Society

Saturday

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

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

ASBOs weren’t much cop, but what about their replacement?

Brace yourselves for a new crime wave sweeping across the country — the government is doing away with ASBOs. Or, rather, don’t. The truth about ASBOs is that they were rather less significant than Labour would have you believe. As reports such as this one from Policy Exchange suggest, they’ve probably cropped up more frequently in newspaper articles than they have in real life. Only 20,335 ASBOs have been issued to date, covering less than one per cent of all incidences of anti-social behaviour. What’s more, there’s little evidence to suggest that those ASBOs that were issued made much difference. As the graph below shows, 57 per cent of all

Peter Hoskin

The IMF says it’s the Bank’s economy now

When the IMF published a report into the UK economy last year, I wrote a blog post detailing how it managed to please everyone: George Osborne, Vince Cable, Mervyn King, Ed Balls, everyone. This morning, I’ve been tempted to just publish that post again — because the IMF’s latest report is basically the same. Osborne will be pleased with its emphasis on deficit reduction, including the line that ‘Strong fiscal consolidation is underway and reducing the high structural deficit over the medium term remains essential.’ And he’ll also want to draw attention to its suggestion that the UK’s weak growth is largely down to ‘transitory commodity price shocks and heightened

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Why are London Schools so Good?

Or, rather, why do children from poorer backgrounds do so much better in London than they do in other parts of England? That’s a question Chris Cook asks, almost as an afterthought, at the conclusion of a post that, to my untrained eye, makes a good case for ignoring much of the attractive* nostalgia for grammar schools. That is, grammar schools are grand for some of those who get in but, looking at a wider picture, they do much less (these days anyway) to promote social mobility than their advocates claim they do. Or, simply, poorer pupils do worse in Kent (a representative grammar school county) than they do in

Peter Hoskin

Iran and oil are still on the agenda

For all the talk about Greece and France and the Eurozone, it’s telling just how much our politicians are focusing on Iran. Indeed, some of the most concrete political settlements of the past few days have concerned that turbulent state. On Friday, the US Congress approved a Bill which included the blunt reminder that, ‘It shall be the policy of the United States to take all necessary measures, including military action if required, to prevent Iran from threatening the United States, its allies or Iran’s neighbours with a nuclear weapon.’ And the G8 subsequently put out a statement about oil reserves that clearly had Iran in mind. ‘Looking ahead to

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 21 May 2012

…here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson says Cameron’s Fruit Ninja obsession is real, explains why reason doesn’t apply to the eurozone and flies in to Gatwick to find a chaotic disgrace. James Forsyth reports on the strains on the Cameron-Hilton relationship and says the coalition partners need to co-operate on growth. Peter Hoskin remarks on the weird hold President Hollande has on UK politics. Allister Heath presents the 2020 Tax Commission’s report. Martin Bright gives his thoughts on the nature of the Lobby. And Rod Liddle recommends staying away from Dubai, and describes what standing up to the banks really looks like.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Lockerbie Affair is Not Over

The death of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted for their part in the Lockerbie Bombing, is a matter of some relief. It marks the end of one part of an affair from which few of the protagonists graduate with credit. As this is Lockerbie, however, you can expect the conspiracy fires to burn for some time yet.  As far as Megrahi’s release is concerned I continue to believe cock-up rather more probable than conspiracy. Alex Salmond was stretching his case to breaking point yesterday when he pointed out that Megrahi had at least died of the prostate cancer with which he had been diagnosed. See, he really was

Sunday

Allister Heath

In place of tinkering: the 2020 Tax Commission

The report which Fraser mentioned last week, from the 2020 Tax Commission, has just been published – you can download the summary here and full report here. Allister Heath, chairman of the commission and a contributing editor of The Spectator, says more here:- It is time for Britain to make a vital choice. Our economy is stagnant, crippled by excessively high public spending, high levels of leverage, a mismanaged and inefficient public sector, an extraordinarily complex and punitive tax system and a public mood that has become increasingly anti-capitalist. There are two options. We can either decide to tweak the status quo – try and keep a lid on public spending, reform bits of