Society

Thursday

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 15 November 2012

Two policemen and a policewoman were the first of the emergency services to arrive on the platform. The policemen ran about like headless chickens. The woman was calmer. She quickly grasped the essentials of the situation, such as under which wheel the suicide lay, and who had been driving the train. Then more police arrived, and a paramedic team. One of the paramedics knelt down, then got his head and shoulders under the carriage and reached down and felt the dead man’s wrist for a pulse. Then the policewoman, noticing that there were passengers still on the train, indignantly ordered the train manager to evacuate it. This he did, netting

Melissa Kite

Real life | 15 November 2012

Ikea is a totalitarian state. When you drive under the overhanging barrier preventing reasonably sized vans from gaining access to its car park you are entering sovereign territory. Should you get stranded in Ikea for any number of reasons, the best way out is to call the British consulate. Alternatively, you might try the Ecuadorian embassy. I hear they are very good. In any case, I got stranded in Ikea. This is my story. The spare room was nearing completion, so Stefano the Albanian builder and I went to buy a day bed. Stefano manfully crashed his van straight into the overhanging barrier, then drove the wrong way up the

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 15 November 2012

The BBC and the Church of England are two rather similar institutions, both designed for the comfort and consolation of modest, well-meaning Englishmen who don’t like to be shaken about or threatened by anything disagreeable or jarring. The BBC is in trouble because it allowed a major current affairs programme, Newsnight, wrongly to accuse a ‘leading Conservative politician’ of monstrous sex crimes against children without even the most basic of traditional journalistic checks. In the midst of this crisis came the appointment of a new Archbishop of Canterbury, in the person of Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham. Welby seems like a very decent fellow, but could he nevertheless constitute

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 15 November 2012

Time and again in bridge, when tackling problematic contracts, I miss simple solutions which, it turns out, were staring me in the face. It’s some consolation to know that this sort of temporary blindness is a fairly common condition: bridge clubs are full of people slapping their heads and groaning as they see — too late — how they should have played a hand. That’s just one of the things that separates the mere mortals from the pros: they have full vision, at all times. Anyway, a friend showed me this deal from a local teams event. The contract was the same at both tables — as was the lead

Tom Bower

Diary – 15 November 2012

I have just returned from sunny Los Angeles, visiting Simon Cowell, the subject of my most recent biography. He told me about a visit by Cheryl Cole to his amazing house in Beverly Hills to patch up their arguments. ‘My book is number 1,’ boasted Cheryl. ‘Mine was number 1 for six weeks,’ countered Cowell, enjoying a rare moment of self-congratulation amid a sharp drop of The X Factor USA’s ratings on Fox TV. Everyone, it seems, is having a crisis. I am grateful to John Birt for offering me my first job in TV (at Granada). But I blame his legacy for the current crisis, the latest in a long line

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 15 November 2012

Q. Our son goes to a state primary school in west London which in most respects we are very happy with. However, the teachers correct him every time he says ‘what?’ and insist he says ‘pardon?’ instead. The upshot is that he now says ‘pardon?’ even at home. Is there anything we can do? We’re a bit reluctant to complain to the school lest we come across as thundering snobs, but if he acquires this habit now it may be difficult to shake when he gets older. — Name and address withheld A. Your dismay is understandable, but you are confusing etiquette with manners. The correct etiquette may be to

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 15 November 2012

Home Abu Qatada, detained in Britain for seven years although not charged here, but wanted on terrorist charges in Jordan, could not be deported, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled, because evidence might be used against him that had been obtained from the torture of others; so he was freed on bail. The annual rate of inflation by the Consumer Prices Index rose to 2.7 per cent in October, from 2.2 per cent in September, and to 3.2 per cent, from 2.6 per cent, by the Retail Prices Index. Unemployment fell by 49,000 to 2.51 million in the three months to September. The Rt Revd Justin Welby, Bishop of Durham,

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 15 November 2012

David Dimbleby is right that the BBC is bedevilled by managerialism. He makes an apt comparison with the National Health Service, where his wife, who works in mental health, reports similar horrors. But no one goes on to ask why this is so. It is assumed that the answer is to appoint robust journalists (or, in the case of the NHS, doctors) instead of ‘suits’. Unfortunately, this is not so, dismal though the suits are. The BBC is hopelessly managed because, as George Entwistle himself put it while being waterboarded by John Humphrys on Saturday, ‘The organisation is too big. There is too much journalism going on.’ This is absolutely

Toby Young Toby Young

A perfect media storm

For those of us who write for the tabloids, there’s something almost poetic about the crisis currently engulfing our more respectable rivals. Ever since the Guardian ‘exposed’ the News of the World for deleting Milly Dowler’s voicemails — a story that turned out to be wrong — we have had to endure the moral censure of the establishment. That is, senior politicians, judges, A-list celebrities and those members of our own profession who describe themselves as ‘serious’, which is code for Oxbridge-educated and liberal. There’s no great mystery as to why they look down on muckraking journalists with such disdain. We’re common, vulgar little people who insist on pointing out

The Spectator

A new world power

For decades, America has dreamed about becoming self-sufficient in terms of energy, and ending its dependence on unsavoury Arab regimes. Now this dream seems within reach. The International Energy Agency this week forecast that America is undergoing a fuel revolution, and that it will overtake Saudi Arabia to become the world’s biggest oil producer by the end of this decade. By 2035, America should be able to meet almost all of its own energy needs. Energy prices are already plummeting, and global manufacturers have started to pull out of Europe and relocate to the southern states to cut bills. An economic miracle is under way. The reason for the miracle

Mr Magoo

2086: Tufty | 15 November 2012

The key word is LOPHOBRANCH (7), defining 1A and 29A, and divisible into words of which synonyms are 20 and 36; 8A and 18; and 29D and 41. First prize R.C. Ingram, Wymondham, Norfolk Runners-up Catherine Ellis, Durham; P. West, Birmingham

Mr Magoo

2089: Backward and forward

The unclued lights, (one of four words), can be arranged to form a quotation, verifiable in  ODQ. One unclued light does double duty. Across 1  Ape hasn’t played some game (8) 6 Lawyer admitted to most of source of power of Jews (6) 13 Vicious Israeli (lacking eyes, they say?) demanded payment (5) 17 A radio broadcast includes hint of clock, like a tick (7) 18 Reason not to trust many friends, some say – a powerful fraction (7, two words) 19 Author’s material that could cryptically become soft (9) 22 Way to revise Act Four: omit court (3) 26 Being honourable, Christian prevails in the end (3) 30 Inspired

Shiraz Maher

The Petraeus and Allen business raises questions about US defence

Leaving aside the moral implications of the scandal which caused General Petraeus to resign as head of the CIA, this is an issue which demands serious attention from the American defence establishment. We know that Petraeus’ alleged mistress Paula Broadwell is said to have accessed his emails, and that she sent threatening emails to another lady, Jill Kelly, who she believed was getting too close to the General. Now it also transpires that General John Allen has been sending between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of ‘inappropriate emails’ to Kelly. The emails are said to have been sent from 2010-2012 which, even using the lowest figure amounts to something like 27

Shiraz Maher

Can Hamas contain Gaza’s other terrorist groups?

One of the things to watch for as tensions escalate between Gaza and Israel is the extent to which Ismail Haniyeh’s authority is eroded within the Strip. Hamas is clearly responsible for launching a number of missiles into southern Israel, yet it does not have a monopoly on the violence. Salafi-Jihadist groups such as Jund Ansar Allah and Tawhid wal-Jihad also operate in the region and are acting unilaterally when it comes to attacking Israel. Haniyeh failed to broker a deal between the various factions earlier this week, once it was clear that Israel would no longer tolerate rocket attacks. All this reveals the limits of any political pressure which

David Blackburn

Israel’s public relations problem

The front page of today’s Washington Post shows a picture of the BBC’s Jihad Masharawi holding his dead 11-month-old son, an innocent victim of Israeli action against Hamas’ paramilitary targets following months of indiscriminate rocket attacks against civilians in southern Israel*. The Post’s front page reinforces the fact that Israel has a public relations problem when it retaliates in Gaza; a fact that friends of Israel ought to accept. My colleague Douglas Murray is right to assert that the western media often applies a double standard when reporting Israeli and Palestinian casualties: the suffering of Israeli citizens is not given the coverage it deserves. This bias skews the tragic human story of Israel and

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

The fall of Petraeus

In the middle of a breaking news story, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell sounded like she was about to cry. Something had happened to the CIA director David Petraeus — but what? Andrea ticked off his accomplishments one by one, the phrase ‘personal tragedy’ echoing ominously over the airwaves. For the love of Mike, was he in a coma? Dead? It took a few more painful moments of this boilerplate obituary and Mitchell’s palpable grief for it to sink in: ‘King David’ had done something bad — an extramarital affair! — for which he apparently took responsibility, and so he had immediately resigned his post. Over the next days, the scandal spread.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The coming showdown

Angela Merkel is running out of nice things to say about David Cameron and the Tory rebels who are dictating his European policy. Der Spiegel magazine recently compared the British to ‘at best spectators in the gallery like Statler and Waldorf, the two old men on The Muppet Show’. This was apparently after a briefing from Merkel’s office. If she thinks the Tories are bad, the public are much worse. Over the summer, the European Commission asked 32,000 people across the continent what they thought about the EU. The Poles are still enthusiastic, the austerity-stricken Irish less so. The Italians are smarting from having lost their prime minister and the

Roger Alton Roger Alton

The world in Union

Here’s a thing: some years ago Rhodri Davies left Cardiff and emigrated to New Zealand with his young half-Scottish, half-Irish wife Megan. Not long after settling in Auckland Megan gave birth to a son, Jock. Jock was a bright boy, and mad keen on rugby. After university and through the local rugby club he met a Samoan girl, Angela. Not long after they were married Jock’s company posted him to Toulouse. A year later Angela gave birth to Manu, who grew into a strapping rugby genius. Despite all his rugby success Jock and Angela were keen to give Manu the best education possible and at 13 he was sent to