Society

Saturday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 8 November 2008

Q. For some years before my retirement, I worked with a male colleague who, for as long as I had known him, was quite bald. He is now in his late fifties and, I’m told, is sporting a very obvious hair transplant. As I believe we’ll meet at a mutual friend’s house during the Christmas season, I’m at a loss to know how to react to his changed appearance. Does one congratulate him on his new ‘look’ or affect not to notice the transformation? M.H., Berry, NSW, Australia As a general rule it is best to avoid commenting on personal appearances — there has been too much flattery and the

Dot Wordsworth

Ancient & modern | 08 November 2008

‘Are they talking to the trees?’ asked my husband as he banged his stick against a sign attached to a plane tree near the Tate Gallery. He does not need a stick to lean on. He uses it on pedestrians in the way, or, in this case, annoying signs. The sign said: ‘Low tree.’ The tree was quite high, but it leant into the road a little. One would think the sign was intended for bus drivers who might otherwise barge into the obtruding trunk. Yet a big tree is more obvious than a sign, so perhaps it was intended for the benefit of those in authority, lest they give

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Despite the Brown bounce, the Tories are still ahead by double-digits

Glenrothes was undoubtedly a triumph for Gordon Brown. It has restored his authority in the Labour party and ensured that the media narrative of the Brown comeback will continue. But the new ICM poll for The Sunday Telegraph shows just how much of a climb Brown still has: the Tories are on 43, up one, and Labour on 30. According to Conservative Home’s calculation, this would result in a Tory majority of 80.  When you consider that the reality of recession has yet to really hit the electorate you realise just how weak Brown’s position still is despite Thursday’s win and the good headlines he has received in the past

James Forsyth James Forsyth

McCain’s campaign chief warns that the Republicans might find it impossible to win a presidential election again unless the party changes 

What should, perhaps, worry the Republicans most about this year’s election result is that they lost in the fastest growing states in the country and among the fastest growing demographics. Many of the states the Republicans lost this year—I’m thinking in particular of Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado and Nevada—are, on current trends, going to become more and more Democratic over time. Unless the Republican Party finds a way to reverse these trends, they will be reliant on perfect conditions to win at a national level. Steve Schmidt, who effectively ran the McCain campaign, is I think right to be so pessimistic in his interview with The Daily Beast about the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can we have a British Obama? Yes we can

Unsurprisingly Barack Obama’s election has kicked off a debate about whether a non-white person could become Prime Minister in Britain. I’m an optimist on the question; I think we have come a long way from Cheltenham in 1992. One thing worth noting is that the non-white population in Britain is only around 10 percent compared to more than twenty percent in America. Also, Britain’s history with race is less fraught than America’s. There wouldn’t be the same level of emotional intensity about the first non-white Prime Minister that there has been about the election of the first non-white President.   Trevor Phillips has a point about the dead hand of the

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Spectator Sport | 8 November 2008

Kevin Pietersen was peculiarly charmless, even by his own high standards, shortly after leading England to one of their most abject performances in any form of cricket in the Stanford 20/20 match. Did he mention how well Sir Allen Stanford’s West Indian team, an adept mix of old sweats and feisty tyros, had played as they whopped England? Not a word. He didn’t mention that the Stanford team had outbowled, outcaught, outfielded and out-thought England at every stage. This series has brought out some of the worst in grumpy English sportsmanship. Talking to the press after the game, Pietersen said: ‘We concentrated too much on the peripherals… There were just

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 8 November 2008

In Competition No. 2569 you were invited to describe a modern social ill of your choice in the style of Charles Dickens. Ills singled out included bellowing down mobile phones in public, elusive plumbers, and that scourge of the modern age, the potato wedge. Many entries ably demonstrate what George Orwell describes as Dickens’s ‘undisguised repulsion’ at proletarian roughness. Josephine Boyle captures Dickens at his moralising best, while D.A. Prince, on bad language, nimbly slips in a topical slant: ‘Filth even on the answering devices of frail grandfathers…’. Great stuff. Bravo to those narrowly pipped to the post: the above-mentioned, as well as Adrian Fry, Brian Murdoch, Paul Griffin, Frank

Paul Johnson

And Another Thing | 8 November 2008

There’s plenty of goodies yet in the English word-factory The most overused word this autumn has been ‘crunch’ in the sense of ‘crisis’, as in the phrase ‘credit crunch’. Not many know that it was first used thus by Winston Churchill, so adding to his many other claims to fame that of being a neologist. The OED credits him with inventing the usage but says it was in the Daily Telegraph on 23 February 1939, whereas I think it was a decade earlier in his book on the first world war. I think I can fairly be called a neologist by virtue of using triumphalist in its current sense, in

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Another Voice | 8 November 2008

Kookaburras don’t really laugh, but I can see why the old song suggests it: a weird, taunting call, which does have a kind of dark comicality about it. And this is one of the sounds that wake me each morning in Hunters Hill — where I find that The Spectator now has an Australian edition. I’m staying in a lovely Victorian house in Sydney, built from huge blocks of the warm yellow sandstone that characterises many of the older residences here. This house dates from the 1880s and, apart from its size and generosity and the extent of its garden tumbling down towards the Harbour, it is almost indistinguishable from

Theodore Dalrymple

Global Warning | 8 November 2008

Staying recently on the Herengracht in Amsterdam, I found myself trying to solve a psychological puzzle. How could anyone have thought for a moment, how could any mind have entertained even for an infinitesimal fraction of an instant, that 17th- and 18th-century Dutch domestic architecture — as elegant as any in the whole history of the world — should be pulled down to make room for buildings in the Novosibirsk style? But that, at one time, was the idea of Joop den Uyl, former prime minister of the Netherlands, whose bust is still to be seen in the city hall of Amsterdam. He also wanted to run a motorway through

Lisa Hilton

I don’t miss Italy. The dolce vita is a myth

Mention to most people that you have recently quit Italy for London and you become an instant object of sympathy. ‘Oh, poor you,’ they coo, ‘don’t you mind?’ Cue effusions about that darling trattoria in Lucca, those hidden della Francescas in Arezzo and enthusiastic reiterations of the word ‘bella’ as last seen in Gregory’s Girl. Anyone I speak to is anxious to impress with the authenticity of their Italy, their cognoscento’s rejection of Chiantishire for that enchanting, mythical country where the logge are eternally dappled in sunshine and dusky peasant girls roll out exquisite ravioli on mediaeval doorsteps. I can hardly bear to disabuse them, but after three years in

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama has changed the world just by being elected

Washington, D.C. In 1968, as Washington burned in the riots that followed Martin Luther King’s assassination, few would have predicted that in 40 years’ time America would elect a black president. But on Tuesday night, a diverse crowd gathered on the same street where the rioting had reached its height in 1968 to celebrate Obama’s election. Earlier in the day, in a heavily African-American neighbourhood in DC, I watched people who had been brought up under segregation cast their ballots for Barack Obama, and I thought back to a voter I met in South Carolina on the eve of the primary there. He was an elderly African-American man, a second

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama’s first press conference as president-elect

Barack Obama’s first press conference as president-elect was, as with his victory speech, an exercise in expectations management. By laying out so starkly the bad economic news, he clearly hopes that he can avoid people thinking that he’ll be able to turn things round instantly. He did, though, stress that if no stimulus bill is passed before he is inaugurated he will make pushing for one his first priority as president. Obama suggested that it will be some time before he names his key cabinet appointments. There does seem to be no consensus on who he will appoint to Treasury and State even if everyone is pretty sure that Jim

The Spectator

The week that was | 7 November 2008

Here are some of the posts made over the past week on Spectator.co.uk: James Forsyth reports from the US on the culmination of the presidential election.  He outlines Barack Obama’s achievement here.  And takes a moment to praise John McCain here. Toby Young argues that Obama isn’t black. Matthew d’Ancona reports on the fight to be Obama’s friend. Fraser Nelson responds to the 1.5 percent cut in interest rates, and gives reasons to have faith in Osborne and Cameron. Peter Hoskin looks at how the Tories are taking on the BBC, and reports on the aftermath to Labour’s victory in the Glenrothes byelection. Daniel Korski analyses how Europe should deal

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Sarah Palin and the battle for the heart and soul of the Republican party

Even in defeat Sarah Palin continues to make headlines. In New York the journalistic chatter is about who paid for her shopping sprees and just how little she actually knew about the world. (I find it a stretch, though, to believe she thought Africa was a single country). Palin has become a proxy for the debate over the future of the GOP. Those who want the party to return to the centre, concentrate on re-establishing its reputation for competence and become a national party again see Palin as the problem. (They worry about how well she could do in the Iowa caucus with its very socially conservative electorate and some

Daniel Korski

Turning the Russian tap

Russian gas, and the power it gives Moscow, has become one of the main issues in international politics. Last year, Moscow used its ability to control Ukraine’s gas supply to interfere in Kiev politics. As European leaders huffed and puffed over Russia’s invasion of Georgia, the threat of having gas supplies cut off to parts of Europe explained the EU’s failure to develop a common policy approach towards Moscow. And now, Russia is leading Iran and Qatar – the world’s two biggest holders of natural gas after Russia – to form a “gas OPEC,” an organization modeled after the oil cartel. Showing what hold this “gas weapon” has over our

Peter Hoskin

Predictions you can count on

The Spectator’s own James Forsyth has just been revealed as the top mainstream media performer in Politics Home’s Presidential Election Predictor Competition.  Along with Rob Schlesinger, of the US News and World Report, and Chuck Todd, of NBC’S First Read, James correctly predicted the election outcome in 18 of 20 battleground states. Congratulations, James! For James’s continuing views on US politics, head over to Americano.

Peter Hoskin

What are the odds? | 7 November 2008

For Gordon Brown, one of the greatest boons of the Labour triumph in Glenrothes is that it gives him an opportunity to tighten his stranglehold on the economic narrative.  All he need do is spin the byelection as a referendum on the Government’s approach to the downturn, and the Labour victory as a public endorsement of that approach.  Unsurprisingly, it’s an opportunity he’s duly taking. Now, with the main political battleground of the next few years likely to be the economy, these moments are pivotal.  Brown can capitalise here, and – thanks to the reinvigorated Labour spin operation, and the Tories’ confused economic message – most probably will.  This doesn’t

Peter Hoskin

Are the knives out for Osborne?

How much have the Deripaska affair and the Tories’ flimsy response to the economic and financial crises affected George Osborne’s standing within his party?  A fair bit, if this survey of party members by ConservativeHome is anything to go by.  I quote from their findings: “…support for the Shadow Chancellor has also plunged among the Tory grassroots.  Our latest survey of over 1,600 rank-and-file members found that 49% were satisfied with Mr Osborne but 47% were dissatisfied; a net positive rating of just 2%. That is a huge shift since last month when George Osborne enjoyed a net positive rating of +70%.” Osborne currently enjoys the support of David Cameron.