Society

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

How to Improve Tennis

Kevin Drum is in danger of becoming a lapsed tennis-fan. In particular he laments the elimination of the serve-and-volley style of play: […] I find myself following tennis less and less every year. Why? Because it’s gotten boring. Sure, today’s players are phenomenal athletes, covering the court like gazelles and routinely hitting breathtaking shots. But every match is the same, what I’ve come to think of as “thug tennis”: huge topspin forehands, booming two-handed backhands, and endless baseline rallies. The power and shotmaking are mesmerizing at times, but in the end, I can hardly tell the players apart these days. […] I know the current state of the game has

Monday

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 13 September – 19 September 

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

David Blackburn

Avoiding confrontation with the heirs of Scargill

The unions are bent on confrontation. The elephantine Bob Crow, finding unlikely inspiration from Malcolm X , has called for a ‘campaign of civil disobedience’. Brendan Barber has described his hot-headed colleague’s remarks as ‘unhelpful’, and so they are. The situation is complex: the public sector is a Leviathan but one that provides lucrative contracts for private firms specialising in defence, financial services, consultancy, health etc. Cuts have to be very carefully managed to avert discontent and disruption – as Francis Maude observed on the Today programme. Yet the government still relies solely on the refrain that these ‘cuts are necessary’. It must offer more detailed arguments, and it has

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

What it is to be British

What is it about the British and flag waving? I ask after watching last night’s superlative BBC Proms, a brilliant end to the best season for years. On HD and wired to the hifi, it was all the better. As the end approached, my Czech mother-in-law asked: if this is Britain’s flagship musical event, why are there so many foreign flags? It’s hard to explain. Britain has a mutating relationship with flags and nationality. Twenty years ago, the Union flag was used in England matches, then devolution came and the St George’s cross made an emphatic comeback. I’m sure I saw a Cornish flag last night, and at least one

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Downing Street hole that Cameron needs to fill

The coalition is about to face a lot more pressure. From September the 25th, there’ll be a new Labour leader orchestrating the attacks on it. Then, on October 20th the coalition will have to spell out cuts the like of which we haven’t seen in Britain for generations. If the coalition is to get through this period, it’ll need its own operation to be fighting fit. As I say in the Mail on Sunday, there’s a need for someone in Downing Street to tie the whole operation together, to see round political corners for the coalition. The coalition’s Downing Street is, compared to most political operations, a fairly harmonious place.

David Blackburn

The government should return the unions’ fire

The TUC is mustering in Manchester and its leaders are in bellicose mood. Brendan Barber has called for a general strike; Bob Crow, brimming with the satisfaction of having wrecked London’s transport earlier in the week, has called for his members to ‘stand and fight’ the government’s cuts. These statements have a ‘Me and my executive’ air to them, so ludicrous as to be beyond parody. But the message is rousing and clear. Not so the government’s – as Fraser argues today in his News of the World column. The government is caught in an intellectual cul-de-sac. Its sole refrain is that these cuts are Labour’s cuts and they are

Saturday

Melissa Kite

A victim of fine

Sometimes I think it would be easier if the government deducted a set amount from my bank account every month to cover ‘incidental stealth taxes’. Sometimes I think it would be easier if the government deducted a set amount from my bank account every month to cover ‘incidental stealth taxes’. I’ve noticed that it is less painful to pay your gas and electricity bills by direct debit, so I’m thinking some sort of ‘minor traffic infringements’ standing order might be a good way to proceed. HM Gov and I could arrive at an estimated figure of what I, as a law-abiding citizen, inevitably manage to rack up in fines each

Jeremy Clarke

Lost highway

Deep breaths. Swap ‘Hound Dog’ Taylor for Toumanie Diabaté. Wind window down, rest bare arm on sill. Feel warm breeze on bonce. Tell self to overcome anger as only hurting self. Tell self to count blessings, live in moment. Tell self kids back at school next week, after which fewer holidaymakers, traffic less horrendous. Tell self, finally, no need to hurry, film doesn’t start for an hour. A sharp bend in the road ahead. Our procession goes very slowly round the bend then comes to a dead stop. The combine harvester has caught up with the tail end of a queue of stationary traffic snaking down to the T-junction. I

Taki

Caught in the net

Gstaad One thing is certain, perception and reality sure are different, and we have the not-so-new peekaboo journalism of Rupert Murdoch to thank for it. The internet, of course, is the wild west of the Fourth Estate, but, thank God, I don’t know how to read it and even if I knew I wouldn’t. It is a dark new world. Slander for money, although no one really gets paid. Blogging, reading politically racy websites, texting by cellphone, it’s all Latin to the poor little Greek boy. What it is is satisfying to the masses. Everyone now feels like a journalist, a profession that my father warned me against and even

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 11 September 2010

Q. I recently rented a villa near Nice belonging to friends of a friend and did it without an agent, which was probably a mistake. A faulty pipe caused flooding on the lower ground floor. Four plumbers came in and out of the house over four days but still one of my sons had to sleep on the drawing room sofa for three nights; the bathroom of the main bedroom was out of action for two days, as were the pool loo and shower throughout our two week visit, during which time the whole of the house was pervaded with a pungent smell of damp. I had deposited £2,000 for

Toby Young Toby Young

To set up our free school, we’re preparing to go into battle with the hard left

As you may have read, the West London Free School has been included among the ‘first wave’ of schools that have been given the go-ahead by the government to open next year. That’s an important milestone, but we haven’t yet arrived at our destination. In order to reach the Promised Land we’ll have to do battle with the praetorian guard of the educational establishment. As anyone who read The Spectator’s cover story two weeks ago will know, the hard left is prepared to use any means necessary to defeat Michael Gove’s educational reforms. Take Nick Grant, the most energetic opponent of the West London Free School. As secretary of the

The Spectator

Letters | 11 September 2010

Outfoxing the ban Sir: Your editorial (‘Fox news’, 4 September) rightly welcomes Tony Blair’s admission that the Hunting Act was ‘a fatal mistake’ as does everyone who hunts, although there is a certain frustration that he missed the clear opportunity to adopt compromise proposals that were available to him right up to the end of the parliamentary process. As far as the current government is concerned, I am not certain that you are being entirely fair. A free vote on the repeal of the Hunting Act followed by a government bill is not just a Conservative party commitment, it is now part of the coalition programme. Even those, like myself,

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 11 September 2010

Although Tony Blair in A Journey calls Alastair Campbell ‘crazy’; David Miliband ‘smart’; Gordon Brown a ‘strange guy’; and a barbecue given by the Queen ‘freaky’, I do not think this is part of his ‘love letter’ to America. Although Tony Blair in A Journey calls Alastair Campbell ‘crazy’; David Miliband ‘smart’; Gordon Brown a ‘strange guy’; and a barbecue given by the Queen ‘freaky’, I do not think this is part of his ‘love letter’ to America. Certainly these words are American in flavour, but their use hardly removes barriers of comprehension for his transatlantic audience. What interest are they supposed to have in Patricia Hewitt or John Prescott?

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 11 September 2010

Nearly six million people began to receive letters from HM Revenue & Customs telling them they had paid the wrong amount of tax. About £2 billion has been underpaid, at an average of £1,380 per person, and £1.8 billion overpaid, averaging £420 per person. Connaught, the social housing maintenance company, which employs 10,000 people, went into administration. As his special adviser resigned, Mr William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, issued a statement saying: ‘Any suggestion that his appointment was due to an improper relationship between us is utterly false, as is any suggestion that I have ever been involved in a relationship with any man.’ He said that they had occasionally

The Spectator

War and peace | 11 September 2010

One subject about which we hope pupils will always be taught is the Blitz, which began in London 70 years ago this week. The ‘spirit of the Blitz’ may have been over-romanticised, but it is right that the brave determination with which Britons faced the aerial assault remains a source of national pride. But British courage is perhaps not best recalled by the proposed new memorial to the airmen of Bomber Command in London’s Green Park. While no one can doubt that we are deeply indebted to the 55,573 who lost their lives, and who are already remembered at the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede, there is a good reason

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 11 September 2010

Public life for politicians does not seem to get any easier. Have, as a male, a close male companion, and if the tabloids are not after you, the posh papers will attack you for your insensitivity in pointing to your marriage and desire for a family to demonstrate that you are not gay — disgusting! Enter a coalition, and all disagreements will be disasters. In his ‘Rules for Politicians’, the Greek essayist Plutarch (c. ad 46-120) gives sensible advice about all this. Any decision to enter public life must not be based on ‘an inability to think of anything else to do’; nor must one do it to make money,

David Blackburn

Field caught between reality and fantasy

Frank Field’s been thinking. He will make his report on poverty next week and he hints at its contents in an extensive interview with the Times (£). He is convinced that there is more to social mobility than money and he has some brilliantly simple ideas to alleviate poverty. He advocates creating four or five terms in the school year to shorten the long summer holiday, which he argues disadvantages the poor. ‘They have less help at home so they lose out even more in long holidays. They drop behind, they are not being read to or tutored or talked to in the same way as many middle-class children. They

Lucy Parsons

Beating the vested interests

This is the next of our posts with Reform looking ahead to the Spending Review. Earlier posts were on health, education, the first hundred days, welfare, the Civil Service, international experiences (New Zealand, Canada, Ireland), Hon Ruth Richardson’s recent speech and how to sell the case for cuts.  On Thursday, I took part in a spending review debate in West Bromwich, part of a series the BBC held across England (my colleague Patrick Nolan wrote about his experiences in London and the East here) to discover the public’s views on what should be cut or saved in their local area.    I felt a bit of an intruder talking to

Peter Hitchens

The Book of Common Prayer should be our manifesto

What a pity it is that all the hate and slime now directed against the Pope’s visit is not aimed instead at the Church of England. Why do God-haters and militant secularists have to turn on a pensionable German theology professor and head of a Rome-based religious multinational organisation, when they want to condemn the steadfast defence of Christian morality? For at least some Anglicans, the savaging of the Bishop of Rome will give rise to sinful pangs of envy. We would like Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman — and, I am rather compelled to mention, my brother Christopher — to be hurling their fiery darts at Thomas Cranmer’s church instead.

Dominic Cummings

How to solve our welfare problem

Dominic Cummings meets Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize-winner who has the answer to some of the West’s intractable problems. So why won’t politicians listen to him? One day in 1974, at the height of the famine in Bangladesh, an economics teacher from a nearby university wandered into a village called Jobra. There he found the ladies of Jobra struggling to survive. No proper bank would deign to lend to them, so in order to finance their tiny basket-making businesses the ladies were forced to borrow from loan-sharks and pay punitive interest rates. ‘This is absurd,’ thought the teacher, Muhammad Yunus. ‘There’s enough misery around without these women being burdened by