Society

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Baked Alaskan: Stick a Fork in Sarah Palin. She’s Done

I hope one can still use cooking metaphors in this new age of low-key rhetoric, right? Anyway, this has been another Bad Week for Palin Inc. She’s been traduced this week and the statement she’s released today, while typically punchy, isn’t likely to change anyone’s opinion. Nevertheless, the fall-out from the Tucson shootings has damaged the erstwhile Governor and added weight to the sense, fair or not, that nominating her may be more trouble than it’s worth. I think her prospects of winning the Republican nomination have been sliding quietly for some time (whatever the polls say) and this week’s events do nothing to change that. Among the reasons why

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Mixed attitudes towards the cuts

Forget the voting intentions, the real action in YouGov’s latest poll comes in the supplementary results. There, as Anthony Wells suggests, are attitudes towards spending cuts that will both perturb and hearten the coalition. Let’s take the bad stuff first: “Asked if the government’s cuts will be good or bad for the economy only 38% now think they will be good, compared to 47% who think they will be bad. In comparison between October and December last year it was roughly even between people thinking the cuts would be good and those thinking they would be bad. On whether the cuts are being done fairly or unfairly, 57% now think

Martin Bright

The Blairite permanent revolution

I find myself asking the question again. Why did the Coalition decide to cut and reform at the same time? In terms of raw electoral politics it cannot be explained. If Cameron and Clegg had come to power promising not to tinker further with the health service and the education system, but simply to manage the cuts they would have had a much easier ride. Welfare reform is a different matter – popular in principle but devilishly difficult when it comes to the detail. Matthew d’Ancona captures the scale of change well in his Sunday Telegraph column: ‘At breakneck pace, the Coalition has set in place blueprints for fiscal recovery,

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Panda Politics

A coup for the Royal Zoologocial Society of Scotland which announced today that it will take delivery of and house two Giant Pandas, courtesy of a deal with the Chinese government. A coup too, I dare say, for Alex Salmond who will be happy to accept whatever credit you may care to bestow upon him. I believe the going rate for a panda is something like $1m a year but Edinburgh Zoo will certainly be able to afford that. Hard to imagine pandas actually breeding in Edinburgh, but who knows? If a McPanda ever emerges I hope it gets a better name than “Butterstick” – the unfortunate moniker slapped upon

James Forsyth James Forsyth

An arena where words are dangerous

‘it was a deranged individual living in a time and place where anger and vitriol had reached such a fever pitch that we had dehumanized those in public life’ The words of Andrei Cherny on the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords are worth reflecting on. Political discourse has a tendency to hyperbole. But sometimes people need to think through the logic of their rage. For example, all those people who carried round signs saying ‘Bush=Hitler’ should have considered the implications of what they were saying—who of us would not have thought it right to assassinate Hitler if possible? Equally, those who talk about people being traitors should remember what the traditional

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 10 January – 16 January

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

Sunday

Archbishop Cranmer

SPOTIFY SUNDAY: Salvation Song

This week’s Spotify Sunday playlist has been selected by Archbishop Cranmer, whose blog on religion and politics is no doubt familiar to many readers of this website. We’re grateful to him for contributing to the Spectator Arts Blog. There is nothing which invigorates His Grace’s ashes more than the old battles of Church and State; the interminable clash of the sacred with the profane; the divine disapproval of all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil. And so his mind and spirit (and blog) are perpetually preoccupied with that place where religion meets politics and politics becomes secular religion. Or, as Sir Humphrey might say, where the

Alex Massie Alex Massie

An Assassination in Tucson

Washington is such a small place that it’s little surprise to discover that I know people who were friends with at least one of the people murdered in Tucson yesterday. The attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords during which six people, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old, were murdered is an appalling atrocity that if the shooter weren’t a young, white man would probably be considered an act of domestic terrorism. Far less appalling than the act but still disconcerting (though hardly surprising) was the rush to pin ultimate responsibility for the murders on someone other than the gunman himself. Toby Harnden has a good post rounding-up some of

Saturday

Alan Judd

Motoring: Designer’s dream

I have seen the future and it looks like a Jaguar. It’s sleek and curvaceous and, although it’s a fraction under four-feet high, ingress and egress are easier than in a flattened fag-packet Ferrari. A 195bhp electric motor at each wheel means 0–62mph in 3.4 seconds and zero tailpipe emissions in urban use. Switch on the diesel-powered twin turbines and you can recharge on the move, giving a range (with a 60-litre tank) of 560 miles and nugatory emissions of 28g/km of CO2. Above all, it’s beautiful. That’s what makes you think it must be a Jaguar. Confirmation came in the form of Jaguar’s legendary designer, Ian Callum, in Knightsbridge

Robin Oakley

The turf: Ups and downs

The more unctuous of vicars tend to assure us through December that ‘the true joy of Christmas lies in giving’. There are moments, however, when one’s faith in such advice is sorely tested. After trawling most of the West End, Mrs Oakley had this year secured the ultimate outfit for Grandchild No. 5. Unfortunately, when we moved house in early December, the package containing dress, blouse, headband, etc. disappeared. Ultimately, there was no option but to search through the remaining 53 unopened boxes of books, which have been stowed in an icy cold, unlit outhouse until we build shelves to accommodate them. The removers, we felt, just might have tucked

Melissa Kite

Real life | 8 January 2011

‘Hello, Miss Kite, this is the RAC solutions centre.’ Oh, dear god, it’s all over, I thought. Nothing except the exact opposite of a solution ever comes out of a place called a solutions centre. I had hit a curb while driving over Chelsea Bridge and my front tyre was in shreds by the time I’d nursed the car to a side street. I abandoned it (it’s a convertible with no spare) and went to wait at a nearby friend’s house for the recovery people. For a while, however, I could not remember who I had breakdown cover with. This is because, like everyone else, I suspect, I have to

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 8 January 2011

The registrar opened a screen and clicked and typed her way down a list of questions. I was ‘giving notice’ of our intention to be married after a statutory 15 days had passed. It was the day before Christmas Eve. ‘Has either of you been married before?’ she said. (She was tired and distracted. So many elderly people had died in this recent cold snap, she’d told me earlier, she was run off her feet.) ‘No,’ I said. ‘Your partner’s full name?’ she said, fingering her mouse. For a split second, before it came to me, my mind was a blank. The registrar eyed me speculatively as she touch-typed. ‘And

Taki

High life | 8 January 2011

Six hours into the new year and already there was trouble. My own bash to welcome 2011 with 50 of my nearest finished around 5 a.m., so I rolled down towards the Palace hotel still looking for some action. I had a very pretty German girl in tow, Fiona, a friend of my son, so I swept into the lobby in style. Then it happened. I saw the vision to end all visions and a desperate, sensuous pain — the type that can make a grown man cry out — hit me as never before. This is the curse upon those who follow the supreme Beauty — that is to

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 8 January 2011

Q. A close friend has married, in later life, a very nosy and mischievous man. She adores him and keeps boasting about what a computer wizard he is. Unfortunately, I have sound reason to believe he has been hacking into my emails and reading them. It was pretty smart of him to work out my password but this he undoubtedly has done. I have nothing to hide but I resent the invasion of my privacy. I don’t want to embarrass my friend by confronting her husband directly. As my own husband says, ‘what grown man in his right mind would bother to hack into a Sloane Ranger’s email account?’ How

Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety: Moccasins don’t make you a murderer

Like many people, I’ve been following the saga of Joanna Yeates’s murder with rapt attention. Unfortunately, I’m not at all confident that her killer will ever be caught. The Avon and Somerset Police just don’t seem up to the job. To begin with, they neglected to intercept her rubbish and that of her neighbours before it was carted away by dustmen after she’d been reported missing. The upshot is that they now have to sift through 293 tonnes of the stuff to stand any chance of finding a missing pizza box. (She bought a Tesco pizza on her way home from the Ram pub on the last night she was

The Spectator

Letters | 8 January 2011

Godly geologists Sir: Bruce Anderson’s article in your Christmas special (‘Confession of an atheist’, 18/25 December) was a great example of the thoughtful and reasonable atheism of which we have been starved over recent years. That said, he still makes one howling and oft-repeated error when he claims that Christianity never recovered ‘from the loss of medieval cosmology and the emergence of modern geology’. The idea that it was science that was somehow responsible for the waning of Western religion is a relatively recent one, its origins lying in a number of popular but egregious histories of the two disciplines published in the late 19th century. It is badly wide

Peter Jones

Ancient and modern | 8 January 2011

Every year the situation in Afghanistan is reassessed, and every year the conclusion is the same — mixed military progress, but otherwise, zilch. Every year the situation in Afghanistan is reassessed, and every year the conclusion is the same — mixed military progress, but otherwise, zilch. Romans would not have gone there, at least not on the terms that we are there. The Roman empire was a success, for the Romans at any rate, because it was under their total control. When they moved into places like the Greek East, they were dealing with cultures that were largely urbanised. Administrative structures were in place to handle governance and taxation, and

The Spectator

Barometer | 8 January 2011

Prison regimes A riot at Ford Open Prison in Sussex raised questions as to the regime in jails. This is some of what prisoners can expect: — Category A (Whitemoor, Cambs): work opportunities in recycling, laundry and restoring computers for schools in Africa. Courses in thinking skills and anger management. Gym, sports hall and Astroturf. Prisoners may apply for two PE sessions within a working week, one in the evening and two at the weekends. Acupuncture for staff and prisoners. Visits Thur-Mon 1400-1600, must be booked 24 hours in advance. — Category B (Wandsworth): courses include bricklaying/plastering, industrial cleaning. Multi-choice pre-select menu with halal and vegetarian options. Visits every morning

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 8 January 2011

Home Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, said that the rise in VAT from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent would cost the average family £7.50 a week. George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: ‘If you look at the population and how much they spend, then VAT is progressive.’ The average price of a pint of lager rose to more than £3. A railway season ticket to Sidcup rose by 12.5 per cent, among many others higher than the average of 5.8 per cent. In some places domestic rubbish went uncollected for a month because of bad weather and holidays. A fox weighing 28lb was trapped at Maidstone

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Society can’t function without some degree of trust

One of the most worrying developments of recent years has been a belief that any adult who wants to teach or help children should be suspected of immoral tendencies. This has led to a belief that even the most innocent of actions should be seen as perverted until proved otherwise. It is harder to find a purer expression of this viewpoint than the videos produced by the musicians’ union called ‘Keeping children safe in music’ and backed by the NSPCC. These videos urge music teachers never to touch children while teaching them. When you consider the process of teaching someone how to play the violin or the piano, you realise