Society

Saturday

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

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

In search of disorganised religion

Theo Hobson attends Grace, an alternative Christian service in west London, and finds it arty, irreverent, postmodern — and full of people seeking a new way to worship I went to church last weekend. Sort of. It was a Saturday evening service run by a group of laypeople in an Anglican church in Ealing. It’s a monthly event called Grace. What sort of people attend? Quite trendy ones. People who are a bit too trendy for normal church. The sort who know how to link a computer up to sound and visual equipment. No grannies, no kids. Soft club music pulsed as I entered, and a big screen showed an

James Delingpole James Delingpole

My moment of rock-star glory at a climate change sceptics’ conference in America

Wow! Finally in my life I get to experience what it’s like to be a rock star and I’m loving every moment. OK, so the drugs are in pretty short supply. As too is the meaningless sex with nubile groupies. But what do I care, the crowd love me and I love them. God bless America! God bless the Heartland Institute’s Fourth International Conference on Climate Change! You’d think it would be quite dull, a conference of 700 climate sceptics (or ‘realists’, as we prefer to call ourselves) cooped up for two and half days of intense panel sessions (‘Quantifying the Effects of Ocean Acidification on Marine Organisms’; ‘Green Eggs

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Don’t fear the RIPA: regulations have to be enforced, sometimes even covertly

You can’t trust the disabled. A lot of them are faking it. In the last year, there were 16,535 blue badges and 21,000 free bus passes cancelled by local councils, due to fraudulent use. Bloody disabled. They’re having a laugh. Imagine you were a local council. Don’t be squeamish. You can be a Tory one, if you like, from somewhere nice. Anyway, you’re this council, or a bit of it, and you have your suspicions that somebody is using a blue badge who shouldn’t be. Some young bloke, say, who got it off his Gran and now uses it, allegedly, to park each day outside his office. Sounds trivial, I

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 29 May 2010

In Competition 2648 you were invited to recast Kipling’s ‘If’ addressed to women. The nation’s favourite poem (rescued from a wastepaper basket, to which Kipling had consigned it in disgust, and reassembled by his formidable wife) was famously branded as ‘sententious’ by Orwell, but has illustrious champions none the less. Geoffrey Wheatcroft  argues that ‘it is only sententious if you have been taught to think so, if you see it as another admonition to play up, play up, and play the game, if you associate it with housemasters and scoutmasters and the sporting spirit. Not for the first time, it is easier to see what it really means if you

Kate Chisholm

Stalwarts of the airwaves

The BBC was not included in the Guardian’s poll of the UK’s ‘leading arts institutions’ at the weekend, which asked for their opinions on the new Coalition government and the prospect for ‘culture’ in an era of crunch. The BBC was not included in the Guardian’s poll of the UK’s ‘leading arts institutions’ at the weekend, which asked for their opinions on the new Coalition government and the prospect for ‘culture’ in an era of crunch. Strange? Perhaps the editor regards the BBC as invulnerable? Or, more probably, its programmes have become so much part of the wallpaper of our lives that their contribution to the thinking health of the

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Team Sky’s the limit

There was a remarkable picture in the Independent’s sports section the other morning showing a lone cyclist tearing up a mountain road in the Italian Alps. The high pastures were thronged with people — thousands of them — and most are cheering like crazy. The eye is caught by a green, white and red tricolore, held resplendently aloft. The race was the Giro d’Italia, second only to the Tour de France in the ranks of great stage races, and the cyclist was the 32-year-old Italian Ivan Basso. He was surging back into contention for the maglia rosa — yellow jerseys in the Tour but pink in the Giro — by

Philip Hensher

The modern vanitas

Unexpected parallels between our age and another are a staple of the jobbing journalist’s trade. Unexpected parallels between our age and another are a staple of the jobbing journalist’s trade. Usually coinciding with a major exhibition at the Royal Academy, such arguments tend to claim that there are a surprising number of similarities between, say, the Byzantine Empire and the way we live now. Despite the fact that these arguments often result from a brain-storming session round the conference table, there is usually enough there to sustain a page or so. Human nature does not change so much, and some very unexpected idiosyncrasies recur at regular intervals. Ferdinand Mount has

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Westminster’s next set of elections

Next week in Westminster is going to be dominated by the election of deputy speakers and select committee chairmen. On the select committee front, the party whips will agree on which party will chair which committee. Then, the chairmen will be elected by the whole House. There are some intriguing races in prospect. I’m told that Patrick Mercer, who was sacked by David Cameron and then went on to do a homeland security review for Brown, will challenge James Arbuthnot for the job of chairing the defence select committee. Richard Ottaway, the defeated candidate in the race to be chairman of the 1922 Committee, will, I hear, go for the

The Spectator

The week that was | 28 May 2010

Here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the past week: Fraser Nelson outlines the death of the male working class, and says that Michael Gove must guard against the vested interests. James Forsyth watches the Tory right reassert itself, and sets out the tactical considerations over the timing of the AV referendum. Peter Hoskin sees the media helping the coalition’s fiscal cause, and says the IDS agenda could help to end the benefits trap. David Blackburn argues that Ed Balls’s fighting talk is getting him nowhere, and gives his take on David Laws’s performance in the Commons. Daniel Korski calls for a new Afghanistan strategy. Martin Bright highlights a

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Cult of the Presidency: BP Edition

While Britishers have been getting used to coalition government, some things in America never change. In fact, if anything the Cult of the Presidency* is stronger than ever. True, the Obama administration has not always, or even often, done much to acknowledge any limits** on Presidential brilliance but the response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been wearying nonetheless. Apparently – and since almost every question at yesterday’s White House press conference was devoted to the spill the prisoners inside the Press Room agree – the President should have done more to “own” the spill and never mind the fact that the United States government

Thursday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The death of the male working class | 27 May 2010

Gender discrimination is illegal in Britain – but tell that to the recession. It has hit male jobs harder than female jobs and in a cover story for this week’s Spectator, Matthew Lynn looks behind it. This has been, he says, a Mancession, where “the jobs lost in the last two years have tended to be ones done by men, whereas the preponderance of new vacancies are in areas of the economy in which women do best.” I asked the ONS for the official figures – and here they are:   They show that, if you count everyone in Britain employed over the age of 16, there has been a

Peter Hoskin

The IDS agenda could help to end the benefits trap

Yesterday, it was Michael Gove’s schools agenda. Today, it’s the other main reason to get behind the coalition: IDS’s plans for fixing the welfare system. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has given a speech outlining them this morning. You can read it here, and I’d certainly encourage you to do so. There are plenty of welcome ideas in there, but none more so than IDS’s emphasis on removing disincentives to work from the tax and benefit system. We at Coffee House have banged on about his “dynamic” approach, developed at the Centre for Social Justice, for some time now – and with due cause. You can set

Peter Young

To increase capital gains revenues cut rates, don’t increase them

To address the deficit, George Osborne will probably have to raise taxes. This is a grim truth to which most people are reconciled. But raising taxes and raising revenue are two different things. If the Chancellor is serious about closing that deficit, then he would doubtless be interested in the idea that a Capital Gains Tax raise from 18 per cent to 50 per cent might be a chimera tax. That is to say, one which raises no money at all. Worse, in fact, the odds are that tax revenues will fall and the deficit will be made worse by this tax rise. The international evidence is absolutely clear. As

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Vince resigns as Lib Dem deputy leader

Vince Cable’s resignation as deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats has, predictably, sparked speculation about his motives. But one definite effect of his resignation will be to create a contest for the deputy leadership.  The deputy leader is elected by the parliamentary party. So it is unlikely that anyone will stand on a coalition-sceptic position. But it’ll be interesting to see if the job goes to someone inside or outside the government. If the deputy leader is not a member of the government, then they’ll be in a position to express Lib Dem as distinct from coalition policy.  

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Dudus’ ‘Shower Posse’: a model for diplomatic relations

Hello – a pleasure to be back, having spent a week in Italy, a country which believes itself to be a part of the European Union. Charming people, very pleasant place, you must try it, if only to enjoy the spectacle of grown men pottering around on scooters eating ice-cream. I think I mildly prefer our equivalent, which is grown men throwing up and kicking shit out of each other. But it’s a close call. The excellent champers winners – I haven’t sent the bottles out yet, but will do in the next couple of days. Apologies for the delay; I promise it will be with you long before the

Daniel Korski

Climate kamikaze

Several months ago, European leaders went to Copenhagen to save the planet. China, India and Brazil on the other hand went to the climate negotiations in Denmark to showcase the changed distribution of power in the world. Unsurprisingly, the Europeans came home empty-handed, shut out of the key negotiations and powerless despite what was meant to be a standard-setting promise of 20 percent cut in the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. The US and the rising powers struck a non-binding deal, the value of which is still being determined. Reading today’s cover story in The Times, the lesson the eco-friendly EU Commission seems to have drawn from this experience is that