Society

Wednesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Sorry atheists, organised religion works

‘I’m spiritual, not religious’ is something people say to make themselves sound interesting. It doesn’t work. What is intriguing, though, is that, according to this new survey, those who see themselves as spiritual but don’t follow conventional religion are far more likely to be mentally ill. Now, before you trolly atheists out there in webland start typing ‘What a lot of crap. … anyone who believes in God is nuts. LMFAO!!’, read me out. Yes, we might have a case of chicken-and-egg here — the chicken being mental illness and the egg being the thirst for existential understanding. Or vice-versa.  But the survey might also go to prove the value

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Are Christians being persecuted in Britain?

Douglas Murray makes a striking point on his Spectator blog about the violent persecution that many Christians face across the globe, while the Church of England fights over gay marriage and women bishops. Christians in this country do fear that they are being persecuted, too, with a case making the headlines at the weekend about a Baptist who had unsuccessfully sued her employers for forcing her to work Sundays. Actually, in Celestina Mba’s case, it does sound rather unfair that she came under pressure to work on Sundays when she had asked at the start of her employment to be exempted from doing so on the grounds of her religious belief.

Douglas Murray

Christians persecuted this Christmas

I hope all readers had a happy and peaceful Christmas. As this is the first day back at the office for most of us, I thought I would cheer everyone up with how Christians around the world experienced the period. Here is what Christians in Indonesia had to put up with. In Egypt a prominent cleric issued genocidal threats against the country’s Christians, and taunted them: ‘What do you think — that America will protect you? Let’s be very clear, America will not protect you. If so, it would have protected the Christians of Iraq when they were being butchered!’ Meanwhile, in post-Arab Spring Tunisia, the locals were warned by

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Fiscal cliff: what happens next?

Last night Congress agreed on a deal to avert the fiscal cliff. If you’re a little hazy on the detail of what that cliff actually was, it’s well worth reading Jonathan’s excellent briefing, while below are the details of last night’s drama, and what we can expect in the weeks and months ahead: What happened last night? Congress agreed on legislation which will avert the ‘fiscal cliff’, with a 257-167 vote just after 11pm in the House of Representatives. Out of 236 Republicans, 151, including Majority leader Eric Cantor, voted against the Bill. The Senate had approved the measure the night before by 89 votes to 8. The US Treasury

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Society is forgetting its elderly

During the 2010 general election, two grand politicians came to visit the teaching hospital where a doctor friend of mine worked. He had finished a 13 hour night shift, and, at a loose end, decided to track those two grand politicians’ journey around the hospital. They visited the impressively equipped cardiology wards, stopped by at a premature baby unit (if you can’t have a photo of you kissing a baby, you can at least get one next to an expensive incubator with an even tinier baby inside it), and moved on to the oncology wards to talk to patients battling cancer. My friend went home feeling rather disconsolate. It wasn’t

Monday

The Spectator

2012, the best year ever: Coffee House highlights

2012 has been a superb year: Spectator readers already know that after reading our leading article which detailed the evidence for 2012 being the greatest year in the history of the world. It has also been a busy year on Coffee House, and here are some of the highlights. Top ten most-read blogs: 1. ‘One Pound Fish’ singer deported, by Shiraz Maher 2. The one thing worse than universal benefits? Means-testing them, by Melanie McDonagh 3. The small-minded people of the abortion debate, by Freddy Gray 4. How Cameron made ministers cry, by James Forsyth 5. Andrew Neil’s eulogy for Sir Alastair Burnet, by Andrew Neil 6. Obama’s new ethnic

Saturday

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

The RSPCA’s private prosecutions, and the cost to the public purse

In this week’s Spectator, Melissa Kite spends the day with the Heythrop Hunt – David Cameron’s local hunt, and a hunt that has recently been fined £4,000 for hunting outside of the law. Much has already been written about the ‘staggering’ amount of money which the RSPCA chose to spend on the case, and the lengths to which the RSPCA have gone to mount the prosecution. The two huntsmen charged pleaded guilty to four charges of breaching the Hunting Act and, as Melissa writes: ‘The RSPCA initially laid summonses for 52 separate allegations and the trial had been set to take 30 days of court time spread over three months. Defence costs

Friday

Raymond Keene

London calling

In my series of homages to great masters in London, this week an outstanding win by Anatoly Karpov, who took first prize in the major international tournaments in London 1982 and London 1984. The position is by Alexander Alekhine who came second to Capablanca in London 1922, won in London 1932 and would have defended his world title in London against Botvinnik in 1946, had he lived. Timman-Karpov: London 1984; Scotch Game 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nxc6 bxc6 6 e5 Qe7 7 Qe2 Nd5 8 c4 Ba6 9 Qe4 Timman tries something unusual but it is hardly to be recommended since

Raymond Keene

No. 247

White to play. This position is from Alekhine-Yates, London 1922. White has conducted a brilliant strategic game, exposing Black on the dark squares. How does he now continue this theme for a fine tactical finish? Owing to early printing deadlines, we regret that this week’s is not a prize puzzle. Last week’s solution 1 … Bf3

Taki

High life | 28 December 2012

The horror at Newtown, Connecticut put a damper on the unending rounds of end-of-year parties. And that includes my own Christmas blast at the Boom-Boom room in honour of Lindsay Lohan and some of the prettiest girls in the Big Bagel. At times I think I missed my vocation: Protector-Confessor of fallen women or those about to take the plunge. My only salvation lies in good old Helvetia, where the mother of my children will whip me back into shape in no time. No booze, no sex — just salads and mineral water. Ugh! Mind you, I’m not so sure about my marriage to Miss Lohan. Too many cops around

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 28 December 2012

My grandson turned three last week. His mum blew up balloons and laid on a sumptuous spread of artificial colourings, preservatives, thickeners, acidity regulators, stabilisers, emulsifiers, flavour enhancers, silicates, stearates, sweeteners, anti-caking agents, gelling agents, paraffins and waxes. We stood lovingly to one side while he, his four brothers and sisters, and an assortment of neighbouring hag-ridden young mums and their sullen kids dived in. The Mayan Diet, observed a wit. Eat as much sugary crap as you want because the world is ending next week. The naughtiest boy present was my grandson’s cousin, name of Landen. Landen is a speechless, painfully thin, malevolent little boy who has spent more

Melissa Kite

Real life | 28 December 2012

‘What do you mean, your ex-ex-boyfriend is still living with his ex-girlfriend?’ said my friend Sarah, pulling a disgusted face. To summarise the many questions that followed, this bosom buddy of mine dared to ask me to explain why I was now referring to The Builder as my ‘ex-ex-boyfriend’, and why said ex-ex-boyfriend was still living with the girlfriend he was going out with before he met me. Talk about impertinent. Sometimes my married friends give me absolutely no leeway for how complicated modern romance is. They have no idea what singletons have to cope with in this godless age. The last time they were single, women used to be

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 28 December 2012

At the time of writing, a few days after the school massacre in Connecticut, the National Rifle Association remains creepily silent. This normally loud-mouthed, blustering organisation has made no comment on the killings and has even taken down the Facebook page on which it was boasting at the time of having 1.7 million ‘likes’, meaning people who approve of the NRA. Never has it been so self-effacing in response to a gun rampage of this kind. It normally goes straight on the offensive, reiterating for the umpteenth time that guns don’t kill people, people do, and that the right to bear arms is the inalienable constitutional right of every American.

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 28 December 2012

Up to Solihull again (I might as well move there) to play the Gold Cup finals. We sailed through the semis against Ken Ford’s team to meet Allfrey in the final. They had been 52 down with 16 boards to play in their semi-final match and had won! The writing was on the wall. The match was a rollercoaster and we went into the final set a few imps down. I sat out and put on my iPad to receive the following email from my old teacher, David Parry: ‘No one remembers who comes second.’ ‘Cheers, you garden gnome,’ I replied, and proceeded to come second — which is why

Toby Young Toby Young

I think I might have a condition that no longer exists

One of the things we’ll have to say goodbye to in 2013, if the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has its way, is Asperger’s Syndrome. In the forthcoming fifth edition of the APA’s reference work, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), Asperger’s has been ‘declassified’, that is, it’s no longer recognised as a discrete, stand-alone condition. This is a bit of a blow to me because I’ve been gradually working my way up to getting a professional diagnosis. Am I suffering from it or not? Now, it seems, I’ll never know. For those unfamiliar with this disorder, it’s named after the Austrian paediatrician Hans Asperger who believed that

George Carey

Diary – 28 December 2012

Well, what a year it has been. Another one full of financial doom and gloom. I’ve never known such a prolonged period of anxiety and pessimism in my lifetime. With our breakfast news we imbibe daily the latest glum forecasts. George Osborne talks of a ‘healing’ of the UK economy but at the same time he warned of years of economic pain ahead. Where is the ‘can-do’ attitude that I’ve seen recently on several trips to America? Though the election exposed the US as a very divided society, there is still a definite spirit of entrepreneurialism over there. There is still an ‘American dream’ that even the poorest and most

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Tanya Gold reviews Goldeneye, Jamaica

Goldeneye is the house in Jamaica where Ian Fleming wrote James Bond, and spanked his wife; that is why Fleming created Bond I think, even as he ran the Sunday Times foreign desk and (some say) spies — to spank the Russians, who have very big bottoms. Ah, for the days when hacks could afford houses in Jamaica and lived exquisite fantasy lives in which they got loads of sex, and killed people (usually foreigners) to pay the mortgage. (As I never tire of pointing out, James Bond was a civil servant.) Goldeneye is a hotel now, smooth, twinkling and monetised, with a line of wooden villas stretched along a

Dot Wordsworth

Omnishambles | 28 December 2012

‘Serious fellows, these Americans,’ said my husband, applying stereotypes with a broad, patronising brush. He had a point, though, for Merriam-Webster’s, the dictionary people, announced that their word of the year, 2012, was a dead heat between socialism and capitalism. ‘We saw a huge spike for socialism on election day,’ said one of its editors. ‘Lookups of one word often led to lookups of the other.’ Lookups, eh? Like pressups, cockups and kneesups? These lookups are online clicks. It is odd to think that undecided voters should have been swayed by reading a short definition of socialism. Back in Blighty, Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year was omnishambles, about which

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 28 December 2012

From Francis Boulle At a recent speaking engagement at a school fundraiser I had the eerie experience of giving my speech to an auditorium of 300 young men wearing cut-out masks of my face. Whilst the trouble they went to was flattering, it was difficult to remain on message when I couldn’t help but feel I was actually alone in the room, speaking to myself — multiplied repeatedly. I was particularly uneasy whilst delivering punch-lines. I asked myself ‘Do I crack myself up? Do I laugh at my own jokes?’ In the event that I run into myself again, how should I cope? A. There are times in life when

The Spectator

Letters | 28 December 2012

Distinguished Wardens Sir: Contrary to Dennis Sewell’s statement (‘Assault on the Ivory Tower’, 15/22 December), Wadham College did not ‘elect’ John Wilkins to be Warden in 1647 after Parliament’s victory in the Civil War. Rather, Parliamentary Commissioners sacked the royalist Warden and almost all the Fellows and Scholars and imposed Wilkins as the new Warden, followed by new Fellows and Scholars. Since Wilkins is by far the most distinguished Warden in the College’s history until the election of Maurice Bowra in 1938, his appointment is an uncomfortable example of state interference in university affairs actually doing good. Wilkins would, as Sewell suggests, have felt at home among the media-types of