Society Archives

Saturday

28 May 2011

Philip Roth is a genius

Carmen Callil isn’t ‘Prizes are for little boys,’ said Charles Ives, the American composer, ‘and I’m a grown-up’. That, most sensible people will agree, is a proper response to the world’s follies. But when a gong is struck for outstanding work over a lifetime then there can be merit in it, which is why we should give three resounding cheers to the judges who last week awarded the Man International Booker Prize to Philip Roth. Those bent on mischief might go further, and offer an additional cheer to those judges who, by nominating Roth, outraged their fellow arbiter Carmen Callil. A self-appointed guardian of ‘international’ writing, Miss Callil stood down

Anonymous

Target men

I am a long-serving officer in the Metropolitan Police and my passion for the job is matched only by my frustration and anger at what I see going on around me. The Met is capable of, and frequently achieves, great things. But this happens in spite of the way it is run, not because of it. For years, I have watched as the service has been disfigured by the need to satisfy targets dictated from above, fundamentally changing the way police do their job. What follows is my attempt to bring to light what is happening inside the Met, and doubtless in constabularies throughout the land. The Metropolitan Police Service

James Delingpole

There will never be justice if we leave it to lawyers

The big question this week is: ‘Should Giles Coren be bound, gagged, shackled and sentenced to life imprisonment in the torture block of the sexual offenders’ wing of Black Beach maximum security prison in Equatorial Guinea, there to become the plaything of Mad “Mamba” Mbigawanga, the Man-Rapist Giant of Malabo?’ Well, obviously, when you put it like that, the answer’s obvious. The big question this week is: ‘Should Giles Coren be bound, gagged, shackled and sentenced to life imprisonment in the torture block of the sexual offenders’ wing of Black Beach maximum security prison in Equatorial Guinea, there to become the plaything of Mad “Mamba” Mbigawanga, the Man-Rapist Giant of

Roger Alton

Spectator Sport: For the love of Barcelona

Fans of Robert Parker’s indispensable Spenser series of thrillers will be familiar with the character of Hawk. Fans of Robert Parker’s indispensable Spenser series of thrillers will be familiar with the character of Hawk. Big, bald, black, and always in shades, he is Spenser’s enforcer, an avenging angel of ineffable hardness. Now look at the wide angle shots of President Obama’s touring entourage and you will see Hawk made real in the shape of Reggie Love, the President’s go-to guy for a range of product from painkillers to iPod tunes to the best cheese for a burger. Love was a first-rate college basketball player who wanted to play pro football

Martin Vander Weyer

Any other business | 28 May 2011

Another rail report chugs past like an empty freight train bound for the sidings Sir Roy McNulty’s report on the state of Britain’s railways chugged by last week like one of those unmarked freight trains that sometimes pass through stations. ‘Stand well back from the platform,’ says the announcer, making us wonder whether the wagons are full of explosives. But such is the inefficiency of our rail system that they’re more likely to be being shunted empty from one siding to another — which is what will happen to McNulty’s ‘Rail Value For Money Study’ if unions and other vested interests have their way. McNulty found that many European train

Kate Chisholm

Out of touch

That interview with Kenneth Clarke, QC, was not so much a disaster for his political career as yet another knockout blow to the possibility of hearing honest answers from leading politicians. Who now will be prepared to go ‘live’ on radio to talk about sensitive policies? I didn’t catch the conversation in real time, when the Justice Minister’s comments on rape and how it should be punished might have sounded much more appallingly insensitive (most of the reports of what he actually said have been wildly inaccurate). Listening to it later, after the furore had erupted, the person who came across as most rude, thoughtless and arrogant was his interlocutor

Friday

27 May 2011

The Spectator

The week that was | 27 May 2011

Here is a selection of posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the last week. Fraser Nelson cuts through the BS, and points out that the austerity hasn’t even started yet. James Forsyth considers the super-injunctions saga, and watches Barack Obama reaffirm the special relationship. Peter Hoskin notes that there are limits to Obama and Cameron’s mutual appreciation, and explains why Miliband needs to be more specific. David Blackburn examines the ‘essential relationship’, and says that the helicopters fiasco has added to the Libyan fog of war. Jonathan Jones discovers that DSK’s troubles have not benefitted Sarko. Nick Cohen has some advice for the footballer formerly known as CTB. Rod Liddle regrets

NHS Reform: In praise of ‘cherry-picking’

The British Medical Association (BMA) has always been a trade union with elements of professionalism on the edges. Its report this week on the NHS reforms was the work of unadulterated, self-serving trade unionism. Our modern trade union leaders would have been embarrassed to publish it, even Bob Crow. It tries to portray competition as the opposite of co-operation, when competition is the opposite of monopoly, in this case a public sector medical monopoly. Competition describes an arrangement under which teams of people co-operate with each other to find better ways of serving customers than rival teams of collaborators. The co-operation of which the BMA speaks is a weasel word

Peter Hoskin

Off target

Target culture. It’s a pejorative phrase, and understandably so. As we discovered during the New Labour years, targets designed to encourage good public services can frequently do the opposite — replacing genuine care with box-ticking, and action with bureaucracy. I mention this now because of an article in this week’s Spectator (do subscribe, etc.) by an anonymous Metropolitan Police officer. He describes how a target culture has skewed the work of the force and, in some cases, even the law itself. Here’s one anecdote, which rather sums it all up: “I know of one instance in which a uniformed sergeant stole (or neglected to hand in) some confiscated cannabis. Instead

David Blackburn

Less listening, more talking

There was an exchange on Question Time last night that may go some way to explaining why the government’s health plans are so mired. One panellist, media lawyer Charlotte Harris, said that she was very worried by the substantial cuts being made to the NHS’ budget. Large sections of audience greeted this with rapture. (From 44 mins.) Immediately, Tory Louise Bagshawe and Lib Dem Jeremy Browne tried to grab David Dimbleby’s attention. It fell to Bagshawe to correct Harris, pointing out that the government has increased spending on the NHS when Labour would cut. The audience responded with boos – more in disbelief than disagreement, incredulous that the Tories would

James Forsyth

Michael Gove to appeal Shoesmith verdict

Whitehall sources say Michael Gove will appeal the Court of Appeals judgement which decided Sharon Shoesmith’s dismissal was so ‘legally flawed as to be null and void’ to the Supreme Court. Although Gove recognises that Balls blundered in the way he dismissed her, he also believes that there are important constitutional principles at sake in this case about how Ministers make important and urgent decisions and what the role of the courts is in challenging such decisions. Gove wants the Supreme Court to consider these issues because of the huge importance of judicial reviews, which are being used repeatedly by opponents of the government to try and stymie its agenda.

James Forsyth

Shoesmith in line for up to a million in compensation following sacking over handling of Baby P case

Sharon Shoesmith, who was head of children services in Haringey at the time of the Baby Peter case, is set to receive a sum that could be as large as a million pounds in compensation. The Court of Appeal has ruled that the way Ed Balls, then the secretary of state, and Haringey took the decision to dismiss her was procedurally unfair to Shoesmith and so she was not lawfully removed, entitling her to compensation possibly including full pay and pension for the last couple of years. Shoesmith might be legally entitled to this money. But given the circumstances in which she is receiving it and the institutional flaws exposed

Kate Maltby

Notes on a Scandal

Deborah Warner’s latest production tries so hard to be outrageous, one almost wants to fake shock out of pity. When The School for Scandal first opened in 1777, it was lauded for its witty dissection of a shallow society obsessed with rumour and status, what William Hazlitt called ‘the habitual depravity of human nature’. Layer on a proliferation of iPhones, parade a line of Gucci bags on stage, and fuss around with several gratuitous rounds of coke-sniffing before the first scene is over, and Warner has found a quick-cook, no-thought-required recipe for a pop-art take down of our continuing, contemporary depravity. It’s all earnestly ‘relevant’, labouring the need to justify Sheridan’s pertinence

Daniel Korski

President Lagarde?

When President Nicolas Sarkozy dispatched Dominque Strauss-Kahn to the IMF in 2007, he did it to remove a potential competitor. Now, however, the French president may be trying to do the opposite: use the IMF post to create an heir and successor in finance minister Christine Lagarde. Lagarde was on Today this morning, explaining why she was ideal for the job: “Firstly, because I want it… Second, because I can do it…. Number three, because I would be extremely proud to do it.” If she lands the IMF job, which seems likely, she will be well placed, as DSK was, to make a run for the Elysee in 2017, whether

Thursday

26 May 2011

James Forsyth

Tory MPs launch NHS reform counter-offensive

Nick Clegg’s speech on the NHS today has fanned the flames of the Tory backbench rebellion on the issue. Tory MPs’ tribal instincts have kicked in and even those who were worried about the Lansley plan are now swinging behind it. As Nick Watt revealed earlier today, there’s currently a letter from Nick de Bois urging Tory MPs to set out their red lines on health service reform. One thing that Tory MPs keep repeating to me is that they are not prepared to see the Lib Dems ‘take the NHS backwards’. This is their most fundamental red line and it translates to a determination not to have the level

James Forsyth

Lansley’s original reforms are off the table

Nick Clegg’s speech on the NHS this morning was not as bad as many feared it would be. It recognised that there is a role for competition in the NHS, something that the Lib Dems were questioning last weekend, and that the NHS needs to be opened up to any qualified provider. But, on the other hand, the idea that any willing provider should be able to deliver NHS services — an idea which was in the manifesto of all three parties — will now only be introduced at a glacial pace. There’ll also be a two-tier NHS for the foreseeable future with some areas having GP-led commissioning, while NHS

Alex Massie

Thought Crime in the Brave New Scotland

It cannot be said that Alex Salmond’s ministry is off to a good legislative start. Not when its immediate aim is, apparently, to rush through ill-considered, illiberal, speech-curbing legislation that asks the public not to worry about the detail and trust that the legal authorities will not actually enforce either the letter or the spirit of the Offensive Behaviour in Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill. According to Salmond: “I am determined that the authorities have the powers they need to clamp down effectively on bigotry peddled online. The Internet is a force for good in so many ways – but it can also be abused by those who seek to spread hatred. That’s

Alex Massie

Netanyahu’s Myopia

What scares Israel more than anything else? Not, I wager, the rockets flying over the fence from Gaza or even, at least on a quotidian basis, the Iranian shadow. No, what happens if the Palestinians say Yes? Granted, the Palestinian leaderships – not without their own battles – have persistently demonstrated a fatal lack of imagination. Jerusalem or Bust and it’s always been Bust. But if the Palestinians could bring themselves to acknowledge the Jewish state, Israel would find itself in a corner, hemmed in by the Palestinians’ engagement, international pressure and its own sense of what kind of country it should be. But freezing the conflict – which is

Peter Hoskin

Cable’s punditry could come unstuck

“It’s not imminent. But you can see this happening.” So sayeth Vince Cable about the prospect of another global financial crisis, in interview with the New Statesman today. To be fair, you can see his point: there is a pervasive sense that the contradictions of the banking sector still haven’t been fixed, and — as I have written recently — our economy, and economies worldwide, are still afflicted by debt of all varieties. But that’s not going to calm those Tories who regard Cable as a combustive liability. In the weeks since the Lib Dems’ annihilation at the polls, the Business Secretary has increasingly reverted to his pre-coalition form: a

Daniel Korski

Grading Obama’s visit

It was a good state visit. Actually, it has been an excellent visit. Much better than George W Bush’s and even Barack Obama’s 2009 trip to London. The US president got his photo with Wills ‘n’ Kate. The Prime Minister got his presidential high-fives. There were some odd points. The personal chemistry between David Cameron and Barack Obama made the ping-pong match better than it would naturally have been. For, let’s be honest, table tennis is not a natural US-UK sport. There were policy differences between the two leaders too, for example on Libya and deficit reduction. In the end, though, the way to judge visits is not to think