Society

State education has outlawed difficulty

But private schools, private tutors and bestselling books are filling the vacuum, says Harry Mount. Larkin was right: there is a hunger in us all ‘to be more serious’ The decline of the British education system has been my gain, I’m only partly ashamed to confess. As somebody who has published a jokey book about a highbrow subject, I have profited from the proceeds of writing for a market that simply didn’t exist half a century ago. In 1958, the sort of people who are buying books about Latin today were learning Latin in school. I’ve lost count of the people in their forties who’ve told me, ‘I never learnt

The laureate of intractable conflicts

Looking every inch the Brit that he isn’t, American playwright Christopher Shinn takes a bite of a sandwich in a Shepherd’s Bush rehearsal room on a rainy summer afternoon and confesses that, although grateful, he still finds it ‘a mystery’ that it should have been London’s theatrical community, rather than New York’s, that made his career. For his latest play, Now or Later, recently opened at the Royal Court, will be his fifth to premiere in London before going anywhere near his own continent, about which he relentlessly writes. It’s not that Shinn, 32, is not successful in his native country. Quite the contrary: the author of nine critically acclaimed

Rod Liddle

Have we ever faced an enemy more stupid than Muslim terrorists?

Isn’t it about time Muslim terrorists rethought their strategy of recording glorious martyrdom videos, in advance of failing to blow anything up? Wouldn’t it be a bit less embarrassing for all concerned? Time after time we see these imbeciles on our television news promising all sorts of mayhem and misery, the righteous and cleansing fires of Allah poured down upon we imperialist decadent kafir scum, ‘body parts’ scattered in the streets, etc. And then they forget to take a cigarette lighter with them to the airport, or the detonator doesn’t work, or they’re arrested buying 5,000 bottles of hydrogen peroxide from the local hairdresser’s shop and thus somehow arousing suspicion

How I became a world record holder

At a Google conference in Rhodes, Matthew d’Ancona finds himself part of a bid to break the world record for Zorba dancing — and to relive one of the greatest scenes in cinema ‘Teach me to dance. Will you?’ Few scenes in cinema have the emotional poignancy and magic of the last moments of Zorba the Greek (1964), as Basil, the young English writer played by Alan Bates, seeks his final lesson in life from Anthony Quinn’s majestic peasant-magus, on the Cretan shore. All around them are broken dreams, and the air hangs heavy with the prospect of their parting: but nothing can repress their joy as that familiar theme,

Alex Massie

Queen of the Silver Dollar

A mini-blogging hiatus, folks, as I’m off to Glasgow tonight to see the one and only Emmylou Harris play at the Royal Concert Hall. I assume Norm will be seeing the great lady when her tour reaches Manchester in a couple of days time. I think Chris Dillow is also a fan and – since three bloggers are more than enough to sustain a trend – does this make Emmylou the biggest country star in the British blogosphere?

James Forsyth

The McCain campaign mocks Gordon Brown

The news that Gordon Brown has thrown his weight behind Barack Obama has raced round the internets. If truth be told, Brown hasn’t endorsed Obama or done anything like that. Rather, a clumsily written article has implied that he has by singling out Obama for praise and not mentioning McCain. The McCain campaign’s response to these reports is scathing. In a post on the McCain report entitled “The Coveted Gordon Brown Endorsement” it points out that Obama no longer advocates the policy that Brown praised him for. Now, really this is a storm in a tea-cup. But it is hard to imagine the Bush or Kerry campaigns sending up Tony Blair

Fraser Nelson

Hari’s unfair charge

 I have today been unmasked as a racist.  Johann Hari of The Independent has managed to peer into my psyche and diagnose me. You see in my News of the World column (now online) I called Barack Obama “uppity”. Except, of course, I didn’t – I said that this was the charge being levied against him by his opponents. But Hari wouldn’t recognise this distinction – it spoils the fun. As he explains “Visit the South, and the word that invariably follows “uppity” is “nigger.”” Richard Littlejohn has used the u-word, and I find myself in the dock beside him. So Hari asks his jury: “The question is, are Nelson

China’s changing – quietly

I was in Beijing last weekend and, having heard about the “Great Firewall of China”, I typed ‘Tiananmen Square’ into Google. I was surprised to find the Wikipedia page describing the 1989 massacre – complete with image of the iconic ‘Tank Man’. Just six months ago, this page was unavailable. The Chinese government isn’t making a song and dance about this.  Combine this with the fact that more and more Chinese children are now learning English and an ever increasing number of young Chinese adults are coming to study in the west and you can see that glasnost is taking place even if it hasn’t been announced to the world.  Considering

A class act?

Polly Toynbee’s piece in the Guardian this morning is what one might expect – telling us class is not dead in Britain and inequality is more of an issue than ever. Maybe so, but she still waxes lyrical about phenomena she doesn’t seem to understand. She writes: “there was nothing cool about Sunday’s picture of Prince Harry’s girlfriend Chelsy holding a “chav” fancy dress party, where royal hangers-on dressed in (very expensive) shell suits, hoop earrings and gold necklaces. What’s hip about hoorays mocking their idea of the working class? The new classlessness is just the yob rich shedding all class embarrassment.” If Polly Toynbee believes that ‘hoorays’ can’t discern between the

The latest Strategist has gone live

The Strategist section of the latest Spectator Business has now gone live. In association with IBM, Strategist brings you in-depth analysis of the latest business issues. You can access the new articles here. Do also check out Strategist Online – an exclusive vodcast concentrating on one of the articles. You can watch the latest episode here. The next episode will appear early next month. If you have any questions that you’d like featured in the programme, please e-mail them to: strategist@spectatorbusiness.co.uk

James Forsyth

The struggle over the surge

The latest extract from Bob Woodward’s book about the battle over Iraq policy among the military is well worth reading. It reveals quite how bad relations got between advocates of the surge and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jack Keen—a retired general and a key advocate of the surge—was even banned from travelling to Iraq by the military at one point. While President Bush was forced to send back-channel messages to General Petraeus telling him that he “will have as much force as he needs for as long as he needs it” to counteract the pressure being put on by Petraeus for a precipitous draw-down by his military superiors. Woodward also reveals

Darling enters the lion’s den

Is Alistair Darling in for a mauling at the TUC conference later today? The official line from the brothers is that he’ll get a “frosty but polite” reception. But given that the Chancellor is most likely going to turn down calls for public sector pay rises, it’s anyone’s guess as to how long the politeness will last. Whatever happens, there’s certainly an extra buzz about this latest union get-together. Rachel Sylvester nails it in her column today, when she writes: “[The TUC conference] in Brighton this week is worth watching … because it could actually be a picture of the future. The union leaders promoting an ever-more left-wing agenda –

James Forsyth

Bouncing along

The Real Clear Politics polling average now has McCain ahead by 2.9 percent, the largest lead he has ever had by this measure and the first time he has been ahead in it since April. Now, this number obviously needs to be taken with a pinch of salt: McCain is currently enjoying both his convention and his VP bounce. But if anyone had offered the McCain team the chance to enter the post-convention sprint level, or even slightly ahead, a few months ago they would have bitten your hand off. Yet the reasons they’d have bitten your hand off—a flagging economy, an unpopular incumbent Republican president, and the fundamental problems

James Forsyth

Miliband maintains the truce

Andrew Sparrow flags up a quote by David Miliband at today’s Cabinet away-day in Birmingham: “I think Gordon is leading us with more vigour and determination and will prove people wrong … I am absolutely convinced that Gordon can lead us to victory. He has enormous values, drive and vision.” Now, as Andrew admits one can try and read too much between the lines. But I think he’s right that the “more” does seem significant. It is at the least proof that the truce between Brown and Miliband is holding.

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 8 September – 14 September

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there’s no need to stay ‘on topic’ – which means you’ll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There’s also no constraint on the length of what you write – so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything’s fair game – from political stories in your local

Theo Hobson

A matter of faith

Is the debate about faith schools becoming more constructive and intelligent? The reason for hoping so is the launch of a new campaigning group called Accord which calls for major reform of the system, but in a relatively nuanced way. It is composed of more than the usual atheist suspects, who think that anything religious is intrinsically demonic. Its chairperson is Rabbi Jonathan Romain, and there are a few Anglican vicars on board. The core aim is not to ban faith schools but to make them open to all locals; to end selection on the basis of parental religious allegiance. It is good to hear from believers who don’t toe

James Forsyth

Freddie and Fannie

The ‘conservatorship’ of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae represents, as Steven Pearlstein notes in the Washington Post, the most direct role for the federal government in the “workings of the financial system” since the great depression. Clive Crook points out that the eventual nationalisation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will bring 25 more times more loans onto the public balance sheet than the nationalisation of Northern Rock did in Britain. It is an illustration of how bad things are that there has been almost no political dissent about the move. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have long stood as examples of how political problems get kicked down the road