Society

Saturday

Alan Judd

Cars for MPs

Is Gordon Brown the first prime minister who can’t drive since, well, since Asquith? Is Gordon Brown the first prime minister who can’t drive since, well, since Asquith? Hard to imagine the 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith mastering a non-synchromesh gearbox. His successor and rival, Lloyd George, was out of office for 23 years and lived until 1945, so had plenty of time to learn; but neither cars nor driving are indexed in John Grigg’s definitive biography. In those days he wouldn’t have had to pass a test, of course, and anyway motoring (motorism to early enthusiasts) was such a minority pursuit that perhaps it shouldn’t be expected of

Taki

La dolce vita

Rome They changed the name of the most famous city in the world, and renamed the place Valentino, or so it seemed last weekend in the Eternal City. What can I say? I know nothing about fashion, except that I know a beautiful dress when I see one, but I do know a lot about parties, and this one took the cake, all three days of it. Valentino’s blend of elegance and sexiness has always attracted brand names. I suppose Jackie Onassis was among the first to spot his rare talent, but, to his credit, Valentino never went the way of Lagerfeld and other snooty seamstresses. In fact, on the

Jeremy Clarke

Firm friends

The moment the announcer stated that the 9.05 to Newquay was leaving from platform four, virtually the entire crowd on the concourse at Paddington station arose like a Zulu impi and ran towards it. Platoons of young totty, hampered by pink and lilac suitcases as heavy as themselves, screamed with excitement and frustration as they were left standing by the swarms of young lads who raced along the platform to secure seats. I was standing, fortunately, beside the entrance to platform four, and was in the vanguard of the pell-mell race for the second-class carriages at the front of the train. Spotting a vacant seat in the carriage on the

Richard Sennett

Tomato snobbism

It happened in New York. As I reached for a small basket of ‘heirloom tomatoes, Little Compton Farms’ I felt my lips curling slightly — was it out of pity or contempt? — on account of the poor soul next to me who had merely chosen ‘vine-ripened organic’. It happened in New York. As I reached for a small basket of ‘heirloom tomatoes, Little Compton Farms’ I felt my lips curling slightly — was it out of pity or contempt? — on account of the poor soul next to me who had merely chosen ‘vine-ripened organic’. At the checkout counter the sun-ripened young woman ringing up my purchase favoured me

Fergal Keane

Diary – 14 July 2007

Hong Kong It is very good to be back. So good that I can ignore the horror of the summer weather. The humidity suffocates and is only relieved by sudden and violent downpours. But these are minor irritations in a city that is back to its best. The economy booms and the shops and restaurants are full. I watched a pro-democracy march and was reminded of the glorious fractiousness of the Hong Kongers. No power on earth should pick an argument with them. It is a passionate nature which can occasionally find expression in unfortunate ways. Take the case of Mr Kwok who finds himself very nearly eyeless in Kowloon.

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody | 14 July 2007

Monday Have drawn up shortlist of potential husbands. It is my Number One Priority to end my single status asap now that Being Married is official Conservative policy — not to mention a jolly good way of making a bit of extra cash from the super tax breaks! (£3,000 a year would cover my congestion charge so I could drive into town every day!) My tabloid paramour M is obviously top of the list although I have always felt it unlikely he will stop playing the field even for a rising star of the Incoming Compassionate Centre-right Administration. Besides, there are now a few other ‘candidates’, shall we say —

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 14 July 2007

As globalisation of business and communications grows, to what extent will we see globalisation of values? The experience of the ancient world suggests it could be to quite a large extent. Greek and Roman society was, at one level, notoriously conservative. With a social structure that privileged the (very) few at the top of the scale against all the rest, slave-labour, an education and religious system that looked to the past for its justification and continuation, and the absence of technological or economic advance, change was never going to be top of any agenda. Yet Greeks and Romans never ceased to absorb foreign influences and turn them to their advantage.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Why I hope Conrad Black wins his appeal

I carry no candle for Conrad Black and I’ve never worked for him. But his conviction on charges of fraud (albeit for raking in a comparatively trivial $3m) has occasioned another one of those interesting and illuminating differences between British and North American journalism. Without exception every British journalist I’ve talked to feels rather sorry for Lord Black of Crossharbour; without exception every American or Canadian hack seems pretty pleased that he’s come a cropper. Doubtless there are exceptions to this general rule (after all, my sample size is pretty small in the scheme of things) but it’s striking nonetheless. The case for Black’s defense is simple: he’s a newspaper

Lucy Vickery

Two Bobs

In Competition No. 2502 you were invited to submit a review by a critic identifying the literary precursor(s) to a popular music star of your choice. I was originally going to stipulate that the entry be in the style of a rock critic to winkle out the hipsters among you (although Christopher Ricks, whom I pegged the comp. to, was coming at Dylan from the perspective of an academic). But unsure how much of a crossover there would be between the readership of The Spectator and that of the NME, I lost my nerve and plumped instead for ‘critic’, which seemed to cover all bases. In general, the literary canon

Interconnect

Mind your manners

We’ve all been there: the brain stuck in first gear during an interview; an inappropriate remark to a senior colleague or client; uncontrollable shaking before a speech in public. For most of us these are relatively isolated incidents. There are, however, serial offenders whose failure to control their manners and nerves ultimately proves fatal in today’s cut-throat business world. Two recent surveys highlight the problem. The first reveals that demand for senior executives is booming, thanks to private equity investors’ appetite for hired-in, new-broom management — good news for job-hunters, provided they’re up to the job. But the second suggests they might not be, revealing that 71 per cent of

Ross Clark Ross Clark

London matches the glory of Venice in its prime

Ross Clark says that our capital has the geographical, economic and social conditions that made the Venetian city-state of the 14th century — but all this is vulnerable When Tony Blair secured the agreement of the Scots and — only just — the Welsh for devolution in the referendums of 1998, it was supposed to herald a great revival of the regions. Britain was to be reborn as a kind of West Germany, whose constitution included a reference to ironing out the economic disparities between Hamburg and Munich, Frankfurt and Hanover. Instead, the opposite seems to have occurred. The concept of elected English regional assemblies has been quietly forgotten since

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Any other Business

Shoppers stay home as rates and floods rise — but there’s a bit of better news for M&S Shoppers have spent these past few weeks sheltering from incessant rain, rising interest rates and renewed threats of terrorism. Fuel- and flood-hit food prices are on an up-trend too, so we must brace ourselves for a spate of High Street gloom. At Marks & Spencer, like-for-like sales were up only 2 per cent in the April–June quarter, compared to a rise of more than 8 per cent in the same quarter of 2006. Still, that was slightly less bad than the stock market expected, and there was one bit of better news

Neil Collins

A dull business made great by allowing workers to think

Ah, the terrible persistence of the irritating jingle. It’s nearly 30 years since ‘Thousands of parts for millions of cars’ last assaulted our ears, but I’ll bet millions of middle-aged Britons, motorists or not, can render it pretty faithfully. The company behind the jingle was a leaky lifeboat from the sinking British Leyland. It was called Unipart, and at the helm was the slight, rather diffident figure of John Neill. He had organised the management buy-out of BL’s spare-parts division, and he had a vision of a different kind of business, one where each employee was not merely a cog in a machine but, as he puts it now, ‘has

Tim Walker

‘Being famous has become rather common’

Rupert Everett tells Tim Walker that there is nothing wrong with being a bimbo, that political correctness has been ‘a disaster for everyone’ and that gay adoption is wrong Rupert Everett has just done Richard & Judy, or maybe, he concedes, Richard and Judy have just done him. ‘It is hard to work out who is using who on these occasions,’ he says. ‘I suppose ultimately we are all just hustlers.’ The actor is proud of his autobiography Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins and, now that it has come out in paperback, he is throwing himself at the promotional tour with professional gusto. He can’t, however, disguise the fact

Paul Johnson

Not going gentle into the good night

Retirement, especially for a prime minister, used to being frantically busy in the full gaze of the public, is a melancholy thing. The younger he — or she — is, the more it hurts, with long years of inactivity and growing oblivion stretching ahead. I often think that the most successful of all British politicians, in a worldly but also in a personal sense, was Lord Palmerston. Not only did he hold offices of one kind or another for longer than anyone else, a total of nearly 60 years, but he died as prime minister. His last words, as reported, were: ‘Die? My dear doctor, that’s the last thing I

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Lionel Messi, Superstar

Meant to post this earlier. Right now, I doubt there’s a more exciting footballer in the world than Lionel Messi. His goal against Mexico in the semi-final of the Copa America is a thing of rare and exquisite beauty. Enjoy!

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The astronomical cost of over budget government projects

The TaxPayers alliance has a corking piece of research, available on their new website, out on the cost of overruns in public sector projects. They’ve examined the records of 305 schemes that have either being completed since 2005 or are ongoing and found that each household in Britain is effectively paying £900 for them going over budget. Remarkably, 14 projects have managed to go over budget by more than the Dome did.

The Spectator

What’s wrong with the new consensus

When I supported the Iraq war, it was certainly for the aims James mentioned. And yes, I’m feasting on humble pie now. And Stuart’s right to say that even the Republicans are deserting Bush – the House has just voted to pull out troops by Spring. So I suspect Wee Dougie’s speech will be at the softer end of what’s to come. Britain’s political class are getting in synch with the would-be 2008 presidential candidates. Here’s the bit in Dougie’s speech that jumped out at me: “Given the interconnected nature of the challenges we face, I would argue that we have to simultaneously be fighting to end poverty, to secure

The Spectator

Why America went to war

Come off it, James. American did not go to war to ‘set about a phenomenally ambitious project to build democracies in parts of the world where they had never succeeded before’. America went to war to extract the blood price for 9/11. Saddam was identified with the terrorists. He was said to have weapons of mass destruction and therefore to be a threat to world peace. In attacking Iraq the United States and Great Britain maintained they were acting in self-defence. It was all nonsense, and has ended in disaster. But none of this matters in relation to what Douglas Alexander said yesterday. What matters is that the Gordon Brown