Society

Saturday

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 4 October 2008

Lucy Vickery presents the latest competition In Competition No. 2564 you were invited to submit a feature looking back at the Olympic Games written in the overblown style of a sportswriter with literary pretensions. High-brow followers of football are nothing new. And these days, as people flit increasingly freely between high and low culture, there is nothing unusual about the sight of a fan leafing through a volume of Barthes during half-time at Millwall. But the spectre of Pseuds Corner hovers over the sports pages and some writers can’t resist spicing up their prose with wince-inducing metaphors and clunking literary allusions. There are some fine examples from this week’s deserving winners,

Neil Collins

Farewell to the bank that did Dull

This is getting serious — so serious that I’ve done something I may have cause to regret terribly a year or two hence. I have sold my shares in Lloyds TSB. I did so with a heavy heart, and an even heavier loss, since they were bought when the shares were yielding 7 per cent, a rate comfortably in excess of the interest on the bank’s most generous deposit account at the time. They are still yielding 7 per cent, in a manner of speaking, but the shares are sad, shrivelled things, and the extra income I’ve had is a tiny fraction of the capital I’ve lost. Lloyds was the

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Shared opinion | 4 October 2008

‘Would you be interested,’ said the startlingly eager girl at the Birmingham conference centre, ‘in recording a message in the Conservative Video Box?’ God, I was pleased about that. There I was, neither a blond female, nor a read- ily identifiable member of an ethnic minority, and still the flunky reckoned I was the kind of person they wanted on film. It must have been the new suit. It’s grey, and sharp as daggers. You know. The kind of suit you might wear if you are an aspiring young Tory, and Central Office puts you up for a photoshoot in Tatler, which they will then sneeringly disown. That kind of

Paul Johnson

And another thing | 4 October 2008

Why do men want to rule the world? The question is prompted by the British Museum’s exhibition of objects from Hadrian’s day. They have gone to a lot of trouble. Worth it? Hadrian was one of those supremely busy, and colossally boring, people who crop up on history’s pages to puzzle us. He had been brought up by his distant relative Trajan (a much more interesting fellow) to assume wide responsibil-ities — the two tramped the empire together. No doubt old Trajan wanted him to succeed. Even so, Hadrian only did so by murdering four important people. That proved he wanted the job badly, of course. But, having got it,

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Why has the word ‘grandmother’ been banned by the Guardian?

There are too few active homosexuals and career women in the Third World. This is because blacks and Asians — from Australasia to Bangalore — have a tendency to put them in a pot, cook them and eat them. Primitive African tribes also eat crippled people — those in a wheelchair, or merely suffering from a hare lip — and indeed those they consider to be ethnic minorities. I know of one handicapped spinster who committed suicide rather than be eaten by some gypsies in Bombay. Her illegitimate daughter, an air hostess, who herself had given birth to Siamese twins in Calcutta, appealed for clemency but this fell on deaf

Venetia Thompson

The masters of the universe have turned to drink

It’s possible to get a reservation again at Scott’s. The City boys have well and truly left the building, and can now be found drowning their sorrows elsewhere, in dark corners of the West End and Chelsea, as far away from the prying eyes of the City as possible. ‘“Reduce your risk. Sell. Get flat.” But all I could think about was the school fees and the new kitchen, and how there’s just no recovering from this.’ I was looking into the pained eyes of a former master of the universe, who had until recently stared the credit crunch in the face and laughed. He was now on his sixth

The Spectator

The Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards

Nominations for the inaugural Spectator’s Readers’ Representative award are now open. The entries received so far show that there are at least some elected officials who have earned both the trust and respect of their constituents. Oliver Mitchell puts forward Dr Julian Lewis, part of the shadow defence team. Mitchell, 19, met Lewis at the Festival for Heroes event and was touched by the interest that Lewis took in him. Mitchell concedes that his view is biased but says ‘were more MPs able to make so positive an impression in one chance meeting, the faith in politicians of the public and armed forces might be restored’.   Gary Powell nominates

The Spectator

The leader we need

The latest news in the financial crisis is that, after weeks of blame-calling by all parties — generally misdirected, as Dennis Sewell argues in our cover story — a single culprit has at last been identified. It is human nature — that incorrigible force which makes us want too much of a good thing when it is within easy reach, and makes us dangerously complacent about risk when the going is good. It was human nature that made bankers behave irresponsibly when their judgment was warped by the temptation of giant bonuses; it made homebuyers and credit-card holders overreach themselves when they were offered too much cheap credit; it made

Aidan Hartley

Wild Life | 4 October 2008

Wars never get easier. Since Georgia, I have had flashbacks of an elderly woman crying her eyes out after being driven from her village by Russian bombs. When I was younger I used to bring real black dogs home with me, but not so much nowadays. My three-stage prescription for recovery from war journalism is as follows. First, get extremely drunk. Get very, very drunk and you can delete or corrupt entire files of short-term memory. Second, find your woman and make love. A close correspondent friend says he has to do this with his wife the second he arrives back home from an assignment, before he’s even sat down

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Palin on Cheney and Football

Will it never end? In fairness, the question “What do you think is the best and worst thing Dick Cheney has done as Vice-President?” isn’t altogether fair. That is to say, one can’t expect Palin, alas, to start talking about torture. But still, did she have to say this? PALIN: Worst thing I guess that would have been the duck hunting accident–where you know, that was an accident. And I think that was made into a caricature of him. And that was kind of unfortunate. So the best thing though, he’s shown support, along with George W. Bush, of our troops. And I’ve been there when George Bush has spoken

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Biden-Palin: Live! For Real! At Last!

Coffee? Check. Cigarettes? Check. Whisky? Check. Optimism? Not so much. But we’re live and uninterrupted here as we await the Brouhaha in Missourah, aka the biggest let down in Presidential sports. As always, have a pop in the comments or email me. Anyway, let’s get ready to rumble… 3.45: Oh, the CNN focus group is coming from The Ohio State University campus. Of course, now that it transpires that they think Biden won the debate I can assume they’re not actually students at tOSU… 3.42: Oh, you should read Will Wilkinson’s live-blog too. Back later. 3.33: Ifill won’t let us away without reminding us that “there are two more debates

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The temptation the Tories must resist

Just hours after Mandelson’s return had been reported, the Tories blasted out a document full of cutting remarks Mandelson had made about Brown. It was an impressively comprehensive list—there’s a lot of material to cover—but the Tories should cease and desist from this line of attack. In his press conference, Brown was spinning the past disagreements between the two men to his advantage. Tony Blair used to say that if World War Three broke out Peter Mandelson would be the first person he would call, Brown’s message was that economic war has broken out and the situation is too serious for him to let the past differences between Brown and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Some people are sharpening–not burying–their hatchets

Kevin Maguire’s post earlier today showed that some Brownites are not happy about the return of that arch-Blairite Mandelson. Benjamin Wegg-Proser’s demonstrates that some Blairities can’t resist the chance to goad the Brownites. This comment from Wegg-Prosser is not going to encourage détente between the camp followers of the two factions: “Gordon Brown’s acolytes have held no-one in greater contempt than Peter, their reaction to this news, as with most things that they say to the press, is probably unprintable. Whether he can turn things around for Gordon Brown is another matter. He certainly will not be able to do it single-handedly. But he will be able to bring a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Quote of the day | 3 October 2008

Comment Central has asked various Times contributors if bringing back Peter Mandelson is a masterstroke or a mistake. Matthew Parris’s answer to the question is so good it deserves to be quoted in full: “The masterstroke may come from Mr Mandelson himself, but later. As for the PM’s possible mistake, is it a mistake for a man losing his footing to grab at a spikey cactus for support?”

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Mandelson backlash

Bringing back Peter Mandelson and sidelining Damian McBride has not gone down well with some of the more hard-core Brownites. Kevin Maguire savages the Mandelson appointment, arguing that it makes Brown look weak, weak, weak: If Gordon Brown hopes people have forgotten who Peter Mandelson was he will be badly mistaken. Both will hate the ridicule coming their way. To turn to a figure who personified a lack of trust in politicians is a grave error. Should we start placing bets on Lord Mandy’s third Cabinet resignation? What other surprises has Brown up his sleeve? John Prescott as Deputy PM? Denis Healey as Chancellor? Neil Kinnock’s still around. And what

Matthew Dancona

Justin Forsyth’s promotion is a smart move

If the reports about Justin Forsyth are true, this is a smart move. Forsyth, a man with a background in international development, is one of the cleverest people in Number Ten and also one of the most courteous. I travelled with him on the Brown trip to Camp David and the UN last year as he was busy with the Darfur resolution, and he was the very model of what a Downing Street official should be. It was striking, even then, that the PM trusted him go to the back of the plane to brief the hacks on the deal that was being brokered in New York and – by

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories need a top-quality politician to shadow Ed Miliband

Gordon Brown’s decision to create a new department of Energy and Climate Change and place one of his most talented protégés in charge of it is a sign that Labour plan to make a major push on the issue. This should worry the Tories. Tory energy policy is far too woolly at the moment; the party has still has not decided where it stands on nuclear power. Alan Duncan, for all his energy expertise, has not provided the intellectual leadership that the Tories desperately need on the issue. There will be a temptation for the Tories just to move up one of the shadow DEFRA or BERR team into this

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Does Gordon Brown remember the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog?

Just in case he doesn’t, here is a reminder for him: “Hellooo Mr. Frog!” called the scorpion across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?” “Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly. “Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!” Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The return of Mandelson shows that Brown knows just how deep a hole he is in

Well, who thought that Brown had it in him? The return of Peter Mandelson to the Cabinet is the kind of bold move that Brown has seemed incapable of making since becoming Prime Minister. It, along with the apparent departure of Damian McBride, sends out a message that Brown is going to try and rise above Labour factionalism. The appointment of Nick Brown as Chief Whip looks very different when seen through this prism.