Society

Saturday

Sebastian Payne

The great British wind scam: the government responds

Even the most ardent supporters of renewable energy would agree that wind turbines should be erected only when the output is worthwhile. If a huge rotating beast is to blot a corner of the British countryside, then it must produce as much energy as is feasibly possible. However, this does not appear always to be the case. In my article for this week’s Spectator, we uncover an abuse of government subsidies, in which green developers erect large turbines and then throttle the output (known as ‘de-rating’) in order to maximise profits: ‘Under the government’s Feed-In Tariff (FIT) scheme, which aims to make renewable energies competitive with fossil fuels, the size of a turbine is measured not by height but by power output. If a turbine pumps

Friday

David Blackburn

Tata Steel’s job cuts, a tale of 2 press releases

Today brings bad news that Tata Steel is to cut 900 jobs in the UK (at plants in South Wales, North Yorkshire, Teesside and the West Midlands). This is catastrophic news for a government that has announced its intention to rebalance the economy away from financial and professional services in the south-east (and therefore get an hearing electoral hearing in Britain’s former industrial heartlands); but that is only one aspect of the politics at play here. Tata’s statement says: ‘Today’s proposals are part of a strategy to transform ourselves into an all-weather steel producer, capable of succeeding in difficult economic conditions. These restructuring proposals will help make our business more successful

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

I hear Owen Jones was on Question Time last night, was he awful?

My friend woke me up this morning. I am in a tiny apartment in Italy, finishing a book. I mean writing one, not reading one. Anyway, he rang as I was dozing — dreaming, bizarrely, that I had just been shortlisted for the Turner Prize – and delivered this torrent of violence down the phone. His animus, which was fabulous, immense, was directed towards a person called Owen Jones whom he had watched on Question Time yesterday evening. I cannot quote his diatribe in full because of the prohibition in these parts about the excessive use of foul language. But it was something like ‘F****** third form arrogant public school

Simon Hoggart

November Mini-bar

Father Christmas this year comes disguised as Mark Cronshaw of The Wine Company in Colchester. He has offered some huge savings on fine wines for yuletide glugging, and so while this Mini-Bar costs somewhat more than our usual offers, it does include special treats for your holiday feasting. There are three great Burgundies, and that rarity — a really fine, mature Rioja. First up is a delectable Chablis 1er cru Fourchaume 2011 (1), from the Domaine Séguinot-Bordet. It’s only when you taste wine of this standard that you realise how luscious Chablis can be, compared with the alcoholic chalk dust sometimes sold under that name. Here flavoursome -plumpness is perfectly matched

Thursday

James Yorke

Concealed treasures

The Holburne Museum of Bath is a delight. Its collections were formed by Sir William Holburne (1793–1874), a naval officer who first saw action at the Battle of Trafalgar at the age of 12 and retired to Bath in 1820 to dedicate his celibate life — he shared his house with his three sisters — mostly to travel and collecting. Since 1912, his collections have been housed in a beautiful neoclassical building, originally built as a hotel in the 1790s and situated at the end of Great Pultney Street. They include Imari porcelain, Maiolica pottery, Augsburg silver and Dutch 17th-century landscapes, as well as curios such as a spur, purportedly

Raymond Keene

Armenian gold

Armenia won the gold medals in the Istanbul Chess Olympiad for the third time in four years — an astonishing feat for a small nation. Part of the secret of their success is the fact that chess is now taught as a curriculum subject in Armenian schools; the Armenian hero Tigran Petrosian created a chess boom by winning and retaining the world championship from 1963-1969. The top board player for Armenia in their Istanbul triumph was Levon Aronian, who will also be seen in action in the London Classic starting at London’s Olympia in early December. Final scores were: Armenia and Russia 19; Ukraine 18; China and USA 17. England

The Spectator

Letters | 22 November 2012

For and against Petraeus Sir: The attack on General David Petraeus (17 November) by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos of Antiwar.com was mean-minded, trivial and wrong. After the overthrow of Saddam in 2003, Petraeus garrisoned Northern Iraq, where his determination to improve services as well as security diminished resistance to the US-led occupation. In 2007, Iraq was sliding into ever more horrible sectarian civil war. As the new commander in Iraq, Petraeus, with President Bush’s backing, devised and deployed a surge of 30,000 troops to stem to the horrific Sunni-Shia bloodletting. By stationing his troops in small units amongst the population he provided constant security from brutal intimidation by al-Qa’eda and other

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 22 November 2012

Q. Even in smart places, waiters have taken my plate away before I have finished, if my head is turned, or they take away a companion’s plate while I am still eating. I recently had a whole slice of beef fillet whipped away whilst I was chatting animatedly away to a fellow guest. How can I stop the waiters doing this? I refuse to hold on to my cutlery between mouthfuls! — A.S., Petersfield, Hampshire A. The waiter’s confusion is understandable since so many of those who can now afford to eat in restaurants are unfamiliar with the classic conventions of the table. For some, the signal to remove their

Raymond Keene

No. 245

Black to play. This is from Kalantar-Petrosian, Erevan 1946. Black has various powerful moves in this position but one is completely terminal. Can you see it? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 27 November or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. The winner will be the first correct answer out of a hat, and each week I shall be offering a prize of £20. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 … Rxe3 (planning 2 Qxe3 Qg5) Last week’s winner Gareth Davies, Birmingham

Taki

High life | 22 November 2012

Why is it that adultery can ruin a man’s career but rarely a woman’s? In so-called civilised countries, that is. (In Saudi Arabia an adulterous woman is stoned to death.) An American diplomat slated to become the next ambassador to Iraq, Brett McGurk, lost his chance because of an affair with a reporter, who is now his wife. Why is it suddenly criminal to sleep with the opposite sex? Gays the world over must be over the moon. Who says that government officials are stewards of the public trust and that includes what they do in the bedroom? Poor Petraeus. A lifetime of public service gone down the drain for

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 22 November 2012

After the open-air night drawing class, the teacher invited anyone who felt like it to repair to the pub afterwards to have a drink and maybe something to eat and maybe a discussion about art. On the way to the pub I’d nipped off to the cashpoint. By the time I got to the pub, the night drawing gang were already seated around a cosy table with their coats off and my bird had saved me the place between her and the art teacher. I squeezed in between them and took in the new faces ranged opposite me. They were two women and a bloke. The younger of the two

Melissa Kite

Real life | 22 November 2012

When you start renovating your home, it is like pulling the loose thread of an old jumper. Everything unravels. I only tried to fit a dimmer switch, and now my entire flat has come apart. Actually, that’s not strictly true. I was having Stefano the Albanian builder fit wardrobes in the spare room. It was almost done. He was just fitting the dimmer switch for the spotlights when he pulled a little too hard on the delicate invisible thread that holds everything in my world together. Suddenly the entire flat was in darkness. Fiddling with the lights in the spare room had triggered a catastrophic failure of the wiring system,

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 22 November 2012

The Daily Mail last week risked alienating its millions of women readers (whom I assume from its normal priorities to be interested only in health, beauty and plastic surgery) by running pages of indigestible stuff about a conspiracy to curb the freedoms of the British press. It was perhaps a selfless initiative in the public interest, disclosing things that the Mail felt its readers ought to know even if they probably didn’t give a fig about them. The burden of its message was that a network of ‘elitist liberals’ from the Blair era had been exerting undue influence on the Leveson inquiry to get it to recommend statutory regulation of

Robin Oakley

Winners and losers

My favourite racecourse-bar story this year involved a towel-clad jockey who had enjoyed his game of golf so much that in the shower room he demonstrated the iron shot that had gained him an eagle. Hearing a clunk behind him he discovered that his backswing had connected forcibly with a dwarf, who was lying prone. ‘Oh, my God,’ he said, ‘I’m so sorry. How are you?’ ‘I’m not happy. I’m definitely not happy,’ said his groaning victim. ‘Oh, in that case which one are you?’ inquired our golfing friend, whose parents had clearly brought him up on Snow White. Hopefully followers of this column are a little more chuffed than

The Spectator

Barometer | 22 November 2012

Stage and screen Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap has notched up its 60th anniversary and its 25,000th performance, by far the longest run of a stage show. Yet for all its longevity, relatively few people have seen it compared with some television dramas. — The Mousetrap played at the 440-seat New Ambassadors Theatre until 1974. It then transferred to the 550-seat St Martins Theatre, where it still runs. If every seat had been sold in that time, it would have been seen by 12.7 million people. — That is far short of the record audience for a British TV drama (30.15 million, for the 1986 EastEnders Christmas special), and only

Ben Goldsmith

Diary – 22 November 2012

I once bred a racehorse, half-owned by my mother, born at my mother-in-law’s farm in Suffolk and named ‘Green Moon’ by my daughter. He won a race or two but never found his form, so we sold him to an Australian for not much. A few days ago, I was woken by a 5a.m. phone call from an ecstatic friend who told me that Green Moon had just won the Melbourne Cup — one of the best races in the world — bagging an immense prize cheque for his new owner. I’m not sure whether I will ever be able to forgive him, or myself. Late one evening, I find

Toby Young Toby Young

Movember, mo’ problems

I’m currently growing a moustache to raise money for various charities associated with men’s health — or ‘doing the Movember thing’, to use the official terminology. I’m not enjoying the experience. I was a blond child and what’s left of my hair is mousy brown, but my moustache is ginger. That’s right, ginger. I look like a lower-middle-class spiv, circa 1948. To make matters worse, I can’t persuade anyone to sponsor me. So far, I’ve raised a grand total of £60, but even that paltry amount means I can’t shave it off until 30 November. As Caroline said, ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier to just donate £60 to a prostate

Dot Wordsworth

Passion

Pippa Middleton, I learnt from the Daily Telegraph, has a ‘passion’ for writing. Justin Welby, the next Archbishop of Canterbury, the BBC said, has a ‘passion for resolving conflict’. The Times, in a piece about entrepreneurs, quoted a lawyer as saying: ‘Passion is very, very important.’ Can any of this be true? Certainly not if passion is meant in the pleasantly old-fashioned sense found in Alice. Tweedledum points at his broken rattle, saying: ‘Do you see THAT?’ in a voice ‘choking with passion’. Humpty Dumpty accuses Alice of listening at doors, ‘breaking into a sudden passion’. It was a nursery emotion 150 years ago, and would not help in resolving

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 22 November 2012

Home The General Synod of the Church of England voted against the ordination of women bishops. The measure required a two thirds majority in each house of the Synod, but the voting was 44 for and three against with two abstentions in the House of Bishops, 148 for and 45 against in the House of Clergy, and 132 for and 74 against in the House of Laity. Kweku Adoboli, a trader with UBS, was jailed for seven years for fraud that lost the bank £1.4 billion, the largest trading loss in British banking history. The G8 summit next year is to be held at Lough Erne golf resort near Enniskillen,

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 22 November 2012

Since the beginning of September I don’t think there has been a single weekend when my team was not away playing in one or another tournament, so when I received an email asking everyone from the first division of the Premier League if they would like to play the Champions Cup in Israel I decided to stay in bed. What a mistake! It was a fabulous tournament attracting all the top European teams, predictably won by the Italian National super-squad. Frances Hindon and Graham Osbourne and Nick Sandqvist and David Burn represented England and after a great start they sadly lost their first play-off match against a strong Polish team