Society

Saturday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Flint tells Brown, don’t sack Blears

Hazel Blears flipping her second home several times is one of the worst cases uncovered by the Telegraph. But her actions are really no worse than those of Geoff Hoon. Yet, it is Blears who has copped most of the flak from the media. Gordon Brown hasn’t helped her case by describing her actions as ‘totally unacceptable behaviour’ while defending Hoon. There is a view that Blears, who remember criticised the PM in a newspaper article just days before this story broke, is being set up to the be the symbolic Cabinet sacking over the whole expenses business. So it is interesting to see her close friend Caroline Flint say

Alex Massie Alex Massie

What’s the Best Sports City in the World?

That’s the question Dan Drezner asks, riffing on this frankly dubious Toronto Star survey of North American cities. The Star bases its criteria upon winning percentage which is a rum, if typically North American, way of looking at these matters, and comes up with the rather surprising verdict that Indianapolis is the best sports city in North America. Make of that what you may. It wouldn’t be enough for me. Anyway, Dan wonders how to take this “global” factoring in all those non-American sports and coming up with a candidate for the title of “Greatest Sporting City in the World”. I suspect readers will have their own views on this

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The Wiki Man | 23 May 2009

When I was a child, almost everyone I knew had a single telephone kept in a draughty hallway. Why the hallway I don’t know. Perhaps the bell was better heard from there or else they were copying the location from posher homes where once a butler would have answered it. Until recently, there was also a single place — a study or spare room — where people went to use a computer. Today laptops outsell desktops and wireless internet access means you can use them in every room. This seemingly small detail will have far-reaching effects. For instance, have you ever wondered where people find time for the many hours they now

Interconnect

Competition | 23 May 2009

In Competition No. 2596 you were invited to submit an alphabet primer designed for children of the Noughties. A far cry from the piety and moral lessons of primers past, yours were designed for a generation-in-waiting of Heat-reading (J is generally for Jade), debt-ridden (‘Y’s for the Year the economy shrank, Z’s for Zilch that’s in the bank.’: Tim Raikes), violent (K almost always spells knife), illiterate (‘Z is for xenophobia’: Phil Thomas), egocentric (‘M is for me before everyone’: Michael Cregan), appearance-obsessed (B is mostly for botox) technophiles (Facebook, Twitter, etc, etc). While my Asbo reference didn’t exactly set the scene for an uplifting read, I suspect that today’s

Lucinda Baring

New wine in old bottles

Lucinda Baring meets Simon Berry, chairman of a 200-year-old company that’s more modern than it looks  Berry Bros & Rudd in St James’s Street epitomises the idea of an old-fashioned wine merchant. Outside, the façade has remained largely unchanged for centuries. Inside, the panelling, desks and uneven wooden floor transport you to an era long gone. And yet this venerable appearance belies the efficient mechanisms of a much more modern business. Other family-run wine merchants have been less successful in updating their brand. Lay & Wheeler, a 150-year-old family business very similar to Berry Bros and perhaps their closest competitor, was bought by Majestic in March, and Avery’s of Bristol,

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Another Voice | 23 May 2009

Sleeping with Agatha Christie and the ghosts of guests past in Syria’s Baron Hotel Do you believe in ghosts? I wish I did, for were I to entertain the flimsiest hope that some relic of a personality could haunt a place where once they were, then I should not have slept a wink last night, for the thrill of who might linger. But I slept soundly in Agatha Christie’s bedroom. T.E. Lawrence slept next door. Where am I? Well, if I tell you that any visiting Madame Arcati would expect to contact — besides those two — Field Marshall Lord Slim, Lord Hore-Belisha, H.V. Morton, María Teresa de Borbón and

Sarah Standing

Standing Room | 23 May 2009

I am not one of those who believe that God made the highways solely in order for motorists to inherit the earth. But any milk of human kindness flowing through my veins curdles when I am driving on the Embankment during the early morning rush hour. I have to make the big sacrifice of not listening to Nick Ferrari’s breakfast show, since it requires total concentration and nerves of steel to avoid the hordes of cyclists coming at me from all angles. Top-gear city cyclists are a law unto themselves. They’re a hardcore bunch — the very antithesis of a benevolent Boris or those daffy Mrs Tiggy-Winkle handwoven folk who choose

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Politics | 23 May 2009

It is typical of Michael Martin that his laughably short resignation statement contained a fundamental misunderstanding of parliament. ‘This House is at its very best when it is united,’ he said. The precise opposite is true. Gordon Brown and David Cameron’s places are precisely two sword lengths apart because it is intended to be an adversarial system. When the Commons chamber was bombed in 1941, Churchill rejected plans to rebuild it in a more collegiate semi-circular format. ‘We shape our buildings,’ he said, ‘But then our buildings shape us.’ Churchill understood that the slightest change in parliament, from the architecture to the rule book, alters the balance of power. And

The Spectator

The respect agenda

If the first rule of success is to follow a failure, then the 157th Speaker of the House of Commons, whoever he or she may be, is off to a good start. Michael Martin was everything a Speaker should not be: partial, too deferential to the executive and an opponent of transparency. His alleged comment that ‘I did not come into politics not to take what is owed to me’ sums up so much of what has gone wrong. His removal was a necessary first step in the process of once more making Parliament an effective institution, and one of which the British people can be proud. But it would

Deborah Ross

Swedish idyll

Everlasting Moments 15, Key Cities Awaydays 18, Nationwide Oh, what heaven, what joy, and if you don’t bother to see Everlasting Moments, then you are a bigger fool than I thought you were. (If it were possible.) It’s a Swedish period drama, set around 1900, and is full of simple yet rich, old-fashioned pleasures and not a single action sequence bar a hat blowing off at one point. Still, I don’t think it was CGI. Directed by Jan Troell (most famous for 1971’s triple-Oscar-nominated The Emigrants), it is based on the true life story of one of his wife’s relatives, Maria Larsson (played with exquisite dignity by Maria Heiskanen), a

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Where are the self-interested reformers?

One of the continuing mysteries of this expenses scandal is why Labour backbenchers who haven’t been implicated aren’t speaking out for stronger action against those who have.  Sure, it would ruffle some feathers in their own party – but, as this week’s Bagehot column suggests, they may not lose out by doing so: “Unfortunately, the politicians’ self-interest is unenlightened and myopic. With so little life left in the government, the cost to the careers of Labour mutineers would be nugatory; indeed, their stature might be enhanced if the plot came off. The confrontation between Mr Brown and the malcontents is less like a gunslingers’ deadly stand-off than the Monty Python

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Navigation errors

Oh come on! Paul Waugh, whose blog is normally excellent, is fuming about the Tory MP for Clwyd West claiming for a sat-nav. He asks: “…does any self-respecting MP really need a satnav to find their way around their constituency? Isn’t it an admission that they are a bit disconnected from their voters?” This is just silly. I’m sure Paul Waugh knows London very well, but I’d be shocked if he knew where every street was. More reasonably, Waugh asks whether it is reasonable to charge the cost of the sat-nav to the taxpayer. I think it is on the grounds that if any company required one of its employees

James Forsyth James Forsyth

This disdain is a result of far more than expenses

One thing that the new Speaker must remember is that the expenses scandal has hardened—not created—the public’s contempt for Parliament. As Camilla Cavendish writes today, “one of the reasons public anger goes a lot deeper than Sir Peter Viggers’s duck pond is because we feel we can no longer change our laws by voting out politicians. The EU machine marches on, constraining everything from the future of the Post Office to what vitamins we can take. The promised referendum on the Lisbon treaty has been ditched. The quango nanny state has acquired a momentum of its own. Politicians have given away powers that they held in trust for the people.

Peter Hoskin

The Labour leadership candidates flash their reformist credentials

We keep talking about which party leader is taking the lead on expenses but – from a Labour perspective – it might be more useful to look at which Cabinet ministers are doing all the running.  After all, with Brown on the ropes, his potential replacements might be looking to seize the mantle of de facto leader. That’s why two passages from recent papers have caught my eye. This in today’s Times: “Gordon Brown is being urged from within the Cabinet to lead a new public debate about state funding of the parties and reform of the electoral system, to intensify the clean-up of politics after the expenses scandal. Senior

Peter Hoskin

Back to the planning stage

Uh-oh.  It sounds like Gordon Brown is going to unleash a “national plan” on the country in the aftermath of the June elections.  Here are the details from today’s Indy: “A ‘national plan’ for Britain will be unveiled by Gordon Brown as he tries to fight back after Labour’s expected elections rout next month, The Independent has learnt. The Prime Minister wants the blueprint to be a route map for how the Government will lead the country out of recession and extend its public service reforms. It will cover the economy, industry, health, education and crime. … The aim of the ‘national plan’ is to show that Labour has not

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The power of celebrity candidates

Should celebrities stand to become MPs? I have just done a phone-in on Richard Bacon’s Five Live programme where I was in favour of it. My point was that voting in someone like Esther Rantzen sends an important democratic message: that the voters think the Westminster menu is uninspiring. This is an entirely legitimate means of democratic protest. But, Bacon asked, don’t you think they have that message? Well yes, but they only really take action if there is an electoral price to pay. Independent candidates are thorns in a traditional politician’s side. And often they prompt action – think about the effect of the Referendum Party. It’s not impossible

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Three down today, more to come tomorrow

The expenses saga shows no sign of coming to an end. Today saw three departures from political life. The Tory Sir Peter Viggers is leaving Parliament at the next election to spend more time with his duck pond. Ben Chapman, a Labour MP, who over claimed on his mortgage is stepping down. And the Lib Dem campaign guru Lord Rennard is quitting as the party’s chief executive. Though, he claims this is not related to revelations about his expenses. Word is that tomorrow’s Telegraph will bring another set of embarrassing revelations. There are several backbench Tories in the frame apparently. As this story goes on, public anger grows. Although Cameron

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Same time, same place but so very different

From Bret Stephens’ review of Edmund Morgan’s latest book: in Philadelphia in 1787, Mr. Morgan uncovers one more instance of witch hunting, this one barely remembered, concerning an old woman named Korbmacher who died soon after being brutalized by a mob. Not much else is known about the incident, but Mr. Morgan is struck that this outbreak should occur in the same place where the Founders were gathering for the Constitutional Convention, the very summit of Enlightenment thought and action. There is no record that the founders took note of poor old Korbmacher. But the event was widely noted in the Philadelphia press, and Mr. Morgan suspects an influence on