Society

Tuesday

Clemency Burtonhill

Arts Council seems distinctly un-excellent…

In Piccadilly Circus this lunchtime, under an apocalyptic grey sky and wearing plain white face masks to evoke the classical symbol of the dramatic trade, a ‘flashmob’ of hundreds of actors, directors and stage professionals gathered on the steps of Eros to silently express their continued grievance with the Arts Council of England (ACE). Today marks the last day of possible appeal for those unlucky arts organizations who were slapped with the shock news just before Christmas that, despite a recent fifty-million pound boost from the DCMS to ACE coffers, they would be losing some or all of their subsidies. These unfortunate organizations, who include in their number London’s much-loved

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A dose of Iraq realism

The military success of the surge in Iraq now seems to be paving the way for political reconciliation and the prospects for Iraq look more hopeful than they have in a long time. However, this does not mean that withdrawal any time soon would be a good idea as the Iraqi Defence Minister made clear yesterday on a visit to the United States: “According to our calculations and our timelines, we think that from the first quarter of 2009 until 2012 we will be able to take full control of the internal affairs of the country,” Mr. Qadir said in an interview on Monday, conducted in Arabic through an interpreter.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Pensioned off

Today at Centreright.com, Matthew Elliott flags up a truly shocking fact: “by 2009, each person working in the private sector will be paying more each month into the pension of a civil servant than they will into their own pension.”

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can McCain keep the momentum going?

Today, John McCain will either take a massive stride towards winning the Republican nomination by winning the Michigan primary or a triumph for Mitt Romney will scramble the contest still further. McCain is the candidate with the wind at his back. His victory in New Hampshire has vaulted him into a considerable lead in the national polls and in the crucial first in the South primary in South Carolina. Victory tonight should ensure that McCain maintains his lead in South Carolina and if he wins there, McCain will likely win in Florida and pick up the lion’s share of delegates on Super Tuesday; leaving him as the Republican nominee presumptive.

Monday

Liz Anderson

Facing down Facebook

I always knew I was right not to be one of the 59 million (7 million in the UK) people who have joined Facebook, and Tom Hodgkinson’s article in today’s Guardian has confirmed my prejudice. He makes an extremely convincing case for not wanting to be part of Facebook’s ‘heavily funded programme to create an arid global virtual republic, where your own self and your relationships with your friends are converted into commodities on sale to giant global brands’. Read it — and sign off.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

<strong>Is it our guilt that makes us so critical of Britney?</strong>

Ayleet Waldman has a sure to be controversial piece in this week’s New York Magazine arguing that the reason society is so keen to jump on bad mothers like Britney Spears is because mothers are acutely aware of their own failings. As Waldman writes, “The single defining characteristic of iconic Good Motherhood is self-abnegation. Her day is constructed around her children’s health and happiness, and her own needs and ambitions are relevant only in relation to theirs. If a Good Mother works, she does so only if it doesn’t harm her children, or if her failing to earn an income would make them worse off. She takes care of herself

Matthew Dancona

Hain on the outs

Peter Hain is toast. Gordon Brown’s defence of him in The Sun today is not so much luke warm as broken-boiler Arctic. On Friday, the PM’s spokesman said that Gordon had “full confidence” in the Work and Pensions Secretary – always a bad sign. This has now been down-graded even further to a statement of support which is entirely conditional, and implies that GB himself is not yet sure precisely how bad what Hain did actually was. “He took his eye off the ball,” says Brown, “and he has apologised. The matter must rest with the authorities, who will look at these matters.” If I was Hain, I would get

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clinton, Obama fight escalates

The Clinton-Obama fight is turning increasingly nasty and personal. In Washington, there is much talk about how the party can be put together again after the primaries. Tensions have been raised still further today with a prominent black supporter of the Clintons, the prominent entrepreneur Bob Johnson, appearing to raise both Obama’s youthful drug use and the question of how ‘black’ he is. Johnson told an audience in South Carolina, which is a must-win state for Obama: Johnson also went off on a bizarre riff comparing Obama to Sidney Poitier in the movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, a film about a black man dating a white woman.  “I am

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why Hain must go

Of all the reasons why Peter Hain should go, here’s my top one. Right now a quarter of British families are caught up in Labour’s hideously complicated means-tested benefits – tax credits, etc. If they “forget” to declare income, it’s called benefit fraud – an offence for which Hain’s department successfully prosecuted 28,800 people in 2006-07. Yet now that Hain himself has forgotten to declare income he has a get-out clause: declare late, and you are automatically off the hook. Not so for those being hounded for over-payment of tax credits.   Everyone has seen the DWP posters “no ifs, no buts” – which Guido brilliantly adapts for Labour special

Saturday

Jeremy Clarke

Friends reunited

On the last day of the year 22 of us turned up at the car park. We’d come for the ranger-led walk advertised in the Dartmoor Visitor Guide as an opportunity to watch the sun go down on 2007 from Hound Tor. Hound Tor is reputed to be the inspiration behind Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous ghost story The Hound of the Baskervilles. The title has in turn inspired the owner of the burger van in the car park. He’s called it called The Hound of the Basket Meals. Feeling a bit peckish, I joined the queue. The chap in front of me was holding a matching pair of surprised-looking

Taki

Name fame

Although I have to declare an interest, by far the most authentic comments about the Bhutto murder were those made by Jemima Khan in the Sunday Telegraph. As Jemima pointed out, Benazir never repealed the Hudood Ordinances, Pakistan’s ‘heinous’ laws that make no distinction between rape and adultery, failed to pass a single major law and ‘kowtowed’ to the mullahs and backed the Taliban, which illustrates to me the bankruptcy of America’s foreign policy. All style, no substance. If Benazir represented democracy I am Oprah Winfrey. And I further agree with Jemima when she writes that, if there has to be a Bhutto as successor to Benazir, it should be

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 12 January 2008

Through all the apparent banality of campaign speeches, politicians do, in fact, convey a message about themselves. There is a vital distinction between candidates who, mentally, face outwards and those who face inwards. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair all faced outwards: they instinctively wanted to communicate with voters, just as good actors or good preachers wish to reach their audiences. Although she may well win the Democratic nomination because of her standing with the party establishment, Hillary Clinton is a politician who faces inwards. She says she ‘found her voice’ in New Hampshire, but what does her voice say? One of her stated reasons why she should

Diana Rigg

Diary – 12 January 2008

Years ago my divorce liberated me from many things, not least of which was a wife’s burden of organising the traditional family Christmas. Inevitably, come Boxing Day, I was whey-faced with fatigue and singularly lacking in ‘ho-ho-ho’. Subsequent Christmases have been spent in far-flung places and this year I have just returned from visiting Tamil Nadu and its myriad temples. Getting to grips with Indian gods is not easy. There are over 3,000 of them. But on this visit I came across a particularly fascinating one — Ardhanareshwara. It seems the god Siva in one of his earliest incarnations declared man and woman were equal, so Ardhanareshwara was given the

Toby Young Toby Young

My hopes to become a high-status cultural Omnivore melt with ‘The Snowman’

More bad news for the ‘Hons’. According to a sociological survey funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, class doesn’t necessarily guarantee status. On the contrary, the two are barely even connected in today’s Britain. So the fact that my father was ennobled for, among other things, founding the Economic and Social Research Council has no bearing on my status. An unemployed ‘Hon’, such as myself, may possess class, but when it comes to my ranking in society I score lower than a ‘works manager’ (whatever that is). Much though I’d like to dismiss this, I suspect it is true. I have long wondered why my tweed jacket and

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 12 January 2008

Q. My brother-in-law, of whom my wife and I are very fond, is an admirable man and rightly proud of the ordinary background from which he has risen to a leading position in his company. However his rise (without trace, as they say) means that all he knows about food and wine is what he has gleaned from expense-account meals and he has adopted many of the mannerisms of waiters for home use. For example, when opening wine he waves the cork under his nose, pours some wine into the glass, sips it adopting a judicious expression and then proceeds to pour it for others. Recently, after he had gone

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 12 January 2008

An advertisement for birdfood said: ‘To differentiate between the imported niger oilseed, used to feed wild birds, and thistle — as well as to eliminate any possibility of offensively mispronouncing the word “niger” — the Wild Bird Feeding Industry trademarked the name Nyjer in 1998.’ They might have done, if an industry can, but I’ve seen a packet of seed bearing the name of the British Trust for Ornithology, on sale at a garden centre, labelled ‘Nyger’ in big letters, which is neither one thing nor the other. There is also a standard blurb that birdseed merchants copy on to their websites, both in Britain and America. The section on

The Spectator

Letters | 12 January 2008

Forgotten Army Syndrome Sir: Boris Johnson is to be praised for his intention to honour the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan (‘How, as mayor, I would help our brave troops’, 15–29 December). Unfortunately, I believe he is up against Forgotten Army Syndrome. Burma, during the second world war, was an undeserved victim of this syndrome as well. It took 50 years before at last a fitting tribute was paid to the 14th Army Burma Veterans: at the VJ Day parade at Buckingham Palace and St James’s Park on Saturday 19 August 1995. It was tremendous and moving for the veterans, most of whom were by then in their seventies and

Diana Rigg

Diary – 12 January 2008 | 12 January 2008

Years ago my divorce liberated me from many things, not least of which was a wife’s burden of organising the traditional family Christmas. Years ago my divorce liberated me from many things, not least of which was a wife’s burden of organising the traditional family Christmas. Inevitably, come Boxing Day, I was whey-faced with fatigue and singularly lacking in ‘ho-ho-ho’. Subsequent Christmases have been spent in far-flung places and this year I have just returned from visiting Tamil Nadu and its myriad temples. Getting to grips with Indian gods is not easy. There are over 3,000 of them. But on this visit I came across a particularly fascinating one —

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 12 January 2008

One moment laws against ‘religious hatred’, the next against smoking in cars, now mobile phones. What next? But then, law-making has been expanding ever since the Romans drew up their XII Tables, c. 450 bc, which were themselves originally a mere X until they decided they needed II more. In ad 533, when the Roman empire in the West was no more, the eastern emperor Justinian published a Digest of Roman law. It was condensed from some 2,000 volumes. Romans despaired of the problem. Julius Caesar decided to reduce the statute book to a manageable size but was assassinated in 44 bc before he could begin. The great Roman historian

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Rock On

Since I’m not a Northern rock shareholder, I wasn’t at yesterday’s EGM in Newcastle’s Metro Radio Arena – so I’m grateful to Graeme Wearden on the Guardian’s NewsBlog for a blow-by-blow account of the proceedings. A lot of ‘north-east (hurt?) pride’ was on display, he writes, as well as some natty shirting worn by the two hedge fund managers who have made themselves central to the story, Philip Richards of RAB Capital and Jon Wood of SRM. In the chair, trying to get the audience on his side with a joke about having the second toughest job in Newcastle (the worst, of course, being manager of the troubled football club),