Society

Saturday

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 20 February 2010

I could hear my husband in the other room saying, ‘Dee-day, dee-day, dee-day’ and there didn’t seem any reason to think that he would stop. I could hear my husband in the other room saying, ‘Dee-day, dee-day, dee-day’ and there didn’t seem any reason to think that he would stop. Since he obviously wanted to be asked what he meant, I asked him what he meant. ‘Do you say Wednesday or Wednesdee?’ he asked. The answer is, I think, that it depends how emphatic I’m being. But it is not the last syllable of Wednesday that has been giving me trouble recently. It is the first. When I heard somebody

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 20 February 2010

UK Financial Investments, which oversees the British government’s stake in RBS, Lloyds and Northern Rock, said it might be 2015 before taxpayers got back the £40 billion used to prop up failing banks. UK Financial Investments, which oversees the British government’s stake in RBS, Lloyds and Northern Rock, said it might be 2015 before taxpayers got back the £40 billion used to prop up failing banks. Barclays’ profits increased to £11.6 billion in 2009, a rise of 92 per cent over the year before. Mr Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, said that the world’s leading economies were close to agreeing an international levy on banks. Twenty economists, including four former

The Spectator

Identity charade

Who can imagine the appalling strangeness of being ‘linked’ to the assassination of a man whom you have not heard of, in a country you have never visited, for reasons you do not understand? Perhaps Kafka. Who can imagine the appalling strangeness of being ‘linked’ to the assassination of a man whom you have not heard of, in a country you have never visited, for reasons you do not understand? Perhaps Kafka. Certainly Michael Lawrence Barney, a recovering quadruple-bypass patient who returned from work to find his children staring at the newspaper, wondering if their father was a terrorist. Melvyn Adam Mildiner must know the feeling, too. He was suffering

The Spectator

People power | 20 February 2010

This was the week when the Conservatives finally started to get it right. After several false starts, disastrous poster campaigns and tragicomic errors, an agenda is now emerging. Handled properly, it could win David Cameron the majority he so badly needs — and rapidly undo the damage of the Labour years. Mr Cameron said on Monday that the next election would not be about transferring power from Labour to the Tories, but from government to the people. In an era when voters do not trust politicians of any hue, it is a powerful message. It could sound like a Barack Obama cliché were it not backed by something concrete. Mr

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 20 February 2010

There was no respite for those who engaged in democratic politics in 5th- to 4th-century Athens. Since Athenians meeting in Assembly were the government of Athens, they had no compunction in taking action against those whom they had appointed to serve them when, rightly or wrongly, they felt they had been let down in some way or other. Miltiades, the victor against the Persians at Marathon in 490 bc, later led an expedition against the island of Paros without informing the Assembly of his intentions. When it ended in disaster, the crime was compounded. Not only had he abused his powers by acting off his own bat, he was also

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

In the name of the father | 20 February 2010

“I’m not perfect” Gordon Brown said in his speech today – knowing that, in a couple of hours, we’ll hear details of the many ways he is not perfect, when the first extracts of Andrew Rawnsley’s book are published. He has got his defence in early on Channel Four news. Here is a transcript: Q: You know tomorrow there are going to be a whole slew of new allegations being made by Andrew Rawnsley, so let’s hear about you at work. Do you get angry at your staff? Do you swear at them? Do you throw things? GORDON BROWN: If I get angry, I get angry with myself. Q: Do

James Forsyth James Forsyth

What lead do the Tories need to win?

While we all wait for the revelations from Andrew Rawnsley’s book, which is being serialised in The Observer, there are a few things worth noting from Douglas Alexander’s interview with The Guardian today. First of all, Labour thinks that the Tory strength in the marginals means that the Tories only need to be six points ahead nationally to win an overall majority. This is significant as it suggest that the parties are in rough agreement on how far ahead the Tories need to be to win; the Tories assumption is that a seven point lead in the popular vote will translate into a Commons majority. Second, it is interesting that

Daniel Korski

Balkan business

Catherine Ashton is visiting the Western Balkans this week on her first foreign trip as the EU’s top diplomat. Though she has come in for criticism for not going somewhere more foreign, like the Middle East, her visit to the region is, in fact, timely and should be welcomed. The region has a few hurdles to clear on its journey away from the misery of the past and towards a more stable future. What can Ashton do to help that process along?  Well, her job is best described with historian Richard Neustadt’s moniker “Persuader-in-Chief”. She can cajole member-states, put issues on the EU’s agenda and suggest ideas. That is probably

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Loved Ones

It’s not something I’d thought about but, in a certain way or looked at from the right perspective, it’s a good question: What happens to your pet when the Rapture comes? Happily, After the Rapture Pet Care are here to help: It’s only $10 a month! Now it’s true that cynics might say that this is either a joke or a scam but I prefer to admire the considerate (and considerable) piety behind the scheme and take my hat off to the entrepreneurial spirit that accompanies it. (Relatedly, there are parts of the internets that Mencken would love. Waugh too, of course.) People say this will be the Chinese century

Mihir Bose

The deflating world of English football

The Premier League has never been more popular — globally as well as at home, says Mihir Bose. But the explosion of money is pushing clubs into insolvency — and squeezing British players out As a global brand, English football has never been more powerful. The Premier League crosses all cultural barriers and has devotees in every corner of the world. Fans in Singapore, for instance, even change their sleeping patterns to keep up: on match days, they go to bed early evening and get up at 3 a.m. to watch live broadcasts. It is hard to think of anything else this country produces that has such reach. No matter

Mark Wood

An axis of pragmatists

Mark Wood says that David Cameron would do well to ally himself with Germany’s Chancellor — Angela Merkel is a conservative realist in the Thatcher mould A new government sweeps into power and orders £20 billion of tax cuts. Fundamental tax reform to follow. Unashamedly pro-business policies are given top priority, cushioned by comforting, voter-friendly commitments to maintaining public services. Sound like the Tories already in office in some parallel universe? Not quite. It is Angela Merkel’s new centre-right coalition in Germany. After ferocious policy wrangles, Merkel’s Free Democrat allies have started getting their way on issues such as tax and regulation, so much so that their policy agenda looks

Daniel Kalder

The madness of Turkmenbashi

Tearing down the statue of a megalomaniac dictator is usually a joy reserved for the citizens of a newly liberated country. But when, last month, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan ordered the removal of his predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov’s Neutrality Arch, he was probably the only Turkman with any illusions of freedom.  For more than ten years this extraordinary monument — a giant, futuristic tripod, topped by a gold figure of Niyazov in a superman cape, which rotates to face the sun — has hovered menacingly above the skyline of the Turkmenistan capital Ashgabat. Niyazov called himself Turkmenbashi, ‘leader of the Turkmen’. The demolition of his monument, of course, will not

James Delingpole James Delingpole

‘Post-normal science’ is perfect for climate demagogues — it isn’t science at all

No it’s OK, I didn’t mind one teeny tiny bit that Matt Ridley wrote an entire Spectator cover story on Climategate and the blogosphere last week without once mentioning the name of the brilliant Spectator journalist who broke the story on his Telegraph blog, and popularised the name Climategate, and got 1.5 million hits in one week, and whose anti-eco-fascist bulletins now have a massive following from readers all around the world who keep sending him emails like ‘Thank you for saving us from the horrors of ManBearPig’ and (I’m not making this up) ‘Someone should put up a James Delingpole statue in Trafalgar Square’. Because if I did it

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

I’m not saying that anyone who ever posts an internet comment is nuts. But…

Back when I was a diary columnist, they’d publish my email address in the paper every day. I did love the emails from lunatics. And we’re talking proper nuts here, not just xenophobes, or people with unusually strident views about Israel. My favourite was a guy from Glasgow, whose emails were all either impenetrable tracts about global macro-economics, or detailed, punctuation-free recreations of the arguments he’d had that week with his GP, fellow lunatics, or the local branch of the Hari Krishnas. I remember getting bored one afternoon and looking him up on Lexis Nexus. He’d twice been published on the letters page of the Daily Express. I suppose they’ve

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

If you don’t want to be treated as crooks, stop mugging your high-street customers here please

Martin Vander Weyer’s Any Other Business ‘I don’t want to be treated like a criminal,’ a senior Barclays trader told me recently, in a slightly menacing European accent. That gives you a clue that he was not Bob Diamond, the bank’s American president, or John Varley, its very English chief executive, who have both foregone cash bonuses for 2009 despite record profits of £11.6 billion. No, my acquaintance will certainly have shared in the Barclays Capital bonus-pot, so he should be feeling more like a Euro-lottery winner than a prisoner in the stocks. But the token self-restraint of his bosses will do little to deflect the argument, put by Vince

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 20 February 2010

In Competition No. 2634 you were invited to submit an obituary of a well-known figure, past or present, as they themselves might have written it. In a strong field, the entry was split fairly evenly between prose and poetry. Many poets have penned their own epitaph. Malcolm Lowry’s memorable six-liner begins thus: ‘Malcolm Lowry/ Late of the Bowery/ His prose was flowery/ and often glowery…’ Thank you, Gerard Benson, for drawing it to my attention. On the prose side, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare was a predictably popular subject. As befits one not short on self-belief, his obits are object lessons in accentuating the positive. I liked Michael Cregan channelling R.D.

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Miraculous Moyes

If the impresario, former Corrie and Carry On actor, Everton owner and all-round good-guy Bill Kenwright never does anything else, the nation owes a big debt of gratitude to this last of the old-style football club chairmen for hanging on to his manager David Moyes like a limpet. Moyes is a shining light in the increasingly tawdry saga of English football. He’s been Manager of the Year three times, is almost permanently Manager of the Month, and is the longest-serving British manager in the Premiership by a mile, apart of course from Sir Alex Ferguson. There are two big tests this week, Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League and at

Deborah Ross

Same old story

Crazy Heart 15, Nationwide Crazy Heart is the film in which Jeff Bridges plays a broken-down, washed-up, boozy country music singer who may or may not be saved by the love of a good woman (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and while I wanted to love this film, and strived to love this film, and hadn’t really contemplated not loving this film — Jeff Bridges; romance; redemption; what’s not to love? — it just didn’t happen. Both Bridges and Gyllenhaal have been Oscar-nominated for their performances, which may prompt you to see it, and while I wouldn’t exactly wish to talk you out of that decision, and can’t be bothered anyhow, you should

Melissa Kite

Irresistible force

The strange message left me squinting into the middle-distance in abject confusion. I had just emailed a friend to ask if she was still able to meet me that evening. ‘I’m meditating right now :),’ her reply said. And it was crowned with the addendum: ‘Sent from my iPhone.’ After a few disorientated seconds spent trying to process this bizarre sophism, I finally decided to be outraged. Why on earth had she taken her iPhone into a ‘meditation’ session? How was I supposed to know not to email her because she might be ‘meditating’ with a twitching mobile at the edge of her crossed knees? The more I thought about

Friday

David Blackburn

Not a leg to stand on

Oh dear. The Evening Standard reports that Harriet Harman trod on Sir Thomas Legg’s toes and forbad him to publish claims that the fees office had turned down. Harman queried the ‘appropriateness’ of extending the enquiry beyond wrongly approved claims. English is a wonderful language and ‘appropriate’ has a number of nuances. The fees office rubber-stamped pornos, so what on earth did it turn down? Membership of Madame Jo Jo’s? A mail order bride as part of the second home allowance? In fact on reflection I don’t want know. Now on the face of it this disclosure is yet more bad news for Britain’s beleaguered political class: it looks shifty