Society Archives

Saturday

26 Nov 2011

Republicans vs the world

During the 2008 US presidential election cycle, the respected journal Foreign Affairs invited the leading presidential candidates from both parties to outline their views of world politics. All of them responded with essays that, one presumes, they at least read if did not write. This year, ahead of next year’s elections, Foreign Affairs has proffered the same invitation to the leading Republican aspirants. To date, they have all refused or not responded. This parallels the trend of not talking about international affairs in their endless series of presidential debates: mentions of Afghanistan and Iraq are reported to be down 65 per cent from 2008. One could argue that these

Freddy Gray

Life of Brian

‘It must be so awfully boring being a fish,’ says Brian Sewell, as he looks out the window at his pond. ‘You can only have sex once a year on a prescribed day. The frogs are just the same.’ We are in his study. It is a large room full of books, mostly big art books. An old German Shepherd lies passed out on the floor. ‘Poor Winckelmann,’ says Sewell, peering down at the dog. ‘She is the love of my life. I can’t bear the thought of her departure. But I know she’s going.’ Sex and death are on Sewell’s mind. His memoirs, Outsider: Always Almost, Never Quite, have

James Bartholomew

Vote for happiness

What makes you happy? If you did not think anybody cared, you could not be more wrong. Your happiness has become a major issue. It is being investigated by professors with regression analyses. It is being fussed over by politicians who want to show their human side. The British government has decided to measure your happiness. Over in Paris, the OECD has recently come out with a major report on well-being. There is a growing band of academics studying your happiness, including Professors Layard and Oswald in Britain and Professors Gui and Becchetti in Italy. One of this growing band of happiness professors is Bruno Frey of the University of

James Delingpole

A refreshing weekend of real conservatism

Conservatism is dead in Britain — as it is in Europe, as it is in most of the world — and if you want to know what the problem is, a good place to start is the one where I’ve just been: the David Horowitz Restoration Weekend in Palm Beach, Florida. Horowitz is a prominent US activist, author and intellectual whose Freedom Center, if you didn’t know better, you might assume was a conservative think tank. But it’s not. As Horowitz reminded us on the first night of our three-day palm-fringed extravaganza of cocktails, fine cuisine, and sound conservatism courtesy of Mark Steyn, Ann Coulter, Herman Cain, Allen West, Baroness

Martin Vander Weyer

Any other business: Boffins tell us time travel is possible — but sadly not for Northern Rock

I wrote here in July that I was hoping to see history reversed at Northern Rock. Shortly after that, Swiss boffins declared that time travel really might be possible, after discovering they could fire neutrinos through an Alpine tunnel at a fraction faster than the speed of light. But the idea of propelling the privatised remains of the Rock backwards through several decades — to emerge as a mutually owned and socially responsible provider of mortgages to sensible savers in the north-east — was never high on the Treasury’s agenda. The bank whose 2007 collapse heralded 2008’s financial armageddon was always going to be sold to the highest bidder at

Roger Alton

Spectator Sport: Coming of age

Bracing times for those of us who are part of the winter fuel allowance generation — FAGs, as we like to call ourselves. At Haydock Park, the courageous Kauto Star thundered back into the national conscience with a spine-tingling win in the Betfair Chase. The 11-year-old is an equine superstar in the mould of Red Rum and Desert Orchid, and the sight of him showing his Gold Cup conquerors, Long Run and Sam Waley-Cohen, a clean pair of hindquarters can’t make Boxing Day at Kempton come soon enough. Kauto’s trainer Paul Nicholls was probably still enjoying a celebratory drink when 34-year-old Darren Lockyer, as Australian as a sweaty singlet, ended

Friday

25 Nov 2011

Peter Hoskin

From the archives: A nation ablaze

A more recent gem from the archives than we would normally mine, but with the forthcoming government report into the riots — and with Fraser’s and David’s recent posts — we reckoned you might care to (re-)read Harriet Sergeant’s piece from this summer. It formed the centrepiece of an issue largely dedicated to those fiery disturbances, and which also included thought-provoking articles by Theodore Dalrymple and Ravi Somaiya. Here it is: These rioters are Tony Blair’s children, Harriet Sergeant, The Spectator, 13 August 2011 On the third day of the London riots I received a telephone call from Mash, a member of a Brixton gang who I befriended three years

Peter Hoskin

A Clegg-up for young workers?

There was a time when Nick Clegg was the most agile and persistent defender of the coalition’s deficit reduction programme. But now — although he’s still got it in him — he is more often wheeled out to announce some spending wheeze or other. A couple of weeks ago, it was the next instalment of the government’s regional growth fund. Today, it’s a £1 billion scheme, spread out over three years, to encourage companies to take on young people. This latest scheme is one of those that looks very neat on paper. Put aside questions about how it will be funded, and what we have is a plan whereby £2,275

Alex Massie

The Dumbest Council in Britain?

Edinburgh council – presently best known for spending £700m on half a tram system (and the wrong half at that) – has mercifully moved on to more important business: congratulating the Occupy Edinburgh “movement” on whatever it is they are doing camping in St Andrews’ Square beneath the disapproving (I’m sure) gaze of Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville. Never knowingly out-ninnied, however, the cooncil has decided to “recognise” the movement (for whatever this may be worth), passing a motion approving of its aims and sympathising with the campers and wishing them well. Given that financial services are a significant, even vital, part of Edinburgh’s economy and the campers are expressly and

James Forsyth

Europe’s debt overspill

That Italy is now paying around 7.8 per cent for two-year borrowing, compared to the 4.5 per cent it was paying just last month, is a reminder that the imposition of a technocratic government was far from a solution to the country’s problems. With €8 billion more debt to be sold on Tuesday, there’s little respite for Italy coming up. One does have to wonder how long they can carry on like this. But Italy’s troubles need to be seen in conjunction with what happened at the German bund auction this week. The problems that even Germany is having in getting its debt away at a good rate is

Matthew Sinclair

How much are we paying towards next week’s strike?

Next week, millions of public sector workers will go on strike over proposed changes to their pensions. And yet, even after the reforms, those pensions will still be far more generous than most taxpayers working in the private sector — who will pick up the bill — can expect. It’s going to be hard to convince people of the ‘fairness’ of paying more into public sector pensions than they do into their own. The unions will do their best though. And the real irony is in how their campaigns are funded. Guess who is paying for unions to organise strikes that will disrupt the public services that taxpayers pay for?

Alex Massie

Artists vs Artisans

Watching Roger Federer destory Rafael Nadal the other day and knowing how many people can recognise their brilliance while always holding a vehement, even visceral, preference for one of these superb athletes I wondered if there was a correlation with another bitterly divisive sporting divide. I mean, of course, David Gower vs Graham Gooch. That is, how many people love Nadal and Gower and how many Gooch and Federer? Precious few I suspect. How could you? Even allowing for different sports and their different demands these things have an aesthetic quality. Gooch, English cricket’s greatest monster these last 25 years, is obviously allied with Nadal; Gower with Federer. Perhaps I

Thursday

24 Nov 2011

Jonathan Jones

Breaking down those record immigration figures

New immigration stats out today show that 2010 set a new record for net migration into the UK. The figure hit 252,000 – a 27 per cent increase on 2009 and 7,000 higher than the previous record in 2004: As this graph shows, the number of immigrants moving to the UK has actually been fairly constant – at around 580,000 – since 2004 (when the ‘accession eight’ countries in eastern Europe joined the EU). But the number of people leaving the country has dropped off significantly in the past couple of years – from 427,000 in 2008 to 339,000 last year, hence the increase in net migration. So, as

Daniel Korski

What kind of Europe?

A couple of weeks ago I tried to lay out what the future of Europe could look like, given that some member states want to create an ever-closer Union while others prefer to remain in a looser kind of club. I wrote that the EU might end up evolving into a much more asymmetric arrangement, with a small group of European states integrating in some areas, while other states remain outside. Later I called this new arrangement the trade the ‘EF’, the European Framework, as opposed to the more integrative EU of today. Now others have begun offering their ideas. Michael van Hulten, a former Dutch MEP, has gone

Rod Liddle

The Guardian’s standards continue to amaze

The Guardian has retracted one of the allegations it made about me in its strangely humour-free Pass Notes section on Monday. They said that I had described a footballer as a ‘spearchucking African’, whereas I was quoting what had allegedly been said about the footballer by somebody else and using that quote to justify the black footballer’s consequent aggressive reaction. So, they put in a retraction today, although devoid of an apology. I might work through the rest of the Pass Notes and get them to retract most of the rest. What they should really do is reprint their headline from earlier in the week on every page, every day,

Alex Massie

The 40p Tax Rate is Much More Important than the 50p Rate

Clarissa Tan made a number of fine points about the utility of the 50p rate of income tax yesterday. Tim Montgomerie makes some more at ConservativeHome today under the headline “Osborne is warned that Britain will lose its high earners if he doesn’t abolish 50p tax band.” Maybe, but he might lose the next election if he does. This is not the 1980s. It was possible then to persuade middle-income voters that tax rates north of 80% were foolish, punitive and counter-productive. Making a comparable case for abolishing the 50p rate is a much more difficult prospect. If these were happy times matters might be different but they are not

Jonathan Jones

Cameron: ‘We have to end the sicknote culture’

The Prime Minister has backed the proposal for a new independent service to sign workers’ long-term sicknotes, instead of GPs. The plan, which Pete wrote about at the weekend, is aimed at ensuring that people on sick pay or sickness-related benefits really are too ill to work. Cameron describes how it would work in today’s Mail: ‘The independent service would be free to all employers from four weeks of sickness absence, with the option for employers to pay for it earlier. It would provide an in-depth assessment of an individual’s physical and mental function. So if they’re unable to work, they’ll be helped – but if they are fit, they’ll

Wednesday

23 Nov 2011

Clarissa Tan

Should the top-rate tax be less than 40 per cent?

Britain will soon be a leaking ship – it’ll lose £1 billion per year by 2015, if George Osborne stubbornly sticks to the 50 per cent top tax rate. As other countries have moved to attract the wealthy, the UK has actually taken a step backwards, according to a new report. And there are losses that are harder to quantify – dampers on productivity and entrepreneurship, and deterrents to high earners from coming here. So what’s the optimum tax rate? Less than 40 per cent, says the Centre for Economics and Business Research. The 50 per cent rate for people earning over £150,000, introduced by Alistair Darling, was meant to

Alex Massie

Up with the IRA and Down with the Pope of Rome

Joan McAlpine’s column in the Scotsman this week is uncharacteristically unpersuasive. Since she decided to defend the SNP’s plans for so-called anti-sectarian legislation she was backing a losing horse from the start. Still, it speaks well of her loyalty. Nevertheless, her piece is useful since, in large part, it outlines a kind of consensus that is deemed to exist and from which it is unwise to deviate. Certainly it is hard to think of many opposition politicians who have distinguished themselves in this affair. Even those who question the SNP’s plans do so on grounds of efficiency, not ethics or principle. If the government’s plans are woeful; the opposition remains

Jonathan Jones

Murdoch resigns from newspaper boards

The Evening Standard has the scoop: ‘Companies House filings show James Murdoch has stepped down from the boards of both News Group Newspapers Limited, publisher of The Sun, and Times Newspapers Limited, which operates The Times and Sunday Times.’ Of course, James Murdoch remains executive chairman of News International, of which both those companies are subsidiaries. His next test will come on Tuesday, when shareholders will decide whether he remains non-executive chairman of BSkyB. Murdoch looks likely to survive the vote, not least because BSkyB’s directors have backed him in a letter to the shareholders.