Society

Saturday

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Spectator Sport: National mourning

You don’t want to sound too swivel-eyed about this, but didn’t poor doomed Synchronised look cursed from the get-go in that enthralling Grand National? How often do you see the best jump jockey on the planet being chucked to the ground like a piece of straw? And that was on the way to the start. The Cheltenham Gold Cup winner looked out of sorts when he was eventually recaptured and Tony McCoy showed him the first fence.  ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ he should have snarled at McCoy. ‘Haven’t I done enough this year?’ Could McCoy have pulled his horse, one of the favourites, in a race watched by millions?

Friday

The Spectator

The week that was | 20 April 2012

Here is a selection of articles and discussions from this week on Spectator.co.uk… Most discussed: Andrew Adonis on moving the Lords to Manchester. Most read: James Forsyth on the civil service coup. Most shared: Sebastian Payne on Michael Gove’s historical conundrum. And the best of the rest… Fraser Nelson speaks highly of Anders Borg and believes there is a looming schools crisis. James Forsyth examines the depth of feeling over House of Lords reform and asks if newly created jobs are going to British people. Peter Hoskin reports on Galloway’s return and thinks QE has returned to the fore.  Jonathan Jones writes on America’s own tax debacle and finds there is no ‘poll shock’. Sebastian Payne speaks

David Blackburn

Interview: Jonathan Haidt on left vs right

Why are Dennis Skinner and George Osborne locked in enmity? The answer, according to Jonathan Haidt, lies beyond the obvious partisan explanation, and reaches back into humanity’s first nature. Haidt is a professor of moral and social psychology at the University of West of West Virginia, who has written a compelling book, The Righteous Mind, which argues that politics is determined by evolutionary biology and what he terms ‘Moral Foundations Theory’. In a little over 300 pages of incisive prose, Haidt presents a theory that explains why politics is always personal. His research shows that our high-minded ideals are mere spontaneous gut-reactions, a primeval hangover from our less evolved forebears. He

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Department of Probability: Fornication Desk

We are indebted to Michelle Mulherin, Fine Gael TD for Mayo, for offering this gem during a Dail debate on Ireland’s abortion laws: “In an ideal world there would be no unwanted pregnancies and no unwanted babies. But we are far from living in an ideal world,” Deputy Mulherin said. “Abortion as murder, therefore sin, which is the religious argument, is no more sinful, from a scriptural point of view, than all other sins we don’t legislate against, like greed, hate and fornication. The latter, being fornication, I would say, is probably the single most likely cause of unwanted pregnancies in this country.” That “probably” is lovely. Alas, Deputy Mulherin

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 — 19 April 2012

For your listening pleasure, here is the second episode of The View from 22 podcast. Thanks for all the feedback on our first attempt, we’ve tried to take as much as possible into account this time. In this episode, Fraser and I speak to the Labour MP and historian Tristram Hunt about the teaching of history in schools. Freddy Gray discusses this week’s cover on the runners and riders in the French presidential election. And James Forsyth reports on a deficit of politicians inside Downing Street . You can listen below with the embedded player or — best of all — subscribe through iTunes. As before, we’d love to hear

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Unemployment is down but are prospects up?

The government has fallen on today’s numbers showing employment up by 53,000 and youth unemployment down by 9,000. This is the first quarterly fall in unemployment for over a year. One coalition source describes the news as a ‘good reminder of what really matters, both economically and politically.’ Certainly, these figures will provide David Cameron with some protection in his first post-Budget PMQs. Ed Miliband won’t be able to make his usual jobs attack. But politically one of the key questions will be who is getting these jobs. One of the worries for the coalition is that a huge amount of the new jobs that are being created are going

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

No ‘poll shock’, but some interesting findings nonetheless

Despite the Times’s headline (‘Poll shock as new U-turn looms’), there’s nothing particularly surprising in the toplines of today’s Populus poll. It merely confirms the trends already exposed by other pollsters: a widening Labour lead (Populus has it at nine points, up from four last month) and increasing discontent with the coalition (Populus has the government’s net approval rating at minus 24, down from minus 3 in September). Beneath the toplines though, there are some interesting details. As well as asking respondents how well they think the government’s doing overall, Populus asked how well they think it’s doing on various issues: So, it seems the public thinks the coalition is

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Skintland: Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

Crivvens, what a stramash there’s been over the cover of the Economist’s UK edition this week. Skintland is a pretty feeble effort, really, and one not entirely supported by the evidence the Economist brings to support its case. Nevertheless, the dismal chippyness of much of the nationalist reaction to this was more offensive than anything any London newspaper could say on the subject of Caledonian indepndence. There was talk, on twitter admittedly, of reporting the Economist to the Race Relations Industry as well as the Press Complaints Commission. The cover illustration was reputed to be grossly offensive (to all Scots, no less) and, worse still, it was said to be

Jonathan Jones

America’s version of the ‘tax the rich’ debate

While the battle continues to rage over the government’s plan to cap tax relief, on the other side of the Atlantic the US bill that inspired it has been killed. The ‘Paying a Fair Share Act 2012’ — more commonly known as the ‘Buffett Rule’ after billionaire Warren Buffett — failed to get the votes it needed to be debated in the Senate. It was backed by a majority of senators, with 51 voting ‘Yea’ to 45 ‘Nay’s, but fell short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. Fraser explained on Friday how Obama’s efforts to ensure that — as the President puts it — ‘If you make

Monday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

How to solve this cat problem

Excellent news arrives that Britain’s cats are going mental. Apparently, increasing numbers of them are being struck down by some contagion which renders them robot-like, stiff and deranged in the head. When I say ‘increasing numbers’ that could mean, of course, just two cats. According to the Daily Mail it’s actually ‘a staggering 21 cases’, which is still a bit on the low side for my liking. Some veterinary experts have suggested that the problem might be something to do with poisons being put down for the local rodent population. I assume the poisons are intended to kill the rodents and leave the far more injurious cats alone. There are

Sebastian Payne

Mayor for Muslims or the rich?

Does Boris not care for poor Londoners? A new question in today’s Evening Standard polling reveals that 40 per cent of voters believe that Boris is the candidate to aid rich Londoners. Ken has also carved his own niche, successfully winning over many Muslin voters — around 20 per cent state he is particularly keen to help them. Here are the full numbers: But such perceptions have made little difference to either candidate’s chances. The headline voting figures remain steady at 53 per cent for Boris and 47 per cent for Ken, despite the above and also the recent tax saga.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Another blow against the something for nothing culture

In the aftermath of the riots, the idea of withholding child benefit from mothers whose kids played truant was floated by Number 10. The aim was to link child benefit payments to getting your child to attend schools. This was meant to be part of a broader effort to end the something for nothing culture. Now, 8 months on from the riots — and after months of coalition wrangling — we have some flesh on the bones of this idea. Charlie Taylor, the government’s impressive adviser on behaviour, has proposed (£) that fines for children being persistently truant should be deducted from child benefit payments. At the moment, head teachers

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Now We Are Five

Well, that was a longer hiatus than had been intended. Back now, however. While I was loafing taking a break, this blog quietly celebrated its fifth birthday. Some of you patient or long-suffering sous have been here from the start. Many thanks to you and your more recently-arrived brethren for, well, just for being here. Thanks also to Megan McArdle and Garance Franke-Ruta who were among those pals chivvying me to start a blog back then. Equally, hosannas to James Forsyth who brought the blog into the Spectator’s fold and, latterly, to Pete Hoskin and David Blackburn for all their help and so on. Since I was on Jura last

Saturday

Dot Wordsworth

In drought

I could scarcely believe the feebleness of my husband’s little joke in declaring he would take less water with his whisky ‘to help with the drought’. I think he must have been watching repeats of Mock the Week while I am out. But the new cliché is that we are in drought. Sometimes this is preceded by officially. It’s there in the newspapers, although once at least the Guardian said we are ‘officially in a state of drought’. I can’t remember in drought being used as a set phrase before. It sounds a little technical and in some way like a diagnosis. The obvious parallel as a diagnosis is in

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 14 April 2012

Q. A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday morning, the Idler Academy arranged that there would be a ‘signing’ for my book. The Idler emailed the thousand idlers on their list and the headmaster’s mother came up from Oxford to help control the crowds. Two people turned up, both of whom were old friends. Mary, what do you advise? —D.B., London W2 A. Do not take the apparent mass snubbing as significant. Since your book (‘Among Booksellers, Tales Told in Letters to Howard Hodgkin’, by David Batterham) contains the modest musings of a gentleman and scholar as he goes about his business in the world of rare books, it

Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety: Left behind

Listening to the delegates rant and rave at the teaching unions’ annual conferences last weekend, the overwhelming impression was of a group of people who have completely misunderstood the thinking behind Michael Gove’s education reforms. The general consensus was that he is intent on breaking up our state education system to pave the way for mass privatisation. Indeed, some of his critics went further and conjured up some dastardly plot involving Rupert Murdoch, Gove’s former employer. He is at best an unwitting puppet of an evil robber baron, at worst an active collaborator who will be personally enriched thanks to his role as a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ (actual words

Robin Oakley

The turf: Triumph and tragedy

Have the French got the balls to do it? After the triumph of Corine Barande-Barbe’s globe-trotting superstar Cirrus des Aigles in Dubai’s Sheema Classic on World Cup Night the debate has resumed: will they open up Europe’s most prestigious race, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, to horses like Cirrus des Anges who are geldings — animals with their wedding tackle removed, an operation often performed to improve the temperament of an unruly colt? Should such top races be reserved for horses with a breeding future or should top-class geldings be allowed to take their chance alongside mares and ‘entire’ horses. Since the most exciting older horses are often geldings

Melissa Kite

Real life | 14 April 2012

Fuel crisis? What fuel crisis. I’m driving around in a car that does 50pmg. Well, it said 50 on the gauge when I bought it from the nice City worker from New Zealand, and he was driving it up and down the vertiginous slopes of Forest Hill. Within days of me owning it, and driving it up and down the distinctly flat A3, it was averaging 46. Now, let’s put this in perspective. I was averaging 26mpg in the Volvo. I used to dream of 27. Wild, fevered dreams I had, in which I became the only Volvo driver in history to get 27. But the best I ever got

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 14 April 2012

Keith the bailiff could tell at a glance, surely, that demanding £204 on the spot from a poverty-stricken household such as this one was hopeless. When he pulled up in his Sahara Gold Citroën Berlingo and saw us all sitting around the paddling pool in the front garden, the state of the children’s shoes alone would have told him that nobody had any money. And as my boy’s partner led him inside the house to negotiate, surely he would have noticed, too, that there was no carpet on the stairs, no seat on the lavatory and no living-room carpet; that the enormous old telly was recycled, as were most of