Society

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters | 7 January 2012

Russian resolution Sir: Anne Applebaum (‘Russia’s new dissidents’, 31 December) welcomes the Moscow protestors’ challenge to a smug and venal elite. We can all agree with that. But she asks if they are developing into an opposition — and the simple answer is ‘no’. Alexander Navalny, the Moscow protest leader, cries out against ‘villains and thieves’. He represents genuine resentment at swindlers in power and a desire for a clean-up, but is not an opposition as such. Russia’s ‘opposition’ comprises some decidedly unpleasant trends, from recidivist communists to nationalists who make the BNP look moderate. And who’s to say the ‘middle class’ are a bastion of open democracy anyway? We

Conrad Black

Diary – 7 January 2012

It is hard for me to monitor this from my prison cell in Florida as I wait for the spurious and failed prosecution of me to flounder to an end, but it seems to me that Britain has failed adequately to recognise that Margaret Thatcher was correct in almost everything she said about Eurofederalism. She was a prophet who was sent packing because of her prescience, amid all that bunk about being ‘uncaring’. There was too much attention paid to the spivvy parvenus who most ostentatiously gained from her policies, and not enough to the millions of the unashamed bourgeois who gratefully made her the first prime minister since Lord

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 7 January 2012

Home Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty, on the evidence of blood and fibre traces, of the murder of Stephen Lawrence at Eltham in 1993. Dobson had been acquitted of the crime in 1996, but the law changed to allow a new trial to consider new evidence. A 20-year-old man charged with murdering Anuj Bidve, an Indian student, by shooting him dead in Salford on Boxing Day, when asked to confirm his name in court, said that it was ‘Psycho Stapleton’. A man shot a woman, her sister and niece in a house in Peterlee, Co Durham, and then shot himself. One policeman was sacked and 154 faced

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

A very ethical Christmas

Here’s another one, part of an occasional series in these parts, of people from the newspapers who are, for often undefinable reasons, really, really annoying. Not always undefinable, mind. This is from a feature in the Guardian’s weekend magazine about what people got their kids for Christmas. First they speak to the parent, then to the kid. It takes a suspension of disbelief to accept that Matilda is a real person and was not instead created by Viz magazine in one of its more spiteful moments. If there is hope for the world, it surely lies with Dimitri. I have the suspicion that when he unwraps his cooking class, he

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Ambulance Crews: The Enemy Within

I know no-one is allowed to say that public sector workers are “cosseted”. And of course no-one can ever say anything nasty about anyone who works in the emergency services. Salt of the earth types, heroically serving the public good each and every one of them. We scarcely deserve these Little Jesuses, don’t you know?  That’s the official line. The truth is a little different. Some of the time anyway. Some people would rather let people die than interrupt their tea-break. Yes they would. Really. Look: Union members have rejected the latest deal to resolve a dispute over rest breaks for ambulance staff in Scotland. Fears that patients’ lives could

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Abbott’s hypocrisy

I would have more sympathy for Diane Abbott if she hadn’t used precisely such ‘racist’ indiscretions against other people in the past. Not least me, frankly. I hope she might begin to see how absurd the whole business is. But I have the horrible feeling she will think herself an innocent who has been wrongly nobbled, perhaps by the vindictive white hegemony, while everybody else is still guilty as sin and deserves to be punished. Still, the first really good fun story of the new year, don’t you think? Nothing she said, incidentally, was remotely racist as you or I would understand the term.

Martin Bright

It’s not about you, Ed

One thing you learn in life is that most people have no idea how they are perceived by others. This is particularly true in Britain, where we don’t generally feel it is polite to tell people what we think of them. Politicians and public figures therefore find themselves in the unusual position of having opinions about them shoved right in their faces. Maurice Glasman’s description of Ed Miliband as having ‘no strategy, no narrative and little energy’ must have been deeply hurtful to the man who elevated a previously little-known academic to the House of Lords. High-profile politicians must cauterise a certain part of their mind (or is it their

Patrick Allitt

Elephant trap

The Republican voters of Iowa could not make up their minds. Months of flirting with different candidates preceded their decision to give Rick Santorum a moment in the sun. Hardly able to believe his own good luck, he could not help knowing, even in the euphoria of his virtual dead heat with Mitt Romney for first place, that he too would probably sink back into the obscurity from which he had only just emerged. He told his astonished supporters, gathered in a ballroom in Johnston, Iowa, ‘I’ve survived the challenges so far by the daily grace that comes from God.’ Romney remains the presumptive Republican candidate, having won in Iowa

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

A dream of sorts

The Magic Kingdom, Disney World, Florida is such a violent battle between cynicism and innocence that a writer’s head may blow off. There are three Disney parks within screaming distance and beyond that, the wastelands of America. If it feels as though it sprouted out of the swamp fully formed, that is because it did. At the centre is Cinderella’s castle, modelled on Mad Ludwig of Bavaria’s Neuschwanstein, but madder. At the gate, a bag search. Your bag will be searched, even though you cannot fit a Kalashnikov inside a Goofy rucksack. Inside, a sign: ‘Meet the fairies. Wait time — 45 minutes’. Some days 100,000 people come here, and

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Is it empowering for women to have their baps inflated?

I wonder what explanation will be found for the mysterious discovery of a woman’s body tucked behind a hedge on the royal estate of Sandringham? The obvious answer — that she was murdered and partially eaten by a senior member of the royal family, or perhaps a number of royal family members operating as a pack — is, I think, too easily arrived at, too pat. It is true that the Queen and Prince Philip, along with the Wessexes, were in situ over the Christmas holidays. And one might add as corroborating evidence that the royals have been publicly criticised for shooting raptors on the estate and so perhaps diverted

Richard Dowden

After Mandela

It produced one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century. It fought a violent race-based dictatorship and replaced it with the most liberal constitution the world has ever known. Its song, a poignant Christian hymn, became South Africa’s national anthem. Since it came to power in 1994, about two thirds of South Africans vote for it. Yet now, as it lavishly celebrates its 100th birthday this week, it has a reputation for corruption and incompetence. So whatever happened to South Africa’s African National Congress? The ANC was formed as the Native National Congress by urban middle-class Africans and chiefs to protect and promote African interests after the Boer War,

Philip Delves-Broughton

Bankers or bust

Last year a single sector of British industry was responsible for generating 12 per cent of government tax receipts, with just 4 per cent of the workforce. You would think the government would be grateful to these hyper-productive worker bees, at a time when it needs every penny of tax. Solicitous even, as it is with ‘clean tech’ firms and Silicon Roundabout start-ups, which deliver nothing close to this kind of tax revenue. Not a chance. Because the sector is financial services, and three years after the financial world imploded — with Britain still plodding its way through the valley of economic death — banker bashing is still considered political

Ian Thomson

Montserrat Notebook

Montserrat, a smoulderingly beautiful volcanic island in the British West Indies, is a 15-minute flight from Antigua. Apart from me, the only passenger on the propeller plane is a birdwatcher from England, who hopes to catch a glimpse of the ‘critically endangered’ Montserrat oriole. After the volcano eruptions of 1995 to 1997, the island’s old capital of Plymouth was entombed in 40 feet of ash, and people air-freighted in their thousands to Gatwick. There is now a swelling Montserratian community in Stoke Newington, north London. ••• As a British dependency (one is not allowed to say ‘colony’), Montserrat receives £10 million a year in British government aid and a further

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Any other business – Which is worse: theft, drug-dealing, profiting from falling shares or giving cash to Tories?

I thought editors came on a bit strong with  the ‘Jailbird Honours’ headlines in response to New Year gongs for ex drug-dealer Chris Preddie (OBE) and former HMP Ford inmate Gerald Ronson (CBE), the property tycoon who was convicted of theft and false accounting in the Guinness share-support scandal in 1990. But what was interesting about responses to the list was that by far the largest helping of hostility was aimed at the hedge fund manager Paul Ruddock — who was knighted for donating large sums to the V&A museum and other charities, but damned for making £100­million (for his firm, Lansdowne Partners) by betting on the fall of Northern

Lucy Vickery

Competition: After Max

In Competition No. 2728 you were asked to provide a parody, with a Christmas connection, of a living British writer with an international reputation. The assignment invited you to follow in the mighty footsteps of Max Beerbohm, whose talent for parody few have matched. His A Christmas Garland, whose centenary falls this year, is considered one of the finest collections of parodies ever written in English, and on its publication reviewers agreed that not only had he captured the styles of his subjects but appeared to have gained ‘temporary loan of their minds’ too. A tough act to follow, then. Derek Morgan, G.M. Davis, David Mackie, Shirley Curran and Chris

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The Wiki Man: Speaking to Siri

Why am I typing this article rather than dictating it via some wonderful voice recognition software? It’s a question worth asking. Twenty years ago, all Spectator writers would have written every article by hand (only two or three still do). In my office in the 1980s, it was frowned on to type your own letters, since typing was seen as secretarial work. Are we due another revolution in how our thoughts are transmitted from brain to machine? Science fiction has always assumed that computers will converse — HAL-9000, C-3PO, Marvin the Paranoid Android and Thermostellar Bomb #20 (from the 1974 comedy Dark Star) have provided some of the most memorable

Bruce Anderson

Drink: The single European goose

I have discovered a powerful argument in favour of ever-closer union with Europe and cannot think why the federasts have not used it. A girl I know who is a professional cook had been using Selfridges as a speakeasy. Although the shop had banned the sale of foie gras, a good butcher with a franchise on the premises would act as a bootlegger. If you asked him for French fillet, he would provide foie gras. Alas, the Selfridges food police found out and closed him down. We should all boycott the House of Selfridge until it comes to its senses. So where was the EU? What is wrong with a

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Behind the scenes | 7 January 2012

Frank Rich loved it. ‘Noises Off,’ said the great N’Yawk critic, ‘is, was and always will be the funniest play written in my lifetime.’ Michael Frayn conceived the idea of writing a farce about farce while watching one of his early plays from the wings. The frantic hustle-bustle of the actors behind the scenes was far funnier than anything on stage. So Frayn, the West End’s brainbox-in-residence, wrote an intricate play-within-a-play where he showcased every theatrical blunder imaginable. Just describing his amazing creation requires quite an investment of mental energy. So here goes. The inner play, Nothing On, is a traditional farce featuring three couples, each oblivious of the other

Friday

Peter Hoskin

From the archives: The great Ronald Searle

Earlier this week we ran a blog post by our cartoon editor Michael Heath, marking the death of the Ronald Searle. As an accompaniment, here’s the interview that Harry Mount conducted with Searle for The Spectator two years ago: ‘I went into the war as a student and came out as an artist’, Harry Mount, The Spectator, 13 March 2010 High in the mountains of Provence, in a low-ceilinged studio at the top of his teetering tower house, Ronald Searle is showing me the simple child’s pen he uses. As he draws the pen down the page, the ink thickens and swerves; a few sideways strokes, a little cross-hatching, and

The Spectator

The week that was | 6 January 2012

Here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the past week: Fraser Nelson highlights the plight of Christians in Nigeria, and says that poverty should concern us more than race. James Forsyth previews the coming battle over the undeserving rich, and says that Lord Glasman’s target was the other Ed. Peter Hoskin says that it’s getting worse and worse for Ed Miliband, and reveals why Tom Baldwin reckons Labour shouldn’t give up on their leader. Jonathan Jones looks at the losers from this week’s Iowa caucus. Melanie McDonagh says that Lord Falconer has the wrong ideas about assisted suicide. Nick Cohen laments the inconsistencies of The Economist. Rod