Society

This week the National Theatre opened another new play — its seventh — by Alan Bennett. For those who know only his earlier work, Bennett remains the Queen Mother of British literature, a national treasure adored by all for his cosy charm and twinkly-eyed naughtiness. But anyone who holds this view has clearly not seen, or is blind to the failings of, his recent work. For me, sitting through new Alan Bennett plays has increasingly become like discovering that in old age the Queen Mother developed a sideline as a flasher. Of course, the quality of all writers’ work varies. But few have fallen off so steeply or horribly as

William F Buckley has, alas, gone the way of all flesh but his National Review lives on and arguably remains the flagship journal of contemporary American conservatism. It certainly considers itself such. As the Republican inquest into last night’s election disaster begins, National Review offers a useful – and perhaps telling – glimpse into the contemporary conservative soul (American edition). Here’s what its contributors have been writing today: Mary Matalin: What happened? A political narcissistic sociopath leveraged fear and ignorance with a campaign marked by mendacity and malice rather than a mandate for resurgence and reform. Instead of using his high office to articulate a vision for our future, Obama

Asked my prediction a few days ago, I looked at all the possibilities and plumped for Obama 294, Romney 244. This is tediously in the middle of the general range of possible outcomes and therefore not the kind of wild-assed, long-shot punt anyone can occasionally ride to more fame than they merit. Sometimes even lousy gamblers or poker players get lucky. Anyway: I think Barack Obama will lose Indiana , North Carolina, Colorado and Florida to Mitt Romney but hang on in New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, Virginia and Ohio. That would leave this map, drawn from the excellent 270 To Win. Like the rest of us, I’m guessing here. But

Ever since Margaret Hodge took over the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee, its evidence sessions have become rather lively: more like a fearsome grilling from the headmistress than a slow-moving chinwag with a group of MPs hoping for the next division bell. Hodge was on terrifying form today as senior officials from HMRC sat down to take evidence. She directed her teacherly wrath in particular at Lin Homer, chief executive and permanent secretary of HMRC, who gave the bulk of the evidence on the department’s work in tackling tax avoidance. Homer appeared rather shell-shocked by the onslaught, like a pupil trying to explain why she wasn’t wearing a tie

America is now mourning the loss of at least 80 lives taken by Hurricane Sandy, including those of two boys swept from their mother’s arms. The pictures of the destruction of Staten Island are staggering, and the city’s marathon has been cancelled because Mayor Bloomberg accepted that it would, after all, have diverted resources from the recovery. The world has gawped at images of water flooding New York’s underground, yellow cabs floating down the street, housing estates flattened, skyscrapers darkened and evacuated and, now, people queuing for petrol. We can expect such images to dominate the news headlines here,  there is no shortage of genuine horror stories. But as I said

Ofqual’s final report, published today, on the GCSE English marking row, underlines why the qualifications need an overhaul and makes extremely awkward reading for the teachers who were so upset by their pupils’ results this summer. It concludes that the redesigned English GCSE was ‘flawed’, and that teachers felt under pressure to over-mark coursework to a higher grade than it deserved. The report suggests there was a culture of over-marking which led to other teachers doing the same: ‘While no school that we interviewed considered that it was doing anything untoward in teaching and administering these GCSEs, many expressed concerns that other nearby schools were overstepping the boundaries of acceptable