Society

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters | 2 May 2009

Broken pledges Sir: Labour has lost all credibility, having broken a clear manifesto pledge not to raise taxes but then doing so. It is the second pledge that it has failed to honour, the first being its failure to hold a referendum on the EU constitution. If directors of a company break clear pledges made in a prospectus, then they face prosecution under the Companies Act and possible fines or imprisonment. But Labour seems to regards its manifesto commitments as an exam paper: only keeping three commitments need be attempted. Why should we be surprised that the reputation of our politicians has fallen so low and that so many people

Alex James

Slow Life | 2 May 2009

I was in a heavy metal band once, kind of by accident, couldn’t help myself: said I’d play a couple of songs with them at a party and that was that, joined the circus. That band was called Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction and I loved them for many reasons: looked great; one really, really good song; guitar player was a karate black belt; drummer taught music at a high-security prison; the singer was a thoughtful and fearless vagabond king. They were all exceptionally bright and they got through a lot of bass players; some died, some ran away, but I was with them for ages, captivated by high

Jeremy Clarke

Low Life | 2 May 2009

Kalgoorlie, Western Australia Yesterday my friend Digger and I spent the afternoon touring the brothels of Kalgoorlie, an old gold and nickel mining town in the middle of nowhere. In more prosperous years Kalgoorlie had as many as 18 houses of ill-repute, but now there are just three. The global economic downturn has dealt Kalgoorlie a solid blow, though locals are expecting things to pick up again, and soon. We spent an hour at 181 Langtree’s — motto: ‘The girls are yum at 181’ — a new and elaborately themed brothel operating with just two working girls at the moment, but six more, they told us, were starting work on

Taki

High Life | 2 May 2009

The hardest thing in the world for an athlete is to get out of bed in the morning. Show me a man who jumps out of bed and I’ll show you someone who has never trained for top competition. It’s the brutal preparation that makes one flinch when taking the morning’s first heavy, unsteady steps toward the bathroom. Yes, it’s that time of year again, and this time it’s Stuttgart, a town known for its terrific automobiles, as the safest city in Germany, and its proximity to Erwin Rommel’s birthplace. Mind you, I don’t know how safe it will be for the poor little Greek boy this time around. I

Dot Wordsworth

Mind Your Language | 2 May 2009

My husband tapped the notice on the wall of the train noisily with his stick. Such behaviour would be embarrassing, if I let it. ‘Ramping!’ he said. ‘Pure ramping.’ Ramping in my husband’s private language means ratcheting things up, usually in an assertive and hostile way to cow the opposition. As usual, we were the opposition, in this case of those who had put up the notice in the train. ‘Be aware,’ it said, ‘that you may be prosecuted if you are not in possession of a valid ticket.’ The ramping in this example was the use of the words be aware as if they meant ‘beware’. Perhaps some people

Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety | 2 May 2009

Next weekend, I am planning to meet up with an old friend in Las Vegas. I have a direct flight booked with Virgin Atlantic, a reservation at the best restaurant in town and, most importantly, two tickets to Crazy Horse Paris at the MGM Grand. But in the past few days I’ve been having second thoughts. The problem is, my friend lives in Mexico City. Just how concerned should I be about catching swine flu? According to my colleague James Delingpole, not remotely. He wrote a piece earlier this week in which he assessed the risk as vanishing-to-zero: ‘I’m not going to die of swine flu, you’re not going to

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 2 May 2009

Q. I was sitting in a South West train the other day. A woman across the aisle was making nonstop calls into her mobile phone, speaking very loudly in what sounded to me like Cantonese. I found it excruciating. I could not think, I could not read, I could not do anything. I did not want to give up my window seat and move to another carriage. I finally flipped, went over and said, ‘Could you please speak more quietly?’ The woman looked very surprised and quite angry but from then on she spent the rest of the journey texting. I found the incident exhausting. It was 30 minutes or

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron to Thatcher, I hope to be your heir

The meaning of the heir to Blair quote has been grossly distorted, but this letter that Cameron has sent to Thatcher on the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of her becoming Prime Minister does strike me as important: “I still find it awe-inspiring to think of the state of the nation you inherited and the immense achievements of your governments. Getting the country to live within its means, bringing the trade unions within the law, rolling back the tide of state ownership, standing steadfast with our allies in the cold war … but above all giving the British people back their pride and self-belief. The whole country owes you a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

It is disinterest not defections that should really worry Labour

I suspect that Lord Ashdown and the Lib Dems are involved in a bit of mischief-making with their suggestion that Blairite MPs might come and join them (see Pete’s take on the story here). The Lib Dems have no realistic prospect of power and I suspect that the Blairites are thoroughly tired of constantly going against a party base that is considerably to the left of them. What I do think, though, is a danger is a lack of a Gaitskellian desire to ‘fight and fight again to save the party’. A friend of mine was recently in a discussion with a Cabinet minister and asked him what he would do

Peter Hoskin

More Lib-Lab fun and games

Nick Clegg does seem to be keeping busy.  After his excellent work during the Gurkha vote,  which incorporated the first outing of the Clegg-Cameron coalition, today’s Telegraph contains this revelation: “Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, has privately authorised secret approaches to unhappy Blairites, trying to persuade them to join the Lib Dems instead of forming their own breakaway party. One Lib Dem said: ‘There is nothing imminent or even concrete, but there have been conversations with people on what you might call the moderate side of the Labour Party. They look at the likely outcome of the election and worry about the direction the party could take.’ Another Lib

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Quote of the day | 2 May 2009

From Matthew Parris in The Times today: The Brown saga is less Shakespearean tragedy than Pinter farce. The Ozymandian statue will be inscribed, not “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!” but “Gordon Brown – what were we thinking of?”. The whole column is, as always with Matthew, well worth reading. As Matthew says, those who have worked with Brown for years and knew who he was bear a large part of the blame for the disaster that has been the Brown premiership. But it is worth bearing in mind that many of these people bit their tongue because of the Brownite intimidation tactics that Nick Cohen details in

Martin Bright

Prescott Does It Again

It was vintage John Prescott on the Today programme today. Utterly incoherent, but the man just never, ever gives up. The way he dismissed the recent snipers was just so vicious. Only a party at war with itself could produce quite this level of high-class bitchiness. David Blunkett, it turns out, had refused to join Prescott’s Go 4th tour because he wanted to go to a football match. And as for Charles Clarke, well he was never a campaigner anyway, says his old Cabinet colleague.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The tragedy of Britain’s life expectancy divide

The FT Magazine has a great wee cover story on what is, in my view, the no.1 scandal in Britain today: the divergence between life expectancy in rich and poor areas. The author, Hugh Williamson, says: I’ll give him my answer. First, the richest have the best education. There is noting equal about our comprehensive system schools. The richer the area, the better the school. The government does not recognise this massive problem, which is a direct result of giving local education bureaucracies monopoly control over education. The Tory scheme of scholarships – where any indepndent school can set up in the state system and be given £5,000 a kid

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour, partying at Britain’s expense

One of the things that will become apparent in the coming years is just how irresponsible this last Budget was. It put party ahead of country in a way that few Budgets ever had. Many civil servants, who know the true numbers, are despairing about what it means for Britain’s future. Peter Oborne writes today that: “One permanent secretary complained about the Budget, saying the Chancellor’s financial figures do not add up. He said: ‘We either need spending cuts, or a larger departmental budget. We are in a situation where the official figures are just not deliverable.’ Another civil servant is even gloomier. ‘We are moving towards a crisis which

Janice Warman

Cape Town notebook

As we circle out into Table Bay and back towards the mountain, the pilot welcomes us to Cape Town – and warns us about the burgeoning violence. For the first time, locals are talking about it too. ‘We all know people who have been raped and murdered,’ says one friend who delivers me to my guesthouse after a meal and watches until I am safely inside. She rings her security company and arranges for a guard to meet her at her door if she is coming home late. So do my other female friends. I’m staying at Kalk Bay, a seaside village a little way outside the town centre, where you

The Spectator

Grammar Schools Listings

The Spectator guide to grammar schools 2009 Your guide to using the tables An independent education can, and often does, lead to a head start in life for those fortunate enough to experience it. For parents, grandparents and others involved, it is a big decision. From prep to sixth form, an independent school education for one child can cost well over £250,000. So how do you choose? Academic results are one of the more tangible, but by no means the only, factor (see ‘What to look for in an independent school’ on page 7). A list of grammar schools is also included by way of comparison. Please take care in

The Spectator

Independent Schools Listings (M-Z)

The Spectator guide to independent schools 2009 Your guide to using the tables An independent education can, and often does, lead to a head start in life for those fortunate enough to experience it. For parents, grandparents and others involved, it is a big decision. From prep to sixth form, an independent school education for one child can cost well over £250,000. So how do you choose? Academic results are one of the more tangible, but by no means the only, factor (see ‘What to look for in an independent school’ on page 7). A list of grammar schools is also included by way of comparison. Please take care in

The Spectator

Independent Schools Listings (A-L)

The Spectator guide to independent schools 2009 Your guide to using the tables An independent education can, and often does, lead to a head start in life for those fortunate enough to experience it. For parents, grandparents and others involved, it is a big decision. From prep to sixth form, an independent school education for one child can cost well over £250,000. So how do you choose? Academic results are one of the more tangible, but by no means the only, factor (see ‘What to look for in an independent school’ on page 7). A list of grammar schools is also included by way of comparison. Please take care in

Matthew Dancona

Introduction

An introduction from Matthew d’Ancona, editor of The Spectator The Spectator is a proudly humanist journal. Since the days of Addison and Steele, co-founders of the magazine in its first incarnation in 1711, we have championed the civilising power of learning: not only as a route to employment, but as a path to pleasure. It is an article of faith for us that education is liberation. The books we read, the science we absorb, the languages we learn, the artistic, sporting and musical skills we acquire are the tools that enable us to fulfil our potential as human beings. The best education is not just about cramming for exams but

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Spectator Sport | 2 May 2009

I first came across Simon Clegg several years ago when he was head of the British Olympic Committee and trying to drum up media backing for an initial bid for the 2012 Games. This was in 2002-03, and the rest, as they say, is oodles of work for Zaha Hadid and one heck of a lot of JCBs in the Lea Valley. Last year he popped up in Beijing with the Beau Geste-ish title of chef de mission to the British team. He’s always struck me as an amiable and able cove, but if he were to pitch up in Suffolk, you would expect it to be as captain of the