Society

Thursday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Re-nationalise the railways

The West Coast rail franchise balls up is a remarkable kettle of fish, isn’t it? I remember when the successful tender was announced by the government being surprised at the ferocity of old beardy’s rage, and also astonished at the figures he was quoting. Can this be right, I wondered to myself at the time? The projections made by the First group, and which initially won them the contract, seemed outlandishly optimistic. But then, looking at the detail of the failed Virgin bid, that seemed only slightly less outlandishly optimistic. It seems that all concerned put in bids which were a palpable nonsense, leaving the government civil servants with the

Wednesday

Craig Brown

Diary – 3 October 2012

This week sees the 30th anniversary of the death (or ‘untimely death’, as death is now invariably known) of Glenn Gould. The fame of most classical musicians tends to wither when they die, but Gould’s seems to grow and grow: his grave is the most visited in Canada, he has appeared on The Simpsons, and not long ago in its apparently straight-faced list of The 100 Most Important Canadians in History, Maclean’s magazine ranked him the No. 1 artist in the world. Such posthumous blossoming makes him rather closer to a rock star, which is, in all but the most literal sense, what he was. In fact, he makes most of today’s

The Spectator

Letters | 3 October 2012

On Israel and Iran Sir: Your leading article (‘Israel Alone’, 29 September) implies that there is consensus among Israelis that Iran must be attacked. This is far from the case. There is vigorous internal debate, with opposition MPs, a judge, and senior military and intelligence officials publicly denouncing Netanyahu’s calls for a strike. Padraic Rohan Istanbul Sir: Your leading article correctly states that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a destabilising and undesirable entity. The elephant in the room that your item ignores is that there is a nation in the region, Israel, which decades ago clandestinely developed and tested such a weapon and has subsequently manufactured a substantial nuclear device

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

The lobsters that ate Piers Morgan

Burger & Lobster is a -restaurant for capitalism in crisis, an existential moan for something simpler and less awful. Either that, or it is restaurant for small boys with jobs, who cannot make up their minds what they want and miss that -restaurant where you could get custard and a beating from a woman who looked like your mum but might conceivably shag you. Because it is simple — you arrive, and you order a burger or a -lobster, or both of them, or none of them. There is nothing to confuse, baffle or upset the small boy with a job living in a crisis of late capitalism, who may also have

Dot Wordsworth

Rhetoric

My husband had for some reason got stuck into a television politics discussion of whether Boris Johnson should be serious or joky at the Conservative party conference. The latter demeanour may have served him as Mayor of London, the argument went, but the former would be needed to become Prime Minister. The dilemma matches the two-edged meaning of rhetoric these days. President Obama was said to have got to the White House thanks to his rhetoric, but now his rhetoric is being compared unfavourably with his achievement. Similarly, Iran’s suggestion that Israel should be obliterated is called rhetoric, while Haaretz says: ‘Netanyahu has escalated his rhetoric on Iran.’ It is

Raymond Keene

Grand prix 2

Boris Gelfand, the challenger for this year’s World Championship in Moscow, continues, as I write, to lead the Agon/Fidé Grand Prix at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand. He is being pursued by a pack of great players which includes Shakhriyar Mamedyarov from Azerbaijan and Vesselin Topalov from Bulgaria. The surprise of the event has been the complete collapse of Hikaru Nakamura who, rated at 2783, was the highest ranked player and pre-tournament favourite to win. Gelfand-Wang Hao: Fidé Grand Prix, London 2012 49 … f5+ Allowing the white king in is very risky. Black should simply pass with 49 … Ke8. 50 Ke5 Rxe3+ 51 Kf6 Now the constant mate threats make life very

Raymond Keene

No. 238

Black to play. This position is from Carlsen-Aronian, Bilbao 2012. Here Black missed a clear win. I only require the first move but look a little further and a beautiful checkmate emerges. Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 9 October 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 Rh7 Last week’s winner Risdon Nicholls, Woodford Green, Essex

Taki

High life | 3 October 2012

I don’t know who was the dumber of the two: the Greek banker apparently rushing to spend 100 million big ones on a London pad, or the American woman who fell off a cliff in Alaska while busy texting? Both dummies survived, which goes to show that the Almighty must have a weakness for the desperate. Lavrentis Lavrentiadis is the unusually named banker now under investigation in Greece for possible money laundering. It’s not unknown for Greeks to cheat on their taxes and purchase houses overseas, though the Russians are much better at it than the Greeks or even the Chinese. London is one big laundry machine; in fact, it

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 3 October 2012

I peered through the slatted blind to see what the weather was doing. A Mediterranean-blue sky was parked over the rooftops of Camden. Few people were out and about in the street early. I was the cab driver’s first fare of the day. He didn’t look elated to see me. When I told him where I wanted dropping and why, however, his face lit up and he whipped his cab through the empty City streets as if our lives depended on it. About 200 punters were gathered at the Tower pierhead, waiting for a signal to board. Cheerful 50-year-old blokes in knee-length shorts and sunglasses, tattooed calves, tins of lager

Melissa Kite

Real life | 3 October 2012

Success. Finally, I have made someone in a call centre do what I want, when I want and how I want it. I stumbled on the secret formula for getting jobsworths to co-operate quite by accident. It was an ordinary day. I was sitting in my kitchen waiting for British Gas to arrive to change my meter. The way I look at it, I’m doing them a favour by letting them change my meter. Since I have no meter-changing desires or ambitions myself, their request to rip out my old meter, which works perfectly well, and install a new meter, for reasons unknown, means that they should, at the very

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 3 October 2012

For the fifth year running my nearest village in Northamptonshire has just hosted a weekend of celebration called ‘Stoke Bruerne: Village at War’. A busy two-day programme of events, including a Spitfire fly-past, a bread-and-dripping and spam-sandwich tuck-in, and classes in how to dance the Lambeth Walk, started on Saturday morning with a formal opening ceremony by Winston Churchill and Field Marshal Montgomery lookalikes and ended on Sunday afternoon with an air raid ‘all clear’. Stoke Bruerne lies on the Grand Union Canal about halfway between London and Birmingham; and Village at War was organised by Friends of the Canal Museum there to raise money for that worthy institution. It

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 3 October 2012

The sad truth is, the length of time you’ve been playing bridge is no indication of how good you are. When I had my first lesson, aged 27, I’d already been playing with friends every week for five or six years. I quickly found out that almost everything we were doing was wrong. I was worse than a beginner: I came with a set of habits that had to be un-taught. I was reminded of this when I came across an article by the novelist Alexander McCall Smith in an American newspaper. He and his wife are bridge addicts. A few years ago they went on a cruise which offered

Toby Young Toby Young

Putting the record straight

In my last Spectator column, I mounted a polemical defence of Michael Gove’s GCSEs reforms and, in the course of advancing my argument, I made a claim that I’ve subsequently been hounded about. Indeed, a website called fullfact.org mounted an investigation into this claim and concluded that I was guilty of ‘gross exaggeration’. Needless to say, my political opponents have seized upon this and accused me of making stuff up out of whole cloth. In their eyes, I’m now a right-wing version of Johann Hari. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to discuss the charge. The claim in question was made in the context of ridiculing Andy Burnham, who

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 3 October 2012

Q. My son is 22. He has left Cambridge with a good degree, but also a mullet hairstyle (short and sticking out at the front and sides but long at the back). These are the key years when he could be getting a job and a girlfriend and, without the mullet, he would be exceptionally good-looking. I have begged, and even tried to bribe — to no avail. Any suggestions? — C.J., London SW3 A. The mullet is widely agreed to be the least flattering hairstyle available. No one suits it — but some of the young wear it for ironic reasons. Your son may be cannier than you think.

Peter Jones

Livy on wealth taxes

The ancient Greek example has already shown the Lib Dems how to enact the Mansion Tax. Now the Romans must step in to explain how to bring about the full-blown wealth tax they so ardently covet. The historian Livy says that an early king, Servius Tullius (traditional dates 578-534 BC), invented the idea of raising money through a wealth tax, i.e. a tax on property. Its purpose was to compensate soldiers for loss of income during long campaigns. The problem was the vast disparity of the property that anyone owned. So Servius came up with the idea of ensuring that the wealthiest paid the most. He did this by creating

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 3 October 2012

Home In a well-received 65-minute speech without notes to the party conference, Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, presented himself as a human being and concluded: ‘This is who I am. This is what I believe. This is my faith.’ Mr Miliband presented Labour as a One Nation party. He also said that if banks do not separate their retail and investment arms, a future Labour government would ‘break them up’. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said that 100,000 houses should be built with the £4 billion raised from the sale of the 4G mobile phone spectrum. Dave Prentis, of the union Unison, criticised Mr Miliband and Mr Balls for supporting a

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 3 October 2012

Ed Miliband, in Manchester, invoked a speech by Disraeli 140 years ago, in the same city. Prudently, he did not quote it: you won’t find much ‘One Nation’ stuff there. In it, Disraeli devoted his energies to attacking the radical forces which ‘were determined to destroy the Church and the House of Lords’ and were threatening even the Crown. No matter, what Mr Miliband is doing is, to employ another Disraeli phrase, ‘stealing the Whigs’ clothes while they were bathing’. (For this purpose, and possibly for others, we can call the coalition Whigs.) He has noticed that David Cameron’s great selling-point — ‘We are all in this together’ — has

The Spectator

The Right Revd

It is a good job that the Crown Nominations Commission chooses its two favoured candidates for Archbishop of Canterbury in secret and without the pageantry involved when the cardinals choose a new Pope. Otherwise, there would be some extremely unhappy reporters stationed on a pavement somewhere, waiting in exasperation for a puff of white smoke. Last week, the Commission failed after three days to make its choice of the two names which it must put forward to the Prime Minister, and it has warned that weeks may pass before it does make a decision. Despite the delay, there is a growing expectation that the job will go to Justin Welby,