Society

Tuesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The return of the established order?

With Tony Blair’s departure from Downing Street there’ll be much talk of restoring ‘good government,’ an end to the centralisation of power, politicisation of the civil service and ‘spin’. Rachel Sylvester has a great scoop in today’s Telegraph about how the establishment is pushing for this through something called the “Better Government Initiative.” It is hard to dismiss a commission made up of five former permanent secretaries, two chiefs of the defence staff (ret.), Oxford academics and the like but this belief that the civil service is the answer to the government’s delivery problems seems wrong-headed. If you look at the Blairite reforms that have worked—say, city academies—they have been

The Spectator

For God’s sake

God has had a hard time of it lately, what with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens weighing in to see who can be the most aggressive Alpha Atheist. Then again, He has been coping pretty well with heavy duty theological attack for – well, since Adam and Eve. But I see no reason why God deserves to have Paris Hilton on his side. Let us hope that once the celebrity jailbird gets over prison, she leaves the Lord of Creation alone because, frankly, He has more than enough on his plate already.  

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Did the grammar schools row come at the right time?

The conventional wisdom on the grammar school row is that it came at precisely the wrong time for the Cameroons. With Brown about to take over at No.10, they needlessly shot themselves in the foot so this narrative has it. This is undoubtedly true but the very nature of the operation the Cameroons are engaged in means that they are going to make mistakes as they try and ‘challenge’ their party. There’s a case to be made that it is better they received this shot across the bows now rather than after the policy groups reported. It would have been much harder to walk back from a radical—but half-baked—new policy

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

What are the police for? Or rather, who are the police for?

The road was cordoned off by Horse Guards parade on Friday afternoon, because of some ‘function’ on the pavement beside the Treasury building: squat little marquee, squat little men drinking warm champagne and 30 odd police officers standing around in the street with truncheons. As I herded with the crowd along the pedestrian detour I saw a blind man in a smart suit with a guide dog, fumbling in a panicky way at the police barrier. He worked in the Treasury opposite, he said, and though there’d been a gap in the fence 5 mins ago, which he’d popped through to walk his dog, it now seemed to have vanished.

The Spectator

Debating life

The abortion debate continues, but with the continued absence of the key statistic. How many pregnancies in this country end in an abortion? In my experience, people guess at around 10% or lower. In fact it’s is one in four in England (26.1%) and one in three in London (33%). It’s hard to consider these statistics, from any perspective, without thinking something has gone badly wrong. The 1967 Act was intended to stop Vera Drake-style backstreet abortions, not provide a medical alternative to contraception. The extent of abortion is seldom understood because the data is couched in a way no one can understand (17.8 many terminations per 1,000 women, whatever that

Matthew Dancona

Government’s primary responsibility

During the grammar schools row – now in recess – The Spectator argued that policy-makers should focus more aggressively upon primary education if social mobility was to have a chance. This alarming report in today’s Guardian shows how urgent the task is. By three, the class divide has already translated into educational attainment, as the kids from better off backgrounds surge ahead. Common sense? Sure. But since when did common sense dictate Government policy?

Saturday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary… | 9 June 2007

Q. One of the most characteristic aspects of being a member of the British middle class ‘nouveau pauvre’ is finding it embarrassing to take action when things we used to take for granted as a free service are now very expensive. I have paid over £3,000 to our (private) dentist for our younger son to be fitted with the new South African ‘train track’ mini-braces that are a status symbol at his school. After 18 months he admittedly does have a Hollywood smile, but all I have is a large bill and the recently removed set of perfectly fine braces. It seems a criminal waste of money to throw them

Deborah Ross

Restaurants | 9 June 2007

This is about a mother who takes her son out for dinner for his 15th birthday. Normally the son would not agree to go out for dinner with his mother. Normally the son treats his mother as something of an embarrassment, as well as a middle-aged nag, drag and bore. The mother is perplexed by this. The mother knows that while her parents were middle-aged nags, drags and bores when she was a teenager, she is not, no way. The mother may even say, ‘How can you think of me as middle-aged nag, drag and bore when, just last week, for example, I stayed up one night until nearly half-past

Roy Hattersley

Linseed oil and cut grass

I played my youthful cricket on wickets  which were cut into steeply sloping pitches. Cover drives which should have raced over the outfield either thumped into the hillside or sailed out into space, and batsmen, who believed that they had perfected the backwards defensive shot, were regularly caught by fielders who had taken up a position ten yards from, and six feet below, the bat. When I moved into this High Peak village, I assumed that it would be the same here. But our cricket team plays on a pitch which is almost as flat as the famously sloping Headingley and Lord’s and, unlike the village cricket clubs of my youth, it is sponsored

Taki

‘It’s all Greek to me’

Kent To this beautiful New England village near the New York–Connecticut border, home to the great designer Oscar de la Renta and his wife Annette, both very old friends of mine. Two even older friends, Reinaldo and Carolina Herrera, were already there, making it a perfect house party. The de la Renta house is a jewel. Beautifully manicured rolling lawns and grand old trees and topiaries amid thick woods remind one of Oxfordshire, but the plumbing works, the furnishings are priceless and the staff impeccable. Lots of dogs, yes, but there are no moths stuck on the windows, no mud or urine stains in the drawing-room, and the showers work;

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 9 June 2007

I heard someone on the wireless, in talking about the Freedom of Information Act, refer to the ‘information-requesting community’, as if they all lived together and had much in common. You could, though, legitimately refer to me as a member of the annoyed community. I do have something in common with thousands of readers and listeners, even if I have never met them, who are enraged by stupid, empty, clichéd and erroneous language. Now I have read an entertaining little book called She Literally Exploded: The Daily Telegraph Infuriating Phrasebook (Constable, £5.99). It is by Christopher Howse, who used to work for The Spectator, and Richard Preston. It includes turns

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 9 June 2007

MONDAY I wish everyone would just calm down. It’s like the inside of Mr Willetts’s smaller brain (the one he used for grammar schools) around here. Don’t see why everyone is hysterical just because we are getting a new Director of Comms. So Gary’s from Essex and used to be a tabloid newspaper editor. It doesn’t mean he won’t be Caring and Compassionate. He’s going to have the office next to Jed’s —it was a big stipulation of his contract that they have almost equal billing but Jed says ‘almost equal’ is a very specific term. Lot of funny-looking crates being piled up in there, most of them marked ‘Specialist

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 9 June 2007

It is highly likely that Tony Blair will become a Roman Catholic after he leaves office. He regularly attends a Catholic Mass rather than Anglican services — nowadays, because of security problems, usually in No. 10 Downing Street or at Chequers. It seems logical to him that he should follow the religion of the rest of his family. What has held him back, apparently, is not doubts, but his job. Although conversion is a personal, not a political decision, Mr Blair could not have made it as Prime Minister without having to face hostility which would have spilt into politics. As a Catholic convert myself, I find that people have

Rupert Hambro

Diary – 9 June 2007

A concert, ‘Raise the Roof’, at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, was held last month. We raised almost £30,000 with a musical evening and readings by Diana Rigg, Anthony Andrews, Edward Fox and John Standing. Edward read a piece about Anthony Ashley Cooper, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. He was a great benefactor of the poor in St James’s and not only was Shaftesbury Avenue named after him, but the statue with its one foot pointing down the street of theatres, known to most of  us as Eros, is in fact of the Earl. His successor who suffered the incongruous murder in the South of France, supposedly at the hands of his

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 9 June 2007

Malan is an anti-racist Sir: As a South African liberal, I regard both Rian Malan and Ken Owen with the highest affection and respect. However, Owen is completely wrong and Malan completely right in the matter of the South African government’s approach to Robert Mugabe. Owen is talking nonsense when (Letters, 2 June) he suggests opponent’s of Mbeki’s ‘quiet diplomacy’ towards Mugabe want an invasion of Zimbabwe such as ‘the Anglo-American intervention in Iraq’. What they actually want of the South African government is two things. First, when Mugabe rigs elections, please stop praising them as free and fair — as the South African government always does. Second, when Mugabe

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The boy behind the man

This piece in the Telegraph about Brown’s upbringing is well worth reading. It gives you an idea of how precocious Brown was and how early he developed his sense of social mission. But there’s also an early foretaste of his puritanism: “In April 1962, aged 11, he wrote an article about a church campaign in favour of television commercials against the twin demons of alcohol and tobacco. Gordon concluded his piece with a typically opinionated flourish: “Let us hope that this plan will be a success and that the sale of drink and cigarettes to the younger and older generation will fall when these [commercials] against drink and cigarettes are shown.”

Sarah Standing

Food glorious food

I take back most of my biting comments on Wholefoods. It is now up and running and irresistible. Last night I went and was seduced into spending a small fortune. At 6pm it was as packed as Primark. It is entirely possible to do one’s entire “weekly shop” here providing you bring a pack of sherpas to help carry your groceries and own a black Amex. No parking, no delivery service (until September and then mystifyingly only in W8) and overly perky American check-out assistants who are blessed with a near-religious sense of commitment to the company. The choice of goods on offer is truly awesome. 15 types of tomatoes,

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Heaven is a day spent sorting a cow-box full of rubbish at a Derbyshire recycling centre

Rubbish has always fired my imagination and set my pulse racing. I don’t know why; it may be an inherited trait. My late father used to rifle through our bins lest anything useful had been thrown away, and in unhappier circumstances might in old age have extended his research into the streets, parks and railway stations. Perhaps one of our ancestors was a vulture in another life. Little gives me greater satisfaction than my old flip-flops — rescued (broken) from a crow-patrolled tip in Rurrenabaque in the remote Bolivian lowlands and lovingly repaired using some bailer twine and an old nail in place of a needle. The repair took most

John Andrews

An investor’s life on Mars

A Martian called Zog visits Earth to see what it can offer in the way of the latest investment funds. He meets an independent financial adviser called Charlie who asks him what kind of investment he’s looking for. ‘I’ve been reading about funds of funds,’ says Zog. ‘They sound good. You get access to a range of managers, each of whom invests in a different style. So if some of them aren’t performing well at any time, the others might be. Overall, you increase your chances of making money. And by spreading your money across several funds, you reduce the risk of losing all your money if something goes wrong

Matthew Vincent

Sick of rotten service? See it as a Buy signal

‘The customer is always right,’ said the 19th-century American retail pioneer Marshall Field — and shoppers at his Chicago store became so enamoured of their omnipotence, and of his assistants’ assistance, that they spent enough to make him the wealthiest businessman in the city. His retail innovations — unconditional refunds and consistent pricing — soon inspired imitators. In Philadelphia, John Wanamaker replicated the model and elevated shoppers at his Grand Depot to the rank of royalty with his derivative decree that ‘The customer is king!’ A new era of customer service was ushered in that, over the ensuing 100 years, saw stock flying off the shelves, and stock prices flying