Society

Saturday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 29 May 2010

Q. What should I do when other people in church begin clapping, for example following a confirmation service or a wedding? I cannot bring myself to endorse this terrible breach of etiquette by clapping myself, but it seems terribly pompous not to join in with the enthusiastic crowd. Name and address withheld A. Clapping is quite out of place in church but we must be thankful for the presence there of those who do not know this. Just act daft, as do those who do not wish to offer the sign of peace. Either kneel and pray or simply stare ahead with a silly look on your face. The moment

Melissa Kite

Weight watching

Can there be anything more disorientating than turning up at a restaurant to have dinner with someone who has brought a pair of digital scales with them to weigh their food? ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I said, as my friend pulled the state-of-the-art Salter slimline model from his briefcase the moment we sat down at our table. ‘I told you, I’m going to be weighing everything I eat from now on,’ he said assertively. ‘Don’t argue with me about this, I warned you I would be bringing them.’ My friend had indeed rung to warn me that he would be bringing a set of scales with him that

Jeremy Clarke

Cottage at a click

This is how it goes for flibbertigibbet morons like me. I’m at the laptop processing words and it’s not going well. I’m beginning to bore myself. With so much to see and do within reach of the tip of my middle finger, I take a break and go shopping. A click on ‘save’, another on one of the icons on my ‘favourites’ tool bar, and the next moment I’m sauntering through a virtual global bazaar where I can buy virtually anything from a second-hand car to an Ivy Compton-Burnett first edition. I acquired this taste for shopping late in life. Already this taste is showing unmistakable signs of turning into

Taki

Missing person

On board S/Y Bushido, off St Tropez My book party’s best line was Claus von Bülow’s, as told to Antony Beevor, Piers Paul Read, Paul Johnson and Sir V.S. Naipaul, among the literary worthies who took the time to attend the poor little Greek boy’s launch at Brooks’s. ‘The last book party I attended,’ said Claus, ‘was that of Leni Riefenstahl’s about 15 years ago. I had with me an Israeli friend, Ronald Fuhrer, who eventually got into a spot of trouble and had to flee England overnight. Ronnie went up to Leni, told her what a great admirer he was and asked her to sign his book. “How do

Robin Oakley

Family favourites | 29 May 2010

The best racing yards combine experience and tradition with youthful energy. Walk into Park House Stables, Kingsclere with the blackbirds swooping about their brood-raising business and you feel the vibes immediately. There is grandeur and solidity about the red-brick Victorian yards built by the great John Porter, trainer of 23 Classic winners, with their turrets and chimneys. But there is, too, under Andrew Balding a modern, cheerful informality. What was in Porter’s day the lads’ chapel, missed at your peril, is now the colours room for owners’ silks, prominent among them the Queen’s purple. Racing takes note of a good pedigree, and pedigrees don’t come much better than Andrew’s. His

Toby Young Toby Young

I was charmed by Ed Balls on television — but thankfully the feeling soon passed

This promised to be an awkward encounter. I was invited on to Newsnight on Tuesday to discuss the education bill in the Queen’s Speech and my opponent was to be Ed Balls. For me, this was a bit like an Albanian dissident being asked to participate in a studio discussion with Enver Hoxa. During the general election campaign I was an enthusiastic supporter of Antony Calvert, Balls’s Conservative opponent in Morley and Outwood, and published numerous articles taking him to task over his record as Gordon Brown’s schools secretary. Since then, I’ve become an energetic opponent of his bid to become the next leader of the Labour party. For instance,

The Spectator

Letters | 29 May 2010

Press Complaints complains Sir: Reluctant though I am to point out inaccuracies in Rod Liddle’s work, I would like to correct some of his suggestions about the Press Complaints Commission (Liddle Britain, 22 May). Mr Liddle claims that Paul Dacre is ‘Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission’s Editorial Code of Practice’. Incorrect. In common with most self-regulatory systems, the newspaper and magazine industry’s code is written by a committee of industry experts following public consultation. The editors’ code of Practice Committee, of which Paul Dacre is Chairman, is entirely separate from the PCC (which independently enforces the Code). Liddle says that the PCC ‘almost never acts against tabloids’. Untrue. The

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody | 29 May 2010

Monday Frantic Queen’s Speech rewrites. We’re having to take out references to ‘Dave’ and insert ‘my government’ — boring! I don’t see what’s wrong with ‘My Dave will build a Big Society where Britain is no longer broken, and chocolate oranges are kept well away from the cash tills at WH Smith.’ It didn’t help that the whole thing was leaked to the press, dropping us in it with the Palace who rang to ask ‘what sort of Mickey Mouse operation’ we were running. Not naming any sandal-wearing lefties, but we’ve decided on someone we’ll be blaming for this and all subsequent leaks. So he’d better keep up the ballroom

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 29 May 2010

There is an apparently successful book called Here Come the Tickle Bugs! by Uncle Sillyhead III. Its audience is among three-and-a-half-year-olds. ‘When children are silly, no kisses or hugs. Only tickles from the Tickle Bugs!’ At this point the adult reading the story is meant to tickle the child. I can see the attraction, from the child’s point of view. Veronica loved being tickled, for a bit. Sometimes, though, it made her feel sick. My husband says that in 1897 a couple of American psychologists called G. Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin came up with a distinction between two kinds of tickling, knismesis and gargalesis. Knismesis is the light tickling

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 29 May 2010

Last Thursday, I got a rush-hour train out of London and sat down in a second-class carriage. Soon I found myself sitting opposite a minister in the new coalition. I was surprised by how much pleasure it gave me that, following the new guidance, he was not travelling first-class, or by official car. I let him doze, and when he woke up, I asked him a few questions in pursuit, as we like to say, of journalistic inquiries. Having drivers on hand at all times is, of course, a huge convenience for ministers, but that is why it is also a bad thing. They quickly forget that one of the

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 29 May 2010

In her 58th speech at the state opening of Parliament, the Queen said: ‘My government’s legislative programme will be based upon the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility.’ In her 58th speech at the state opening of Parliament, the Queen said: ‘My government’s legislative programme will be based upon the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility.’ Among the 22 bills proposed were provisions for a ‘significant acceleration’ in the reduction of the annual state deficit, to be achieved mainly by less spending rather than by more taxation; a ‘significant increase’ in personal income tax allowances in the emergency Budget next month; establishment of state-funded schools outside local authority control; abolition

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 29 May 2010

A ‘bonfire of laws’! How agreeable! But European law is sacred; government will make the final decision, whatever we want; and it cannot be done sensibly without a far more demanding operation. A ‘bonfire of laws’! How agreeable! But European law is sacred; government will make the final decision, whatever we want; and it cannot be done sensibly without a far more demanding operation. The Lex Aquilia (after its proposer Aquilius, c. 287 bc) dealt with unlawful killing, and one section is devoted to ‘four-footed beasts of the class of cattle’. So which animals — apart from cows and bulls — are those? The Roman jurist Gaius (c. ad 160)

James Forsyth James Forsyth

This resignation is a disaster for our public life, the coalition and the nation’s finances

David Laws’ departure from government is a massive blow to the British public life, to the coalition and this country’s chance of returning to fiscal sanity. It is depressing beyond belief that a man with David Laws’ talent has been driven out of public life. His breaking of the rule on expenses was motivated not by venality but by a desire to keep his personal life private. It was hard not to well up on reading these line from Laws’ statement last night, “I’ve been involved in a relationship with James Lundie since around 2001 – about two years after first moving in with him. Our relationship has been unknown

David Blackburn

Can he stay or must he go?

Paul Waugh and Matthew D’Ancona are debating whether David Laws will stay or go. D’Ancona is plain that Laws must go; Waugh wonders if this is an ‘Ecclestone moment’ and that Cameron and Clegg will dig in. John Rentoul agrees with Waugh. Laws’s situation looks bleak, and Andrew Grice concludes that Laws is no longer master of his fate. But it is not hopeless and Laws can survive. Laws is indispensible to the coalition – especially with left-wing Lib Dems Menzies Campbell and Simon Hughes increasingly intent on dissent. Second, who would replace him? There’s more talent on Virgin TV than there is on the blue and yellow benches, and

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Nobility of Defeat

  As you know, it’s Ivan Basso in the picture here and on Saturday, for the first time and on the penultimate stage, in this year’s Giro d’Italia he will wear the race leader’s Maglia Rosa. He deserves it too. On the Zoncolan and then yesterday on the Mortirolo pass Basso has been the pride of the field in this year’s superb Giro. Increasingly I rather suspect that the Giro is a better and, in some ways, tougher race than the Tour de France. The frequently terrible weather conditions play a part in this but so too do the unforgiving Italian mountains. In any case this has been a Giro

The Spectator

Old hat?

When John F. Kennedy was sworn in as president in 1961, he shocked America by refusing to wear a hat during his inauguration address. His decision seemed to precipitate a sharp decline in the wearing of hats. The state opening of parliament is by no means the British equivalent of an inauguration and Samantha Cameron is no JFK. But her decision to go bareheaded on Tuesday raises an urgent question about the state of the British hat. Mrs Cameron looked delightful in the gallery of the House of Lords, where — technically — she was not required to wear a hat. But the custom of wearing headgear on certain occasions

Matthew Lynn

The death of the male working class

This recession is a global ‘mancession’, says Matthew Lynn, with male-dominated industries collapsing and women getting a greater share of new jobs. But if work is turning into a female domain, what are we going to do with all the redundant men? Remember the feminist slogans of the 1970s? Phrases such as ‘A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle’ and ‘Adam and Even’ sounded comic at the time. Now, 40 years on, they seem less like the absurd hopes of the dungaree-clad sisterhood, and more like shrewd insights into the economic future. The once preposterous-sounding idea that women would outnumber men in the workplace is now

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

Adventures in La-la land

As the Coalition forces prepare to pull out, other Brits commit to real ‘nation-building’ — educating the next generation. Mary Wakefield reports from rural Afghanistan Snow melts in the Hindu Kush, trickles through the foothills, sluices across flood plains scattered with pink anemones then runs noisily through Worsaj district down to the village of Qanduz, where it is drowned out by the sound of children shouting, ‘I love you!’ They’re either side of a dirt track, the children, throwing glitter, clapping, waving plastic flowers. In front of me, Sarah Fane, the object of their devotion, shakes hands and accepts so many garlands that soon only her eyes are showing above

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Now the war on poverty can begin

Iain Duncan Smith comes striding into his office with the look of a man who still can’t quite believe his luck. Even the very un-Conservative artwork on the walls of his office can’t dampen his spirits. He explains that it was the choice of his predecessor (‘what was her name? Ed Balls’s wife…’). Yvette Cooper’s choice of paintings, it seems, is not long for this world. ‘I’ll have to get some pictures of battle scenes,’ he says — looking at his aides with a mischievous grin. They, too, seem unable to believe that they have finally made it to the Department for Work and Pensions. It is an unlikely nirvana.

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Prince Philip is my favourite, but in fact I love all the royals

I became a monarchist in the late afternoon of 19 November 2009; a dark and chilly day, damp brown leaves blowing balefully along the gutters, the smell in the air of a hard winter to come. This ended more than 30 years of what I considered principled soft-leftish republicanism; the notion that however practically effective and traditional the royal family might be — all those tourist dollars, plus a sense of national continuity — it was still sort of wrong. Monarchists would argue with me, saying listen, if we didn’t have the Queen, we’d have Tony Benn or Ken Livingstone or Boris Johnson as an elected president — an idea