their hands and say listen, change happens, and we should welcome it – for the white people in those towns it is a chance to meet

Jonathan Jones

The coalition’s half-time score

Yesterday, the coalition released its mid-term self-assessment, comparing the commitments made in its Programme for Government back in May 2010 to the policies it has actually implemented to date. Sadly, it does not allow for a simple tick/cross exercise as to whether each commitment has been kept, as there is a lot of grey area. Some of the promises were too vague, some may be being stuck to but haven’t been delivered yet, and on others it depends how charitable you’re willing to be to the government. I’ve therefore given each commitment a tick (delivered), a cross (not delivered at all) or a question mark (those you might give a

Steerpike Steerpike

The rumble of the Thunderer

Steerpike is back in this week’s Spectator, and here’s a little taster from Wapping: James Harding, the ousted Times editor, left with a £1.3 million payoff in his pocket and the praise of Fleet Street ringing in his ears. But why did he go? A chap who polishes the executives’ shoes at News International tells me that just before the hacking scandal blew up, Rupert Murdoch was planning major changes at the Times. He’d decided to pull the newspaper out of the Press Complaints Commission, just as Richard Desmond had done with the Express. Then he’d pull it out of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which he felt didn’t reflect