Society

Saturday

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Stung into stupidity – or heroism

I know lots of second world war veterans who rather enjoyed their war against the Germans. But I’ve never met one who enjoyed his war against the Japanese. As the Eastern Front was to the Western Front, so the Far Eastern front was to the European/North African front: the fighting was more implacably brutal, the conditions more ferociously grim, the chances of coming out in one piece notably slimmer. That’s why, in dark times like these, I find it of such great comfort to read a novel like Harold James’s The Scorpion Trap (Janus). It’s a brilliant fictionalised account by a former Gurkha officer of those hideous and terrifying early

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Spectator Sport | 1 October 2011

If the cap fits… There can’t be many people who can wear a quartered and tasselled silver cricket cap without looking as if they’re searching for a Hackett window display to stand in. But New Zealand captain Richie McCaw managed it the other day in the sheeting rain at Auckland on the occasion of his 100th Test appearance in an All Black shirt. In lesser hands — or on lesser heads — the cap would have resembled an undersized miner’s hat crossed with the Wellesley House under-14s school colours, and would have guaranteed the wearer several weeks of relentless bullying. Sitting atop McCaw, it only reinforced the image of an

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Any other business | 1 October 2011

Hang on to your popcorn – this could be the final reel of the euro disaster movie The good news is we’re in a new phase of the euro crisis. The bad news is we don’t know how it’s going to end. In every good disaster movie, there’s a moment when bickering bureaucrats who have failed to tackle the threat — epidemic, earthquake, invasion — are sidelined to make way for the maverick (and unkillable) hero or heroine. A classic example comes in Independence Day (1993) with the sacking of spineless secretary of defense Nimzicki and the triumph of the computer nerd played by Jeff Goldblum, who figures out how

Matthew Ridley

Resisting evolution

There lived a happy Coelacanth In dim, primordial seas; He ate and mated, hunted, slept, Completely at his ease. Dame Nature urged: ‘Evolve!’ He said: ‘Excuse me, Ma’am, You get on with making Darwin, I’m staying as I am.’ Horace Shipp’s little hymn to the ‘living fossil’ fish-with-legs — thought long extinct then astonishingly discovered in a South African fish market in the 1930s — gets the evolutionary process upside down, of course. Evolution is not something that a fish, or a dame, wills; it just happens. Nonetheless, the poem captures the curiosity of the fact that, while some lineages change dramatically over time, others do not. Set the sat-nav

Otto Saumarez-Smith

Wealth of experience

In 1902 Jack London determined to travel to East London. He relates in People of the Abyss how he approached Thomas Cook & Son, but was disappointed to find that though a travel agent unhesitatingly and instantly, with ease and celerity, could send me to Darkest Africa or Innermost Tibet, but to the East of London, barely a stone’s distant from Ludgate Circus, [they] know not the way. For many of the late Victorian middle class the East End was as mysteriously exotic a place as the furthest reaches of the Empire. In contrast to any bemused Thomas Cook operator, John Marriott’s new history of the East End, Beyond the

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Scotland vs England

For obvious reasons and though I harbour no* ill-will towards our southern neighbours, it would be grand if tomorrow morning’s Scotland-England game unfolds much as did the 100th meeting between these ancient combatants… For reasons even I cannot quite fathom, I’m oddly confident Scotland can prevail tomorrow. Admitting this publicly is obviously, then, to open oneself to much mockery. But there you have it. Then again, Ruaridh Jackson is not John Rutherford and, when it comes to enjoying the match, ITV’s commentators are no Bill McLaren either. *Well, not much.

David Blackburn

Osborne mulling child benefit u-turn

Eric Pickles makes no bones that his bin policy is aimed at Middle Britain, and the Tories may soon announce more measures to butter up that vital electoral constituency. The Times reports (£) that Cameron and Osborne are seriously considering a u-turn on their controversial cut to child benefits over families in which parent earns more than £42,475, which is due to be introduced in January 2013. George Osborne apparently never does anything unless it yields a political dividend and this is an intriguing development, if it materialises. It reiterates that the Tories know they have a woman problem; identified by Melanie McDonagh in a magazine cover piece earlier this

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Dr. Liddle’s Casebook

I got an email from the Fibromyalgia Society this week, urging me to write something about this distressing disease. I did a modicum of research and discovered that it is another one of those imaginary afflictions claimed by malingering mentals. I may be wrong about this, I’m simply reading between the lines of the various studies into the condition. As a gift to medical science I thought we should compile a list of things – a compendium, if you like – which are definitely illnesses or diseases and things which aren’t, so as to help the doctors. Let me begin – but please join in: Things Which Definitely Are Illnesses

Bounderby

Britain’s trillion pound bill

Be careful what you wish for, arch Eurosceptics. UK banks are exposed in the Eurozone to an eye-watering £1 trillion. The taxpayers’ fiscal union with the banks in 2008 has exposed the UK to the Eurozone’s indebted periphery, just as if we had joined the Euro. The Bank of England’s cross-border lending data shows the scale of the problem. This isn’t simply government bonds; it’s total bank lending, including Barclays’ retail expansion in Spain and Lloyds’ corporate lending in Ireland.   The EU/IMF bailouts are as much a bailout of Britain as they are the debt-ridden countries of the Eurozone. If these countries do end up defaulting -– thankfully still a very unlikely scenario in my view -– there’s a risk of

Jonathan Jones

Romney’s Churchill fixation backfires

A couple of weeks ago Mitt Romney used Winston Churchill – or his bust, at least – to attack Obama. This week, he used the former Prime Minister to defend his flip-flopping. Or at least, he thought he did. Here’s what he told a town hall in New Hampshire on Wednesday: ‘In the private sector, if you don’t change your view when the facts change, well you’ll get fired for being stubborn and stupid. Winston Chuchill said, “When the facts change, I change too, Madam”.’ Unfortunately, as NBC have pointed out, the line wasn’t Churchill’s at all. It is usually attributed to John Maynard Keynes, but even that may be aprocryphal. So

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Ed Miliband, closet Glee fan?

  What to make of Ed Miliband’s disclosure yesterday that Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ is his favourite song? Ben Brogan smells a rat: “If he’s a Journey fan, then I’m a football expert”. But here’s the thing: you don’t have to be a Journey fan to like Don’t Stop Believin’. You just need to be a fan of Glee. For the uninitiated, Glee is an American musical TV series about (impossibly glamorous) nerds in an Ohio high school, who join an after-school music club and are intensely bullied by the cool, sporty kids in the school. But they stick to what they believe in, overcoming the bullies. Don’t Stop Believin’

David Blackburn

Eric’ll fix it

The papers report that Eric Pickles has beaten Caroline Spelman: bins will be collected on a weekly basis. Back in June, James reported how the DCLG and DEFRA were opposed to Pickles’ plan and that Spelman, who once advocated weekly collections in Opposition, had gone Whitehall native. It was a test, James said, of the government’s ability to master its civil servants. Pickles was very closely associated with the pledge and the impasse threatened to damage his burgeoning reputation in office. Now he is gloating in his hour of victory. “I may make passing reference to the scheme in my speech,” he told the Today programme in that garrulous manner

Thursday

Jonathan Jones

Perry slumps, Cain surges

Just over six weeks into his Presidential campaign, the sheen is coming off Rick Perry. Having entered the race as the favourite, he quickly established a double-digit lead over the rest of the Republican field. But now, especially after the candidates’ latest debate last week, the momentum has shifted. Here, to illustrate Perry’s fall, is yesterday’s Fox News poll, compared to their previous one, conducted a month ago: As you can see, the drop in support for Perry has not led to much of an increase for his main rival, Mitt Romney. Instead, the biggest beneficiary has been Herman Cain, who has leapt from 6 per cent a month ago

Wednesday

Kelvin MacKenzie

Kelvin MacKenzie: I was hacked too

Kelvin MacKenzie reveals in tomorrow’s Spectator that he was interviewed as a potential victim of the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Here’s his story: It was the kind of building George Smiley would have been happy to call home.Anonymous and bleak, it’s the home of Operation Weeting, where 60 officers flog themselves to death every day in the biggest Scotland Yard inquiry in anyone’s memory. I am here by appointment. A charming woman detective has called me a couple of times — when you are a former tabloid editor that’s worrying in itself  — and asked me to drop by ‘at my convenience’ to look at the fact

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Tweet of the Day

Courtesy of an Anglo-Italian historian in lovely New Hampshire. She tweets here and blogs about New England history here: [Via Oliver Burkeman]

Tuesday

Clarissa Tan

Russia’s Kudrin quits – but how will he return?

The dramatic – some would say theatrical – exit of Alexei Kudrin as Russia’s finance minister couldn’t have come at a worst time. The world economy is incredibly fragile and oil prices are in flux. But is Kudrin, highly respected for his fiscal policies and a member of Putin’s inner circle, merely pushing for promotion? With the ruble slumping to a 28-month low yesterday, there are signs the market is worried over the loss of a finance minister who prudently curbed Russia’s budgetary excesses and far-sightedly built up its oil wealth funds. “Kudrin’s resignation will be a big blow for the Russian economy – experts are already forecasting a new wave

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Ivan Lewis’s Comedy Act

So the shadow Culture Secretary thinks journalists should be licensed (by whom?) and rotten hacks guilty of “serious misconduct” (how is that to be defined?) should be “struck-off”. Well, that’s a proposal guaranteed to go down well with the press corps! Ignore the fact that it’s unworkable in the internet age and that it’s perhaps only meant as a signal to the party faithful that Mr Lewis doesn’t like that nasty brute Murdoch any more than the rest of them. Nevertheless signal matter, not least since they often reveal what a politiican or a party really believes. This is one such instance: the answer to any problem, however trivial it

David Blackburn

Ed’s “something for something” society

Fraser’s already commented on the welfare angle of Ed Miliband’s keynote speech to the Labour party; the welfare proposals are part of a broad analytical sweep that can be reduced to the catchphrase, ‘the something for something society’. Miliband’s vision of society will reward those who work and abide by the rules at the expense of those who do not – those who loot, who fiddle expenses, those who pursue short-termism in business. According to the Guardian, he will also emphasise the importance of social mobility and equality. To that end, he will encourage universities to take more people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Society and government should stand up for those

Monday

Jonathan Jones

Balls’ Brownies

In his speech today, Ed Balls proved himself worthy of the “Son of Brown” tag, slipping in more than a few “Brownies”. I thought CoffeeHousers would be interested in some of the figures behind his claims… Balls claimed that “we went into the crisis with lower national debt than we inherited in 1997”. That is flatly untrue. Public sector net debt when Labour took over was £350 billion. In 2006-07 it was £500 billion. Even adjusting for inflation, Brown and Balls had added £62.8 billion in today’s money to the national debt they “inherited” by the time the crisis started: Balls’ defenders will say that he meant “debt ratio” – and, to

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Thought for the Day | 26 September 2011

Via Samizdata, here’s Jeff Randall on the eurozone crisis: The fallacy at the heart of this crisis is that every financial problem has a political solution. True. And one can make another, related point: the fallacy at the heart of this and every other matter is that every political problem has a financial solution.   Or, often, a solution at all.