Society

Saturday

Mark Mason

Music, moonlight and dahlias

The words that echoed constantly in the back of my mind as I read this book were from Paul Simon’s song ‘Train in the Distance’: ‘the thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains’. The words that echoed constantly in the back of my mind as I read this book were from Paul Simon’s song ‘Train in the Distance’: ‘the thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains’. Paul Hollander’s thesis is that modern America’s ultra-individualism has led its citizens to expect perfection in every aspect of life, relationships included. Which means that Uncle Sam and

Friday

The Spectator

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James Forsyth James Forsyth

Lagarde sets about the Eurozone

When Christine Lagarde took over the IMF top job, it was widely assumed that she would simply continue her predecessor’s policy of almost unconditional support for Eurozone bailouts. But Ken Rogoff, the IMF’s former chief economist, has detected a hardening in the IMF’s approach. He thinks that Lagarde’s call for, as he puts it, “forced recapitalization of Europe’s bankrupt banking system” signals a new, tougher approach towards the euro-zone. As Rogoff says, the IMF’s previous approach to the euro-zone simply wasn’t credible. The idea that Spain was really at no more risk of a default than Germany was risible. But, as Rogoff argues, there won’t be a full restoration of

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The Swedish case for school profits

Should state schools be able to make a profit? We asked this of you on our Coffee House poll this week. 71 per cent of you said yes, and with good reason. Profit-seeking companies expand when demand is strong: that’s what you want good schools to do. But successful schools not seeking profit have no incentive to expand: it’s an easier life just to let the waiting list grow and jack up the fees. This month, 24 new ‘free schools’ will open – eventually able to educate 10,000 pupils. But to keep pace with the boom in primary school pupils, we’d need an extra 400 primaries alone. Will the ‘free

David Blackburn

From the archives: “The bugger’s bugle”

Today marks 50 years since the release of Victim, a ground-breaking film about homosexuality that was granted an X-certificate. Writing in the latest issue of the Spectator (subscribers click here), John Coldstream explains the significance of this frank and truthful film and its contribution to the national debate about decriminalising homosexuality. It was made four years after the publication of Sir John Wolfenden’s report into ‘Homosexual Offences and Prostitution’, which recommended that homosexual acts between consenting adults in private should be decriminalised. This contentious reform was not secured until 1967. When Wolfenden’s views were first unveiled, the Spectator defied the prevailing consensus in Fleet Street by arguing that homosexuality should

Peter Robins

Local interest | 2 September 2011

Exeter Cathedral is to mark the tenth anniversary of 11 September 2001 by having John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ played on its bells. (Exeter Express and Echo) A man has appeared before magistrates in Lincoln charged with shoplifting dresses worth a total of about £1,200 from Peacocks and Marks & Spencer. He attended court in knee-length boots, tartan tights and a black mini-skirt. (Lincolnshire Echo) Paignton Zoo is attempting to raise money through an auction of paintings by its gorillas. (Herald Express, Torquay) An 82-year-old woman from Workington has donated an early home-made television set to the National Media Museum in Bradford. She inherited the set from her uncle, who built it

The Spectator

The week that was | 2 September 2011

Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the last week. Fraser Nelson explains the dangers of home ownership. James Forsyth reveals that Cameron and Osborne are wary of Vickers’ banking reforms, and evaluates Whitehall’s leaks. Peter Hoskin spots Vince being Vince, and reports on Alistair Darling’s memoirs. David Blackburn relates a day in NATO’s war, and watched Ed Miliband re-open hostilities with the same old weapons. Daniel Korski asks where Gaddafi should be brought to justice. Alex Massie has a look at the latest events in Scottish politics. The Arts Blog tells you how to interview Ozzy Osbourne. The Books Blog says the death of books has

David Blackburn

More banking worries

George Osborne wrote a strident article for the Observer last weekend, in which he called rich tax evaders “leeches”. As James Forsyth reveals in the cover story of this week’s magazine, Osborne is not alone among Tories in hounding the ‘undeserving rich’ at present. James goes on to argue that the Tories are ‘becoming particularly worried’ about the callous rich because the Vickers commission is poised to bring the emotive issue of banks back to the ‘political frontline’. The Vickers report has already irritated the coalition’s sore points, with disagreement allegedly rife between George Osborne and Vince Cable. Today’s FT offers a fresh angle. Osborne and Cable are in fact remarkably close

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Gripped by ‘Dominion’

What on earth is ‘Dominionism’? Lots of Americans who first heard the word just a few weeks ago are suddenly feeling very angry about it. Liberals say that the US constitution is facing a ‘Dominionist threat’ in the form of Michele Bachman and Rick Perry, two Republicans running for president in 2012. Christian conservatives, meanwhile, cry prejudice: they accuse a secularist elite of conducting a witch-hunt against Christians in politics.   What’s the fuss? Dominionism is, we are told, a school of evangelical thought that aims to impose Biblical law over secular government. It is to nutty Evangelicals what Shariah Law is to Islamists,­ a way of achieving theocracy on earth.

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Getting tough on discipline

A fortnight ago, The Spectator asked if Cameron was fit to fight? We wondered if he had the gumption to use the political moment created by the riots to push through the radical reforms the country needs.  So, it’s only fair to note that the government has today actually done something—as opposed to just talking about—the excesses of the human rights culture. The Department for Education has stopped the implementation of new regulations that would require teachers to log every incident in which they ‘use force’ with children. These new rules would have made teachers record every time they had pulled apart two kids in a corridor or intervened to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The undeserving rich

Ever since the Elizabethan poor laws — if not before — society has tended to divide the poor into the deserving and the undeserving. But, as I write in this week’s magazine, our politicians are now taking aim at a new category, the undeserving rich. Who you consider to be the undeserving rich depends on your ideological leanings. Russian oligarchs or the families of Middle Eastern despots are, perhaps, the most obvious examples. They have acquired huge wealth but often by illegitimate means. Then come those who evade, to use a favourite phrase of both David Cameron and Ed Miliband, “their responsibilities”. This includes those who dodge their taxes or

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Scoop of the Year

One for Coffee House’s weekly Local Interest feature: congratulations to the editor and staff of the Folkestone Herald for having the courage to splash on this… Can your local paper beat this? [Hat-tip: Ciaran Byrne]

Dennis Sewell

Punish the rich, hurt everybody | 1 September 2011

This week’s issue of The Spectator, out today (and available for only £1 an issue here), dwells on the new anti-rich mood in Westminster. James will have more on his cover piece later, but here’s the accompanying article by Dennis Sewell to get the debate flowing: The Bible tells us that the poor will always be with us, but there is no good reason, and certainly no scriptural authority, to support the widespread belief that the rich will be too. As capital has become more mobile, slipping across fiscal boundaries at the snap of an enter-key, so too have its owners, who are today only a Gulfstream ride away from

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The New State Religion

Regardless of the merits of Nadine Dorries’ attempt to re-open the abortion debate, consider this depressing-but-revealing part of Zoe Williams’ critique: There are two main problems with Nadine Dorries’s amendment to the health and social care bill: the first is that it looks innocuous. Who could object to independent counselling for women seeking abortions? It sounds so generous and caring, like getting free dental work when you’re pregnant. The second problem is that any discussion of the abortion amendment risks drawing fire away from the rest of the bill, which desecrates the NHS. There is no answer to that, apart from to carry on protesting against the whole thing. Emphasis

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Our Crazy Drug Laws, Part XVI

As legal entertainments go Man facing jail after reporting his cannabis plants stolen is a pretty good one. The Edinburgh Evening News reports: Police were called to David Williamson’s home to investigate reports that he had been assaulted and robbed. But after Williamson volunteered that it was two of his prized cannabis plants which had been stolen, suspicious officers got a warrant to search the 34-year-old’s Edinburgh home and discovered a further 20 plants. Williamson was immediately arrested. The case caused barely disguised mirth among lawyers and officials at Edinburgh Sheriff Court today, when Williamson admitted producing a controlled drug at his Sighthill home in May this year. So far,

Daniel Korski

What kind of Libyan justice?

Tory MP Dominic Raab has a piece in The Times today (£) about the need for Libyans to rely on the International Criminal Court in the Hague, rather than seek retribution and revenge against Colonel Gaddafi and his loyalists in Libya. A former Foreign Office lawyer, Raab knows his subject well. But I can’t help but quibble with a few of his points. For the history of the International Criminal Tribunal in Yugoslavia, a precursor to the ICC, raises questions about how societies can best deal with such crimes. The ICTY allowed space for the post-conflict consolidation to take place before indicting criminals. In contrast, the ICC issued an indictment

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Whitehall leaks

The Department of Education is remarkably unbothered by yesterday’s Guardian splash about free schools. Why? Because they have known for months that the emails on which it was based had gone missing. Indeed, the only thing that surprised them about the story was that it did not appear three months ago in the Financial Times. Email security in Whitehall is notoriously bad. Ministers and special advisers often don’t realise that civil servants have access to their email accounts. This access provides ample opportunity for those hostile to the government’s political agenda to leak out stories. (Most ministers in both this and the last government use secret squirrel email addresses to

Peter Hoskin

Vince being Vince

A sweeping and utterly typical performance from Vince Cable in his interview with the Times (£) today. Not only does he plunge his teeth into the exposed flesh of the bankers (criticising them for their “special pleading” over banking reforms), but he also offers another overarching diagnosis of the British economy (there won’t be a repeat of 2008’s financial crisis, he says, in case you were wondering, but slow growth could be a problem). I feel like a spoilsport for pointing out that, only four months ago, the Business Secretary was actually warning that “you can see” another financial crash happening. But aside from Cable’s fiery rhetoric, it’s worth noting

Matt Cavanagh

Right to reply: Why do so many “new jobs” go to foreigners?

On Monday, we published a post on George Osborne’s “jobless recovery” — the point being that 90 per cent of the recent rise in employment can be accounted for by foreign nationals. Here’s a counterpunch to it from the IPPR’s Matt Cavanagh, who should already be familiar to CoffeeHousers from his previous posts and articles for us on matters military. We’re hoping that this will be the first of a new series of “Right to reply” posts, giving outside writers the opportunity to take on your loyal baristas in mortal combat. Here goes: One of the most frequently recycled statistics of recent years is the percentage of “new jobs going

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