Society

Sunday

4 Jan 2009

Mr Webb Returns To Washington

There were all manner of reasons for Barack Obama to pick someone other than Jim Webb as his running-mate (though there was a case to be made for Webb too). But, via Ross Douthat, here’s a reminder of why Webb is, as he might put it himself, a serious politician: This spring, Webb (D-Va.) plans to introduce legislation on a long-standing passion of his: reforming the U.S. prison system. Jails teem with young black men who later struggle to rejoin society, he says. Drug addicts and the mentally ill take up cells that would be better used for violent criminals. And politicians have failed to address this costly problem for

Alex Massie

Obituary of the Day

Some New Year cheer, courtesy of the Daily Telegraph’s obituaries column. The deceased, in this instance, is Lady Anne Cavendish-Bentinck, one of Britain’s largest landowners who, had she not been born on the distaff side, would have been the Duke of Portland. Anyway… Her grandfather, the 6th Duke, a younger half-brother of the Countess of Strathmore (mother of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother), had not been in direct line for the dukedom. He succeeded his eccentric second cousin, who had a horror of being seen and so supervised the digging of a network of underground passages and rooms at Welbeck – these included a tunnel 1¼ miles long, and wide

Alex Massie

Mr Pennyfeather finds a new job

You probably heard about the new school in Sheffield that won’t call itself a school because that word has “negative connotations”. Watercliffe Meadow will instead call itself a “place of learning”. Seriously. It’s all very Decline and Fall : “We class schools, you see, into four five grades: Leading School, First-rate School, Good School, School and Place of Learning. Frankly,” said Mr Levy, “Place of Learning is pretty bad…”

Alex Massie

Further Adventures in Live-Blogging

We were here for the primary debates last year. We covered Obama vs Clinton. We live-blogged the Presidential debates and we dared not miss Biden vs Palin. But all of that was but a warm-up for the main event tonight. Yup, taking live-blog absurdity to new heights, we’ll be live-blogging the final of the World Darts Championship tonight. Obama vs McCain was small beer compared to the feast of drama afforded by Phil “The Power” Taylor’s epic confrontation with Raymond “Barney Rubble” van Barneveld. So join us, from around 7.30pm UK-time (2.30pm EST) as we enjoy some terrific tungsten action tonight…

Alex Massie

Halls of Fame

In general, I suppose I don’t have too much against the idea of a cricket Hall of Fame though given that we’ve managed to get along fine without one for centuries there doesn’t seem any pressing need for one. But if you are going to have such a Hall, then for god’s sake include the right people. Via Patrick Kidd, I see that the ICC’s new venture has found room for an initial class of 55 inductees that, bewilderingly, fails to include Victor Trumper. While it’s fine to ignore players who only retired in the last ten or so years the lack of recognition of chaps from the Golden Age

James Forsyth

A first bit of bother for President-elect Obama as Richardson withdraws

Until today the transition had gone pretty much perfectly for Obama. His appointments were impressive and warmly received, his poll numbers have risen to record levels and the scandal about Governor Blagojevich allegedly trying to sell off Obama’s Senate seat has not hurt Obama or any of his staff. But today the transition hit a bump in the road: New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson had to withdraw from consideration to be Commerce Secretary. It was decided that a grand jury investigation into allegations of corruption in the awarding of state contracts in New Mexico would make his confirmation too difficult and distracting. Commerce is a second-tier post, though its importance

James Forsyth

A far from healthy attitude to accountability

There is a classic example of government waste and arrogance in today’s Observer. The Department of Health has taken to paying celebrities to appear in public health announcements. The thinking (and it is rather dubious if you ask me) being that a celebrity is more likely than anyone else to persuade us to eat five pieces of fruit a day and the like. The Observer put in a Freedom of Information request to find out how much these celebrities are paid for this work. But the Department of Health is refusing to disclose the sums involved, with a spokesman saying: “The Department appreciates that high-profile individuals are very successful at

James Forsyth

He’s bolder than you’d think

In The Observer today, Peter Oborne argues—as he has in the past—that David Cameron is far more of a radical than most people realise: “[Cameron] has been accused, especially by supporters, of being long on ambition, short on principles. This is almost the complete opposite of the case. I have read most of his speeches since he became leader and they are incredibly brave. Fundamentally, he has been calling for the British state as it currently stands to be dismantled, with power taken from central government and given back to local communities and institutions. There is an intellectual coherence here. In a series of brilliant speeches, Tory education spokesman Michael

James Forsyth

Father Brown’s double-standard

In his speech to the Labour conference, Gordon Brown launched a highly personal attack on how David Cameron treats his children: “Some people have been asking why I haven’t served my children up for spreads in the papers And my answer is simple My children aren’t props; they’re people” But Brown seems to have no problem with talking to print journalists about his children or having them appear during meetings with journalists. Take the interview in today’s Observer, Gaby Hinsliff reports that: “His two-year-old son, Fraser, bursts in periodically still clad in his pyjamas and scrambles gleefully on to his father’s lap.” Personally, I think it is entirely natural both

Peter Hoskin

Brown smiles for the camera

Optimism, optimism, optimism. That’s the line that Gordon Brown pushes in his interview with the Observer today. He quotes Barack Obama; says he’s going to create jobs the Roosevelt way; claims that British goods are “the products the world will want to buy”; and seems dismissive of any black clouds on the horizon, as in this (quite worrying) passage: “[Brown] mocks the Observer for being too pessimistic in our questions: ‘Can we afford this, can we afford that’! I’m more optimistic about our ability to be a successful economy creating large amounts of wealth in the future.'” The politics of all this optimism is fairly clear. As Matt suggests in

Saturday

3 Jan 2009

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody | 3 January 2009

Tamzin Lightwater’s New Year’s Resolutions Here they are, my New Year’s Resolutions for 2009: 1. Keep job. Make self indispensable to Dave, thus ensuring that should the axe fall again on the Tory nerve centre as Britain plunges ever deeper into recession, Yours Truly will be last person Jed thinks of when he’s trying to make savings, and not just escape redundancies cos am the only one here who knows how to restart the cappuccino machine, which is running a limited service only, by the way — no chocolate sprinkles until further notice due to Compassionate Cutbacks. 2. Devise responsible yet headline grabbing fiscal stimulus. Gids’ and Mr Letwin’s proposals on

The Spectator

Letters | 3 January 2009

Labour’s carrot and stick Sir: The Spectator is right (Leading article, 13 December) to call not just for ‘benefit claimants actually to do something for their handouts’, but for a significant increase in the income tax threshold. There is little sense — or fairness — in trying to push people off benefits and into work if they are worse off in work than on benefits. In any case, there is something absurd in telling a man (or a single mother) that they are simultaneously poor enough to need benefits and rich enough to pay income tax. The government’s proposed measures to alleviate the economic mess they have helped to create

Melissa Kite

Real Life | 3 January 2009

We don’t like change My Siciliana pizza arrived with three artichoke slices missing last night. Three artichoke slices, two anchovy fillets and a chunk of mozzarella missing to be precise. I know this because I am a creature of obsessional habits and when I get accustomed to a thing, I tend to get neurotically accustomed to it. When the number of artichoke slices on my pizza suddenly decreases I get a tight feeling in my chest, which is so alarming I have to go to the loo and do breathing exercises. The disappearance of the artichokes might seem like a simple oversight on the part of Pizza Express, were it

Jeremy Clarke

Low Life | 3 January 2009

Three missed calls. Two answer phone messages. The bank manager. He needed to see me. Would I make an appointment and come in to see him as soon as possible? His tone of voice suggested it was a matter of some urgency. Had some energetic, enterprising person fraudulently obtained my password or pin number and cleaned out my overdraft facility, I wondered? Normally I don’t need to have anything to do with the bank manager. A couple of years ago, however, this current one’s predecessor had smartly intercepted me on my way out of his bank and offered to lend me money. He led me into an office, candidly confessed

Taki

High Life | 3 January 2009

The year 2008 was like herpes, very hard to get rid of; 2009 will be worse, trust me, as Bernie Madoff used to tell the suckers. This one, incidentally, is not over. The greatest scam ever perpetrated will go on and on. Madoff was not alone, and if the crooks in the SEC who turned a blind eye to his Ponzi scheme are ever forced to come clean, some pretty big names will hopefully end up in striped suits sewing buttons. Madoff scammed small investors, billionaires, hedge fund idiots, charities, pension funds and multinational banks. What is incredible is that his fund was repeatedly brought to the attention of the

Robin Oakley

The Turf | 3 January 2009

When, back in the mists of history, I proposed to Mrs Oakley (in the rather naff Caribbean cocktail bar of what seemed at the time to be a fashionable London venue patronised by a set we could not afford to join) I prefaced my question with a long preview about the perils of marrying a journalist. Fortunately, she did not take me seriously. A young CNN producer told me the other day that she was warned on starting her journalism course in a Spanish university that the failure rate for marriages in our trade was worse than any other. But Mrs O has stuck with it through a train-wreck life

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 3 January 2009

One of my Christmas presents was a book by the agreeable Dominican, Fr Timothy Radcliffe, called Why Go to Church? On page 61 I found the assertion that ‘in Persian there is a word, nakhur, for a camel that will not give its milk unless its nostrils are tickled’. One of my Christmas presents was a book by the agreeable Dominican, Fr Timothy Radcliffe, called Why Go to Church? On page 61 I found the assertion that ‘in Persian there is a word, nakhur, for a camel that will not give its milk unless its nostrils are tickled’. A likely story, I thought. My doubts were not entirely dispelled when

Toby Young

Status Anxiety | 3 January 2009

My New Year advice to aspiring journalists: become accountants instead Like many people in the media, I’m bracing myself for an annus horribilis. I have multiple income streams — film, television, radio, books and journalism — and all have been decimated by the Credit Crunch. I’m not exaggerating when I say my earnings will fall by at least 50 per cent in 2009. I got an inkling of just how bad things are when I was offered a column recently by a major Fleet Street newspaper. They wanted me to write 500 words a week on the OpEd page — prime real estate by any measure. ‘Great,’ I said. ‘How

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 3 January 2009

Q. I moved down from Scotland to London about two years ago with my family. When my husband is away or working late, I regularly have dinner with a (platonic) male friend who used to live near us up north. He now lives in north London and I live in south. We always meet at the same restaurant, which is exactly halfway between us. We always really enjoy the chat. We always split the bill. The only trouble is that he drinks — not very much, but enough to preclude him from driving — and I have recently given up drinking so I always have my car outside. He used

Alex Massie

And so to 2009…

Back then and not before time. Or, rather, back rather sooner from a holiday hiatus than was the case last year. Anyway, I hope you all had a splendid Christmas and New Year. Matters were quietly entertaining here. Christmas in the Borders and then Hogmanay at my sister’s place in Perthshire. All very agreeable, capped off with a trip yesterday to see the oldest living organism in Europe, beneath whose branches young Pontius Pilate once scampered as a lad. Notionally, at least, if also possibly implausibly. Meanwhile, before blogging recommences with a vengeance, a special shout-out to the mystery person who sent me Clotilde Dusoulier’s splendid Parisian cookbook Chocolate and