Society

Saturday

28 May 2011

Shoesmith strikes at Balls and executive power

Sharon Shoesmith cut into Ed Balls on the Today programme this morning. She said: “Why don’t we ask Ed Balls why he acted on November 12, 2008 when he knew for 15 months that Peter Connelly had died and I was working with his officials, I was going to the government office, they were reading the draft reports. Haringey council knew all about it. We examined the conduct of our social workers, we found a disciplinary against them, but they weren’t sacked – all of that was open and clear and on the table and everyone knew everything about that. It wasn’t until the spat in the House of Commons

James Forsyth

You couldn’t make it up: Crook freed from jail to look after his five kids

Sometimes I wonder if the judiciary and the human rights culture are just trying to make Richard Littlejohn’s columns look understated. Today’s story in the Daily Mail about how a convicted criminal has been freed from prison because of the effect that his incarceration was having on his children is in real ‘you couldn’t make it up’ territory. Wayne Bishop, a father of five, had been sentenced to eight months behinds bars after pleading guilty to burglary and dangerous driving. But he has now been freed after judges worried about the effect of his imprisonment on his childcare arrangements given that he and his partner have split up and Bishop has

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 28 May 2011

Lucy Vickery presents this week’s Competition In Competition No. 2697 you were invited to take as your first line ‘How do I hate you? Let me count the ways’ and continue in verse for up to a further 15. Readers are no doubt familiar with the given first line, which comes, with an impertinent tweak, from the penultimate sonnet in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sequence of 44, ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’. And, on the subject of tweaks, Gerard Benson tells me that if you look at EBB’s manuscript in the British Museum Reading Room you will see that line 12 of the poem originally read not, ‘I love thee with the

Angela Huth

How does it feel?

A couple of years ago I was walking across a ploughed field when I was struck by such a searing pain in my left foot that I fell to the ground, moaning in harmony with the rooks above me. After half an hour of massaging my toes I was able to hobble the half-mile home. As this seemed to be no ordinary pain, I went to the doctor, who had no exact explanation, but referred me to the hospital. ‘A damaged nerve,’ they said. ‘Needs to be scanned.’ But three appointments were cancelled, and the foot attacks came frequently, so with reluctance I went privately to an orthopaedic consultant in

Helen Wood

Diary of a call girl

It emerged today that Helen Wood is going to set to appear on the next series of Big Brother, which begins this evening. Here’s her Spectator Diary from 2011, in which she explains how the daughter of a university lecturer ended up as a call girl. A few years ago I was offered £450,000 to tell the world that Wayne Rooney had paid to sleep with me, but I didn’t take it. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. Whatever impression Rooney and his sort give, escort girls are usually very discreet. A good reputation is invaluable. In my case, I knew that both my work and my home life would

Rod Liddle

Is there anything more sickening than the red-top press swathed in moral indignation?

At last we crusaders for truth can reveal exactly what happened when a famous footballer who is married met the former Big Brother contestant, Imogen Thomas. I suppose you could guess what happened, but it’s better to know for sure, isn’t it? Don’t worry, we’ll use phrases like ‘asked her to perform a sex act’ rather than crudely spelling it out, so there’ll be nothing to disquiet the kiddies. It will probably involve us — the crusaders for truth — shelling out a few quid to do so, to pay off one or another source of information about how and where the ‘sex act’ was performed and whether it was

Michael Henderson

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