Society

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Miliband re-opens campaign with same old weapons

Party politics is back from the summer and the summer’s events are defining the strategic dividing lines. Ed Miliband reopened hostilities by threatening to force a vote on police cuts. The Standard reports: ‘The Labour leader said ministers were being “reckless” in refusing to rethink planned 20 per cent savings following the worst rioting in living memory. Launching a new campaign during a visit to Lewisham, Mr Miliband claimed the cuts, reducing officer numbers by 16,000, would “weaken the forces of law and order on our streets”.’ Policing Minister Nick Herbert, one of the coalition’s stars outside the cabinet, described Miliband’s claims as ‘hypocrisy’, pointing out that Labour did not

Professor Sir Simon Wessely

Mind the gap | 30 August 2011

As a break from Westminster, readers might enjoy this article, from the latest issue of the magazine, on the efforts to undertand ME or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. In 1987, I went to work as a trainee psychiatrist at the National Hospital for Neurology in Queen’s Square in London. One of my jobs was to see a group of patients who were not popular with the neurologists who ran the place. The patients had symptoms that might have had a neurological explanation — muscle pain, inability to walk, being unable to think clearly, feeling exhausted after the most minimal physical or mental exertion — yet the neurologists thought that they were at

David Blackburn

A day in NATO’s wars

It was a classic gaffe. Andrew Mitchell’s briefing notes have been photographed outside Downing Street and, according to Sky, they say that the government “welcomes the fact that Hamid Karzai is leaving office” in Afghanistan. This is not altogether surprising. Karzai has already indicated that he will not seek a third term and is expected to stand down in 2014. While the usually fraught relations between NATO and Karzai have been deteriorated further as his administration continues in its corrupt ways. But Mitchell’s slip will probably intensify the speculation that the Western allies are already preparing for the post-Karzai and post-NATO era by talking to, among others, the Taliban. At the moment, though, there seems

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The dangers of home ownership

The slump in home ownership is reported today as a bad thing. Many Conservatives, who believe that home ownership releases what the late Shirley Letwin called “vigorous virtues“, may agree. So might Labour, which came to regret its opposition to the Thatcher policy of allowing council tenants to buy their home. Like inflation targeting, home ownership was a solution that worked so well in the 1990s that it was vigorously pursued in the next decade. But here’s the rub: it had disastrous effects. In this case, the disaster was governments pursuing greater home ownership as a policy goal. This meant cheap loans, which meant subprime mortgages, which meant a credit

David Blackburn

Housing crisis on the horizon

There is grim news on the housing front this morning: the National Housing Federation (NHF) reports that the housing market will descend into “crisis” unless the supply of houses is dramatically increased. It points out that only 105,000 new homes were built last year, the smallest amount since the 1920s. This is a long-term trend, as demand has consistently outstripped supply.  The NHF thinks that those facts will not change and predicts homeownership will fall to the level of the mid-1980s, when Margaret Thatcher announced that her goal was to help “more and more people to own property.” The conclusion is obvious if those are the premises: average property prices will

Monday

David Blackburn

Merkel’s hard game

As James noted earlier, Angela Merkel’s response to the Eurozone crisis is hampered by the awkward arithmetic in the Bundestag. Merkel has been faced with these difficulties throughout the crisis. Her answer has been to oppose initial proposals to solve the Eurozone crisis, only to relent later in the day. This has been the pattern from the first Greek bailout to the expansion of the EFSF, which is currently before the Bundestag. Might her apparently determined opposition to Eurobonds (which, of course, would require a huge transfer of power and cash from Berlin to the Med and Brussels) go the same way? Wolfgang Münchau has a comprehensive piece on the

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 29 August – 4 September 2011

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which — providing your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency — you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there’s no need to stay ‘on topic’, which means you’ll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There’s also no constraint on the length of what you write — so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything’s fair game, from political stories in your local paper, to

David Blackburn

Salmond rules out move for Megrahi

Alex Salmond has just been on Sky News and he ruled out extraditing the Lockerbie bomber. He said that the Scottish government has no intention of asking for al-Megrahi to be extradited and the Libyan National Transitional Council appears to have no intention of granting extradition. He also added that there was no scope for further interviews with al-Megrahi, such was the prisoner’s condition. Although he reiterated that the Lockerbie case would be re-opened should further evidence emerge. He also defended the Scottish government’s decision to transfer al-Megrahi to Libya, saying that the original medical judgement of three months life expectancy was never definitive and therefore it had been impossible

David Blackburn

More questions for UKBA

The Home Office and the UK Border Agency (UKBA) completed the review into the asylum seekers legacy backlog ahead of schedule at the end of last month. 450,000 case files have now been closed and the government is as pleased as punch. Earlier in the summer, Damian Green heralded the achievement as one of “three fundamental changes to the asylum system.” Not everyone shares his enthusiasm and serious concerns about UKBA remain. First, the review is incomplete. An as yet unidentified number of cases have been granted ‘temporary leave to remain’ for up to 3 years, which merely defers the decision to grant asylum or deport. The Home Office concedes

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

British jobs for whom? | 28 August 2011

“More than 400,000 people have been out of work for more than two years, according to analysis of the latest Government data by think tank IPPR.” So runs its press release today, trailed in the Sunday press and the wires. I hope the IPPR didn’t spend too much of their donors’ money on this research, as the figure is updated quarterly and freely available from the DWP website (click here). Add up only three categories: lone parents, jobseekers allowance and incapacity benefit the figure stands at 2.4 million, certainly “more than 400,000”. Worse, at the peak of the boom (Feb07), this figure was even higher at 2.5 million. And yes, it’s

David Blackburn

Osborne’s crusade

‘Tax evasion is morally repugnant. It’s stealing from law-abiding people who face higher taxes to make good the lost revenue. Those who evade taxes, like benefit cheats, are leeches on society. And my message to those who try to hide their incomes from the Revenue in offshore bank accounts and false declarations is simple: we will find you and your money.’ That was written by George Osborne in today’s Observer. He promises that the deal with Switzerland is “just the start” of his campaign to close tax havens. The rest of the article then relates the coalition’s achievements at reducing tax avoidance by increasing charges on capital gains and non-domiciled

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters | 27 August 2011

Family problems Sir: One can’t help but admire Iain Duncan Smith’s determination to rethink conventional ideas on social policy (‘Gang War’, 20 August). However, it’s not clear what action he has in store for the ‘120,000 families who cause the greatest problems’. The Family Intervention Project that he inherited from New Labour is, if the Department for Education website is to be believed, still in place — despite rather meagre evidence for its efficacy. Originally it was touted as a measure to move problem families into secure housing where their behaviour could be closely monitored. Yet when we examined this programme last year, we found that nearly all the scheme’s

Dot Wordsworth

Like

I don’t think I pick up tricks of speech from Veronica, but I noticed last week Madonna, who is 53 going on 23, echoing her daughter Lourdes, aged 14. Lourdes was complaining of her mother’s dress sense, as daughters do: ‘Every day, I’ll be like, “Mom, you can’t wear that”.’ Her mother spoke in the same interview (in the Mirror, as it happens) about how busy she was: ‘Every other day, it’s like, “What am I doing? This is insane.” ’ I find this habit annoying, but it can hardly be called ungrammatical. The grammar is clear if of recent origin. The little Thespian interlude of direct speech is introduced by

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 27 August 2011

Q. I was interested to see Charles Moore’s italicisation of the word ‘patio’ in the issue of 30 July. We have a paved area in our garden at home, but my wife and I are unsure of what it should be called. What would you suggest? —S.B., Somerset A. Charles Moore was writing about the Alhambra, where the courtyards are called patios, but the truth is that outside of such venerable buildings and Latin countries there is no acceptable expression for the type of paved area you mention. So unless it could be classed as a terrace, you only have the option of pronouncing patio in a silly voice, which

Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety | 27 August 2011

Don’t be fooled – you’d get into Oxford Rachel Johnson calls to tell me she’s doing a piece for the Financial Times saying she wouldn’t have got into Oxford if she’d been applying this year. She’s quite wrong, of course. A myth has grown up among my generation of Oxford graduates that it’s harder for their children to get in than it was for them, when in fact the opposite is true. There are two reasons why they think this. First, they mistakenly believe that getting two As and an A* in their A-levels — the standard Oxford offer today — is beyond them. This ignores the rampant grade inflation

Alan Judd

Motoring:  Feel-good factor

 Feel-good factor The sloping rear roof-line, especially in white, prompted comparisons with a squashed fag packet. It’s a profile that’s supposed to appeal to younger owners. When I first saw it, lowered from the heavens by a crane during a preview party at the Orangery in Kensington Gardens, I wasn’t convinced. But I’ve a poor record at predicting future taste — I thought the Mercedes 190/C Class would never catch on, that the Jaguar S-Type would — and early indications are that I’ve got it wrong again. The car has garnered more than 20,000 advance orders and when Autocar did a photo shoot in New York a passer-by crossed the

Melissa Kite

Real life | 27 August 2011

What an aptly named place Hook junction is. My mind wandered for only a few seconds but that was enough to land me in peril. I was driving down the A3 and as the road narrowed from three lanes to two I failed to slow quickly enough. At the precise moment the road goes from a 70 to a 50 there is a camera and I had only slowed to 61 as I passed it. Captain Hook was not actually on the bridge above the speed camera yelling ‘ahaaaa, me hearties!’ in anticipation of his booty but he might as well have been. I have been driving on this road

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 27 August 2011

In summer the cottage next door is let out to visitors. Each week there’s someone new. I see them coming and going and sometimes circumstances dictate that I get to meet them. Last week a man staying in the cottage came to the door to ask about the television signal in the village. It wasn’t very good, was it? This visitor spoke with a Welsh accent and limped. Reception does vary a bit according to the weather, I said, but our signal seemed fairly strong at the moment. Theirs was fine at the beginning of the week, he said, but now the picture was breaking up on all freeview channels.

Taki

High life | 27 August 2011

Gstaad Forget about Libya, and don’t even think about Syria, the mother of all battles is about to take place right here, in bucolic Gstaad, a place of terminal political incorrectness — until recently, that is. But before I begin, the Beguine is far more likely to see Saif Gaddafi than this glitzy Mecca of the nouveaux riches, the Beguine being a religious order in the Netherlands, where The Hague Criminal Court is situated. Personally, I’d rather see Libyan justice meted out, and pronto. Like hanging a jockstrap out to dry, if you get my drift. The Gaddafi I’d most like to see acting as a jockstrap is Hannibal, the

Peter Jones

Ancient and modern | 27 August 2011

There has been considerable comment on the severity of the punishments handed out to the looters in the recent riots. In Aristotle’s Problems, most of which, admittedly, is not by the great man, a stern justification is mounted. The problem is posed as follows: ‘Why is it that, if someone steals from a public bath or gymnasium or market-place or anywhere like that, the penalty is death, but if from a private dwelling, it is twice the value of what was stolen?’ In the case of the private house, Aristotle offers three arguments: first, it has walls and locks, and it is possible to set a guard; second, it rests with the