Society

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Getting personal

‘It’s getting personal this time.’ So says a UK Uncut type, in the video above, explaining why the group staged a protest outside Nick Clegg’s home in Putney today. The event passed off peacefully, apparently — but this brand of personalisation must still be worrying for those subjected to it. As Tim Montgomerie points out, ‘The Cleggs have young children and it can’t have been pleasant for them (if they were at home) or for local families.’ You wonder which politician, and which other local families, will be next. Louise Mensch has called on Tory supporters to donate £5 to the Lib Dems today ‘to show solidarity to the DPM and his family’

Peter Hoskin

The IMF is losing patience with Greece

Much ado about Christine Lagarde’s interview with the Guardian this morning — and understandably so. After all, the head of the IMF is normally so restrained and delicate, yet here she lets that drop. When it comes to Greece, she says, ‘I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education… I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.’ And she also stresses that the Greek people should ‘help themselves collectively… By all paying their tax.’ Common

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Age of the addict

When future generations look back at the early 21st century, they may well decide that its political turmoil — the collapse of the euro, the spread of Islam, the rise of China — pales into insignificance next to a far more important development: a fundamental change in the relationship between human beings and their social environment. This was the moment in history, they may conclude, when our species mastered the art of manipulating its brain chemistry to produce intense bursts of short-term pleasure. As a result, billions of people began to have more fun than their minds and bodies could handle — and developed insidious, life-sapping addictions. Already, the distinction

William Cook

From Prussia with love

In a baroque palace in Potsdam, on the leafy outskirts of Berlin, those industrious Germans are throwing a spectacular birthday party. The Neues Palais is a flamboyant folly, built by Frederick the Great to celebrate Prussia’s victory in the Seven Years War, and this summer it’s become the forum for a huge exhibition celebrating the 300th birthday of Prussia’s greatest monarch. But this lush retrospective isn’t just a slice of historical nostalgia. It signals a change in that complex creature the German psyche. For the first time since 1945, when Prussia was erased from the map, Germans are becoming proud of being Prussians once again. Throughout the Cold War, Prussia

Mark Greaves

Read more, speak less

Marilynne Robinson, Obama’s favourite contemporary novelist, says we all have a duty to raise our intellectual game As a child Marilynne Robinson was enthralled by writing poetry. As an adult, she says, it has never been quite the same. ‘During a thunderstorm or something like that I would write some crazy poem and then hide it. It was wonderful.’ She hid the poetry under her mattress. ‘My mother would come in to change the sheets and all this poetry would fly out,’ she recalls. ‘She would say: “Why are you hiding your poetry?” I’ve never known why. But I’m still like that. I’m pretty secretive about anything I write.’ She

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Radio 4’s Goldie Jubilee

At last, BBC Radio 4 has reconciled itself to the great importance of the graffiti artist and music performer Goldie. He has been named as one of the station’s ‘New Elizabethans’, alongside the likes of Sir Edmund Hillary, Graham Greene, Margaret Thatcher and the Queen. The qualification for admission to this gilded list is as follows: they must be ‘men and women whose actions during the reign of Elizabeth II have had a significant impact on lives in these islands and given the age its character, for better or worse.’ I think Goldie qualifies for that, don’t you? But then, I was always ahead of my time. Whilst editor of

Tiggy Salt

Down with Chelsea

It’s that depressing flower show again, full of forced plants and taking over the television schedules Have you been to the Chelsea Flower Show this year? Did you find it a little bit depressing? I thought so. For me, it’s like New Year’s Eve — every year I feel I should go and have fun, and every year, almost without fail, it’s a disappointment. The biggest problem is the crowds. They make the struggle around the show ground a test of stamina and ingenuity. Whenever I hear someone say ‘I just love people-watching’, I suggest they visit the flower show’s loudly trumpeted gardens on Main Avenue. That’ll soon cure them.

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Woe to all politicians who put their children in the limelight

Newsnight called the other day to ask if I fancied coming on to talk about David Cameron’s new idea of parenting classes. They stood me down in favour of Kirstie Allsopp in the end, which was understandable, particularly as I couldn’t figure out whether Cameron’s idea is a good one or not. I just kept thinking about how he’d exploit it come the next election. He’d be there with his kids, wouldn’t he? With a big frown on his shiny red face, as he pretended to learn about CBeebies and the naughty step. Awful. I am not balanced about this stuff. I’m just not. Florence Rose Endellion Cameron is doubtless

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The cover-up instinct

I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. I think the moon landings took place as billed. And Diana’s car crashed into a pillar in the Pont de l’Alma without the assistance of the Duke of Edinburgh. In the last case, I am particularly disinclined to believe in conspiracy theories since, prior to the accident, I had ridden through the tunnel in a taxi several times, the first when I was 11 years old. Each time I had the same thought: ‘God, this is a stupid design for a tunnel.’ It contains a long series of square concrete pillars along the central reservation, separated from the road only by a

Bruce Anderson

Day of judgment

Why sheep? As a small boy, that thought sometimes occurred to me after a Church of Scotland service. In a Presbyterian dies irae, the Minister would have proclaimed the Son of Man’s intention to divide mankind into sheep and goats on the Day of Judgment. Afterwards, my parents explained that the goats were the bad guys. That struck me as odd. Goats were much more interesting than sheep. I often found it hard to get my head around the pastoral elements of Christianity. Most children are made to wriggle with embarrassment as their elders re-tell some charming incident from earlier years. In my case, it was an aunt trying to

Lucy Vickery

Competition: Misleading advice

In Competition 2748 you were invited to submit snippets of misleading advice for tourists visiting Britain. For those who are less than enthusiastic about the impending Games and the resulting hordes that will descend on the capital and beyond, this week’s postbag provides a potent arsenal of sadistic misinformation guaranteed to add an interesting twist to any Olympic visitor’s trip. It was another cracking performance all round. The winners are printed below and earn a fiver per snippet. London cab drivers prefer to be paid with an Oyster card. Wherever you go, you will find the hip, creative, boho crowd at your local Wetherspoon’s. Call a number on any of

Aidan Hartley

Wild life | 26 May 2012

Juba After an all-night rainstorm in Juba I woke to see the mosquito that bit me in the dark. Now, several days later, a fever returns to me like an old friend met on the road in Africa. Malaria. I can detect the signs without even having a blood test — the suicidal depression, the shivers, the backache, the halo of fire in the brain. I know how to treat myself with the right drugs and it doesn’t scare me at all. In a couple of days I’ll be right as rain. What scares me more is if it’s not malaria. In South Sudan I once had a fever that

Stuart Reid

Travel special – Peak district: Away from the flock

Derbyshire’s landscape is hauntingly beautiful, says Stuart Reid, so long as you can make your peace with the sheep Sheep are ugly, dirty, stupid and cowardly, but by far the nastiest thing about them is that in the countryside they are given precedence over dogs. Take your dog for a romp in the Peak District, for example, or on the North York Moors, and he will tear about like a mad thing, tongue out, eyes wild with excitement, his whole being alive with unconditional gratitude. Then you see a notice saying that dogs are to be kept on a lead, and the bottom falls out of your world and you

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Travel special – Lake District: All quiet on the Westmorland front

The Lake District is, to my mind, the most relaxing place in England. I think it’s the good walking, sheep gambolling on the fell-side and exceptional food that makes it so very therapeutic. At any rate, I think we can all agree that there are few things better in life than a day’s walking on the fells punctuated by a Huntsman’s pie and a pint of Hawkshead bitter. I spent countless childhood holidays in the lakes, swimming in the Duddon and climbing mountains, fuelled by that same Kendal Mint Cake that propelled Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing to the top of Everest. But I only realised recently, since my parents have

Friday

The Spectator

From the archives: Coventry Cathedral

This was our cover piece 50 years ago today, celebrating the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral built following the bombing of the previous Cathedral during the Second World War. The great barn, Kenneth J Robinson, 25 May 1962 As I stood just inside the glazed ‘west’ wall of Coventry Cathedral, beneath John Hutton’s gaily engraved angels — running, jumping and standing still — I was stunned by the richness of John Piper’s baptistery window, the absolute rightness of the Sutherland tapestry which fills the whole wall behind the altar and the simplicity and serenity of the ‘great barn’ itself — Sir Basil Spence’s own words — in which, from

The Spectator

Spectator debate: It’s time to let Scotland go

The campaign for an independent Scotland launches today — but the date to really keep in mind is the 27th June, when The Spectator will hold its own debate on Scotland’s future. The motion is ‘It’s time to let Scotland go’. The venue is the Royal Geographic Society in London. The chair is Andrew Neil. And we’ve collected a great bunch of speakers to argue for and against, including Gerry Hassan and Kelvin Mackenzie on the ‘For’ side, and Malcolm Rifkind, Rory Stewart and Iain Martin on the ‘Against’. For further details — and tickets — click here. We’d be delighted to see you there.

Thursday

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Don’t trust the West

A few days ago, I attended the Oslo Freedom Forum, where dissidents and human rights campaigners gather to exchange ideas. I feared the mood was a little too optimistic, and remembered that the first duty of the journalist was to be the bearer of bad tidings. Here’s what I said:

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22: Addicted to everything

Are you an addict without even realising it? Smartphones, Twitter, video games, emails, prescription drugs and even cupcakes are causing an unnerving shift in our natural behaviour, says Damian Thompson in our cover feature this week. In his new book, The Fix, Damian examines the ‘public health nuisance’ that is taking control of our lives. Damian also speaks on this week’s View from 22 podcast about some of the stranger addictions he has encountered while researching his book: ‘Many of the people caught collecting dirty pictures think of themselves of collectors rather than as perverts. I cite the case of a catholic priest caught with unimaginable amounts of underage porn.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

What Farage’s offer means for David Cameron

Nigel Farage’s suggestion of joint UKIP / Tory candidates at the next general election is part serious offer, part mischief-making. Farage knows that if the polls stay the same this will be an appealing offer to Tory candidates. As one leading Eurosceptic Tory MP said to me when I put the idea to him, ‘the maths says is has got to be done.’ There are an increasingly large number of Tory MPs who fear that they can’t hold their seats unless they can win back the voters and activists who have gone over to UKIP. They will be attracted to the concept of an electoral alliance with UKIP. But the

Wednesday

Richard Marsh

More evidence of the need for NHS reform

If you want to know why the great Labour-NHS argument about healthcare is wrong, read today’s National Audit Office report on the provision of diabetes care in England. Diabetes is one of this country’s biggest health problems and it is getting worse. There are currently over three million people with diabetes here today, and, on some estimates, by 2020 there will be nearly four. In the last 15 years the number of people with the condition in England has more than doubled. Yet according to the NAO, the treatment they receive from the NHS is little short of shocking. There are nine main standards for proper diabetes care, laid down