Society

Wednesday

Ben Lazarus Ben Lazarus

Keep calm and carry on having kids: the UN’s climate chief on eco-anxiety

Jim Skea has just taken on the most important job in climate science. As the new head of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he is now in charge of the organisation that has done more than any other to build the international consensus that climate change is an existential threat to humanity. ‘I’m very conscious that constant drip-drip anxiety messages could have a paralysing effect on climate action’ In the weeks since his appointment, however, the 69-year-old Scot, a former professor at Imperial and a founding member of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change, has set out to strike a very different tone by casting doubt

Mark Solomons

In praise of Boris’s nemesis: the great crested newt

Britain is not blessed with an abundance of amphibians. There are just seven native varieties. The loss of ponds – whether in gardens, farmland or in areas earmarked for development – has seen a dramatic decline in habitat for one of the seven in particular, the great crested newt (or GCN for short). Its rarity means it is protected by law, making it an offence to kill, injure or capture one, or damage its habitat. That is why for construction firms, road builders and, most recently, Boris Johnson, no newts is good news. The discovery of GCNs at Johnson’s Oxfordshire pile meant planning permission for a swimming pool was refused.

Frank Gardner

Do all MI6 men wear such quirky cufflinks?

‘You’re late. About four years too late.’ The lady in the car-hire office gave a casual shrug and turned her gaze towards the perpetual traffic jam in the street outside. Mercedes squeezing past BMWs squeezing past customised 4×4 Jeeps. There’s plenty of wealth in Albania if you go to the right places. Or the wrong ones. ‘It’s all mafia money,’ she went on. ‘This is where they come to spend their money in the summer. It wasn’t like this a few years ago. Now the prices here have gone crazy.’ Put it down to poor research but this wasn’t what we were expecting. The phrase ‘Albanian Riviera’ had a rather

Peter Jones

Aristotle’s advice for Coutts

The American firm B Corp offers businesses the chance to win a ‘kitemark’ by a box-ticking process showing that they are committed to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, and Coutts decided to go for it. Given how that turned out, one wonders how they reached that decision. Had they followed Aristotle’s advice on decision-making, they might have come out better from the debacle. In dealings with other people, Aristotle argued, it was essential to pay close attention to the following criteria: a) What are the reasons for which you are taking action? b) What were the needs that prompted it? c) How do you hope to achieve what

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

From ABC to AK-47: Russia’s new wartime curriculum

Russia’s education system is about to undergo a radical transformation. Next month, when the new academic year begins, classes will be required to teach teenagers how to assemble, handle and clean Kalashnikov rifles, how to use hand grenades and how to administer first aid in combat. This military training for sixth-formers – 16 and over – will be taught as part of their ‘fundamentals of life safety’ classes. Such classes have existed in various forms since the 1980s. In the past children have been taught quite practical skills, including how to stay safe in terrorist attacks, deal with radiation poisoning following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and, more recently, the basics

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

The forecast Andrew Bailey actually got right

When inflation was at 5.5 per cent and rising in January 2022, the BBC’s Faisal Islam adopted a look of amazement when he asked the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey: ‘So you’re trying to get inside people’s heads and ask them not to ask for too high pay rises?’ ‘Broadly, yes,’ Bailey stepped into the trap, ‘It’s painful, but we need to see that in order to get through this problem more quickly.’ The governor was slated for insensitivity, critics making much of his own half-million package. That 38-second clip did more to make his out-of-touch reputation than any of his other stumbles. But he wasn’t wrong.

The Spectator

In defence of e-bikes

Identity politics Sir: Your lead article (‘On board’, 12 August) highlights numerous issues related to refugees, but does not offer much in regard to why this country is a magnet for economic migrants. You state that this is a rich country. How can this be the case when government debt is 100 per cent of GDP? Further, when we cannot provide adequate services in healthcare, education and housing, why should we take in migrants who cannot make an immediate contribution to the country’s tax base? The reasons that this country is so attractive are, firstly, the English language, which we can’t do much about. Secondly, we have an easily accessible

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

What does it take to get you cancelled at the Edinburgh Fringe?

So, let me get this right: at the Edinburgh Fringe, comedians who make jokes about killing and raping women are welcome, but comedians who defend women’s rights are not? How else are we to explain the surreal situation where Frankie Boyle, notorious cracker of misogynistic gags, is having the red carpet rolled out for him at the Fringe, while Graham Linehan, whose chief thoughtcrime is to understand what a woman is, has just been ruthlessly cancelled by one of the Fringe venues? Courage or cowardice – that’s the fork in the road when the mob’s after you Yesterday, the Leith Arches in Edinburgh pulled the plug on a comedy night organised by

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 19 August 2023

They say a two-way finesse is never a complete guess: there are always clues to be gleaned from the bidding and play. That’s not strictly true, as the great Giorgio Belladonna once demonstrated at a tournament when, after a long think, he turned to a kibitzer and asked him to toss a coin. But even with nothing concrete to go on, you can often rely on psychological inferences – an untimely hesitation, for instance, or feigned nonchalance from one of the opponents, which, as P. Hal Sims argued, made it far more likely he held the queen. Alan Truscott’s advice was always to play your left-hand opponent for the queen:

Melissa Kite

How builders plan to get round the Ulez charge

‘What a worry the Ulez must be for you both,’ said a friend with a nod to the pick-up truck parked outside our house. It was kind of him to wonder. The builder boyfriend drives an old Mitsubishi L200 to work in London every day and like almost every other working man he cannot afford to buy a new vehicle that is Ulez compliant so you would presume he has to pay the charge. But that’s not quite how it’s turning out. There is no Ulez problem for any Khan supporter who can find an old granny to put in his old car once a week If I might speak

Taki

The FBI has a problem with Catholics

On board Aello She was built in 1921, a beautiful wooden ketch that is as graceful to look at as she’s uncomfortable for fat cats accustomed to gin palaces. I’ve sailed her over many years, the last time giving her to my children as I was in plaster having fallen from a balcony in Gstaad. This time it was worse. In fact it was the greatest no-show since Edward VIII skipped his coronation and showed up on the French Riviera instead. Michael Mailer had hinted that some Hollywood floozies were eager to sail around the Greek isles, but arrived empty-handed. The absent floozies were missed, but were immediately replaced by

Tuesday

Christopher Snowdon

Reintroducing wolves to Britain is pure insanity

Should we release packs of ravenous wolves into the English countryside? The answer is so obviously ‘of course not, are you insane?’ that I anticipated no disagreement when I scoffed at a pro-wolf Guardian article by George Monbiot last week. Monbiot has found common cause with wolves because he hates sheep-farming and wants to ‘rewild’ Britain. His latest article uses deer as an excuse to promote the interests of the wolf lobby. There are too many of them, apparently, and the best way to deal with a surplus of deer is to have them torn apart by apex predators.  The reason wolves are the bad guys in so many fairy tales is that they

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

With James Dreyfus

22 min listen

James Dreyfus is an actor, best known for his roles in TV sitcoms The Thin Blue Line and Gimme Gimme Gimme. James also appeared in the film Notting Hill and has a long and distinguished stage career. On the podcast, James talks about his early memories of food living between France and America; some of the catering throughout his acting career and how that’s changed over the years; and his time on Hell’s Kitchen at the mercy of Gordon Ramsay. 

Monday

Julie Bindel

Men don’t belong at lesbian speed dating events

Lesbian speed dating sounds fun. It reminds me of the old joke ‘What does a lesbian bring on her first date? Her cat, the toothbrush and a removal van.’ It refers to the outdated image of lesbians instantly committing to each other, falling madly in love, then taking seven years to split up.   In reality, there isn’t a person on the planet that truly believes that it is possible for a lesbian to have a penis There is always truth in stereotypes, despite this one being more fun than fact. However, lesbians have recently had somewhat of a makeover – and not in a good way. According to some

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Do the police think ‘lesbian’ is a term of abuse?

Reading that a 16-year-old autistic girl had been dragged from her home by seven cops after reportedly saying a female officer looked like ‘a lesbian like nana’, I had to check that we weren’t back in the 1970s of my girlhood when ‘lezzer’ was the worst thing you could call a woman. Once again we are faced with the proof that wokeness, far from being ‘kind’, is often just a shiny new way to bully people Yet here are the coppers going all Life on Mars on some poor neuro-divergent kiddy – who also suffers from spinal disability scoliosis – in her Leeds home after (irony of ironies) she was

Debbie Hayton

Toilet politics needn’t be difficult

August is traditionally the silly season in politics but we seem to be stuck in silly decade of policy, and not in a funny way. Even ten years ago, few might have imagined that the minister for equalities would have needed to open up a debate on toilets. Yesterday, Kemi Badenoch announced that the government is publishing draft guidance that will protect the dignity, privacy and safety of all. In particular, she insisted that so-called gender-neutral toilets are no longer an option. In this country, a woman would not be committing a criminal offence if she chose to use the cubicle in the men’s to avoid a long queue The

Sunday

Francis Young

The mystery of the Baltic god in Kent

One of the stranger events of the summer of 2023 is the sudden and unexplained appearance, one night in early August, of an eight-foot tall carved wooden pole on a coastal path in Kent depicting the Baltic thunder god Perkūnas. The impressive sculpture is carved from a single piece of wood crowned by four stylised bearded faces, with an inscription in runic-style lettering up one side, ‘PERKUNAS 2023’. No permission was sought to erect the carving, and its creator is unknown – as is the purpose of the installation. Is it a gift from the artist? A pagan religious act? An image set up for protection? One social media user

Francis Pike

What explains Taiwan’s warmth towards Imperial Japan?

The online TaiwanPlus news agency reported recently that a new memorial had been unveiled in southern Taiwan to commemorate the thousands of Taiwanese youths who volunteered to help the Japanese war effort in the second world war. It is estimated that some 30,000 Taiwanese died while fighting for Emperor Hirohito’s Imperial army during the Pacific War. Some of these troops would have fought against Chinese soldiers on the mainland of China – a counter intuitive fact, you might think. The departure of the Japanese was regretted by many, leading to the popular expression, ‘Dogs go and pigs come.’ The story of the memorial goes to the heart of the peculiarities

Danny Shaw

Do we need a nationwide DNA database for crime?

When a man has spent 17 years in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit, there are many urgent questions about policing and the criminal justice system which need answering.  Andrew Malkinson, who will never get back those years after being wrongfully convicted of raping a woman in a violent attack in 2003, certainly deserves the answers. Why did officers from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) single him out as a suspect? Why was strong evidence that pointed away from him, such as the absence of scratch marks caused by the victim, seemingly overlooked? Why did police fail to disclose to Malkinson’s lawyers vital documents showing the long criminal records

Saturday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Katy Balls, Peter Hitchens and Anthony Horowitz

25 min listen

This episode of Spectator Out Loud features Katy Balls on the new divisions within the Labour Party and what Jeremy Corbyn might run for next (01:08); Peter Hitchens describes the joys of cycling and his dislike of e-bikes and scooters (07:40); and Anthony Horowitz joins us from Crete where he ponders the end of the world, becoming a grandfather and travel limitations after Brexit (13:11) Produced and presented by Linden Kemkaran