Society

Saturday

27 Sep 2008

Real Life | 27 September 2008

Quite out of the blue, the insurance company rang to say that the Polish driver has admitted liability and my car is to be fixed. This came as a shock and forced me to reevaluate certain prejudices I once held to be self evident. I had, for instance, entirely written off the possibility of a foreign driver coming clean about hitting my car. But he has. I had also discounted any likelihood of an insurance company insuring something. But mine has come up trumps after forcing me merely to gaze into the first circle of hell — abandon all hope of keeping your no claims bonus, you who enter here.

Jeremy Clarke

Low Life | 27 September 2008

The bride was several minutes late arriving at the church. Her side of the congregation were farming people, and while we waited, and the choir sang, the bloke on the pew beside me showed me photos of his new Bedlington terrier, Archie. He did look a handsome chap. My one ambition is to keep a dog — in particular a Bedlington crossed with a whippet — so my appreciation of the slide show on the back of his digital camera while we waited for the bride was enthusiastic and genuine. It was strange to be sitting in God’s house again. I was brought up going to churches of all denominations

Taki

High Life | 27 September 2008

The party’s over, it’s time to call it a day. They’ve burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away. It’s time to wind up the masquerade. Just make your mind up, the piper must be paid. The party’s over, the candles flicker and dim. You danced and dreamed through the night, It seemed right just being with him. Now you must wake up, all dreams must end. Take off your make up, the party’s over, It’s all over, my friend. Gstaad The first time I heard this was back in 1956, and I was not yet 20, and it was at Merion Cricket Club, in Philadelphia, the first grass

Dot Wordsworth

Mind Your Language | 27 September 2008

Dot Wordsworth on fashions in language There is no reason to disallow the phrase aside from (instead of apart from), but I know I shall never use it. Hearing it, with slight annoyance, set me wondering why people admit new terms for old in their personal speech. We hear politicians and football commentators saying aside from on the wireless and television. If the phrase filled a gap in the language, I could see the point of picking it up. But there seems to be no new meaning or connotation in aside from that is not conveyed by apart from. Both phrases have the separate meanings of ‘in addition to’ (‘Quite

Justin Webb

Diary – 27 September 2008

I am deeply depressed about my children’s capacity to connect with the Old Country should we ever come back to England. My effort to begin the process of toughening them up for the rigours of the British education system (uniforms, etc) met with disregard bordering on insolence. ‘You might have to take exams,’ I ventured. ‘What’s an exam?’ they chorused without lifting their heads from the telly. Oh dear. At their Washington school they mainly learn how wonderful they are; the headmaster begins each day by shaking hands enthusiastically with every pupil. My children are much admired for the faintly British way they speak but the youngest thinks apple sauce

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 27 September 2008

It is a fascinating feature of this great financial disaster that everyone — or at least everyone sensible — is confused. It is a fascinating feature of this great financial disaster that everyone — or at least everyone sensible — is confused. I do not mean the basic, widespread confusion about terms and processes — about what is short-selling or a derivative, what are monolines, HELOCS, etc. I mean confusion about what is good news and what is bad. Has America nationalised its banks, and if it has, is that good or bad? Was it good to allow Lloyds to swallow HBOS, because it saved the latter, or bad, because

The Spectator

Letters | 27 September 2008

Storing up more trouble Sir: Your leading article (20 September) calls for a ‘kick up the backside’ to the banking industry. That kick should be aimed elsewhere. The British and American governments have not merely permitted this crisis to happen, but positively created it by a deliberate relaxation of monetary controls. Worse still, they have now decided that instead of destroying excess credit by asset deflation, bankruptcies and share collapses, the monetary inflation is to be consolidated by absorption of bad debt into the public finances. I don’t see how this can end well. Some commentators are already saying that, if passed unaltered, the proposed American financial legislation could, once

Toby Young

Status Anxiety | 27 September 2008

To my astonishment, the tsunami that swept through the global financial markets last week actually affected one of my neighbours. When the credit crunch extends as far as Acton, you know Gordon Brown’s in trouble. It turns out the man in question was an employee of Lehman Brothers. He’d managed to secure a job there after being laid off by Bear Stearns — which must make him one of the unluckiest men in London. When he told me this I immediately suggested he write a piece about this unfortunate coincidence for one of the broadsheets, but he declined on the grounds that it might deter anyone else from employing him.

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 27 September 2008

Your problems solved Q. I am visited by my 30-year-old godson who, quite often, brings a girlfriend to stay for the weekend. As I live in the country and have a septic system, I would like to remind him not to flush prophylactics down the lavatory. I appreciate that people in my situation often choose to place a notice to this effect in the guest bathroom, but I fear that if I were to do this now it might be seen as accusatory. What do you suggest? M.H., Berry, NSW, Australia A. Even in Australia such a notice would be too explicit. Instead, arrange to receive a telephone call from

Peter Jones

Ancient & Modern | 27 September 2008

A group of 200 pagan worshippers gathered recently at the Parthenon to beg Athena not to allow material to be removed from her temple and relocated in the new, specially designed museum nearby. The goddess was obviously not impressed. One cannot blame her. The ancient relationship between men and gods was perfectly reflected in the way prayers were offered to them. First, you identified the god, and gave him his titles (you must get the right god for the job); then you listed everything you had done for the god and the god for you; then you made your request; and finally you promised that, if the prayer was granted,

Alex Massie

McCain vs Obama in Mississippi

Well, here we go again campers. And this time it might even matter, though without the presence of Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards and Joe Biden it’s not likely to be as much fun – ie, witless – as the primary debate season. Competence kills these things. So too, sanity. Anyway, the expectations game is almost over; now there’s just the debate itself to endure. Yes, for the first time John McCain and Barack Obama are debating a live, non-certifiable member of the opposite party. The debate is notionally about foreign policy, but John McCain will be given time to explain his behaviour

Alex Massie

Who Won?

So who won? And does it matter? Only up to a point. John Kerry won the first of his debates with George W Bush and won it handsomely. That is to say, he won in conventional terms, demonstrating a keener grasp of the issues and, indeed, the complexities of being President. But in another, perhaps more important, sense Kerry lost. Not because he didn’t know what he was talking about but because he failed to project an air of authority or, for that matter, personality that seemed Presidential. He lacked the necessary aura. I don’t know if Obama quite has it yet. That is to say, at its best his

James Forsyth

Indiscipline should worry the Tories as much as complacency

There has been a lot of talk about how the Tories must avoid becoming complacent. Indeed, one-half expects to find that champagne is only available under the counter in Birmingham. But just as great a danger is posed by indiscipline. Take today’s papers. Dominic Grieve, the shadow Home Secretary, has stepped on the Tory economic message by giving an interview to The Guardian in which he criticises multiculturalism and bemoans that “We’ve actually done something terrible to ourselves in Britain”. The issue here is not what Grieve said but when he said it. His predecessor, David Davis, has talked to the Telegraph about his new role on the backbenches. He

James Forsyth

A draw was a good result for the front-runner

Having watched last night’s debate properly and read the press coverage of it, it seems pretty clear that it was a draw. There was no ‘global test’ moment for either candidate and neither of them managed to put the other on the canvas. Obama should be a lot happier with this result than McCain. First of all he is ahead so a debate that doesn’t change the dynamics of the race suits him. Secondly this was a debate on foreign policy and national security—admittedly, the first third of it was taken up with the financial crisis—which is McCain’s strongest suit. If Obama was going to have a moment where he

James Forsyth

Cameron, policy and personality

There are couple of very revealing interviews with David Cameron in the papers today. Talking to James Chapman and Peter Oborne of the Mail, Cameron expounds on the Tory policy response to the financial crisis. Here’s the key passage: At a time when some economists are projecting that Government borrowing is set to crash through the £100 billion barrier, he says an incoming Tory government will take away key powers to oversee tax and spending from the Treasury. So a crucial supervisory role will be handed to an outside body which will be given independent powers to monitor spending and borrowing levels. Cameron will explain next week how this body

James Forsyth

Debate watch

You can watch last night’s debate and read a transcript of it here. The insta-polls give the debate to Obama by a relatively comfortable margin. Time’s Mark Halperin also scores it to Obama while the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza suggests that McCain might have edged it. More later.

Roger Alton

Spectator Sport | 27 September 2008

Crying games So what was Nick Faldo blubbing about a week ago when he was talking to the media about his European Ryder Cup team’s meeting with Muhammad Ali on the Valhalla course at Louisville, Kentucky? He doesn’t strike one as the weeping kind, though he has form. I seem to remember him reaching for the man-size after tapping in to win the Open at Muirfield in 1992. And we’re used to sportsmen cracking up during the event (remember Darren Clarke red-eyed and tender at the K Club two years ago, only a few weeks after his wife had died). But before, a whole day before? All very peculiar, especially

James Young

Competition | 27 September 2008

In Competition No 2563 you were invited to write a poem or a piece of prose whose lines or sentences end with twelve given words in any order. This is my last week minding the Comp Shop while Lucy Vickery has been on maternity leave. It has been a pleasure and a privilege doing business with you all and witnessing your wit and wisdom. Special thanks to Bill Greenwell, Basil Ransome-Davies, Alan Millard and a few other early-bird entrants; if a comp passes the B and B test, the setter knows that it won’t be a total turkey. No less valuable are the later arrivals, like the doughty Scots duo

Simon Nixon

A catalogue of credit-crunch cant

We live in frightening times. Markets are in freefall; economies are in turmoil; the financial system is on the brink. People want simple explanations and easy answers. They want to know who to blame for the mess and what can be done to clear it up. Just as well, then, that there is no shortage of politicians ready to fulfil this need. The dictionary defines ‘cant’ as insincere, pious or moralistic talk. If cant was a commodity, it would be the first big bubble of the post-credit-crunch world. Already debate over the credit crunch is being reduced in some quarters to a series of simplistic narratives in which all bankers

Paul Johnson

And Another Thing | 27 September 2008

Stop throwing bricks! You might hit a bishop’s niece ‘Damn! Another bishop dead!’ said Lord Melbourne in 1834, adding, ‘I think they do it to vex me.’ The departure of one bishop meant he had to make a new one, and that involved writing (in his own hand, for security reasons) disagreeable letters on matters in which he took little interest. In his time, however, there were only 26 bishops, and no more than two died, on average, in any one year. Today there are 114 bishops, and when one dies, or half a dozen for that matter, it is, to use Talleyrand’s distinction, a news-item, not an event. The