Society

Thursday

The Spectator

All change | 6 September 2012

All government reshuffles tend to be presented as Greek tragedies; the coverage focuses on the demeanour of sacked and promoted ministers who troop to No. 10. But this week’s reshuffle will come to be remembered less for the personnel changes, and more for the defeat of various bad ideas which characterised David Cameron’s early years as Conservative party leader. The Prime Minister’s original remodelling of the Conservative image was built around environmentalism: his was going to be the ‘greenest government ever’. In taking a sleigh ride in Svalbard he staged one of the most expensive (and, ironically, energy-consuming) political photo shoots in history. He ruled out new runways in the

Taki

High Life | 6 September 2012

Forty years or so ago, two Greek ship owners and the most famous diva of her time squared off in the British High Court over a financial dispute. Panaghis (I think) Vergottis, a gentleman and philanthropist, had sued Aristotle Socrates Onassis and Maria Callas over the ownership of a tanker, bought for la Callas by the two best friends, as they once were. Vergottis had, I suspect, fallen in love with the fiery coloratura, and once Onassis had dropped her for la Kennedy, tried to move in, unsuccessfully. Then who owned how much of a ship came up, and ended up in the High Court. The headlines back then were

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 6 September 2012

My car is at the garage so often for repairs, the mechanics invite me to their Christmas parties. This year I was also invited to the World Speedway Championship, which they go to every year. I’ve never been to speedway before, I protested, but that didn’t matter, they said. It was easy to follow and in any case the speedway was really just an excuse for a massive booze-up in Cardiff. Everything was booked, they said: hotel, trains, speedway tickets. All I had to do, they said, was get my arse to the station for 8.15 a.m. on Friday with beer for the journey. There were 16 of us going,

Melissa Kite

Real life | 6 September 2012

‘So, you’re a supporter of Julian Assange, then?’ said my friend the radio presenter as we were live on air. Oh, dear. This was going nowhere good. It was far too early in the morning for me to get myself into an un-PC fix. My friend the radio presenter has me on his breakfast show every now and again to review the papers and have a light-hearted chinwag about current affairs. Why, oh why, did we have to discuss the Assange thing? ‘Ehem, ha ha, I think supporter is a bit of a strong term. I wouldn’t say supporter, so much as…er, um…Look, all I said was he might not

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 6 September 2012

While cocking a snook at the United States to help him win next year’s presidential election, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador has shown callous indifference to the welfare of his diplomats in London whom he has effectively drafted into the service of a very tricky and unpredictable master in the person of Julian Assange. The founder of WikiLeaks thinks that his sojourn in the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge will last only six months to a year, because he expects Sweden to have dropped its sex allegations against him by then; but even that may be more than enough time to reduce his hosts to a state of quivering rage and

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 6 September 2012

Here’s a bridge tip you won’t read about in any book — one which the world-class pro Gunnar Hallberg gave me the other evening during a game of social bridge. You’re declarer, and a suit is led. Let’s say dummy has a holding like 8643 in the suit, and you can see at once that it doesn’t matter at all which card you play. Instead of routinely playing low, very pointedly ask for a ridiculous, random card — say, the six. ‘The six?’ partner is bound to say, looking confused. ‘The six,’ you repeat, with conviction. This has the effect 1) of making the opposition think that you’re a scarily

Raymond Keene

Total recall

Memory is vital in chess, not least because modern opening theory has expanded in such a daunting way. I was, therefore, interested to observe the results of the UK Memory Championship which took place last month at the London Science Museum and resulted in victory for Katie Kermode. In the course of the championship Katie bested second-placed Dominic O’Brien, the eight-times World Memory Champion. It was a sensational performance. Events included the memorisation of names and faces, recall of 620 numbers and, in the final showdown which clinched her victory, the accurate memorisation of a shuffled deck of cards in two minutes and 0.93 seconds. Katie is 34 years old,

Raymond Keene

Puzzle No.234

Black to play. This position is from Khudaya-Hou Yifan, Cheliabinsk 2007. Black has already sacrificed a piece here. What is her idea? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 11 September 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 Rxf6+ Last week’s winner Trevor Rue, Belfast

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 6 September 2012

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, shuffled the Cabinet a little, with Sir George Young being replaced as Leader of the House by Andrew Lansley, who was replaced as Health Secretary by Jeremy Hunt, who was replaced as Culture Secretary by Maria Miller. Justine Greening was replaced as Transport Secretary by Patrick McLoughlin, who was replaced as Chief Whip by Andrew Mitchell, who was replaced as International Development Secretary by Justine Greening, whose move, according to Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, showed that the government wanted to ‘ditch its promises and send yet more planes over central London’. Caroline Spelman was replaced as Environment Secretary by Owen Paterson, who

Howard Jacobson

Diary – 6 September 2012

In Edinburgh to speak about my new novel Zoo Time at the book festival. I love it up here, watching the rain lashing the austere grey terraces, dodging the street clowns who don’t really belong in so serious a place, visiting the Victorian dead in the marvellously voluble Dean Cemetery (it’s the stones that do the speaking, not the dead), and enjoying the view of Fettes from the window of my hotel. Built in the grand Scots baronial style to educate orphans and the poor, Fettes looks more like a lunatic asylum than a school. If I had a telescope I believe I’d be able to spot Mrs Rochester roaming

Howard Jacobson

Diary – 6 September 2012 | 6 September 2012

In Edinburgh to speak about my new novel Zoo Time at the book festival. I love it up here, watching the rain lashing the austere grey terraces, dodging the street clowns who don’t really belong in so serious a place, visiting the Victorian dead in the marvellously voluble Dean Cemetery (it’s the stones that do the speaking, not the dead), and enjoying the view of Fettes from the window of my hotel. Built in the grand Scots baronial style to educate orphans and the poor, Fettes looks more like a lunatic asylum than a school. If I had a telescope I believe I’d be able to spot Mrs Rochester roaming

The Spectator

Letters | 6 September 2012

Save our salmon Sir: On a Winston Churchill scholarship to discover what other North Atlantic host countries were doing for beleaguered salmon numbers in the 1990s, I found that the Canadian government considered hydroelectric schemes far less green than wind farms (‘Something’s fishy’, 1 September). The Canadian experience was that hydro units minced fish, interfered with the movement of migratory species, and often produced electricity in amounts well below original specification targets. On return to the UK, I looked closely at ‘my’ Scottish river, Carron Kyle of Sutherland. Water is abstracted from headwaters to feed turbines in a neighbouring catchment. The scheme built by the government is a complete barrier to

Doc

2079: Prepared for rain

One clued light is suitably dressed having taken notice of the title. By extension, all the unclued lights would be, if they took the same precaution (and would then be confirmed in Chambers). Ignore two accents. Across 7      US battle giving quiet backing to spring festival (6) 12    Dava Sobel’s novel is no short piece, we’re told (9) 15    Origin can be suspect? (9) 16    Half the introduction to treatise on larval limb (6) 20    Coastal dweller at valley within African city (7) 21    Male hawk’s clasp (6) 24    Tumour affected amaretto (8) 27    Dull, tangled vegetation (3) 28    Affinity with

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Draghi makes good on his promise: but will it save the euro?

David Cameron and François Hollande met this evening. As you would expect, they discussed the situation in the eurozone, which is currently looking a little more cheery than usual after Mario Draghi announced those long-awaited ‘whatever it takes’ measures which he believes will save the eurozone. In summary, this Outright Monetary Transactions scheme involves the European Central Bank buying up short-term debt from struggling economies. To stop this cash from the ECB becoming a substitute for economic reforms, a country wanting to apply for the OMT must have signed up to certain conditions with the European Financial Stability Facility or the European Stability Mechanism. Those conditions mean austerity policies, which the

Alex Massie Alex Massie

University Admissions Should Be a Matter of Discrimination – Spectator Blogs

Cristina Odone begins her latest oh-woe-is-Britain post most amusingly: Around the world, people have long envied Britain’s two institutions: the BBC and Oxbridge. Britons, however, (or some of them) are determined to destroy both. They are going about it in a brutal and obvious way, by lowering standards for both Auntie and the great universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The BBC abroad was a byword for beautifully written and brilliantly produced programmes such as “The World at War” and “Upstairs Downstairs”. But in its obsession with “diversity”, the Beeb has allowed standards to slip: comedies that aren’t funny (but don’t sound middle class) and reality shows that teach nothing but

Shiraz Maher

Save the Children and Osama bin Laden

Have Pakistani children been the unintended victims of last year’s mission by the United States to kill Osama bin Laden? It might seem a ridiculous question to pose, but it’s clear they are being made to bear the brunt of that decision by an increasingly paranoid official and clerical establishment. The latest manifestation of this was the decision by Pakistan’s intelligence services to order all foreign staff working for Save the Children out of country. They claim to have found evidence of the charity indirectly assisting the United States in its operation to kill Osama bin Laden last year – a claim the group vehemently denies. Save the Children is

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Bill Clinton: The Great Communicator on Top Form – Spectator Blogs

Barack Obama is a great orator  – something of which we shall doubtless be reminded tonight – but Bill Clinton is the greater communicator. His speech to the Democratic convention in Charlotte last night was a masterclass. The old boy’s still got it. Of course, it helps to be speaking in his new role – assumed upon the death of Edward Kennedy – as the party’s elder statesman. It’s easier to appear above the fray as a member of the ex-Presidents club. Most of the time, it invests you with extra gravitas. Even so, this was vintage Clinton, making by far the best – and most comprehensive – case for

Dear Mary

Britain can’t wait until 2015 for airport expansion

The Government has announced that it will appoint a bureaucrat to spend three years writing a report on the desperate and urgent shortage of air transport capacity in the south east of England. Meanwhile, Heathrow will continue to operate at over 98 per cent of capacity with no spare runways to pick up the slack when something goes wrong; Britain will continue to lack direct flights to countless Chinese metropolises; and the Chinese economy will continue to boom, swelling by an estimated 25 per cent by the time Howard Davies has finished pondering the issues in 2015. We can’t wait that long and the solution is obvious. The immediate need

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Revealed: the richer sex

The cover story of the new Spectator is one of the most startling we have run for a while. Last year, Liza Mundy wrote a book called The Richer Sex showing how women would become the biggest earners in most American households within a generation. She has now studied the British data and found that the trend here is even more advanced. It’s not about equality. Women born after 1985 have not just ‘caught up’ with men, but are overtaking them. But while we Brits tend to joke about this, and talk about being ‘pursewhipped,’ the Americans are taking it seriously and understanding how it is changing society forever. This