Books and Arts – 6 December 2012
Society
Thursday
2089: backward and forward
The unclued lights (16D/21? 16D/16A/23/38/24/11/14?) form a quotation by SHYLOCK in The Merchant of Venice. A number of references to the play and its opposition between Jews and Christians were included in the clues. First prize Hilda Ball, Belfast Runners-up Philip Hawkins, Matlock, Derbyshire; Michael Debenham, Shrewsbury
The Autumn Statement in 7 graphs
1. Growth evaporating. The Office for Budget Responsibility once again downgraded its growth forecasts for 2012-13 and, for the first time, also did so for 2014-16. Despite that, the OBR is still slightly more optimistic than the average independent forecaster: 2. A seven year slump. On the OBR forecasts, it will now take until the end of 2014 to get back to where we were before the crash. In the 1930s, it took ‘just’ four years to recover: 3. Slower deficit reduction. The weaker economic outlook means the government will be borrowing more than expected. When George Osborne delivered his first Budget in 2010, the OBR predicted he’d get the
A budget for the squeezed middle
Ed Miliband may have coined the term, but it seems George Osborne has the squeezed middle on his mind too. The overall effect of yesterday’s budget* was to take from the rich, take from the poor and give to the middle. The IFS has crunched the numbers and produced the latest in its series of decile charts: The bottom half of households lose out mainly due to the Chancellor’s decision to increase most working-age benefits by only 1 per cent a year for the next three years, and hence cutting them in real terms. The rich, meanwhile, have been hit mainly by the cut in the tax-free allowance for pension
What can the international community do to stop Assad using chemical weapons?
Bashar al-Assad is busy writing his suicide note, ordering military officials to prepare the country’s chemical weapons for use. That’s the assessment of Pentagon officials overnight who have detected a flurry of activity at two facilities where these weapons are known to be stored – in al-Safir, on the outskirts of Aleppo; and Furqlus, about 30 miles from the already destroyed city of Homs. The precursor chemicals for Sarin nerve gas, an extremely lethal toxin, have now been loaded into bombs that can be delivered by Syrian aircraft. Sarin was deployed most notoriously by Saddam Hussein who used it to crush a Kurdish uprising in 1988 during the Halabja massacre.
Alan Rusbridger’s swan song
Look out for Steerpike in this week’s Spectator — here is a taster of what Alan Rusbridger has been up to: Rending of raiment and gnashing of teeth at the Guardian. I’m told that the paper’s veteran editor, Alan Rusbridger, is tipped to take over at the Royal Opera House once the BBC’s director-general designate, Tony Hall, relinquishes control. Quite a wrench for Rusbridger, who has stewarded the profit-averse newspaper since 1995. Last year alone he amassed losses of £44 million, so he’ll be relieved to know that the Opera House comes with an annual subsidy of £28 million from the Arts Council. Rusbridger was coy when Steerpike asked him about making a move
The View from 22 — Rough justice and autumn statement special
Many of the great British institutions have taken a pounding in recent times. The BBC, Fleet Street, politicians but is it now time for lawyers to take some flack? In our magazine cover feature, Nick Cohen writes that many foreign nationals are taking advantage of our legal system to solve their disputes. On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Freddy Gray examines the effect these cases are having on our justice system: ‘It’s a huge compliment that people feel the British justice system is a place where they can get a fair trial and sort things out in a very thorough and proper way. But at the same time, a huge
Export-only justice
In the last few years lawyers have begun to gush about the ‘Sumption effect’. They were not thinking of Jonathan Sumption QC’s fine legal mind — which was of such a quality that the Supreme Court elevated him straight from the Bar to a seat on the highest court in the land. Nor were they praising his history of the Hundred Years’ War, a conflict of such violence and duplicity that perhaps only an English lawyer could do justice to it. Rather, his peers gazed on his wealth in wonder, and hoped that his riches would flow into their pockets too. Sumption had collected about £7 million for representing Roman
Two glasses and 32 years
The wines change, and we change with them. It is 1980, in Washington, and a girl gives me a bottle of 1974 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon reserve as a birthday present. It would have been churlish not to drink it together, though I feared it would be too young. It was; much too young: too young, even, for Jimmy Savile. It was like eating green strawberries. Not that I admitted this to my companion. Knowing nothing about wine, she thought six years was old. If it lacked immediate appeal, she blamed her own lack of sophistication. Anyway, it was a pleasant evening. Last week, an oenophile gathering, and a merchant
Twelve to follow
Few experiences in racing are as guaranteed to cheer you up as a visit to Oliver Sherwood’s lovely yard in Upper Lambourn. Trying vainly to match strides with Oliver back and forth across the Mandown schooling grounds on a frosty morning last week, as Leighton Aspell, Sam Jones and stable conditional Tom Garner polished the jumping skills of the Rhonehurst inhabitants, it was hard to believe from his still almost boyish enthusiasm and energy that this is a man who nearly qualifies for the ‘veteran’ label. Oliver has been in Lambourn since he succeeded Nicky Henderson as Fred Winter’s assistant back in 1978, the year before he also became champion
Gifts and guilt
In a now famous 1993 paper the economist Joel Waldfogel attempted to calculate the economic deadweight-loss caused by giving Christmas presents. His argument was that money spent by a gift-giver on a present would usually have been better spent by the recipient, since the recipient would have a better idea of his own needs and preferences than the person choosing the present. Waldfogel’s most generous estimate rated the ‘efficiency’ of a Christmas present no higher than 90 per cent — so the typical gift was about 90 per cent as valuable as if you had given someone an equivalent amount in cash and allowed him to spend it on himself.
Vegas Notebook
There are many weird things about Las Vegas, from the truck that drives around offering ‘Hot Babes Direct To You’ to the entrepreneurial hard-up young man on the Boulevard who holds a placard saying: ‘Kick me in the nuts for $20. No joke. No protective cup.’ But the thing I find weirdest is that you can still smoke in bars and casinos, even in some restaurants. Where most American cities, and European ones too, have imposed upon their populations what the New Labour government described in brilliant doublespeak as ‘smokefreedom’, Vegas remains gloriously smokeunfree. In one casino, the fug of tobacco smoke becomes almost unbearable, to my eyes and throat
Even my mimsy leftist friends don’t care that prisoners can’t vote
I mean, honestly. What kind of mimsy, soggy-spined, weak-kneed, faffing, lentil-eating, self-loathing, lefty north London ninny gives a damn that prisoners don’t have the vote? Pretty much my entire social circle could be described in such terms (as mimsy ninnies and suchlike, not as prisoners) and nobody gives a flying monkey’s. I had a conversation about it with Jeremy Hardy on the News Quiz, for God’s sake, and even he was a bit ‘meh’. So how has this become an issue? What madness has taken root? Of all the things you can do when you aren’t in prison that you can’t do when you are, you’d think voting would come
Ashes to ashes
In Competition No. 2775 you were invited to submit an elegy on the death of the ash. A bleak topic for a comp, perhaps, but happily there are those who reckon that it is too early to start preparing the obituaries. Clive Anderson, president of the Woodland Trust, believes the species may well rise again. He writes: ‘Great stands of ash trees will be lost today, but they can grow back tomorrow,’ a hope echoed in what was a large and impressive entry. Commendations to David Silverman, G.M. Davis, Mary McLean and Roger Theobald. The winners below take £25 each, except for D.A. Prince, who pockets £30. Too large
Boris unmasked
It’s extraordinary how many works have been upstaged by the operas based upon them. Of none is this truer than those of Pushkin, whom the Russians regard as highly as we do Shakespeare or the Germans Goethe. Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades are known to most of us primarily from Tchaikovsky’s operas, and Boris Godunov from Mussorgsky. Just how much we’ve been missing is apparent in Michael Boyd’s revelatory staging of the original 1825 Boris Godunov play in Adrian Mitchell’s verse adaptation. It’s a great coup for Sir Michael — the RSC artistic director’s valedictory production appears to be the play’s first professional staging here. Mussorgsky’s cherry-picking from
Recent crime novels | 6 December 2012
Odd couples fascinate Frances Fyfield. Her latest novel, Gold Digger (Sphere, £12.99), centres on the relationship between an elderly man, a wealthy art collector named Thomas Porteous, and the youthful Di, whom he first encounters when she tries to burgle his house by the sea. Di has a natural taste for art and is overwhelmed by what she sees — and by Thomas himself. Against expectations, respect, affection and eventually love develop between them, leading to their marriage. But there are problems in the shape of their respective families — the criminal father who abandoned the young burglar and the damaged, predatory children of the collector’s first wife, who are
Wednesday
Autumn Statement: How long can we keep skating on thin bond market ice?
In today’s Autumn Statement there was some great news on jobs and fuel duty, but it’s surrounded by a surreal atmosphere. We must still beware the bond market. Employment is at a high with 1.2 million private sector jobs created since early 2010. Youth unemployment is falling – we’re doing much better than our neighbours. Government is living beyond its means to the tune of £108 billion, down from £159 billion in 2009-10. Fuel duty has been frozen at merely eye-watering levels: those of us who campaigned for it will now have to defend the consequences. Billions will have to be found from somewhere else. We’re told the Government still
Autumn statement 2012: as it happened
Key points from the Autumn statement Working-age benefits: will only rise by 1 per cent in each of the next three years rather than by inflation Corporation tax cut: Extra percentage point cut: down to 21 per cent in 2014 compared to 28 per cent when George Osborne took office Income tax threshold: will rise by £235 more than planned, to £9,440 in April 2013, saving basic-rate taxpayers an extra £47 next year Fuel duty: the 3p per litre rise planned for January 2013 has been scrapped Tax-free allowance: Reduction in tax-free allowance on pension contributions: from £50,000 a year to £40,000 and £1.5 million lifetime pot to £1.25 million. Whitehall cuts: Extra cuts in Whitehall budgets
Tuesday
Time ticking away for Mark Thompson?
Is the net beginning to tighten on Mark Thompson? The Sunday Times have run a story on either the ex-BBC chief, Savile or Newsnight every week since 28 October, and a picture is emerging that Thompson may have known more than we had previously thought about Newsnight’s now infamous axed investigation of Savile. I hear that Thompson, now the $4 million chief executive of the New York Times, has been forced to postpone two long-standing open meetings with his new colleagues. He was originally going to chair the ‘Town Hall’ meetings on December 17 and 18. These were supposed to have been ‘a chance for as many people as possible to see me
Autumn Statement: What Osborne will say
Lower growth, bigger deficits, targets missed — that’ll be the backdrop to George Osborne’s Autumn Statement tomorrow. So what medicine will he prescribe to make it all better? As usual, many of the policies have been leaked already: More capital spending, paid for by extra cuts elsewhere This was announced by Number 10 this morning: £5 billion extra spending on schools, science and transport over the next three years. That’ll include an extra £1 billion for Michael Gove’s academies and free schools programmes, to provide 50,000 new school places. It’ll all be paid for by extra cuts in departments’ resource budgets: 1 per cent more than planned next year and 2