Society

Thursday

Leah McLaren

Englishmen rule

I discovered I was pregnant the same day I met the Queen. It was one of those lightless December afternoons when the sky clamps down on London like the lid on a cast iron pot. I went straight from my doctor’s surgery in Shepherd’s Bush to a media reception at Buckingham Palace where I was ushered up the stairs into a large drawing room hung with Old Masters and rammed with journalists sucking back free champagne, trying to look blasé. The courtiers gently herded us all into a queue, prised flute glasses from sticky fingers and prodded us one by one into the adjoining room. And suddenly there she was:

John Simpson

Savile Row revolutionary

 ‘You can’t imagine how insecure it makes our politicians when they consider that they haven’t been elected.’ The man in the Savile Row suit and the hand-made shirt gave me a shrewd grin. Even the price of his haircut would have kept a ­Chinese farmer going for a year. ‘What’s the answer?’ I had to whisper, because Tony Blair was at the lectern, going on about how important China was. The man beside me shrugged and spread his hands. His name was — is, of course, but since his arrest people talk about him in the past tense — Bo Xilai, and I’d just bumped into him again after meeting

Andro Linklater

Target man

John Bellingham dressed fastidiously. On the day that he committed murder, he wore exactly what the fashion magazine Le Beau Monde advised for a gentleman’s morning wear in 1812 — a chocolate broadcloth coat, clay-coloured denim breeches and calf-length boots, the whole set off by a waspish black-and-yellow waistcoat. By contrast, his victim, clad in the equivalent of a business suit — blue coat and dark twill trousers — was almost ­anonymous. But Spencer Perceval had no need for display. Not only was he prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer, but, thanks to the insanity of George III and the loyal support of a majority of MPs, he had

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

It isn’t just me who’s shopping for honours

Hello, I would like to be awarded a ­knighthood, or something close to a knighthood, for my excellent and selfless work over the years as a journalist. Can you help me with this, and what do I need to pay? Many thanks Rod Liddle The reply to my email arrived within ten minutes. It would cost me £3,900, plus VAT. The company concerned — Awards Intelligence — promise a bit of money back if I don’t get some sort of official recognition for my brilliance and peerless contribution to the wellbeing of society. This seems like a good deal, no? Go through the official channels — i.e. bunging money direct

Michael Henderson

Roy of the reader: swapping novels with my friend Roy Hodgson

The last time I met Roy Hodgson, at Le Café Anglais, Rowley Leigh’s restaurant in Bayswater, I drew a king from the pack. I presented Roy — the West Bromwich Albion and now England manager — with Colm Tóibín’s wonderful novel The Master. Roy smiled as he laid down an ace: ‘Is this the one about Henry James? I’m afraid I’ve read it.’ Make that one-all. At a previous lunch I had given him Stefan Zweig’s masterpiece, Beware of Pity, a novel so close to my Habsburg heart that I wanted him to love it, too. It is the sort of book that defines character, never mind literary taste. ‘Magnificent,’

Claire Fox

Freedom also comes in pink

Women of the world unite: a sinister patriarchal plot is out to get us. Evil tobacco companies are conspiring to seduce us by wrapping up ‘our poison’ in shades of ‘pale or pastel colours’. There is concern in public health circles that the dark arts of design, armed with images denoting ‘femininity, style, sophistication and attractiveness’, will result in us losing our pretty little heads. Or so says Cancer Research UK, keen to save us from our womenly weakness, with their latest research report published yesterday. Cancer Research UK are outraged that ‘research shows’ Big Tobacco is packaging brands of cigarettes specifically to appeal to women. I am not sure

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Derbyshire is about to plunge into darkness. Hurrah

I’ve much respect for the Matlock ­Mercury: our part of the Derbyshire dales would be the poorer without this lively and conscientious local paper. And were it not for the Mercury’s useful report I’d never even have learned about the county council’s plan. But I do take issue with the headline. ‘Big switch-off to hit Dales villages’ turns good news into bad; and most of us won’t see this as bad news. The idea is to switch off street lighting in the county, where appropriate, first in villages and then in parts of towns, between the hours of midnight and 5.30 a.m. For most people this will be no inconvenience,

Peter Jones

Digging deeper

With the life and literature of the whole ancient world spread before us for our pleasure, we ­classicists can be said to lead lives of unparalleled hedonism. But the secret is leaking out. The whole world seems to want a taste, and we cannot blame it in the slightest. History has its Schama, maths its Du Sautoy and ­environmental studies the grand-daddy of them all, the great David Attenborough. So who will risk themselves and their reputation in the hands of the producers with the 42-inch mentality to satisfy this growing appetite? Bettany Hughes, our first female TV historian, is the doyenne of such ventures, fronting over the past 12

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Shall I go and live on the other side of the world?

At a well-lubricated dinner the other night at a first-class Chinese restaurant called Red Emperor by the stunning riverside development on the south bank of the Yarra in Melbourne, Australia, my host made me an offer that I very nearly couldn’t refuse. ‘What would it take to persuade to you come and live in Australia?’ he pleaded. This may well be the second nicest thing anyone has ever said to me in my entire life after ‘Gosh, you’re so big.’ Or, now I come to think of it, the first nicest — because I’m pretty sure that other quote may be the figment of a hyperactive imagination warped by an

Judi Bevan

Investment Special: Tough times for shopkeepers

The high street’s double-dip winners and losers As austerity bites, competition in the high street grows ever more ferocious. Only the nimble and well-financed can thrive. While January and February showed some improvement and sunshine helped boost sales in March, the trend looks likely to be lower again in April. ‘The situation remains fragile,’ said Judith McKenna from Asda, chair of the CBI retail survey panel. ‘Consumers are still holding off from buying bigger ticket items, and opting to spend on smaller “treat” purchases that give them a lift without breaking the budget.’ According to Asda’s Income Tracker, the average UK family has only £144 of weekly disposable income to

Alex Brummer

Investment Special: Patently profitable

Here is something you may have missed if your eyes have been focused on the gyrations in bond and equity markets as euroland crises have come, gone and come again. The S&P 500 telecoms and IT index, the bellwether of digital stocks, has climbed 120 per cent from its 2009 low. All of us who lived through the exuberance of the tech bubble of 2000, when all you has to do was add ‘.com’ to a company name and watch the fireworks, have a right to be sceptical about this latter-day boom. The rise and rise of Apple to become the most valuable firm in the world, with a market

Tim Price

Investment Special: On the defensive

These are dark days for investors. Interest rates squat at historic all-time lows in order that the Bank of England can continue to bail out our errant banks and government. Western economies toil under a monumental burden of public and private-sector debt, to which austerity is merely the latest desperate political response. Securities and currency markets are all being manipulated by extraordinary and highly inflationary monetary stimulus. Safe havens, anyone? The situation is doubly challenging for anyone in or approaching retirement. By artificially suppressing the yields available on UK government bonds or gilts, and therefore annuities, through its absurd policy of quantitative easing (a.k.a. money printing), the Bank of England

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Any other business: Drought, what drought? It’s still raining money in water company boardrooms

‘Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote/ The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,’ wrote Geoffrey Chaucer, long before scientists realised that wind turbines cause climate change by raising night air temperatures. If Chaucer’s General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales gave us pungent insights into late 14th-century English life, then its modern equivalent is surely the 2011 annual report of Anglian Water, whose operatives are currently busy replacing all those hosepipe-ban warning posters that have been washed away by torrential rain. I note, for example, that on turnover of £1.1 billion of which £266 million came through as net profit — a monopolistic money machine, if ever I

Lucy Vickery

Competition: Beatlemania

In Competition No. 2745 you were invited to submit an extract from a leader’s speech to a party conference, incorporating the titles of as many Beatles songs as possible. In 2007, Gregory Todd, a district court judge in Montana and fan of the Fab Four, managed to incorporate 42 Beatles song titles into his sentencing memorandum addressed to a defendant who had cheekily suggested that the judiciary ‘Let it Be’. An extract read: ‘Hopefully you can say now and When I’m 64 that I Should Have Known Better.’ The challenge was to weave in as many titles as possible while maintaining naturalness and plausibility. So while I salute Bill Greenwell,

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Spectator Sport: Unsung heroes

Well, that went well. The selection of the England football manager has been carried out with enough pomp, secrecy and puffs of smoke to make the election of a pope look as simple as buying a packet of fags. The workings of the almighty may be mysterious, but it’s kids’ stuff compared to what goes on between the ears of FA chairman David Bernstein. Quite why the straightforward and correct appointment of Roy Hodgson became so byzantine is hard to see. But we are where we are and a jolly good thing too. Myself, I was never convinced Harry Redknapp was the bolt-on for the job assumed by the London-based

Deborah Ross

The gentle touch

OK, no funny business this week. Just a straightforward review. No interrogative techniques. No verse. No sky-writing. I don’t have the time. Or the energy. I have a life. It’s quite a crappy one, full of ennui — who are these people who say there aren’t enough hours in the day? There are far too many! — but if I don’t attend to it, who will? (If you leave ennui to its own devices, it will take over your gutters, and then fur up your pipes, and, if it doesn’t get into the brickwork, you’re lucky.) So let’s get on with it, and on to Monsieur Lazhar, which was nominated

Simon Hoggart

Toad revisited

I am writing shortly before this week’s vote for Mayor of London, which makes it a good time to ask whether Boris is Mr Toad. Hidden away on Sunday night, after the wondrously acted but terminally bleak Vera (Brenda Blethyn can convey more with her squeaky mou noise than some actors manage with ‘God for Harry, England and St George!’), was Perspectives: the Wind in the Willows (ITV1). It was one of those perfectly judged programmes which makes you glad that television exists. Gryff Rhys Jones, who played Mr Toad at the National, was an admirable guide, like those custodians in stately homes who adore the place and want you

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Up Down and More of This Irish Anarchy

A propos nothing at all except coming across it in a comment over at Slugger O’Toole, here’s a jolly tale of 1960s Irish anarchism: One day in the late 1960s, when we thought we’d heard the chimes of freedom flashing, I drove to Dublin with [John] McGuffin and the American anarchist Jerry Rubin. A mile or so out of Newry, McGuffin explained to the fabled member of the Chicago Seven that the town we were approaching was in the grip of revolution. The risen people had turned en masse to anarchism. We’d better barrel on through. If we stopped for a moment the fevered proletariat would surely engulf us… Down

Martin Bright

This omnishambles is no joke

As those of us in London face up to the prospect of the none-of-the-above election, it’s worth thinking ahead to 2015 and asking yourself if any of the major parties really deserves your vote. It’s hard to remember a time when things were quite like this. Daniel Finkelstein has a theory that the British electorate rarely makes the wrong judgement. And it is almost always the case that at least one party is firing on all cylinders. The 1992 election was an exception, but right now John Major, Neil Kinnock and Paddy Ashdown are looking like political giants. We are staring into the political abyss and we think it is

Andrew Gilligan

Why Labour supporters should shun Ken

The single funniest thing about the London mayoral election has been watching the Left trying to excuse tax avoidance. After I revealed that his idol, Ken Livingstone, had saved a fortune by channelling six-figure earnings through a personal company, the Guardian’s Dave Hill pleaded that Ken’s previous condemnations of tax-dodgers ‘had been aimed at extremely rich people — which he isn’t,’ so that’s all right, then. The Independent’s Owen Jones frothed that ‘the 1 per cent have an interest in demonising Ken Livingstone.’ But, Owen, Ken is the 1 per cent! What’s been just as notable, though, in the last three months is quite how few of Labour’s finest have