Society

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

517/1

The first thing to be said of a test in which a side batting third can score 517/1 is that the wicket was not fit for test match cricket. The second is that, for once, this did not matter. Hilarity trumped common sense. None of us, not being present for the Melbourne test in 1912, can recall the 323 run stand shared by Jack Hobbs and Wilfred Rhodes but, somewhat sadly, that’s now been wiped from the record books by Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott. Actually, the wicket was worse than even 517/1 suggests. The teams combined for a score of 624/2 in the second innings. That’s a Sri Lankan

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 29 November – 5 December

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

Eamonn Butler

Going for broke

It won’t be for a while yet, but the UK seems headed for another financial crisis. And this time, the government won’t be able to blame the banks. The blame will lie squarely on our own determination to vote ourselves generous healthcare, welfare and pension benefits in the hope that our children will calmly pick up the bill. This giant welfare-state Ponzi scheme is bound to collapse sometime – though you can be pretty sure that the politicians running it won’t end up in the slammer alongside Bernie Madoff. An ageing population means that all those benefits we vote ourselves today will be simply unaffordable tomorrow. You believe the national

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which

All right-thinking people regard David Abraham, the chief executive of Channel 4, as being morally superior to Dawn Neesom, the editor of the Daily Star. By modern standards, Channel 4 is a great liberal institution. Its dramas, when it can afford to make them, are edgy and transgressive. Its journalists make no effort to hide their leftish biases. Indeed, they appear so confident that only the corrupt or the wicked could disagree with them that I doubt that they regard their biases as biases at all – simply the attitudes any serious person must possess. The Daily Star by contrast is sub-literate rag for onanistic underclass men that mixes soft

Daniel Korski

Julian Assange: the new face of anti-Americanism

Like everyone else, I have poured over the latest cache of Wikileaks – the publication of which I find irresponsible and destructive. There are several pieces of information now in the public domain that will cause the US diplomatic embarrassment or worse may even help the regimes in Tehran, Pyongyang and Moscow. Just ask yourself a few questions. Will the West be safer if the Saudi leader cannot trust that a conversation he has with a US envoy will remain secret? Will that help or hinder Iran’s nuclear prpgramme? Will US-German links be improved by the knowledge that US diplomats are sceptical of Angela Merkel’s policies? Will that aid G20

Sunday

Daniel Korski

Are they the children of the revolution?

The student protests are an important short-term development, which will undoubtedly worry the coalition. But are they also, as the Met Commissioner noted, a harbinger of something else: namely, a return to a late 1960s, Continental-style protest, which will encourage other groups – from Tube drivers to Tamils – to use sit-ins, strikes and ultimately street-based violence as a political tool. The NUS rejects that their tactics are associated with violence, knowing it will turn the majority of English people against them. Blame is heaped on small groups of agitators. Anthony Barnett argues that unlike in the 1960s, “the relationship to violence is also much better, as shown by the

David Blackburn

Lansley’s NHS revolution

Round n in the transparency revolution: Andrew Lansley has welcomed the publication of the latest Dr Foster hospital list, detailing post-operative failures in NHS care. The Observer reports: 1) Almost 10,000 patients suffered an accidental puncture or laceration. 2) More than 2,000 had post-operative intestinal bleeding. 3) More than 13,000 mothers suffered an obstetric tear while giving birth. 4) Some 30,500 patients developed a blood clot. 5) 1,300 patients contracted blood poisoning after surgery. Despite record investment and targets for standards, the NHS still suffers setbacks in the mundane that have severe consequences – according to the report, several hospitals have ‘dangerously high death rates’. A defender of the NHS’

Daniel Korski

A degree of truth

Tuition fees work. By the standards that any progressive is supposed to hold dear – higher overall participation rates in universities and higher participation rates among low income groups – experience from other countries shows that fees work. As the think tank Centreforum showed four years ago in an in-depth study, fees have long been the norm in Australia, New Zealand and the United States and these countries have seen “their universities’ reputations grow and their higher education participation rates rise across the social spectrum.” Meanwhile, the UK has been sliding backwards. In 2000, the UK had the third-highest graduation rate among OECD countries, with 37 percent of young people

David Blackburn

Some early statistical vindication for IDS

The Observer has news that will warm the government’s hearts. Ernst and Young have conducted a report that suggests 100,000 public sector jobs will be saved thanks to the savings made by welfare reform. The report’s other finding, a crucial one, is that the Treasury will be raking in £11bn by 2014-15. So then, a statistical vindication for IDS’ reforms, the economic side of them at least. It also gives the government some defensive hardware ahead of tomorrow’s Chancellor’s autumn statement. Not that it really needs it. On the back of Britain’s strong economic performance in the third quarter, the Office for Budget Responsibility is expected to raise its 2010

Saturday

Peter Jones

Ancient and modern | 27 November 2010

No one yet has the remotest idea what the Big Society actually is. Had you asked a Roman, he would have told you: it was the rich spreading their largesse among the poor, as Pliny the Younger did (c. ad 61–112). In a letter to his friend, the great Roman historian Tacitus, Pliny describes a project he has set up which he wants Tacitus to support. He says, ‘I was visiting my native town a short time ago when the young son of a fellow-citizen came to pay his respects to me. “Do you go to school?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied. “Where?” “In Milan.” “Why not here?” To this the boy’s

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 27 November 2010

The big news screen at Victoria Station said, ‘Colin Farrell to play British bad boy.’ In 2004 the headlines were, ‘Colin Farrell to play bad boy in US TV drama.’ Earlier this year he was apparently ‘retiring his bad-boy ways’. The big news screen at Victoria Station said, ‘Colin Farrell to play British bad boy.’ In 2004 the headlines were, ‘Colin Farrell to play bad boy in US TV drama.’ Earlier this year he was apparently ‘retiring his bad-boy ways’. Why is a bad boy worth millions at the box office, when a bad father, a bad lover or a bad bet are as off-putting as cold burnt porridge? The

The Spectator

Now for the real examination

If William Beveridge were commissioned to write another report into Britain’s social ills, he would find that two of his ‘giant evils’ — ignorance and idleness — still stalk and shame Britain. If William Beveridge were commissioned to write another report into Britain’s social ills, he would find that two of his ‘giant evils’ — ignorance and idleness — still stalk and shame Britain. At the time, one might have argued that this was because schools lacked enough money or because the economy was a ruin. But today, when schools enjoy record funding and immigrants occupy one in seven jobs, only one conclusion can be drawn: that the welfare state

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 27 November 2010

Britain is to lend Ireland up to £9 billion. Home Britain is to lend Ireland up to £9 billion. ‘Ireland is a friend in need,’ George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House of Commons, ‘and it is in our national interest that we should be prepared to help them at this difficult time.’ British loans could be made via three routes: bilaterally through the European Union; through an agreement under the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism; and through the International Monetary Fund. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said that the number of workers coming from outside the European Union would be capped at 43,000, about 5,600 fewer than last year’s

The Spectator

Barometer | 27 November 2010

Having it so good Lord Young was forced to resign as an adviser to David Cameron after claiming that people in Britain ‘had never had it so good’. The phrase is associated with Harold Macmillan, who used it in 1957, but he was echoing the 1952 US presidential election slogan of the Democrat Adlai Stevenson: ‘You never had it so good.’ —The Republican, Dwight Eisenhower, attacked Stevenson’s claim in a powerful TV commercial: ‘Can that be true, when America’s billions in debt, when prices have doubled, when taxes break our backs and when we’re still fighting in Korea?’ —Stevenson lost the popular vote 45 per cent to 55 per cent.

The Spectator

Letters | 27 November 2010

Royally remote Sir: Perhaps Charles Moore’s concerns that the university education of Prince William and his future queen (The Spectator’s Notes, 20 November) could undermine national morale are unfounded. Reflection on my time as a St Andrews undergraduate 30 years ago has jogged memories of a surreal existence in a beautiful, remote seaside town, full of history, golf shops and bizarre traditions. Combined with the more normal student activities of non-stop partying and occasional bursts of frantic study, I would say that St Andrews University encapsulated a way of life very removed from the real world. Prince William and Kate Middleton’s time at St Andrews should prove to be the

Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety: I can’t wait for Superman

You have to admire the marketing savvy of Paramount Pictures UK. It has picked the perfect moment to release Waiting for Superman, a 111-minute documentary about the crisis in American education. It comes out this Friday, following hot on the heels of the government’s White Paper on education and Ofsted’s report on Labour’s education record. The conclusion of both the White Paper and Ofsted is that nothing is more important to educational attainment than good teachers and that is also the theme of Waiting for Superman. It follows the fate of half a dozen children, all of whom have applied for places at charter schools. We’re introduced to them at

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 27 November 2010

Q. The other day, when making a purchase in a rather poncy shop, I was taken aback when the assistant stared directly at the keypad while I was entering my PIN. Normally they make a point of rather ostentatiously looking away, but this one made a point of ostentatiously looking at the pad. I could not tell whether this was absent-mindedness, or to make the point that anyone working in the establishment must be above suspicion, or even some sort of double-bluff. I hesitated but then felt I had no option but to key the numbers in with him looking. Since then I have wondered how I might, without being

Robin Oakley

The turf: Peak power

Only over the past two or three weeks has the horse-racing community turned its attention to jumping but the National Hunt world has not been standing still. When Flat racing ended at Doncaster on 5 November, the racing phenomenon known as A.P. McCoy had already ridden 115 winners in the jumping season, which still has five months to go, while his perpetual pursuer Richard Johnson was on 88. Sadly, the same day came a stark reminder of the perils of the winter trade. If this is A.P.’s year, cemented by the great wave of public admiration and affection that greeted McCoy’s Grand National victory on Don’t Push It, it certainly

Melissa Kite

Real life | 27 November 2010

As Stefano the builder positioned his drill, I sat watching him serenely. In a few minutes my home improvements would be complete. One last storage unit would be fixed to the kitchen wall, thus bringing to conclusion three weeks of painting, plastering, carpeting and shelving. It has been an exciting time. Stefano and I are now joined at the hip. We had gone to Ikea to buy the shelving unit together in his battered Skoda estate, which lurched its way eccentrically around the South Circular because Stefano only uses fourth gear, including when trying to pull away from traffic lights. As the car wrenched and choked, I kept encouraging him