Society

Thursday

Joanna Williams

Why are firefighters painting their nails to ‘redefine masculinity’?

Call me old-fashioned but if I ever have the misfortune to be stuck inside a burning building, I want a fireman to come to my rescue. As the temperature rises, I won’t give two hoots as to whether my particular fireman is black, white, gay, straight, male or female. I just want someone brave enough to ignore the flames and strong enough to carry me down flights of stairs. A bit of Stoicism might be good too; I don’t want to have to hand out tissues to my weeping saviour. But a firefighter with a decent manicure? I’ll be honest, that comes way down my wish list. Perhaps I have

Emma Thompson

What the CofE needs from Justin Welby’s successor

The Church of England website features a public consultation closing on 28th March on what qualities should be looked for in the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury. But aren’t the Church’s staff meant to be the experts on God? The Church, with all its committees, seems adept at diffusing and side-stepping responsibility. Could this be a fake consultation to make people think they have a voice? Then, whatever controversy nominees cause, the selectors can say, ‘Oh well, it’s what the public told us to do’ – with nobody able to prove otherwise. Moreover, respondents might not take seriously the task of choosing someone to follow in St Augustine’s footsteps. After all, in 2016, a

Simone Hanna

The collapse of 23andMe spells trouble for a part-neanderthal like me

Those of us who signed up for DNA testing kits from 23andMe did so thinking we’d unlock deep ancestral secrets. Maybe we’d discover we had royal blood, or finally settle the family debate over whether great-grandpa Dmitri was really Kenyan after all. Often, the results were far less conclusive: the tests revealed that we were 12 per cent Neanderthal, distantly related to Genghis Khan’s less-heralded cousin, Mungo, and possibly allergic to liquorice. Not uninteresting, but not that exciting, either. The tests revealed we were 12 per cent Neanderthal and distantly related to Genghis Khan’s less-heralded cousin, Mungo Now, though, our DNA is the source of high drama, and no small

Andy Preston

Who doesn’t want a free Eton education? Labour, apparently

Labour’s decision to add VAT to school fees shows that the party has an irrational hatred of posh schools. Hiking fees might bring in relatively little money, but that hardly matters when there is a class war to be fought. While the targeting of private schools has grabbed the headlines, another story – with equally disastrous consequences – has gone under the radar. Hellbent on hurting private schools, the government has made a decision that will deny our brightest kids the best possible future. For years, Eton College, the world’s most famous school, had hoped to make a difference in overlooked English towns, in a partnership with Star Academies, a

Michael Gove

Is Simon Heffer a security threat?

Airport security was much on my mind last Friday afternoon. I had been due to fly from Heathrow to Zurich that morning, but the substation fire meant a switch to an afternoon departure from London City Airport. City is a business-oriented operation in every respect and one of its many efficient features is a baggage-checking regime that does not require you to separate your 100ml bottles of shampoo and shaving foam into a plastic ziplock bag. The X-ray machine and associated sensors are supposed to penetrate your luggage and identify anything dangerous with scientific precision. My heart sank when my carry-on bag was shunted off the conveyor belt and a

The Spectator

Letters: The futility of net zero

Not zero Sir: I was delighted to see your leading article about the impossibility of net zero (‘Carbon candour’, 22 March). We need now to expose its futility. The UK’s efforts will make no difference at all to global temperature. Whether it is naturally occurring or produced through coal burning, there is not the slightest chance of stopping the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (not ‘carbon’, which is nasty black stuff). Guy Liardet Meonstoke, Hampshire Ideological bullets Sir: ‘Don’t bite the hand that feeds you’, they say. But by biting the hand of business with her Budget, Rachel Reeves has shown total recklessness (‘The Rachel capers’, 22 March). By killing

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

America is a moral idea or it is nothing

Harold Wilson once declared that the Labour party ‘is a moral crusade or it is nothing’, a proposition whose logical consequence is troubling. Returning now from the United States, the comparable proposition both haunts and comforts me, because America is not nothing. Travelling through several Midwest and western states, I’ve been struck by how many Americas there are even in one region, how different they are and how, like the individual wooden staves of a great barrel, they depend upon the metal hoops that bind them. If the hoop stays strong, tight and in place, the construction is formidable. Loosen that steel belt, and the staves fall into a useless

Douglas Murray

JFK conspiracy theories won’t die

One of the most controversial things that can happen at any American table is to start talking about the JFK assassination and then say: ‘I think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.’ Thanks to decades of theories, counter-theories and Hollywood movies, a majority of the American public have for many years believed that there was a conspiracy to kill the 35th president. In their view, even if Lee Harvey Oswald was the gunman (which some dispute) then he must have been acting as part of a larger plot involving the CIA, FBI, LBJ, KGB, KKK or KFC. OK, I threw in the last one to check you were still with me.

Nick Newman

How Dr Seuss took on American isolationism

A cartoon is doing the rounds online, critiquing American isolationism and the reluctance to engage with the war in Europe. It lampoons the head-in-the-sand myopia of the America First movement – and feels highly relevant today. But this cartoon isn’t new; it is from 1941. And its targets aren’t Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, but Charles Lindbergh and Joseph Kennedy. The cartoon, while acerbic, has a cosy, familiar quality reminiscent of children’s books – for good reason. It was drawn by Dr Seuss.   He was particularly critical of Lindbergh – an aviator hero, appeaser and possible Nazi sympathiser Long before the Cat donned his Hat and the Grinch stole Christmas,

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

The Met’s misogyny

My friend Rose likes a drink. She lives on the same street as another friend in Camden and three or four times a year, when the weather warms up, she stands on her doorstep, smashed, and yells at the world. I don’t blame her. Rose has been through the mill. She’s a slight woman and she’s suffered at the hands of predatory men all her life. Perhaps the occasional shouting irritates the neighbours, but it’s only the same monologue most of them paid through the nose to hear Mark Rylance deliver on stage in Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem: ‘I, Rooster John Byron, hereby place a curse/ Upon the Kennet and Avon

Peter Jones

How to live morally (according to the Romans)

‘Make America Great Again!’ cries Donald Trump. ‘Do Britain Down Again!’ (DOBRIDA!) screech our academic historical institutions. That was not the Roman way. In ad 31, Valerius Maximus completed his nine books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings of the Roman world. They were enormously popular and became a sort of handbook of Roman moral standards for imitation. While there were sections that castigated cruel, greedy, treacherous Romans who did not live up to the proper standards, most of the 91 chapter headings concentrate on those men and women who exhibited, e.g. endurance, moderation, generosity, compassion, humility, a capacity for friendship, respect for gods, the ability to face changes of fortune,

Toby Young Toby Young

How to be a Lord

At the end of my first day at the House of Lords, I staggered out with so many books and leaflets and three-ring binders I could barely see over the top. These were the official rules, what Walter Bagehot would have called the ‘dignified’ part of the constitution. But on top of these are the unwritten rules, which are twice as voluminous. Some people compare parliament to Hogwarts, and it’s true that there’s a ‘secret’ entrance in Westminster tube station. But Harry Potter didn’t get as many things wrong as me in his first term. Admittedly, some of the rules I’ve had difficulty mastering are pretty basic. When you enter

Mark Mason

The curious language of coins

Lewis Carroll used to travel with purses divided into separate compartments, each containing the exact number of coins he’d need for a particular transaction (train fare, porter, newspaper and so on). These days we have one bank card which gets tapped everywhere. The coinless society might be more convenient – but it’s also more boring. Coins are beautiful and fascinating. For centuries they were the only way most people knew what their monarch looked like. Henry VIII was nicknamed ‘Coppernose’ because of the way the silver coating on copper coins rubbed away, starting with his nose. Even Oliver Cromwell put himself on the currency (as a Roman emperor wearing a

Susan Hill Susan Hill

Can I survive six months without my books? 

My story begins with a very small puddle on the kitchen floor. As it was nowhere near the sink, I blamed Biggles, the border terrier, but ‘you know my methods, Watson. Apply them’. And having applied them, I saw at once that the small dog could not be to blame, because he is reliably house-trained and had been bumbling about in the garden for the previous half hour, lifting his leg hither and thither. So I mopped it up and forgot about it. Then, that same afternoon, another pool of water appeared, slightly bigger and not on the same spot.  I could put up with the loss of a lot

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Boxing belongs in the Olympics

If there is anything more pointless than signing a five-year contract to be Emma Raducanu’s coach, it is the effort to inject some excitement into England’s interminable qualification campaigns for major football tournaments. Everyone knows they will qualify, almost certainly as top of their group, which usually contains such giants as the Moon, Chad and Tierra del Fuego or, as now, Latvia, Albania, Andorra and Serbia. Good luck, Mr Tuchel, with learning much from those fixtures, though Serbia should be interesting. Sport needs jeopardy: there needs to be doubt about the outcome. Here there’s none. There are marginal debates: is Phil Foden too far out on the right? What will

Luke McShane

Softly softly

The best of Aesop’s fables is the one in which the Wind and the Sun compete to remove the coat from a passing man. The Wind goes first, assaulting the man with full force, but the harder it blows, the tighter the man grips his coat. When the Sun takes a turn, it radiates such glorious heat that the man takes off the coat of his own accord. Similar wisdom might inform an interview with a sporting figure. Forget the Paxmanesque inquisition: prepare some open-ended questions, establish a rapport and listen carefully to the responses. You would probably not strap your subject to a polygraph machine, point a camera at

Melissa Kite

My hunt for a doctor took a horror movie turn

My American guest went down with a cough he could not shift and, after a week of protesting that he couldn’t be ill because he was fully vaccinated for everything, he asked me to take him to a doctor. This was an even more complicated request than his desire to call Ubers, and so we set off in my car to drive around the wilds of West Cork in search of medical assistance. I began by driving to the nearest town, and I led him into the A&E department of a hospital where I laid it on thick to the receptionist about him being an American tourist visiting the land

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How do I stop Ozempic ruining my dinner parties?

Q. I enjoy giving dinner parties and put a lot of effort into the preparations. However, recently I have noticed that much of the food I lovingly cook goes uneaten despite proclamations of how delicious it is. It has dawned on me that a large number of my friends are secretly on weight-reduction injections, and barely want to eat. I don’t like to ask beforehand about such a sensitive issue, yet neither do I want such waste, so how can I assess the right amount to make?  – M.B., Chelsea, London A. An extremely well-informed source calculates between 15 and 30 per cent of those in elite circles are currently

Luke McShane

No. 843

White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by William Shinkman, The Good Companion, 1919. Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 31 March. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1…Kg3! wins, e.g. 2 Rxf5 Re1 mate, or 2 Kf1 Qb1 mate Last week’s winner Phil Walker, Baschurch, Shropshire