Society

Saturday

Carol Sarler

Experts in suffering

It’s unwise to treat victims of tragedy as universal sages It really is no surprise to learn that Sara Payne favours restrictions to keep online pornography away from children. There cannot, after all, be a sentient adult who would not prefer our babies to spend more time with Peppa Pig than with Swedish Dolls. But although you and I might think that internet service providers should stick their greed where the sign don’t shine, our thoughts would not make headlines like last week’s: ‘Sara Payne backs call to block online porn’ — headlines which, given a moment’s thought, can only invite the question, well, so what? This is a woman

Stephen Robinson

Private grief

Two or three mornings a week I walk our four-year-old down to his Catholic primary school in Camden Town. As we pass an expensive though rather bad private school, we have to squeeze our way through the mayhem of north Londoners decanting their pampered progeny from their double-parked 4x4s. I can’t say I like the look of the boys that much. If I were teaching them, I would tell them to do up their ties and get their ruddy hair cut. But it is the parents I find seriously disturbing, for they have absolutely no sense of the impact their cars, children and dogs have on our neighbourhood. I am

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

The football fan theory of nationalism

Observing the fealties of football supporters, I’ve been struck by a contradiction that troubles any non-sporting mind. To a fan, which team you support is often a matter of chance. But once you’ve attached yourself to a team, the loyalty can be ferocious, and run deep. It can become part of who you are. So do we say that because your support becomes unshakeable your association with your team is a profound thing? Or do we say that, because you could quite easily have developed the same loyalties to a different team, the association is shallow? The apparent contradiction can best be explained in terms of the instinct for the

James Delingpole James Delingpole

How I became a 24-carat goldbug

If you’re at all worried about the current global financial situation, here’s what I advise: buy gold. Then buy some more gold. Then buy some gold coins to stash under your bed and in various hiding places known only to yourself. Sovereigns are good if you’re British because, being legal tender, they are not subject to capital gains tax. Oh, and if you’re investing in bullion — which you must — make sure it’s in a spread of locations: London, Hong Kong, ­Geneva, wherever. That’s because when the shit hits the fan (WTSHTF as we catastrophists fondly abbreviate it), no one has any idea which regimes will be safe and

Lucy Vickery

Competition: Shorts

In Competition No. 2747 you were invited to encapsulate a well-known poem in four lines. These digests perform a valuable service to the time-starved reader of today, and How to be Well-versed in Poetry, edited by E.O. Parrott, contains some fine examples. Who needs to plough through Chesterton’s ‘Lepanto’ when we have John Stanley Sweetman’s four-line gem: ‘Don John/ Fought on./ Gave Turks/ Works’? Your contributions were just as good and, to judge by the flood of entries, the assignment was an addictive one. Commendations go to Robert Schechter, Michael Grosvenor Myer, Marion Shore and Tabitha Syrett., while the winners earn £7 for each entry printed. My mood is bleak,

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Why I’m cheering for Bayern

Like modules at the Leveson inquiry, gut-wrenchingly exciting weekends of sport are coming along thick and fast now. But forget last weekend’s theatrics if you can, take a deep breath and get set for what truly will be one of the best days of sport in the year. Just before we do though, a brief homage to one of the great men of British football. Anybody who watched the City skipper Vincent Kompany make his short graceful speech dedicating the victory to the supporters could see that here was a man who stands out in the world of football like the Archbishop of Canterbury in Las Vegas. The Belgian defender

Sean Mcglynn

Forever waging wars

Death by buggery. Death by castration. Even death by being scared to death. Or so we are led to believe for the Plantagenets’ world. They had a lighter side, too: Henry II employed a professional flatulist with the trade-name of Roland the Farter. The longest reigning royal dynasty in English history (1154-1399), the Plantagenets offer the glaring contrast between their even balance of outstanding kings and outstandingly bad ones; this adds to the already exciting dynamics of a dramatic period, captured to great effect in Dan Jones’s big book on a big subject. The Plantagenets were established on the English throne by the ‘incessantly busy’ Henry II. He brought with

Friday

Peter Hoskin

The unions versus the Department for Education — continued

Oh dear, seems that the one of the union officials behind that presentation I posted earlier isn’t happy that it made its way on to Coffee House. Here’s an email exchange — leaked to me by a different Department for Education source — that starts off with one from that union official, Brian Lightman, to various union and departmental types. Names and email addresses have been omitted to protect the innocent: From: Brian Lightman Sent: 18 May 2012 15:40 To: Numerous union officials and Department for Education staff Subject: RE: Education forum Sorry – the first half of this message was sent before it was complete.   To all members

Clarissa Tan

UK banknote printer is ready for any drachma call

Even in the most economically tumultuous of times, there are people who stand to make money — some of them literally. British money printer De La Rue has told Reuters it’s made contingency plans to print drachma notes, in case Greece makes a euro exit. If Greece leaves the common-currency zone, there’d be such a huge demand for drachmas that Athens may have to outsource its money-making to companies abroad, says the unnamed industry source (one assumes hopefully). ‘It will be a huge job which the state printing works will do, but they will probably pull in some additional volume from outside and De La Rue will be in with

Peter Hoskin

The unions’ lazy opposition to schools reform

ATL ASCL Presentation to Edu Forum 16May12 Now here’s a peek behind the Westminster curtain that you’ll find either amusing or dispiriting, depending on your mood. It’s a presentation delivered by a union delegation at the Department for Education this week, which Coffee House has got its hands on. You can read the whole thing above. We’ll get onto why it’s amusing (or dispiriting) shortly, but first a bit of background. Various school unions are invited into the DfE each month to meet with a minister or two, as well as with their advisers and civil servants. The idea is that they’ll talk policy; presenting problems and solutions in a

Thursday

Tim Morgan

Cuts or spin?

Writing here on Tuesday, I made two accusations regarding the government’s deficit reduction plan. First, I said that cuts so far had been minimal. Second, I argued that higher taxation, rather than cuts in spending, was being used to reduce the deficit. On this basis, I said, government and opposition alike are being mendacious when they speak of ‘savage cuts’ in public spending. In reply, Matthew Hancock said that I was using the wrong periods for comparison. The government, which took office in May 2010, could not be held responsible for spending in 2010-11, so it was misleading for me to use Labour’s last year in office (2009-10) as my

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22: Greece is burning

The upcoming Greek elections will push the nation into a confrontation with the European authorities, reports Faisal Islam, the economics editor of Channel 4 News, in his cover feature for the latest issue of The Spectator. And in this week’s episode of The View from 22 podcast he provides an insight into the changing attitudes he witnessed during his most recent visit to Athens last week: ‘Six months back, there was certainly a high stakes game of poker. But to me, it was pretty clear 6 months ago that the Greek people would do what was necessary to stay in the Euro. When you asked people on the streets, politicians,

Wednesday

Clarissa Tan

Metaphorical Merv

Mervyn King unfurled a mast of metaphors this morning. ‘We are navigating through turbulent waters, with the risk of a storm heading our way from the continent,’ he said. ‘We don’t know when the storm clouds will move away.’ The eurozone, he said, is ‘tearing itself apart’.   So poetic was his language — a rare gift in a central banker — that it almost made one forget the painfully prosaic nature of his facts and figures. Inflation, already at target-busting levels, will be much stronger than the Bank initially envisaged, remaining above 2.5 per cent for the rest of the year. That’s almost a whole percentage point higher than

Jonathan Jones

A part-time recovery

Today’s jobs figures show a 105,000 rise in employment and a 45,000 fall in unemployment, from the final quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2012. Welcome news, although both figures are within the margin of error, meaning we can’t say with confidence that employment is indeed higher or that unemployment is lower. But even taking the figures at face value, there’s another cause for concern: the rise in employment is coming in part-time, rather than full-time, jobs. First, let’s take a look at that total employment figure, which has risen 105,000 since the last quarter and 219,000 since the general election: Second, the number of full-time workers: As

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Cameron injects some anger into a playful PMQs

Strange mood at PMQs today. Rather good-natured. Like a staff awayday with both sides joshing each other for fun. A Tory from the shires, Pauline Latham (Con, Mid-Derbyshire), stood up in her best garden-party dress and made this lament: ‘My constituents are having a very difficult time at the moment.’ Labour MPs cheered like mad. They wouldn’t have done that before the local elections. Cameron and Miliband were in a similarly playful mood. After an enforced separation of two weeks they seemed almost glad to see one other. Ed Miliband charmingly conceded that today’s drop in unemployment was welcome. And Cameron welcomed this welcome from his opponent. Miliband then teased

Matthew Hancock-Mp

Let’s get real about the fiscal situation

Recently on Coffee House, and elsewhere, some people have been arguing that the deficit reduction isn’t happening fast enough. The latest, a paper from Tullet Prebon, argues that it’s wrong to say there are cuts. Its author, Dr Tim Morgan, reiterated its points on the Today Programme this morning. But it isn’t true — and the analysis itself proves it.   When this Government entered office, there was no credible plan to convince the bond markets that Britain was serious about dealing with its debts. So the new Coalition accelerated the pace at which the structural deficit was to be eliminated.   Some on the right and left disagree with

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Choice matters more than tuck shops

Does it matter that academy schools are defying Jamie Oliver’s fatwa against sweets? An organisation called the School Food Trust has found 89 of 100 academies guilty of harbouring tuck shops. Selling crisps, chocolate and even cereal bars. The Guardian is shocked and has made the story its page two lead. Schools with tuck shops, says the Trust’s director, ‘should be named and shamed for profiteering at the expense of pupils’ health… Mr Gove is putting ideology above children’s wellbeing’.   I plead guilty to having once been behind the counter at the tuck shop of Rosebank Primary in Nairn, blissfully unaware that I was poisoning Highland children with this

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Beware the ferret-faced heresy hunters

I fell in with bad company while I was on a story in Oslo last week: American conservative journalists. I am glad to say confirmed the public’s stereotype of reporters by enjoying their drink. (They make it their first task after landing in a new city to find the best bar, an example that should inspire us all.) But they bore no resemblance to the European stereotype of the ignorant, right-wing yank. They were cosmopolitans who were at ease in Europe. They were well read. Although they would hate the label, they were also crusading journalists, who had made the cause of the dissident opposition to Putin and Lukashenko their

Peter Hoskin

Walking beyond parody

As the Times’s Sam Coates suggests, this official Department of Transport video lands right in the middle of The Thick of It territory. Remoding (1:00 in), anyone?

Monday

Ken Tindell

The Chinese lantern is dimming

Does anyone believe Chinese GDP figures? Officially, the economy is roaring at 9 per cent a year. But thanks to WikiLeaks we know that Chinese Politburo member Li Keqiang thinks that the official GDP data is ‘for reference only’ — and that if you want to know how fast China is growing you should look at electricity consumption, rail cargo volume and bank lending etc. So today’s announcement of China’s electricity consumption figures for April showing a year-on-year growth of 3.7 per cent is quite significant. This is growth beyond George Osborne’s wildest dreams, but by recent Chinese standards is pretty paltry. Last year China’s electricity consumption grew 12 per