Society

Saturday

Taki

High life | 14 May 2011

Why would a German playboy-billionaire industrialist with a large family and lots of old and good friends have dinner in Gstaad with one of his closest buddies, then go up to his chalet and put a bullet in his brain? As of writing, Gunter Sachs’s suicide is a mystery. But Gunter was always somewhat mysterious, and I have known him since the late Fifties. His uncle, Fritz von Opel, was the heir to the Opel car fortune and lived the grand life in St Moritz and St Tropez, where he had opulent houses. Von Opel was his uncle on his mother’s side. His father was also an industrialist — Sachs

The Spectator

Letters | 14 May 2011

Parting could be sweet Sir: Your leader (‘Disunited Kingdom’, 7 May) omitted to mention that if Scotland becomes independent, tens of thousands of British government jobs will be moved to England, and as many again from the private sector will invigorate our northern cities, as the financial organisations now based in Edinburgh will have to move their operations to be based in the country in which most of their business is transacted. Obviously, the Shetland Islands will have to be given the option of independence from both England and Scotland, which they will undoubtedly accept, and the North Sea oil fields will then be divided between the three countries according to

The Spectator

Barometer | 14 May 2011

A better class of tourist — The Seychelles tourism industry received a boost with the announcement that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are to spend their honeymoon there. — Like many island states in the tropics, tourism is a huge part of the economy: just over half the country’s GDP and 70 per cent of its foreign currency earnings. When 12 dead sharks were discovered on a tourist fishing trip in 2006 it was a national crisis. — Yet the Duke and Duchess won’t have to share the beaches with too many grockles: hotel beds have been limited to 5,000, and annual tourist numbers have been capped at 150,000

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 14 May 2011

A rumour ran round Cern the other day, almost as fast as its accelerated particles, that the Higgs boson had been detected. This little creature, named after Peter Higgs (born, 1929) and the Indian physicist S. N. Bose (1894–1974), is tailor-made for a cosmic theory that calls for its interaction with quarks. For my part, I’d be happy if we could even decide how to pronounce quark. Cern says it is pronounced kwork. After all, you might think its inventor, the American Murray Gell-Mann (also born in 1929) would know, and he said in a letter to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1978: ‘I employed the sound quork [kwork] for

Peter Jones

Ancient and modern | 14 May 2011

If Romans had had such a concept as a ‘right to life’, their jurists would have dealt with the question whether it should be possible to lose it. Given that the salus (safety/security/well-being) of the people should be the ultimate law (Cicero), one can guess what their answer would be. But whatever one’s view of bin Laden’s tragic passing, al-Qa’eda’s preference for settling disputes with the bomb and gun throws up a juicy prospect: there is a vacancy for a new mastermind. The collapse of the Roman republic in the 1st century BC was down to dynasts such as Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar using the might of soldiers loyal

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 14 May 2011

Home Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader and deputy Prime Minister, said: ‘People want a louder Liberal Democrat voice in government,’ after his party did very badly in local elections and saw its proposal of the alternative vote defeated in a national referendum. Mr Clegg said there would be ‘substantial and significant changes’ to the stalled NHS reform Bill. Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Business Secretary said that the Conservatives had emerged as ‘ruthless, calculating and thoroughly tribal’. The Conservatives were left controlling 157 councils of the 279 contested (an increase of four), Labour 57 (an increase of 26) and the Liberal Democrats ten (a decrease of nine). In the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Another blow to the Lansley plan

Number 10 has now taken charge of coalition health policy to such an extent that the Department of Health press office was caught unawares by the news that the Prime Minister was to deliver a major speech on health next week. David Cameron is determined to present the coming substantial changes to the Lansley reform plan as the changes he wants, not the ones forced on him by the Lib Dems. To that end, the head of the NHS future forum, a body Cameron has set up to oversee the NHS listening exercise, Steve Field telling The Guardian that he thinks all competition should be removed from the bill is

Peter Hoskin

Back to the start on a military covenant

I suppose you could call it an O-turn. First, the Prime Minister declared, in a speech aboard HMS Ark Royal last year, that a new military covenant would be enshrined “into the law of our land.” Then, there seemed to be a U-turn, with the government committing only to review the covenant annually, not to lend it legal force. Yet, now, a U-turn on the U-turn, with the news that it will be etched into the staute books after all. The defence minister Andrew Robathan tells today’s Telegraph that, “we are putting the military covenant on a statutory basis for the first time.” The formal announcement is expected in the

Michael Thomas-Duffy

Web exclusive: the global free schools network

A dozen years ago the charter school movement found me when I volunteered my time as a member of the governing board of the MATCH Charter High School in Boston. American charter schools are taxpayer funded public schools that are independently managed, akin to the free schools that are taking root in England now. I’d been a civil rights activist, having headed the civil rights enforcement agency for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, when I became captivated by the promise that charter schools held to redress the achievement gap between black and white students. While in London recently to attend the ‘Schools Revolution’ conference sponsored by this magazine, I was struck

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 14 May 2011

Lucy Vickery presents this week’s Competition In Competition No. 2695 you were invited to submit the last will and testament of a fictional character. It is always striking when it comes to a challenge of this sort how like-minded the comping community is in its choice of fictional characters. There is a pretty wide range out there, but Toad, Miss Havisham, James Bond, Bertie Wooster and Falstaff popped up again and again in the entry. Barry Baldwin’s version of 007’s parting shot deserves an honourable mention, as does Shirley Curran’s Eeyore: ‘To the coalition government I leave my realistic outlook; things can only get worse.’ The winners, printed below, get

Matt Ridley

Diary – 14 May 2011

A day in London for the launch of my new report ‘The Shale Gas Shock’, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. I argue that shale gas calls the bluff of the renewable energy movement in the same way that genetically modified crops called the bluff of the organic farming movement. Just as GM allows the organic dream of drastic cuts in pesticide use to come true without high cost, so shale gas promises gradually to displace both coal (in electricity generation) and oil (in transport), drastically cutting carbon emissions without needing subsidy. Since subsidy is the lifeblood of most of the busybodies in the energy business, and since good

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Politics: Lib Doom

When politicians start complaining about the media, you know that they’re in trouble. When politicians start complaining about the media, you know that they’re in trouble. This weekend, a Liberal Democrat minister bounded up to me to complain about a double standard in the way that his party was reported. ‘Yes, we’ve lost councillors but we’ve gained five Cabinet ministers. Did anyone ever say that Tony Blair should resign because he was eroding Labour’s base in local government?’ The minister’s bullishness couldn’t disguise the fact that the Liberal Democrats are staring disaster in the face. Not only did they lose 695 councillors last Thursday, but they are also in danger

Iain Martin

How to save the Union | 14 May 2011

Alex Salmond will be a formidable opponent – so David Cameron needs to fight on his own terms In Aberdeen this week, a new statue of Robert the Bruce was unveiled. Canny, daring and tenacious, he is a king revered for an audacious victory that altered the course of Scottish history and secured his country’s independence from England. It is easy to imagine Alex Salmond plotting where his own statue will be, how tall the plinth. He has the same ambition, to win Scotland’s independence, and his battle plan is not entirely dissimilar. In Bannockburn, a much larger English force was destroyed on the battlefield as a result of its

George Bridges

Too many toddlers

A new baby boom is reaching school age, and we’re not prepared Some time in the next week or so, all being well, my wife will have baby number three. That means more hours spent in Battersea Park’s playground, a flocking place for parents who inhabit that sliver of south-west London known as Nappy Valley. Go there any Saturday morning and you’ll see toddlers everywhere: squabbling on the swings, pushing each other off the pirate ship. Having lived in London for 20 years, I’m used to a crush of commuters. But toddler overcrowding strikes me as something new. There are now Nappy Valleys all over Britain — places feeling the

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

If the slebs think the tabloids are bad, let them deal with the people who read them

Well, knock me down with a Ferrari, who’d have thought it? Jemima Khan and Jeremy Clarkson! The fragrant, pouting Mima — epitome of well-bred, bankrolled, metro liberal hand-wringing faux angst — getting it on with the dishevelled reactionary so far to the right-of-centre-he’s-almost-in-the-median-strip petrolhead Jeremy. Well, knock me down with a Ferrari, who’d have thought it? Jemima Khan and Jeremy Clarkson! The fragrant, pouting Mima — epitome of well-bred, bankrolled, metro liberal hand-wringing faux angst — getting it on with the dishevelled reactionary so far to the right-of-centre-he’s-almost-in-the-median-strip petrolhead Jeremy. It’s like finding out that Harriet Harman has been secretly knocking off Jim Davidson behind our backs. Or Shami Chakrabati

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The chattering classes

Louise Stern on what the deaf really think of ‘hearing people’ I’m at my desk in London chatting to a deaf woman in Mexico. We are communing through the internet. At 17.57 GMT, an instant messenger bubble pops on to my computer screen: ‘Louise Stern: Hi Freddy, it’s Louise’ and the interview has begun. It’s miraculous, when you think about it. Louise Stern is the author of Chattering Stories, a recently published collection of short stories about adventurous deaf girls in the big noisy world. Louise has a very original writing voice, and critics say that she enables them to understand for the first time what it must be like

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Neighbourhood botch

‘Localisation’ is an expensive path to greater political corruption The last time the Dorset village of Cerne Abbas played a part in national debate was in the 17th century, when — recent studies suggest — locals carved a rude chalk parody of Oliver Cromwell into a hillside. It failed to unsettle Cromwell, but the village may yet be the nemesis of another Oliver: Oliver Letwin, architect of the government’s pet policy of localism. Cerne Abbas is one of 17 communities selected by the Department for Communities and Local Government to prepare a ‘neighbourhood plan’. This, theoretically, is the opposite of Labour’s top-down approach in which government planners in Whitehall or

Patrick Marnham

CONGO NOTEBOOK

Kisangani, capital of the province of Orientale, Democratic Republic of the Congo, once Zaire, is the setting for A Bend in the River, V.S. Naipaul’s grim masterpiece, published in 1979, about post-colonial reality in central Africa. Naipaul’s plot describes a tribal war that threatens the city. This actually happened 20 years later, when Kisangani became a battlefield for the bandit armies of Uganda and Rwanda. The city is now controlled by General Jean-Claude Kifwa, commander of the 9th Military Region of the Armed Forces of the DRC. We arrive to find that the temperature has reached a seasonal 40 ºC. A thunderstorm lasting most of our first night reduces this

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Is there any hope in politics for pointy-headed intellectuals?

When the Alabama governor George Wallace described intellectuals as ‘pointy-heads who couldn’t ride a bicycle straight’, he coupled two insults. When the Alabama governor George Wallace described intellectuals as ‘pointy-heads who couldn’t ride a bicycle straight’, he coupled two insults. The first — ‘pointy-heads’ — went straight into the legend and remains there, though I’d always thought intellectuals had domed heads. Less remembered is the second barrel of Wallace’s revolver. But in five words it contains a potent argument. ‘Couldn’t ride a bicycle straight’ is a subtle insult for it suggests that what intellect needs as an accompaniment — and ‘intellectuals’ may lack — is instinct. To balance on a

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Magnificent young men are ready to die for us, but that doesn’t mean we should let them

I’m in Dallas, Texas, for a Heritage Foundation conference when who should march into my hotel but a battalion of US marines, ahead of their deployment to Afghanistan. I’m in Dallas, Texas, for a Heritage Foundation conference when who should march into my hotel but a battalion of US marines, ahead of their deployment to Afghanistan. I watch, agog. The marines all look desperately young, even the ones who’ve done several tours of duty. Interestingly, though they all must have bonded intensely in the field, off duty they still socialise by ethnic group — blacks with blacks, Hispanics with Hispanics, and so on. Later, I ambush a senior NCO and