Society

Thursday

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

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Come Fly the Expensive Skies

Meanwhile, in other defence news Winslow Wheeler says it is time for the cousins to give up on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It is, as everyone knows, a troubled plane. Quite expensive too: The F-35 will actually cost multiples of the $395.7 billion cited above. That is the current estimate only to acquire it, not the full life-cycle cost to operate it. The current appraisal for operations and support is $1.1 trillion — making for a grand total of $1.5 trillion, or more than the annual GDP of Spain. And that estimate is wildly optimistic: It assumes the F-35 will only be 42 percent more expensive to operate than

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Death by 100 Cuts: The Army Downsizes. Again.

The next round of army cuts will be announced next month as the government reduces reconfigures Britain’s military capability yet again. According to a report at the weekend the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders and the Royal Scots Dragood Guards will be two of the casualties heading to the knacker’s yard. Progress, if that is what it is, waits for no man and sentiment plays no part in these deliberations either. Perhaps that is as it should be. And yet it is possible for sentiment to be discounted too cheaply too. An army is, in part, the weight of its history. Recent governments, of either colour, have paid no heed to

Clarissa Tan

May Day, May Day

There was a sense of urgency, even emergency, in many countries on May 1 this year. The goings-on in the UK were muted in comparison: France Presidential incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy staged a rally in front of the Eiffel Tower called ‘The Feast of Real Work’, to counter the traditional show of heft by the left. ‘Put down the red flag and serve France!’ he shouted to the unions. His campaign claims a turnout of 200,000. The left was irritated by Sarkozy’s hijack of their celebration, and his insinuation that they don’t understand what work is. The far right, led by a scornful Marine Le Pen fresh from rejecting an overture

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Let Tesco Run the Border Agency

Lord knows Heathrow airport is usually a pretty hellish place even on its better days (another reason, incidentally, for starting again on the Thames Estuary and building houses for 150,000 people at Heathrow) but, at the risk of seeming simple this stramash over lengthy queues at LHR’s immigration seems laughably simple to resolve: deploy more Border Agency officers to check passports or, if you prefer, check only a random sample of passengers. Either will do, both will prevent people – especially those from outwith the EU – from spending hours for the joy of entering a country enduring, with no more than the usual level of grumbling, the wettest, coldest

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Amarillo Slim, 1928-2012

From one great Texan to another: Amarillo Slim, giant of poker and peddler of western wisecracks, has died. Now that poker is a mainstream entertainment, you have to do some brain-cudgeling to recall the era when it seemed distant and exotic and even attractively seedy. All that has gone the way of all flesh now that you can, should you be up all night, watch poker on television every day of the week. Poker players, these days, are ordinary guys who can come from anywhere. The game has become a corporate, branded business and, while this has enriched many people, one kinda feels something has been lost too. In the

Peter Hoskin

Gove gets covering fire

Good teaching matters; that’s something we don’t need to be taught. But how much does it matter? What are its measurable benefits? Today’s education select committee report collects some striking, if pre-existing, research into just those very questions, and it is worth reading for that reason. There is, for example, the IPPR’s suggestion that ‘having an “excellent” teacher compared with a “bad” one can mean an increase of more than one GCSE grade per pupil per subject.’ Or there’s the American study which found that the best teachers can ‘generate about $250,000 or more of additional earnings for their students over their lives in a single classroom of about 28

Monday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Get set for the Bootle exodus

Apparently, pensioners with the highest life expectancy live in the Somerset village of Hinton St George, while those with the lowest live in Bootle, Merseyside. Much fuss was made of this survey in the newspapers, and I daresay that hundreds of old folk in Bootle are now scurrying down the M6 on their mobility scooters before the grim reaper catches up with them. But it is surely nothing to do with geography and all to do with income, isn’t it? Hinton St George is affluent and Bootle isn’t. It’s a bit like saying that pensioners have the longest life expectancy if they live in Sandringham and the shortest if they live

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

‘It’s the newspapers I can’t stand’

In Tom Stoppard’s Night and Day, Milne, an idealistic journalist, describes the limitations of newspapers, and then gives the best argument for press freedom I know of. ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he says to Ruth, the bored wife of a mining tycoon. ‘I know it better than you — the celebration of inanity, the way real tragedy is paraphrased into an inflationary spiral of hackneyed melodramas — Beauty Queen in Tug-of-Love Baby Storm… Tug-of-Love Baby Mum in Pools Win… Pools Man in Beauty Queen Drug Quiz. I know. It’s the price you pay for the part that matters. ‘Junk journalism is the evidence that society has at least

Sunday

Jonathan Jones

Comedian-in-Chief

Every year, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner boasts an eclectic guest list, and last night’s was no exception. Stars of the political world — including Colin Powell and Chris Christie — were joined by Hollywood stars including George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, Kevin Spacey and Lindsay Lohan. Late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel provided after dinner entertainment, but — as last year — the best jokes came from Barack Obama. He poked fun at himself: ‘Some have said I blame too many problems on my predecessor. But let’s not forget, that’s a practice that was initiated by George W Bush.’ The Republican primaries: ‘[Mitt Romney] took a few hours off the

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Sweet revenge

The problem with us men is that we are too trusting and, also, maybe, not particularly bright. Plus we compartmentalise parts of our lives, which we fondly believe is the rational thing to do. And we don’t always think things through. Take this excellent example from the newspapers this week. A Polish chap called Marek Olszewski dumped his girlfriend, Anna Mackowiak, who is a dentist. A few days later, suffering a bit of a twinge in a molar, he took what you might consider the risky step of turning up at her surgery for treatment. Anna explains: “I tried to be professional and detach myself from my emotions. But when I

Saturday

Robin Oakley

The turf: Risk assessment

After the 2011 Grand National, I sided with the reformers who wanted changes to the use of the whip by jockeys. If racing is to survive we need bums on seats and have to be responsive to public opinion. In the continuing furore after this year’s National, I find myself in a different camp because most of the noise is coming from those who know nothing and would never go racing anyway. The one thing we racing lovers were praying for in this year’s contest was an incident-free race with every horse coming home safe. That we were denied. Not only did According to Pete have to be put down