Society

Saturday

16 Aug 2008

Status Anxiety | 16 August 2008

These days, I can’t even afford to rent a trailer on Shelter Island As a young man living in New York, I used to club together with four or five friends every summer and rent a house on Shelter Island. About 80 miles from New York, it is close enough to the Hamptons to enjoy a certain social cachet, but not so close that it is overrun with Porsche-driving investment bankers. A favourite bumper sticker on the island reads: ‘SLOW DOWN — You’re Not Off-Island Any More.’ I spent an idyllic summer there in 1999 with the woman who would become my wife and we have often dreamt about returning

Peter Jones

Ancient and Modern – 16 August 2008

The Anglican bishops have met and reached their grave conclusions on a number of doubtless vital issues — except one. What about the Olympic Games? Are they not pagan rituals? And was it not for that excellent reason that the Church banned them? It was Constantine the Great, founder in ad 324 of Constantinople as the ‘new Rome’, who encouraged the spread of Christianity without condemning other beliefs. But bishops like Ambrose of Milan were not enthusiastic about tolerating polytheistic cults or pagan intellectual movements, and their influence began to be felt. In 380 the emperor Theodosius I decreed that Christianity should be the official religion of the Byzantine empire,

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 16 August 2008

Q. I recently managed to put together a large party for a summer country-house opera at the Grange near Winchester. We decided not to picnic, but instead I had booked one of the private dining-rooms there. However, from past experience, it often happens that some guests will cancel at the last moment for one unforeseen reason or another. To avoid wasting the tickets and the dinners, this year I decided to ask some friends well in advance whether they wouldn’t mind going on the ‘standby’ list in case someone drops out. Most were flattered by my idea and agreed willingly. However, one said this was an insult and they didn’t

Alex Massie

Obama’s Jobs Rhetoric

Since we’re on the subject of Barack Obama’s economic nationalism, here’s a radio ad airing in Wisconsin in which he suggests John McCain has a treasonous desire to ship American jobs off to nasty, grasping foreigners. You can listen to it here. (Text of the ad is also after the jump).It’s all part of some “Buy American” strategy to be pursued in Pennsylvania and the midwest. Great. Now, sure, some of this is just campaign rhetoric. But when Obama stokes protectionist fires, when he characterises trading partners as the enemy, when he suggests that there’s something wrong or illegitimate with foreign companies owning properties in the United States he not

James Forsyth

Why Obama shouldn’t pick a foreign policy expert as his running mate

Barack Obama is widely expected to name his running mate in the next few days. He is now back from vacation and presumably will want to make the announcement before the Democratic convention which begins a week on Monday. The buzz is that Obama is going to go for someone with foreign policy credentials. Obama’s running mate will address the convention on Wednesday, a night billed as a Tribute to Veterans, Active Duty Military & Military Families. National security will dominate that day and it would be odd to have someone with no experience on the subject speak in primetime that evening. Yet, picking a foreign policy expert as his

James Forsyth

Who Putin is

David Remnick, The New York editor who was the Washington Post’s Moscow correspondent during the collapse of the Soviet Union, has written a smart piece about Putin for the latest New Yorker. He concludes: “Putin is not Hitler or Stalin; he is not even Leonid Brezhnev. He is what he is, and that is bad enough. In the 2008 election, he made a joke of democratic procedure and, in effect, engineered for himself an anti-constitutional third term. The press, the parliament, the judiciary, the business élite are all in his pocket—and there is no opposition. But Putin also knows that Russia cannot bear the cost of reconstituting empire or the

James Forsyth

That was quick

I’m not normally particularly keen on athletics, but Usain Bolt’s performance in the 100 metres final was awesome. (If you missed it, you can watch it here.) You don’t expect to see anyone coasting across the line to win the gold in the 100 metres let alone to break the world record.

James Forsyth

Report: Labour to re-brand in the autumn, thinking about dumping New Labour label

A friend of Coffee House flags up an interesting post on Labour Matters which reports that as part of its autumn re-launch Labour might drop its “new Labour for Britain” slogan and replace it with “Your Labour, Your Britain”. The thinking is that this would emphasise the ‘on your side’ fairness agenda that will underpin Brown’s attempt at an autumn fight-back. It also suggests that Labour is planning a more populist strategy in an attempt to try and stoke up its base which as recent elections have shown is thoroughly disillusioned with the party. Dropping the ‘new Labour’ tag that Blair introduced would attract considerable comment. But Labour must be

James Forsyth

The ever-shrinking Prime Minister

Gordon Brown’s team decided that they would take the Prime Minister off the airwaves over the summer. The thinking was that when Brown did return in September to roll out his economic plan the public would pay renewed attention. So, apart from an appearance at the Edinburgh books festival, Brown has kept pretty quiet. What the Brown team did not factor in or adjust for was an international crisis that would require the Prime Minister to play the part expected of a British Prime Minister on the world stage. So, Brown has ended up following not leading on the Georgia crisis both at home and abroad. Internationally, this has undercut

Roger Alton

Spectator Sport | 16 August 2008

You can’t help feeling for Sergio Garcia. At Carnoustie last year, he lipped out on the last hole to throw away an Open title which had seemed his on the last day. And who was waiting for him at the play-off? Why Padraig Harrington of course. And when Sergio lined up his second shot on the fiercely hazardous 16th at Oakland Hills, the US PGA title was again his for the taking. He needed to par the last three and the gutsy Spaniard’s first Major was in the bag. He opted for an insanely ambitious drive to the right of the flag and the ball bounced back into the water.

James Young

Competition | 16 August 2008

In Competition No. 2557 you were invited to write a poem or a piece of prose with each line or sentence beginning with the letters A S D F G H J K L Z X C V B N M in that order. I discovered while setting this comp that the longest word you can type using just the QWERTY row of letters on a typewriter is … ‘typewriter’. No doubt one or two of you will prove me wrong; indeed, there is an even longer word if you allow ‘tripewriter’…. Anyway, where was I? The less tripe I write, the more space there is to showcase your wit and

Martin Vander Weyer

Any Other Business | 16 August 2008

Does Medvedev really believe in the rule of law? The fate of TNK-BP is the test Is President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia — who looks and sounds like a liberal-leaning modern technocrat — really his own man, or is he merely the stooge of his predecessor, the sinister, warmongering Vladimir Putin? The mad situation engulfing BP’s Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, is surely the test of this question. Its BP-appointed chief executive, Robert Dudley, has met such hostility from the gang of oligarchs who are BP’s partners in the company that he is now trying to run it by email from a secret address somewhere in eastern Europe. The oligarchs, led

The Spectator

Clear and present danger

Russia’s actions in the past week should not have taken anyone by surprise. The fact that they did illustrates just how gravely in denial the free world now is about the threats that it faces. Before 9/11, all too few people could imagine a terrorist attack on a Western city killing thousands — even though Osama bin Laden had declared war on the United States in 1996. In much the same way, too few contemplated the bloody reality of Russian tanks rolling across an internationally recognised border, despite the clear signals sent by Vladimir Putin’s increasingly bellicose actions in recent years. The Russian propaganda machine and its useful idiots have

Matthew Dancona

Simon Carter

Matthew d’Ancona on the late Spectator quiz compiler, Simon Carter I still get letters about the Impossible Quiz which Simon Carter set for our Christmas special issue. An infernally complex blend of merciless logic, M.C. Escher’s art, and very tough questions, the Thirty-Nine Steps quiz that Simon compiled and adjudicated was, in its way, a work of art. It completely foxed me, that’s for sure. Quiz-sharp readers were intrigued and, eight months on, continue to correspond with me about its devilish intricacies. Simon’s sudden death at the age of 48 has been a terrible shock — not least because he was such a welcome new member of the extended Spectator

Liam Byrne

Give us back our Big Idea, Mr Cameron

Liam Byrne — tipped for Cabinet promotion in the reshuffle — says that when Cameroons advocate ‘fraternity’ they are repackaging the Conservative case for the shrinking of the state The idea that we might have a fight about ‘fraternity’ at the next election shows just how far the centre ground of politics has moved. Not so long ago, people would have laughed if you suggested the Tories might have a stab at a row about feelings of solidarity. Indeed among Conservatives the very concept may still be a specialist taste. But a casual glance at David Cameron’s recent speeches reveals a pretty clear direction of travel. Having put his cards

Friday

15 Aug 2008

Alex Massie

England Our England

So, after a nip and tuck South African affair, Norm and I finish the week by selecting our teams to represent a post-1945 England. As always, players need only have played for England after 1945 to be eligible for inclusion and the merits of their inclusion are to be judged on the totality of their career, not just the part of it that took place after Hitler’s War. As alaways, you can follow the action here or at Norm’s Place

Alex Massie

Arise, Sir Nils!

Really, can Friday stories get much better than this? A penguin who was previously made a Colonel-in-Chief of the Norwegian Army has been knighted at Edinburgh Zoo. Penguin Nils Olav has been an honorary member and mascot of the Norwegian King’s Guard since the 1972. Over the years, he has been promoted through the ranks after being adopted by Royal Guard who visited the zoo. During the ceremony, Nils had a sword dubbed on each side of his head, where his shoulders should be, to confirm his regimental knighthood. A crowd of several hundred people joined the 130 guardsmen at the zoo. A citation from King Harald the Fifth of

James Forsyth

Indian independence day

Today is the 61st anniversary of Indian independence and it comes at a time when the prospects for the country have never looked better. The country has reformed its economy and has grown, in real terms, at a rate of more than seven percent a year for the last decade. Indeed, there is a strong argument that in the medium to long term, India has better economic prospects than China. One of the issues that will shape this century is how strong the Indian-American relationship is. A strategic alliance between the world’s strongest and the world’s largest democracies would create in Asia—a continent that will grow even further in its

James Forsyth

The Tories’ best chance for a substantive legacy

A truly significant government is one that makes changes that the other parties have to accept are part of a new settlement. That is why the Attlee and Thatcher governments are, rightly regarded as the most important governments since the war. At the moment—and it is still early days in policy terms, the only area where the Tories look like they would create a permanent shift is education where there planned supply-side reforms are truly and admirably radical. (If you haven’t, do read Fraser’s explanation of the thinking behind it). The test of the Tory’s schools policy will be whether it creates more social mobility in Britain. Michael Gove pointed

James Forsyth

Cameron to Georgia this weekend, Miliband to visit next week

David Cameron has stolen a further march on the government by heading out to Georgia before either the Foreign Secretary, who is going next week, or the Prime Minister. With Russian troops only 15 miles from Tbilisi, the Georgian government is keen for any signs of international solidarity and so Cameron can be assured of a warm reception. He will be there at the same time as a host of key players on the world stage—Condi Rice is in Tbilisi at the moment and several European leaders are expected there over the weekend—and his presence will highlight just how MIA Britain has been during the crisis to date. Amazingly, Miliband