Society Archives

Saturday

4 Feb 2012

Bank withdrawals

When George Osborne became Chancellor, he took charge of a very large zombie bank with a medium-sized government attached to it. The Royal Bank of Scotland was nationalised in 2008 with assets of £2.2 trillion, almost four times state annual spending. The difference between RBS being run well or run badly could be counted in billions. The man who would make that difference was Stephen Hester, a top-flight banker who in a moment of madness had accepted the contract from Alistair Darling’s Treasury and got to work. He would not have known how his new masters would turn on him, demanding that he refuse his bonus of nearly £1 million.

Rod Liddle

The race to Lambeth Palace

Rowan Williams’s would-be successors have begun jostling for position. One stands out Who shall be the next Archbishop of Canterbury, do you suppose? They are jockeying for position at the moment, suffused with godliness and the distinct suspicion that old beardie has had more than enough and may wish to shuffle off to a warm university sinecure some time soon. The more cynical among you might not give a monkey’s and, indeed, suggest that jockeying for position to inherit Rowan’s mantle is akin to jockeying within the Romanov family to inherit Nicholas II’s mantle in about 1915. As with most artefacts of western civilisation — manufacturing, education, the armed forces,

Jonathan Wynne-Evans

Beware the bishops

At next week’s General Synod, the plotters-in-chief will be out in force, but this gossiping and manoeuvring is not just a sign of the archbishop’s demise. Throughout his time in office, Rowan Williams has been isolated and undermined — not by the media, but by his own clergy. The case for him stepping down early was made privately by the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, to a few friends at last summer’s York Synod. This almost scandalous suggestion quickly spread across the bars on the university campus where the Church holds its parliament each year, and only after it had been much discussed did word reach the archbishop himself. That

Brendan O’Neill

An acceptable hatred

The last politically correct form of prejudice is against football’s working-class supporters There is a brilliant irony to the campaign to ‘kick racism out of football’: its backers — the commentators and FA suits driving this petit-bourgeois push to clean up footie — think in a similar way and use very similar lingo to the football-terrace racists they claim to hate. Indeed, they have fully appropriated the racial thinking of those dumb blokes who used to hurl bananas at black football players. But they have turned it against white working-class football fans, whom they look upon as childish, inferior, tribal and monkey-like. Much has been made of recent, allegedly racial

Theodore Dalrymple

Diamond Jubilee debate: Has Britain declined under Elizabeth II?

Yes Theodore Dalrymple Is the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee a cause for jubilation? Certainly her reign has been a personal triumph: her iron sense of duty, gracefully performed, has been exemplary, if not an example often followed. For 60 years she has exercised a self-control that most of us find difficult even for 60 minutes; her recent state visit to Ireland put all our public figures of the past decades in the shade. Not that that is very difficult, for there is no disguising that her reign has been an era of continuous and continuing decline. Of course, not even accelerating levels of British incompetence have been able to arrest the

Lucy Vickery

Competition: Seeking closure

In Competition No. 2732 you were invited to submit a comically appalling final paragraph to the worst of all possible novels. This challenge is a twist on the magnificent annual Bulwer-Lytton contest, which salutes the memory of the 19th-century writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton, author of the much-parodied opening: ‘It was a dark and stormy night…’ Entrants are invited to come up with deliberately dreadful openings to imaginary novels. It was a most enjoyable competition to judge. I was entertained by some truly vile abuses of the English language, the best-worst of which appear below and earn their authors £25 apiece. Dishonourable mentions to Charles Chadwick, Adam Campbell, R.S. Gwynn, W.J. Webster

Rory Sutherland

The Wiki Man: The best thing since wheeled suitcases

I had a Land Rover Discovery once. It was expensive to run, largely on account of the rear visibility. The blind spot was so large that, when reversing, you had to worry not only about lurking cats, shrubs and bollards but also bungalows. I felt proud whenever I went for six months without needing to replace one of the rear lights. My present car, when reversing, beeps if it detects any obstruction, the frequency of beeps increasing as the object gets closer. This is a godsend when parking. (The only problem is that I sometimes expect these beeps when driving cars not similarly equipped: when I borrow my wife’s car

Bruce Anderson

Drink: Clubbable bottles

Gentlemen’s clubs attract far more interest than they deserve, and an equally unmerited degree of mistrust. If they are not the establishment in secret conclave, they must surely be a potent means of networking — and they exclude women. As for the establishment charge: if only. The country would be better run. The networking allegation, popular with female journalists, is easy to dismiss. Chaps go to their clubs to get away from business, not to be reminded of it. Two editorial types who are old friends have managed to organise a drop of luncheon at the Garrick, which is increasingly difficult these days. There is always someone with a clipboard

Lloyd Evans

From Dewsbury to the stars

What does superstardom look like? Well, nothing at all. Like anonymity personified. The seriously big celebs, the ones for whom walking down the street is either irksome or potentially hazardous, develop a knack for blending into the background. When Patrick Stewart arrives to meet me at the Young Vic, I scarcely notice him. The jacket and scarf are regulation winterwear. His blue jeans are unexceptional, and his natty trilby is hoiked downwards to conceal his face. Only when he lifts the brim and reaches out to shake my hand does the sonorous magnitude of Sir Patrick coalesce, like magic, before me. He apologises for arriving 45 seconds late and sits

Clarissa Tan

My first snowfall – Clarissa Tan’s diary

To everything there is a season, says the Bible. And, as I have been discovering, to every season there are certain things. To autumn belongs the wet shiny streets, the brollies and the macs, the brightly coloured soups, the quiet squares where both trees and grass are emblazoned with gold leaves. Then, as autumn moves to winter, there are the fleecy collars and fluffy hats, the steamy breaths, the ferrous skies. Perhaps before the season is over, I’ll get to see windowpanes with actual snow on them, instead of cotton wool. ••• I have spent all my life, until now, in the tropics, where there are no seasons. Singapore is

Martin Vander Weyer

Any other business: Third time lucky? Hoare Govett is the history of the modern City writ small

Amidst the gunfire generated by Stephen Hester’s bonus — on which I’m glad to say he took my advice and did the decent thing, so like Stephen Wraysford at the end of Birdsong he deserves a few days’ rest — I was intrigued by the week’s other RBS story. Hester is reported to be selling the troubled bank’s corporate stockbroking arm, Hoare Govett, to Jefferies, a US securities house. This will be the third change of ownership in 30 years for a firm whose name is so redolent of the pre-Big Bang era that many of us had forgotten it still operates at all, albeit from the death ship which

Friday

3 Feb 2012

Sebastian Payne

Higher weekend mortality is not down to Saturday night drunks

You’re more likely to die if admitted to hospital during the weekend. It’s a shocking truth, and one that’s explored further in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine today. Last year, as Pete blogged at the time, the 2011 Dr Foster Hospital Guide discovered that emergency patients are 10 per cent more likely to die if admitted at the weekend. Today’s report goes further than that, and finds that patients are 16 per cent more likely to die if admitted on a Sunday as opposed to a weekday — for all admissions, not just emergency. It’s a finding that undermines the idea that the increased mortality rate can be put down

Alex Massie

Two Nations; One Calcutta Cup

Flower of Scotland is really a dreadful dirge. The one time it is acceptable, however, is when England come to Murrayfield. ‘Tis 30 years since I first attended the Calcutta Cup. That was a 9-9 draw courtesy of the English prop Colin Smart who, in the dying moments, yapped at the referee causing a Scotland penalty to be advanced into the English half and therefore just within Andy Irvine’s range. The great man duly kicked the goal to earn a draw. Happy, relieved times. The following year I visited Twickenham for the first time and, lord, if you had told my eight year old self that would be the last

Peter Robins

How dangerous is cycling?

Am I dicing with death every morning and evening? The Times would say so. I cycle to work, and, for the past two days, the Times has given over its front page to a campaign on cycling safety. The campaign is in most respects commendable — I like the specific proposals — but it emphasises the urgency of the issue by giving a very grim impression of the risks that cyclists face. ‘Britain’s riders are paying with their lives when they take to the roads,’ we are told. In fact, a bicycle is far from being the most dangerous way to get around. On the measure the Times uses —

Alex Massie

Sir Simon Jenkins Is Peddling Weapons-Grade Tripe. Again.

Via Norm, I see that Sir Simon Jenkins is up to his old tricks, publishing yet another meretricious column on the Afghan war which, all too conveniently, manages to ignore the reason why US and allied troops ever landed in that benighted country in the first place. That’s right: Sir Simon never mentions 9/11. Not even in passing. Reading his column you could be forgiven for thinking US generals (and their British accomplices) sat around discussing the need to give their troops some proper entertainment. A kind of Club Hindu Kush M16. What a jolly wheeze! Anyone who knows anything about the Americans would know better than to describe the

Fraser Nelson

The strange survival of Labour England

Any CoffeeHousers with a taste for schadenfreude should read David Miliband’s article in the New Statesman. We have to move beyond big government, he declares. We need a growth strategy. I’m not sure if any Labour leader has ever argued otherwise: maybe, as Miliband implies, it has found one now. But, as I ask in my Daily Telegraph column today, what’s worse: a party that’s stuck in 1983, or a modernising movement that’s aiming for 1987? But talk to any Tory, and it’s hard to find any who think the 2015 election is in the bag. Four factors should prevent us from writing off Labour’s chances: 1) David Cameron is

Thursday

2 Feb 2012

Alex Massie

Education is not rocket science

The other day John Rentoul, that noted Blairite scallywag, suggested David Cameron could improve his lot by binning Andrew Lansley and replacing him at the Department of Health with Michael Gove. I dare say this is true. It would, nevertheless, be a depressing, avoidable error. Mr Gove’s education revolution – built upon Blairite foundations – may be the shining star in an otherwise cloudy coalition firmament. This will not, alas, bring much electoral benefit but some things are more important than winning votes. Education policy is one of those things. Mr Lansley is floundering and the government’s confused and confusing approach to the NHS will cost it votes for it

Alex Massie

Alex Salmond’s problems with women (and the wealthy and the old)

Like the Peat Worrier and Kate Higgins, I think the headline figures on polls asking Scots whether they fancy independence or the Union are much less interesting than the numbers lurking beneath the surface. For it is these that reveal where Alex Salmond has the upper hand (at least for now) and where he most certainly does not. The latest Ipsos-Mori poll reports*, as Brother Jones noted the other day, that 39% of Scots certain to vote in the referendum favour independence. That’s dandy but not all that intriguing. Poke beneath the surface, however, and you find this: 45% of men back independence; just 30% of women do so. 45%

Fraser Nelson

Sentamu for Canterbury!

John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, is our cover boy this week. It’s the Church of England Synod next week, word is that Rowan Williams will be standing down soon, and Rod Liddle is backing Sentamu as his successor. When planning the headline, I thought about calling him the ‘British Obama’. We didn’t use this, as it’s not a compliment — but if Britain is to have a figure who epitomises our country’s inherent tolerance and open-mindedness I’d pick Sentamu above anyone else in public life. If he was made Archbishop, I really don’t think there would be an uproar about the fact that he’s black, or even that he

Rod Liddle

Do we really need to know more about Gary Speed’s death?

Do we have a right to know why the football manager Gary Speed killed himself, if indeed he did kill himself? I’m not convinced. There’s a typically thoughtful and ruminatively controversial article by Stephen Glover in today’s Daily Mail. Stephen is critical of the inquest into Speed’s death, pointing out that the coroner was less than forensic in his cross-questioning of the various witnesses – particularly Speed’s wife and his close friend Alan Shearer. Mrs Speed had said that the evening before she discovered her husband hanging from a banister they had ‘exchanged words’, although she could not be sure what about. They were sufficient to provoke her to leave