Society

Saturday

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

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 2 May 2009

In Competition No. 2593 you were invited to submit a Dear John letter in the style of a poet or author of your choice. These days, dispatching a loved one generally involves texting ‘u r dumped’ or ‘i h8 u’ and pressing send. This comp was prompted by a longing for a return to the time when giving the heave-ho was a protracted business; when jilters sat hunched over a blank sheet of paper for hours on end, agonising over the right choice of words. You were out in force this week, both veterans and newcomers. Verse outnumbered prose by a long way. Robert Burns and Elizabeth Barrett Browning featured

Tony Curzon-Price

The new economy

Minsky’s moment has arrived There is a big political prize dangling over the economic crisis. Whoever now devises a coherent economic programme will mould British society for a generation. Labour won the post-Great Depression prize in 1945 by creating the paternalistic welfare state and won again in 1966 — a short-lived victory — with Harold Wilson’s modernising ‘white heat of technology’. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher won the prize that arose from the failures of the preceding paternalism and technocratic modernism with her vision of free-market individualism. From then until Northern Rock was nationalised, all economic policy was recognisably some shade of Thatcherism. Keynes dominated the thinking of 1945 and 1966;

James Delingpole James Delingpole

You Know It Makes Sense | 2 May 2009

There’s a new application you can get for your iPhone called Baby Shaker, where a baby cries and cries until eventually you get so sick of it you shake your mobile so that large red Xs appear over the baby’s eyes and the crying stops for good. Or rather there isn’t, because someone took offence and complained to Apple and now, annoyingly, it has been withdrawn. Would I have acquired a copy myself? Well the graphics looked pretty rubbish but I still think it was probably worth the 99 cents, just on the off chance one might have found someone to offend. Sicko, child-related jokes are very useful in this

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Shared Opinion | 2 May 2009

Mandelson’s fixation with bananas repays study: it shows that he has not really changed Bananas on the mind. It’s Mandelson’s fault. There I was at the weekend, reading an interview with him in the Times. This was the new Mandelson, Lord Mandelson, the one who longs to go on Strictly Come Dancing, and only wears those soft cashmere jumpers, you can tell, to boost the impression that he could give you a kindly and wonderful hug. It was working. I was warming to the man. And then bananas. Bananas everywhere. How did Gordon Brown lure him back into government? ‘We sat down,’ he told the newspaper, ‘over a couple of

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

It is child-rearing, not sexism, that explains the pay gap between men and women

Rod Liddle says that Harriet Harman’s notion of ‘structural pay discrimination’ is nonsense. It is women’s decision to have children that disrupts wage equality One government proposal which seems to have gone largely unnoticed as a consequence of the credit crunch, Susan Boyle’s triumph on Britain’s Got Talent and flying Mexican pigs spreading their lethal filth hither and thither is Harriet Harman’s plan to remove the wombs from all British women and force them to go to work as stockbrokers and hedge-fund managers in the City of London. How she intends to remove the wombs, and what she will do with 30 million of them when she is done, has

Anne Mcelvoy

American Notebook

Travels in Obamaland: we take our two boys for their first holiday in the vast parish of St Barack, as his first 100 days come to an end. The wave of T-shirt wisdom unleashed during the election campaign hasn’t dried up: one favourite is a sepia image of a group of American Indians, being sold by native Americans in Union Square — and bearing the slogan ‘Homeland Security: fighting terrorism since 1492’. For more portable appeal, try ‘I love my country — it’s just the government that bothers me’. Joanna Coles, a feisty British export as editor of the American Marie Claire, kindly gives us a dinner at the hotspot

James Hughesonslow

Confessions of a drink driver on a ‘rehab’ course

I blame Matthew d’Ancona, esteemed editor of this organ, for his over-generous hospitality. It was after one of The Spectator’s pre-Christmas celebrations that I was breathalysed and banned from driving for a year, later reduced to nine months if I underwent counselling. It all started when, as an occasional Spectator scribe since 1974, I received a last-minute invitation to a dinner for readers to meet contributors. It was 6 p.m. and I was in the Evening Standard’s offices in Kensington. The dinner was at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, at 7.15, and I had to get home to Camberwell six miles away to change into a dinner jacket. As I later

The Spectator

The panic pandemic

‘In 1918, half a million Americans died. The projections are that this time, the virus will kill one million Americans.’ These were the words of the President’s chief health adviser, as he warned about the dangers of swine flu. But he wasn’t speaking this week. The year was 1976, the President was Ford, and the adviser had, it transpired, overestimated the death toll by 999,999. Swine flu has already proved more lethal this time round. There are 152 probable deaths in Mexico (though only 20 cases are confirmed) and 1,614 sufferers under observation there. At the time of writing two British cases have been confirmed, with another 14 being investigated.

Friday

Daniel Korski

Celebrating Marcel

Around the world workers are celebrating 1st of May. I too will be celebrating, but for different reasons. Today Marcel Rayman – my first cousin twice removed – would have turned 86. Born in Warsaw, he moved to France aged eight. A studious boy, he finished his exams in record time and went to work with his parents as a tailor. By all accounts he showed great promised. Unfortunately, we will never know what things Marcel would have gone on to do for his life was cut short one February morning in 1944, when the Nazis executed him. For between the German invasion of France and early 1944, the young

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A supreme debate

One of the reasons Obama has been so successful in his brief political career is that he has largely dodged the culture wars. I remember in Iowa and New Hampshire meeting many voters who were drawn to him because they wanted to, in Obama’s phrase, stop re-litigating the 1960s.  But the Supreme Court vacancy caused by David Souter’s coming retirement could drag Obama into this battle. Where the nominee stands on Roe v. Wade, DC’s gun control laws and school vouchers which are used to send pupils to religious schools will dominate the debate.   Bush’s experience, though, shows a way that Obama, who used to teach constitutional law himself,

The Spectator

The week that was | 1 May 2009

Here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the past week: Fraser Nelson watches Gordon Brown play politics over troop numbers, and sets out why we need a proper debate on 50p tax. James Forsyth says that the Gurkha victory is a victory for the House, and wonders what the Tories’ policy on Trident is. Peter Hoskin reports on the ID card scrap, and says that Brown’s position is getting more and more unstable. Toby Young tells the story of his bicycle accident. Daniel Korski honours our soldiers. Etan Smallman reveals the changing face of the super-rich. Martin Bright observes the first outing of the Clegg-Cameron coalition. Clive

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Judging Dubya: A Litmus Test

Generalisation of the Day comes from Jay Nordlinger at National Review: In my experience — and I’m just generalizing here — the better the person, the more positive he is about George W. Bush. Well! Look, I don’t hate Dubya and I was glad he defeated Al Gore, but the notion that liking the 43rd President is some sort of character test is laughable. Sure, some of the tedious Bush Derangment Syndrome was gratingly witless, but, please spare us this twaddle in return. Then again, this is part of a weird conservative trope that elevates character above all other considerations. It’s important, certainly, but not everything. For some people these

Peter Hoskin

Cameron seizes the “long-term” rhetoric

One of the opportunities that the resurgent Labour infighting presents the Tories is to portray the Government as too caught up in dirty politics to deal properly with the economic crisis.  It’s a message that keys directly into the “headless chicken” charge, and it’s boosted by stories like this, via today’s Indpendent: “The Government’s £200m mortgage rescue scheme has helped just one household stave off repossession in its first three months of operation, official figures have revealed. The slow progress in rolling out the measure, which was launched in January amid claims it would help 6,000 families, comes amid criticisms that the Government has failed to follow through on other

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The most likely date for the next election is May 6th, 2010

We know the date of at least one election in 2010: the locals will be on May 6h. There also has to be a general election by Thursday the third of June. It is hard to see how the government could recover from a drubbing in May to win an election in June. It is almost certain that Brown won’t want to go after May 6th. One of the last hopes Labour people cling to is that the return of growth could save them. We can be confident that Brown will want the first quarter growth results out before election day. Given all this it seems most likely that Brown will choose to hold

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Peter Mandelson: A National Treasure?

The other day, Danny Finkelstein asked if Peter Mandelson has “given up”. He was reflecting upon Mandelson’s wistful declaration that his career “has not been as successful as I wished. You have certain goals and I never acheived them. That’s a disappointment for me.” Danny professed himself astonished by this, arguing that by any measure Mandelson has enjoyed a “stellar” career: Not only has he held really dizzyingly high office, but he has been massively influential on two Prime Ministers. He changed the Labour Party profoundly. And in the great political dispute of his life, his antagonist was forced to surrender humiliatingly. How could he possibly be disappointed? Quite easily!

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Petraeus: Next two weeks key to whether the Pakistani government survives

If you want an idea of how worrying the situation in Pakistan is, read this story from James Rosen: ‘Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, has told U.S. officials the next two weeks are critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive, FOX News has learned. “The Pakistanis have run out of excuses” and are “finally getting serious” about combating the threat from Taliban and Al Qaeda extremists operating out of Northwest Pakistan, the general added. But Petraeus also said wearily that “we’ve heard it all before” from the Pakistanis and he is looking to see concrete action by the government to destroy the Taliban in the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown’s biographer says people who don’t treat their staff properly aren’t fit to be Prime Minister

Paul Routledge in today’s Daily Mirror: “David Cameron is no different to Thatcher. He is – and I’m afraid you have to accept my word for this – a crap employer. And anybody who does not treat his staff properly is, to my mind, not fit to employ the nation and run the country.” Charles Moore in this week’s Spectator: “I recently met a man who entered a room containing the Prime Minister and found himself ducking to avoid a mug Mr Brown had hurled not at him, but at an official who was just leaving.”   PS Just to be clear, those who worked for Thatcher generally talk about

James Forsyth James Forsyth

There’s no super-sub for Brown to call on

Martin Kettle reports in The Guardian today that: “There is a lot of talk now about yet another shakeout at No 10. Lord Mandelson is pressing for a senior politician – not necessarily himself – to fill the righthand man role that Chris Patten played for John Major in 1992.” This is understandable given that, as Jackie Ashley wrote yesterday: “Brown seems to have performed the brilliant hat-trick of failing to grasp where his parliamentary party is coming from, failing to recognise what will provoke ridicule in the press and failing to acknowledge the public mood. Much of this comes back to the out-of-touch inner circle on which he has relied