Society

Saturday

The Spectator

Old news

There is one crumb of comfort that Fleet Street can extract from the phone-hacking scandal: its own foibles still create a vastly bigger splash than do those of newer media. This week Facebook investors harangued the company’s chief executive for wearing a hoodie in meetings and Yahoo’s chief executive resigned after a shareholder questioned his claim to hold a computer science degree. But they hardly caused a ripple compared with the news that former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, her husband and five others are to be charged with perverting the course of ­justice. The hacking inquiry has become like The Mousetrap: a show that never closes. Unlike The

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Sex and the Emirati

A young British lady called Rebecca Black is facing charges in Dubai of having ‘naked sex’ in the back of a local taxi cab, with some Irish bloke. Rebecca, for her part, vehemently denies the charges. It’s a tough one to call: on the one hand, this is Dubai, so ‘naked sex’ may well mean smiling politely at the Irish man while being fully dressed. Or even catching sight of him out of the corner of one eye. The Emiratis are strangely swift to take moral offence, for a people whose country is funded by slave labour. On the other hand, Ms Black is a British woman, a species which

Faisal Islam

Greek fire

Just eight years ago, when Athens hosted the Olympic Games, the capital celebrated with an orgy of stadiums, hotels  and other infrastructure purchased by what seemed, at the time, to be the fruits of a long economic boom. Today the Helliniko Olympic complex in Athens stands as a monument to this hubris, a decaying white elephant which costs £65 million a year just to maintain. Nearby is one of a handful of new clinics set up to cope with the effects of Greece’s extreme poverty. Dr Giorgos Vihas, a volunteer cardiologist at the clinic, sometimes cannot believe the problems he’s treating: men and women sick from eating out of bins;

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

You can’t fight racism by ignoring facts

Was there a ‘racial’ or ‘cultural’ angle to the crimes committed by those nine exclusively Asian men from Rochdale sentenced to between four and 19 years in prison for sexually abusing young white girls? Or was it simply a weird coincidence that we should all promptly forget about? There are plenty of people in the public eye (although probably none who are not in the public eye) who pretend to cleave to the latter point of view. These include, oddly enough, the respected journalist Peter Oborne — who divested himself of such stammering inanities on the subject while appearing on the BBC’s Question Time last week, that I assumed an

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Windsors in a spin

The royal family’s PR operation is in danger of becoming too successful Is anyone else sick of the love-fest between the modern royal family and the press? That might sound churlish, even unpatriotic, especially when everybody is preparing for next month’s Diamond Jubilee jamboree. But to me the House of Windsor looks less and less like a monarchy, more and more like a PR operation. In the last few weeks we have seen a number of royal publicity stunts, orchestrated to endear the Windsors to us, the drooling masses. There’s Prince Charles presenting the weather on TV; there’s Prince Harry sprinting with Usain Bolt; and there, everywhere, is Catherine Windsor,

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