Society

Saturday

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 22 November 2008

Queen Victoria complained of Gladstone: ‘He speaks to Me as if I was a public meeting.’ Queen Victoria complained of Gladstone: ‘He speaks to Me as if I was a public meeting.’ At least, she said so according to G.W.E. Russell (1853-1919), who wrote biographies not only of Gladstone but also of Sydney Smith, E.B. Pusey and H.P. Liddon. It’s a good line, cleverly used by Jeremy Butterfield in Damp Squid (Oxford, £9.99), his new book about changes in the English language. ‘The quote from Queen Victoria,’ he writes, ‘suggests that even she may not have lived up to the standards set by some purists.’ In saying that, he introduces

Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety | 22 November 2008

I’m the celebrity who told ITV there was too much Ant and Dec — get me out of here! Earlier this year I made a life-changing decision. I realised after I had made it that it had been simmering away, on the edge of my consciousness, for some months. But at the time it seemed revelatory: one of those epiphanies that the American self-help guru Dr Phil calls a ‘defining moment’. ‘Darling,’ I said to my wife over breakfast, ‘there’s something I need to tell you.’ ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘You haven’t been fired again?’ ‘No, no, nothing like that. I’ve decided that if I get the call-up to appear

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 22 November 2008

Q. At a packed piano recital the other night, we were the only ones who didn’t have white hair, so had every reason to expect good manners to prevail. Nevertheless, during Träumerei, a lady started peeling apart a cellophane wrapper. It was a long, loving and loud process, and to judge by the surreptitious movement with which she finally raised the sweetmeat to her mouth, she knew she was doing wrong. The concert hall acoustics heartbreakingly magnified the sound and ruined my enjoyment of this piece. It may also have enraged the famous pianist, who did not favour us with an encore. What should we have done? S.T., Wiltshire A.

Peter Jones

Ancient & Modern | 22 November 2008

It is no coincidence that the rules of persuasive public speaking were being formulated by Greeks in the 5th century bc when real democracy was in its first flush in Athens; for if a man was to be given the chance to take an active part in open debate in the assembly, he must know how to do it. Handbooks (as well as expensive educations) could help him. Democracy was not just for toffs. But there was a rub: while such resources might be able to show a man how to persuade, would they also help him discern right from wrong? As Plato pointed out, imagine the outcome if a

Daniel Korski

The real choices

Have you ever watched two people argue for a while, trying to make up your mind who you thought was right, only to realise both were arguing around the real issues? That is how I feel, having listened to the Government and Opposition on how to deal with the current crisis. Gordon Brown has made the case for an expansionary fiscal policy – pushing money into the economy -– and paying for it later through taxes. David Cameron, on the other hand, has argued for a more long-term approach, demanding that no stimulus come back to haunt taxpayers. But both have, in a sense, become Keynesians, believing that some kind

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Caroline for London

Under the headline ‘This would insult Britain, Mr President’, Peter Oborne objects to the idea of making Caroline Kennedy the US Ambassador to the Court of St James. Peter’s grounds are that some of “ her family were long-standing supporters of IRA terrorism during the Irish troubles” and that her grandfather who, was Ambassador to London from 1938 to 1940, “favoured Hitler over Churchill”. Peter is right about this, if you want to get a sense of how anti-British Joe Kennedy was read John Lukacs excellent Five Days in London, but I would still like to see Caroline appointed. In reality the choice is probably between Caroline and some mega-fundraiser

Peter Hoskin

What dangers lie in wait?

John Redwood writes a punchy blog post on Alistair Darling’s inconsistent message to the banks on lending.  Well worth reading the whole thing, but here’s the key paragraph: “As someone who does want the banks to help small businesses as much as possible, I understand they can only do so on a big enough scale if the government is more successful in offering the prospect of recovery from recession. The government faces a dilemma. If it does not start to lift us out of recession, lending too much to people and companies who cannot repay just weakens the banks more rather than saving the businesses we want to save. Weak

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The coming Tory attack on Brown

We can expect to see a lot of Ken Clarke over the next few days; the Tories know that he is still on of their most convincing voices on the economy. His interview in The Times today is helpful to the Tory cause. But it is worth noting that he breaks with the leadership in endorsing the idea of a stimulus package albeit one of a very different stripe from the one Brown and Darling are said to be planning, Clarke favours a temporary reduction in VAT to 15 percent. One line from the interview, though, could be the basis of an effective Tory attack: “We keep having ‘this is

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Spectator Sport | 22 November 2008

This wisdom of crowds stuff has always seemed a bit double-edged: for every silent and courageous candlelit throng gathering outside the cathedral in Leipzig in the 1980s before eventually bringing down the Berlin Wall, there are always far more examples like the braying boo-boys at Twickenham last weekend doing their bit to damage our reputation for sportsmanship. But if Britons have been collectively enlightened and witty enough to vote in their thousands, week after week, to keep John Sergeant in what is after all a dancing contest, not a political reporting contest, then let’s hope that the people mobilise once again in the name of a different cause: ensuring that

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 22 November 2008

In Competition No. 2571 you were invited to submit an extract from the life story of a famous figure from history written in the style of a contemporary misery memoir. The seemingly insatiable appetite for tales of other people’s torment and degradation that keeps ‘mis lit’ at the top of the bestseller lists is as depressing as the subject matter of the books themselves, which may be why, overall, you were on less sparkling form than usual this week. As one might expect, the Tudors loomed large, but I was surprised no one chose Job, surely the original misery memoirist. In the great tradition of the genre, Katie Mallett’s Vlad

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Any Other Business | 22 November 2008

My hopes for America lie less in Obama- mania, more in Vaud and the Villains Long before I became a journalist I taught myself to absorb the essence of an unfamiliar city by staying alert in the taxi from the airport: Los Angeles offers a particularly vivid first encounter. As the yellow cab barrels out of the precincts of LAX on to an angry avenue called La Brea, images and warnings crowd in. Neon signs in Korean and Spanish tell me that this is one of the planet’s most multi-ethnic conurbations. Half-crazed vagrants haunt the sidewalks, their random possessions piled in shopping trolleys. Radio ads offer a catalogue of modern

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Another Voice | 22 November 2008

Very long flights — flights like mine, to and from Australia, for instance — offer such an opportunity to think that you can tease a thought almost to the point of madness. What follows may read like that, and if you don’t wish to perform mental gymnastics on a nerdish pinhead until you’re intellectually giddy, quit now. But I’ve been turning over in my mind a recurrent problem in human reasoning that in real life irritates and trips us all, leading to endless misunderstandings — and I may have cracked it. It’s the problem of time zones, and putting clocks ‘forward’ and ‘back’, and whether it’s ‘earlier’ or ‘later’ in

Theodore Dalrymple

Global Warning | 22 November 2008

The other day, the 9.56 bus to the nearest train station was late and the people at the stop — of whom I was by far the youngest — began to grumble a little. Then, looming out of the mist, appeared the driver. The other day, the 9.56 bus to the nearest train station was late and the people at the stop — of whom I was by far the youngest — began to grumble a little. Then, looming out of the mist, appeared the driver. ‘I’m sorry, the brakes have failed,’ he said. ‘I’m not prepared to risk your lives and they won’t be repaired until the next bus.’

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Hillary Accepts

Well, one assumes the dear old New York Times wouldn’t run a story saying she’s accepted the offer to be Secretary of State unless it was pretty well certain that she will. That sound you hear is foreign editors tearing up their pages right now. The groaning comes from Sunday newspaper hacks who now need to recast their focus pieces. What does it all mean? Well, like I say, it suggests Obama’s not going to break with the Washington consensus on foreign policy. But perhaps we will all be surprised. Alas, this also means the already tiresome “Team of Rivals” meme will run and run…

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Will Brown let Darling tell us that he is going to hike the VAT rate to pay for the stimulus package?

As we learnt during the banking crisis, what Robert Peston predicts tends to become reality shortly afterwards. So, his informed speculation on what is in the PBR is well worth reading. This passage is particularly interesting and appears to be the latest shot in the briefing wars, which has reached up to cabinet level, around the Brown-Darling fight over whether or not Labour should explain how it tax cuts and increased spending will be paid for: “But he [Darling] will also announce deferred tax rises and deferred cuts in public spending – to kick in when the economy has recovered a bit. When would that be? Maybe 2010, maybe 2011. If he

Peter Hoskin

Maude responds

Here are Francis Maude’s answers to the questions posed by CoffeeHousers: Sue Denim “The Tories are ignoring their base to chase the votes of the soft centre-left. Discuss.” I don’t really know what this means.  We have to be a national party, generous in outlook and broad in appeal.  I’ve always thought that most people’s instincts and preferences are in line with ours: for social responsibility rather than central state control; believing that there is such a thing as society but that it’s not the same thing as the state.  We’ve never believed that everything can be left to the market or that individual responsibility is all.  We know that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Labour arguments for a June 4th poll

The more people one speaks to the more one gets the impression that there might be an election early next year. The principal rationale for a poll in 2009 is ignoble: by 2010 the reality of recession will have caught up with Gordon Brown so he needs to go to the country before then. There are a couple of particular attractions for June 4th—the date floated in the Evening Standard—for Labour.  June 4th is also the date of the European election, this would ease the burden on Labour’s finances—Labour can’t afford to fight serious campaigns in both and so could suffer a momentum-reversing thrashing in the European elections if it

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Who is stoking the early election speculation?

In the New Statesman this week, Martin Bright writes that ‘one former cabinet minister who spent a long time at the Treasury told the New Statesman: “Gordon has to get the Obama visit [the G8 summit in April] out of the way then call an election. There really is no other option.” Today on the front page of the Evening Standard Anne McElvoy reports that a Brown “ally” told her that: “He would be mad not to think about it. “The date really selects itself if you look at the options. Gordon will have had the G20 meeting in London in April, which will show him chairing the most important forum in the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Jam today, jam tomorrow but never jam again

This morning’s FT lays out just how bad a state the public finances are in: “Annual public borrowing is set to rocket towards £120bn over the next two years – far higher than City forecasts – forcing Alistair Darling to announce plans for deferred tax rises and public spending curbs when he presents his pre-Budget report next week. … The consensus forecast is for borrowing to hit 6 per cent of national income, or £90bn, next financial year, but the Treasury expects the rate of deterioration to continue apace, suggesting the budget deficit will hit 8-9 per cent of gross domestic product over the next two years, close to £120bn