Society

Monday

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 20 December 2010

…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson previews the coming war between the coalition and the councils. James Forsyth highlights the ‘end of men’ debate, and says that princes and politics don’t mix. Peter Hoskin reports on some less than encouraging polls for Ed Miliband, and observes Vince Cable taking it to the banks. David Blackburn says that the localism bill will empower communities, not councillors, and dissects Operation Coulson. Daniel Korski battles the snow at Gatwick airport. Martin Bright wonders whether Ed Miliband is getting any advice on foreign affairs. Nick Cohen notes the differences between US and Cuban healthcare reforms. Susan Hill celebrates

Daniel Korski

Gay America rejoices

This week will give Barack Obama’s liberal credentials a significant boost. On December 18th, the Senate had a  successful cloture vote in favour of a bill to repeal “Don’t ask, don’t tell”. DADT as it is commonly known restricts the US military from trying to discover or reveal closeted gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members, while it bars those who are openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual from military service. The bill has now passed in both Houses of Congress and it only awaits President Obama’s signature. As my friend R. Clarke Cooper, Executive Director of the Log Cabin Republicans, and one of several prominent ex-officers to lead the fight against

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

‘The end of men’ debate

Hanna Rosin’s ‘the end of men’ thesis is one of the more interesting socio-economic and cultural arguments out of there. Rosin’s view is that women are simply better suited than men to the new economic environment and thus will increasingly pull ahead of men, reversing old gender dynamics. Rosin points out that, in the US, 13 of the 15 professions expected to grow the most over the next decade are female dominated, that around 60 percent of bachelors and masters degrees are earned by women and that young women earn more than young men. Intriguingly, where parents in US fertility clinics are trying to determine the gender of their child,

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The coming war between the coalition and the councils

Cameron vs the councils may well be the most vicious political battle of 2011 – and one I preview in my News of the World column (£) today. It comes in four stages. First was last week, when the increasingly impressive Eric Pickles said he wanted a 27 percent cut in funding over four years. Grant Shapps weighed in behind him – saying that even 8.9 percent in a year (the maximum cut facing councils) was do-able without any cuts in frontline services. The councils, predictably, said it is not possible. And the threats have started. The strategy amounts to nothing less than a human shield strategy. “If you make

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Michael and Me

I have had an email from someone called webguy @ michaelmoore.com – who may be the great propagandist himself or perhaps one of his “people” – saying that the US State Department’s claim that the Cuban communists banned Sicko is false. (“Nick, The government cable’s claim that Sicko was banned in Cuba is false. Would appreciate a correction whenever you have a moment. thanks, MichaelMoore.com”) For what it is worth, I believe Moore. Why would a dictatorship not want to show a flattering description of life in its country? Even though the captive audience would know it was not true, the sight of foreigners repeating the regime’s propaganda could only

Saturday

Robin Oakley

The turf: A good read

When I told a story involving Elizabeth Taylor at a charity lunch lately my host capped it with a better one. Princess Margaret and the screen superstar once dined together in New York. Part way through the meal La Taylor thrust forward her hand, on which glittered one of the chunkiest, most famous diamonds in the world, and asked, ‘What do you think of that?’ Looking disdainfully down her nose, Princess Margaret declared, ‘Personally, I find it rather vulgar.’ At which her dining companion whisked the ring off her finger, slipped it on to one of Margaret’s and inquired challengingly, ‘So what do you think of it now?’ That comes

Melissa Kite

Real life | 18 December 2010

Deck the halls with anti-wrinkle cream. Fa-la-la-la-laaa-la-la-la-la. ’Tis the season to be racked with insecurity. Fa-la-la-la-laaa… I don’t know why Christmas should remind us of failure and doom. It’s meant to be a celebration of the greatest beginning of all time, the birth of Jesus and the possibility of everlasting life (albeit it after death, although I’m not fussy — I’ll take everlasting life in whatever format it’s being offered). And yet all it does is make me think about how old and lonely I am. It doesn’t help that my birthday is on 1 January, or that I sat next to a famous chef at a Christmas party the

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 18 December 2010

Before I climbed up into the jeep, the man in charge of our small party stepped forward, shook my hand and introduced himself as a ‘professional naturalist’. ‘Bloody hell,’ I said, thoroughly impressed. I’d expected a guide or a park ranger, not a full-blown naturalist. I was the last to board the open-sided jeep and introduced myself to my fellow passengers. Beside me was a couple from south London, Jerry and Kelly, and behind us a middle-class Indian family: a shy man, his voluble wife and between them a portly son about 12 years old. They were up from Mumbai for a few days tiger-spotting and bird-watching. At the entrance

Taki

High life | 18 December 2010

New York This is a bad time of year for atheists. So much so that they are showing signs of desperation. In the cesspool that is Uncle Sam’s capital, an unusual Christmas message began appearing last week on the side of buses and trains: ‘No god? No problem!’ Some 270 of these ads have gone up, paid for by secular groups in cities around the country. Similar signs are being placed on buses and billboards in New York, Las Vegas, Chicago, Los Angeles and other Sodom and Gomorrahs, including London, Toronto and Montreal. I say, so what? Sometimes I think the anti-Christian forces take Christ more seriously than most nominal

Interconnect

Diary: Ann Widdecombe

What is it that people do not understand about the concept of retirement for politicians? Those who think I should not have participated in Strictly Come Dancing seem to believe I am doing a job called ‘ex-politician’. I have no idea what it involves. I have left the House of Commons and have not been invited to join the House of Lords, which must surely leave me free to do anything I like as long as it is legal. Only popes and monarchs stay in post until they die. Actually, there are strong similarities between a dance competition and life in the Westminster village: smart manoeuvres, about-turns, fancy footwork, audience

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 18 December 2010

Last year, we stopped sending Christmas cards. We are not sending them this year either. I still feel guilty about it: friends take the trouble to send such nice ones. Part of the problem — as well as laziness — is technology. Emails make one extremely conscious of the number of separate operations required by ‘snail mail’. You need the card (whose choice is also a complicated matter), the envelope, the addresses, the stamp, the pen, the post box, and the energy to write your name hundreds of times. This all seemed worthwhile when one had confidence in the postal system. But ever since the abolition of the ‘second’ post

Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety: Pinteresque festivities of yesteryear

My father was a big believer in Christmas. That is to say, he liked the idea of it. My sister and I were the products of his second marriage and he would usually invite the children of his first marriage to our house for lunch. It could be quite tense, with undercurrents of rivalry and resentment, but all the children made an effort to keep the atmosphere festive. It was if we were characters in a play by Harold Pinter pretending to be characters in a Morecombe and Wise Christmas special. We did this to protect our father’s feelings, I think. He was the opposite of a paterfamilias. His strategy

The Spectator

Letters | 18 December 2010

Too stern a test Sir: I commend Oliver Lewis for his well-made points about the lack of rigour in British examinations in comparison to those of the Chinese (‘The Gaokao challenge’, 11 December). We need to up our game. The Gaokao exam is not beyond rebuke, however. The extremely high level of academic standards in China puts terrible pressure on the nine million students who take the exam. This year, three suicides were reported on the first day of the Gaokao. The fact that such reports emerge every year suggests a balance needs to be struck between improving our academic standards and pushing the students too far. Sebastian Payne London

The Spectator

Barometer | 18 December 2010

Their year — 2010 was the International Year of Biodiversity and the Nurse (both according to the UN); and the Year of the Seafarer (International Maritime Organisation), the Lung (Forum of International Respiratory Societies) and the Tiger (China). — 2011 will be the International Year of Forests (UN) and Chemistry (UNESCO), the European Year of the Volunteer (European Commission) and the Year of the Bat (United Nations Environmental Programme), the Bible (Methodist Church), the Zinnia (National Gardens Bureau) and the Rabbit (China). — The UN International Year of Youth began in August 2010, and will continue until July 2011. Anniversaries of 2011 Some well-known and lesser-known anniversaries of 2011: King James Bible                              

Peter Jones

Ancient and modern | 18 December 2010

Last week, David Cameron’s enthusiasm for finding out how happy we all are — as if it were any business of his — led us to consider some Greek views of the matter. Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra; sed vitam faciunt balnea, vina, Venus proclaims a neat elegiac epitaph from Rome, expressing a common popular viewpoint — baths, wine and sex may wreck us physically, but they help make life worth living. Roman thinkers, however, were as keen as Greeks to discover the happiness that withstood all onslaughts. Stoicism, a Greek invention, was one answer. The basic tenet was that divinity was rational and omnipresent, suffused through nature, ‘like

Andrew Sullivan

Taking the world as it is

Michael Oakeshott’s philosophy fits no ideological or party label – but there is no better case for conservatism I met him only once. He lived at the end of his days in a tiny slate cottage near Langton Matravers on the Dorset coast. On a damp November day, he came to greet me at the gate to his small garden, made me a small lunch of cold meat, and then sat me down in front of a coal fire to talk. I was in awe; he seemed thrilled to have a Harvard doctoral student examining every word he had ever published. And at the time, in November 1989, his delight

Martin Bright

Winning the argument

Whenever I worry that my instinct for pluralism and debate is drawing me to listen to siren voices, I am reminded of the idiocy of the authoritarian alternative. This week I had the honour of being singled out by the Islamist fellow-travellers of iEngage after I dared to write that such a sectarian organisation should never have been considered to act as the secretariat for the new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia. The full letter from the head of iEngage, Mohammed Asif, is available on the organisation’s website. This is the meat of the gripe: “It is the machinations of journalists like Martin Bright who have through their disreputable work

David Blackburn

What Kemp’s intervention says about local government

An original Liberal Democrat councillor from Liverpool called Richard Kemp has labelled Eric Pickles and Grant Shapps Laurel and Hardy. Kemp is adamant that savings cannot be made by efficiencies alone; cuts will affect councils’ control of services. It’s a sharp observation. Indeed, he has located the precise point of the Localism Bill. Communities are being empowered; councillors are not. Pickles has introduced a radical agenda on which the dust will take time to settle. The Bill’s political genius is to devolve responsibility and enforce cuts without relinquishing financial control. At best councillors can fondle the purse; the strings remain largely out of reach. Bin taxes have been abolished; infrastructure levies on developers

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Princes and politics don’t mix

Max Hasting’s essay in the Daily Mail about the dangers for the monarchy of Prince Charles becoming king is an important moment. Hastings, who is very much part of the establishment, is reflecting a view that many hold in private: that Prince Charles’s desire to advance his political views is incompatible with a modern constitutional monarchy. As Hastings puts it, ‘he is so set in his ways, so accustomed to not being contradicted — because those who argue with him are swiftly expelled from his counsels — that I am convinced that if he becomes King he will persist in trying to save the world, and thus precipitate a crisis.’

Peter Jones

Classic mistakes

In a good omen for the newly announced fund-raising charity ‘Classics for All’, the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, stated in his White Paper the other week that Latin and ancient Greek would, after nearly 25 years, become officially permitted national curriculum subjects. So classics has finally come in from the cold. But why on earth were the languages frozen out in the first place? In 2006, Lord Dearing was asked by the then education secretary, Alan Johnson, to see what could be done about the dramatic slump in the number of pupils taking GCSEs in foreign languages. Languages had been made voluntary after the age of 14 in 2004. Since