Society

Saturday

The Spectator

Over to you, Dave

David Cameron is always at his best on budget day. This week his response was mocking. He dismissed as nonsensical the projections and figures which Alistair Darling gave to the House. And rightly so: it was the usual mixture of fairytale economics. But it was in keeping with Gordon Brown’s budgets — creative accounting applied to a nation, with cataclysmic results. It is almost funny to hear Mr Darling talk about the fact that the government overspend will be £167 billion this year rather than £178 billion. Both figures represent a monumental failure of the policy adopted by the government. Our national debt will rise from £617 billion last year

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 27 March 2010

Stephen Byers looks more like a seller as he touts himself round the House of Commons like a ‘taxi for hire’. Stephen Byers looks more like a seller as he touts himself round the House of Commons like a ‘taxi for hire’. Romans knew all about this sort of thing. The Latin for ‘electioneering’ was ambitio, and its cognate ambitus meant ‘bribery’. Since vote-winning was an honourable pastime, bribery did not mean corruption. It meant doing favours by offering gifts for something in return, which could (at a pinch) be seen to be in the public interest. Such a culture was at the heart of all relationships, social, political, legal

James Forsyth James Forsyth

‘Of course’ Darling will stay as Chancellor if we win, says Brown

The prospect of Ed Balls as Chancellor is politically toxic. James Purnell resigned last summer because he was sounded out about taking the schools’ job that Balls held, which Purnell took as a sign that Brown was planning to make Balls Chancellor. Mandelson saved Brown’s skin that night only by reassuring the rest of the Cabinet that Darling would remain as Chancellor. In recent weeks, the Tories have tried to make the idea of Balls being Chancellor after the election into an election issue. Their thinking is that the public would find this idea as unappealing as Balls’ Cabinet colleagues did. But in his Guardian interview today, Brown says that

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Thank God for the NHS

American healthcare makes our system look good, writes Ross Clark. But however revolutionary Barack Obama’s health reforms are, Americans will still pay through the nose Had I a more devotional attachment to free-market economics I suppose I would be joining all those Republicans condemning Barack Obama’s health reforms. I have written enough about the failings of the NHS over the years to fill an entire symposium at a Washington think-tank. How tempting, then, to echo the sentiments spewing out of Fox News, predicting US bankruptcy and state-sponsored euthanasia. ‘Say no to totalitarianism,’ appealed Republican congressman Devin Nunes, not content with the charge of mere ‘socialism’ made by many of his

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

This is far worse than MPs’ expenses

Stephen Byers either pimped himself out to big business and betrayed the electorate, or he didn’t, in which case he made fraudulent claims, says Rod Liddle. Either way, the public won’t tolerate this level of corruption I once fell into conversation with a whore, up on Streatham Hill in south London. A long time ago now; back then, in the early 1980s, it was a renowned red-light district. You’d look out of your window at night and see a street full of parked cars bouncing up and down, as if they were in a weird theme park. Whoreworld©. Most of us who lived there were propositioned from time to time,

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

My middle-aged llama Knapp turned into a sex pest. Something had to be done

An event has occurred which is not necessarily to my llama, Knapp’s, advantage. The tale, though it falls short of tragedy, is melancholy to relate. Knapp, now approaching what are, from a camelid time-perspective, his middle years (he’s about 11) has always done what he’s supposed to do well. Almost too well. He’s a stud. He comes from a fashionable llama ranch in the home counties. His uncle has featured in a fashion advertisement in The Spectator, being led through the streets of Notting Hill. His own portrait, standing proudly beside his rather crumpled-looking owner, has appeared in Country Life. He’s big, for a llama: strongly built, with a coat

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 27 March 2010

In Competition No. 2639 you were invited to submit a dialogue, in verse or prose, between a well-known writer and one of his or her creations. The entry was vast and bursting with wit. Barry Baldwin’s dialogue, in which Godot quizzes his creator on, among other things, why he wasn’t allowed to appear at the end of the play, was a cracker. There is just space to congratulate W.J. Webster, Chris O’Carroll, Adrian Fry, Paul Griffin, Sid Field, Martin Parker and Robert Schechter, who were unlucky to miss out on a place in this week’s winning line-up. They were edged out by the entries printed below, which earn their authors

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The Wiki Man | 27 March 2010

I don’t know if you have ever been to Paris, but it’s basically a kind of London for girls. I generally try to avoid the place, as you can’t get a decent curry and there’s nothing in the shops unless you are an anorexic dwarf. But a couple of times a year I used to find myself on a breakneck taxi ride between the (pretty crummy) Gare de Lyon and the (crummier still) Gare Montparnasse, trying to catch a train to Bordeaux. Only after my sixth visit did I learn that there was no need for this ludicrous trip. Instead of changing trains in Paris, you could simply hop off

Taki

Last orders

Gstaad The fin de saison feeling is like the end of term in boarding school. Bittersweet. At school, one was cocooned from the big, bad outside world; here in Gstaad, far from the crowds and bustle, one has time to ponder the melting snows and dream about one’s youth. Closing day at the Eagle Club was fun. At the Taki Cup presentation — the overall winner and new record holder was John Taki, in 36 minutes — I reminded the members that the Taki Cup has lasted longer than both world wars combined, which means it is a far more important historical event. Some Belgian people agreed. Yep, cocoon is

Aidan Hartley

Shooting the breeze

Malindi, Kenya I’m at Malindi’s Driftwood beach bar, nursing a Tusker beer. I’m gazing at the Indian Ocean. The day was hot: 110 in the shade. Now at dusk, a cool zephyr rises from the sea. The moon climbs. Lateen dhow sails puff towards the fishing grounds. The bar fills with surfers and deep-sea anglers. Soon Robin will arrive for his evening snifter, taking the same place at the bar as he has done every day for decades. The Driftwood bar is my office. I can’t get online at home. No network. On the north coast, technology does not really work. But that’s OK. The voices I hear on my

Gerald Laing

Space invaders | 27 March 2010

Public sculpture is a vital element in the built environment. It expresses the sense of identity, the intellectual and aesthetic sophistication, and the moral compass of those who engender, adopt and accept it. At first glance, therefore, you might think that the obligation to spend a certain proportion of new-build costs on the commissioning of works of art would be welcome and beneficial. But when it was first introduced in the US about 30 years ago, all that resulted was the sudden appearance of abstract knots of steel, remarkable for their vacuity, in front of every new building. These objects, many of which seemed merely to respond grudgingly to a

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Trying to make sense of the polls

Never before has there been an election campaign in Britain with quite so many polls. The differences in the polls, which are quite considerable at the moment, also make it difficult to get a clear picture of what is going on. To further complicate things, the view from the ground seems slightly different from the sense that one gets from most of the polling. For instance, Tory candidates I talk to in bellwether constituencies tell me that things aren’t as good as they were before Christmas but they still expect to win. I also hear that the Tory target seats operation is still confident of an overall majority and say

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Waiting for Jesus

Radley Balko thinks it’s the note of (mild) exasperation that makes this cover splendid. I agree. Jesus: Disappointing You for 2000 Years. As the man put it: Estragon: He should be here. Vladimir: He didn’t say for sure he’d come.

Daniel Korski

The Euro is so great – let’s have two of them

European leaders have now agreed to bail out Greece in a coordinated affair, involving the IMF and bilateral assistance. The Times has written this up as a grab for more centralisation of policy-making by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, but even the Tories know that’s not true, as judge by William Hague’s calm remarks. Trying to understand the problems of the euro has sent me back to my undergraduate economic textbooks and Robert Mundell’s work on optimum currency areas. As Spectator readers (many of whom are bankers) will know, the US economist theorised that a group of countries will benefit from a common currency like the euro if three

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Highlights from the latest Spectator | 26 March 2010

The new issue of The Spectator leads on the next big story in British politics: the not-so-cold war for the Labour leadership. The first sign of a brutal civil war is mass evacuation, and we’ve seen that with Milburn, John Reid, Purnell etc. James’s cover piece takes you through the other dynamics. The war the Brown-Whelan-Unite alliance is trying to rig the succession for Ed Balls, he says, and has started to think of which new MPs to select. So when Purnell goes up to Tom Watson and describes him as being a “cancer at the heart of the Labour Party” this is what he’s referring to: an attempt by

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Move Over Mary Seacole, There’s a New Kid In Town

Hey, look – this is what your kids learn in school these days. Those of you who are big fans of the Juche regime of Kim Jong il in North Korea will enjoy this from the MP Diane Abbott’s website. Poor little mites, having this sort of grotesque propaganda rammed down their throats. I dunno, maybe there was another verse which went something along the lines of: Yo Diane man, she be cool Send HER kids to da private school She got da money to watch their backs She don’t want ‘em mixin’ wid blacks Back in da House she be learnin’ Not to disclose her outside earnings Etc etc

Thursday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

A ban on cigarettes draws ever closer

Apologies for having been absent, but I’ve not been well; immobilized for a few days to the degree that even a slight movement caused severe pain and a pitiful whining noise to be emitted, in the direction of my wife, who has a rather put-upon expression right now. Serves you right, you might be thinking, with your lifestyle, all that alcohol and cigarettes – something was going to go wrong sooner or later. Well, you’d be half right. It is a lifestyle problem. It’s the consequence of a mishap which occurred when I was using my fucking running machine, a couple of torn stomach muscles when I inadvertently hit the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

YouGov has Tory lead down to two points

A YouGov poll tonight has the Tory lead down to two points. The Tories are on 36, Labour 34 and the Lib Dems 17. Before we all get too excited about this narrowing of the Tory lead, we should note that the poll’s fieldwork was nearly all done before people were fully aware of what was in the Budget. This poll is grim news for the Tories. If in a week where we have seen a former Labour cabinet minister prostituting himself on TV and learned that Samantha Cameron is pregnant, the Tory lead is down then one is tempted to ask when will it grow. But I strongly suspect

Wednesday

Martin Bright

Where Are the Jobs in the Election Budget?

I agree with Fraser that there is a welcome modesty about Alistair Darling’s budget. It was also good to see Maggie Darling outside Number 11, a wife of whom the Chancellor is justly proud.  But I did wonder where the measures are for tackling the joblessness, which will be the likely consequence of the public sector cuts any new government will have to impose. Last year we had a “budget for jobs” with the announcement of the Future Jobs Fund, but this year the only announcement was the extension of the young person’s job guarantee until 2012.  Unemployment has not hit the levels first feared at the beginning of the

Patrick Nolan

This budget penalises employment

Supporting jobs and small businesses – “the backbone of future economic growth”, in Alistair Darling’s words – was seen as a priority in today’s Budget. In his statement the Chancellor highlighted the following measures: •         Extending the young person’s guarantee for one year after March 2011 (providing a job, training or work experience for young people who cannot find work). •         Extending the time to pay scheme, which allows businesses to spread tax payments over a timetable they can afford, for the whole of the next Parliament. •         Cutting the business rates facing small businesses for one year from October. These are temporary measures which each deal with relatively minor