Society

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters | 1 May 2010

Making it work Sir: Your leading article (24 April) tells us that: ‘A hung parliament would be a disaster. Coalitions do not work in Westminster’s adversarial system.’ Can’t you see that the adversarial system, with its focus on doing down the opposition rather than on working collegially to decide what might be best for the nation, is exactly what we are sick of? If our voting preferences result in a coalition then we’ll expect our elected representatives to damn well make it work. If they let it become a disaster we may choose not to vote for any of them ever again. Derek Rowntree Banbury Dividing lines Sir: James Forsyth’s

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody | 1 May 2010

Monday Hoorah! After our triumphant hung parliament noose broadcast we are planning an even more direct appeal to the British public to give Dave the majority he deserves. In our next public information film — entitled ‘Britain, beware stupidity!’ — we will argue that the Lib Dem surge is proof that Gordon has made the electorate thick as two short planks. Lack of decent education and dumbing down means we now have a nation of voters so daft they are thinking of choosing Nick Clegg. This just shows why we must get Gordon out of power. Gids will look directly into the camera with a grave, sorrowful expression and say:

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 1 May 2010

Is this the glottal stop election? My husband shouts: ‘No’ a lo’ o’ bo’le’ at the television whenever Ed Balls or George Osborne come on. Is this the glottal stop election? My husband shouts: ‘No’ a lo’ o’ bo’le’ at the television whenever Ed Balls or George Osborne come on. He calms down when Vince Cable starts speaking. The glottal stop (plosive) is not lazy. The Cockney uses it instead of the t in Saturday, but it is quite hard to make that little obstruction of the throat in the right place. The sound is, however, still associated with rejection of the trappings of their upbringing. The glottal stop has

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 1 May 2010

On the eve of the third television debate by the leaders of Britain’s three main parties, on the subject of the economy, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a report on the size of the spending cuts and tax rises needed and criticised the parties for failing to set out how they would achieve them. On the eve of the third television debate by the leaders of Britain’s three main parties, on the subject of the economy, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a report on the size of the spending cuts and tax rises needed and criticised the parties for failing to set out how they would achieve them.

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 01 May 2010

After failing to lay a glove on David Cameron in his pre-election interview, the professional personality Jeremy Paxman is said to have called him a ‘smooth bastard’, an admission of failure if ever there was one. After failing to lay a glove on David Cameron in his pre-election interview, the professional personality Jeremy Paxman is said to have called him a ‘smooth bastard’, an admission of failure if ever there was one. Paxman’s problem is that, being merely an interviewer, he is master of none of the technical problems on which he was challenging the Tory leader. It is a subject on which Socrates was eloquent. A principle that lies

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Two more polls indicate a hung parliament with the Tories as the largest party

Two more polls have just come out, YouGov for the Sunday Times and BPIX for the Mail on Sunday. The two polls both point towards a hung parliament with the Tories as the largest party and both put the Lib Dems in second. YouGov have Tories 35, Lib Dems 28 and Labour 27 and BPIX Tories 34, Lib Dem 30 and Labour 27. If the Tories get the most votes and the most seats, as all the polls today suggest they will, Cameron will end up as Prime Ministers. The Lib Dems have said too often that the party with the most votes and the most seats has a mandate

James Forsyth James Forsyth

ComRes shows a ten point Tory lead

The ComRes poll tonight will also cheer the Tories. It has them with a lead of 10 points. The numbers are Tories 38, Labour 28 and the Lib Dems 25. The Tories are up two and the other two main parties are each down one. On a uniform national swing, this would leave the Tories 11 seats short of a majority. But I would be very surprised if the Tory operation in the party’s target seats did not produce a majority from a ten point lead.  

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Marginals poll suggests the Tories are on course for a majority of four

An ICM poll of Labour Tory marginals for the News of the World has Cameron getting a majority, albeit one of four. (Although, the write-through saYS that the majority of four assumes that every Unionist MP returned from Ulster will back the Tories which is not a given). These marginals polls are expensive and so are done rarely, but they are a more useful than standard polling as they show you what is happening in the seats that will make most difference to the result. It was famously one of these marginals polls that led to Brown calling off the election in 2007.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

ICM poll points to hung parliament with the Tories as the largest party

The Sunday Telegraph’s ICM poll has the Tories up three to 36, Labour up one to 29 and the Lib Dems down three to 27. Paddy Hennessy reports that the paper calculates that this would translate to the Tories having 279 seats, Labour 261 and the Lib Dems 78. Nick Clegg has always said that the party with the most votes and the most seats has a mandate to govern and so in these circumstances would likely allow the Tories to form a minority government by not making any deal with Labour. As I write in the column this week, the Tories would then press away with their emergency budget

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The ‘what if’ that must haunt Labour

I wonder how those Labour Ministers who didn’t move against Gordon for ‘the good of the party’ during the various coups feel this morning. They made a calculation last June that if Brown had been toppled in what would have been seen as a Blairite coup it would have taken the party a generation to get over the recriminations. But looking at the polls today and sensing the mood in the air, the partry could be just days away from coming third in the popular vote. It is hard not to think that an alternative Labour leader would have done better in this election than Brown. Indeed, the return of

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why the Guardian should have backed the Tories

The Guardian missed a trick today. It should have endorsed the Conservatives. As a regular reader of that great newspaper, I can diagnose the ailment: it is confusing intentions with outcomes. It wishes for a more progressive society, greater equality and the betterment of the most vulnerable. But it has not quite worked out that these aims cannot be achieved by a powerful government: and that state-directed attempts at promoting a “progressive” society actually make it less equal, more regressive and end up empowering a bureaucratic elite. The Guardian lets itself down here: it has focused on what is said – not what is done. In doing so, it does

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Reasons to Like Nick Clegg

As a person rather than as a politician, I mean. David has already mentioned Clegg’s taste for Germanic* classical music and now there’s another reason to approve of him. He’s a Beckett fan. If he comes out for cricket and Wodehouse, his party can have my vote… Here he is on Sam: Every time I go back to Beckett he seems more subversive, not less; his works make me feel more uncomfortable than they did before. The unsettling idea, most explicit in Godot, that life is habit – that it is all just a series of motions devoid of meaning – never gets any easier. It’s that willingness to question

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can Mr Cameron hang tough?

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics When the head of state herself has declared, after a lifetime of study, that ‘the British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be’, one wonders what hope there is for the rest of us if we wake up on 7 May to a hung parliament. We have become used to going to bed in the wee hours of Friday morning knowing who the new Prime Minister is. But this time the only thing that might be certain is the uncertainty. The Cabinet Office guidelines for a hung parliament are thorough and detailed. But they will not help with the media frenzy

Melanie Phillips

Welcome to the Age of Irrationality

It is a truth universally acknowledged that reason and religion are mortal foes. Reason deals a death blow to religion; religion is clearly irrationality on stilts. If only religion didn’t exist, reason would rule the world and there would be no more wars, tyrannies or murderous hatreds. It follows therefore that religious people are either stupid or unbalanced and are inimical to progress, modernity and happiness. Well, this universal truth isn’t true at all. In fact, reason is underpinned by religion — at least the Biblical variety. Without Genesis there would have been no Western science, no equality and human rights and no liberal belief in progress. I see I’ve already

Stanley Johnson

HMS Albion to the rescue

Stanley Johnson was a volcano victim — stranded in Spain with thousands of other British holidaymakers. Fortunately, the Royal Navy was on hand to bring him home in style Last week was quite extraordinary. My wife Jenny and I landed at Madrid airport on Monday afternoon, having flown overnight from Ecuador. We should have had an onward connection to London that afternoon, but because of the spreading cloud of volcanic ash, there were no flights. Next morning I was scheduled to take an early flight from Gatwick to the far north of Scotland to speak on behalf of my good friend, Alastair Graham, who is seeking to win the Caithness,

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

The cure for calling in sick

Asking NHS staff to call a medical hotline — rather than their boss — when they feel ill has cut ‘sickies’ by a quarter. Martin Vander Weyer meets the man behind the scheme It’s Monday morning and you’re feeling a bit below par. Maybe it was last night’s kebab, maybe it’s the bug that’s going round your children’s school. You ring a workmate and ask her to tell the boss you won’t be in and you’re not sure when you’ll be back. On Tuesday, still off colour, you try to get an appointment with your GP — but the receptionist blames staff shortages at the surgery for not booking you

Con Coughlin

Notes from a war zone

When Winston Churchill, as a young cavalry officer, found himself fighting the fierce tribesmen who inhabited the imposing mountainous terrain that defined the Indian empire’s northern border, he provided a graphic account of the brutality of the enemy the British force encountered. When Winston Churchill, as a young cavalry officer, found himself fighting the fierce tribesmen who inhabited the imposing mountainous terrain that defined the Indian empire’s northern border, he provided a graphic account of the brutality of the enemy the British force encountered. ‘At a thousand yards the traveller falls wounded by the well-aimed bullet of a breech-loading rifle,’ Churchill wrote in his account of the 1897 campaign, The

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Is Ian McEwan a global warming denier in denial?

How would you like to go on a freebie to the Arctic Circle for a couple of weeks? Here’s the deal: all your travel expenses are taken care of; you stay on a beautiful old sailing ship, most likely in some remote, picturesque bay far off the tourist map; you’ll see killer whales and polar bears, possibly even the odd narwhal; you’ll get to zoom around the pristine wilderness on skidoos; your food is prepared by a top Italian chef; there’s lashings of booze (albeit rather heady North African plonk); almost all your travelling companions will be famous in some way: Vikram Seth, Rachel Whiteread, Ian McEwan, Marcus Brigstocke. Oh

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 1 May 2010

In Competition 2644 you were invited to submit the views of an inanimate object, in verse, on its owner/s. Highlights of a large and entertaining entry included Gillian Ewing’s outraged iron — ‘She doesn’t use me half enough,/ But when she does she treats me rough…’ — and Mary Holtby’s unjustly accused oven, in fine indignant voice: ‘Victim of the botched assault,/ Soon I learn it’s all my fault, Great to hear a hopeless sloven/ Blame her inoffensive oven…’ There were harsh words, too, from Mike Morrison’s bicycle: ‘The Cornish-pasty headpiece/ Black Spandex bondage kecks/ That total tosser T-shirt/ And aviator specs…’ Congratulations, one and all. The winners, printed below,

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Motion pictures

What have Alan Sillitoe, novelist and gritty chronicler of working-class life, who died at the weekend, and Michael Mann, big-screen film-maker and gritty chronicler of Americana on the edge, got in common? Each have been responsible for a great movie about running. Sillitoe’s short story ‘The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner’ (1959) was made into a pioneering piece of British new-wave cinema three years later by Tony Richardson, and Michael Mann’s made-for-TV Jericho Mile is still a fantastic piece of sporting drama. What is it about running that captures artists, especially film-makers, and why — since Loneliness and This Sporting Life in 1963 — have we made only one other