Society

Monday

Nigel Jones

Why can’t the AfD work out where it stands on Europe?

Members of Germany’s AfD (Alternative fur Deutschland) party gathered in the eastern city of Magdeburg this weekend. The party’s aim during its conference was to choose candidates for the upcoming elections to the European parliament and thrash out policies on such thorny topics as immigration, and Germany’s place in Europe, including a possible ‘Dexit’. But their presence – as ever with the AfD – sparked a storm of protest. Thousands of people took to the streets of the city to demonstrate against the ‘Nazis’ in their midst, but the ideological position of the party – on exiting the EU for instance – remains unclear: alternating between its moderate official policies

Francis Pike

Britain’s nuclear test veterans are finally being remembered

Some wars get forgotten (viz Korea and Malaya); others are constantly refreshed in memory. As the manager of an Asian investment trust in the late 1980s, some 44 years after the Second World War, I was asked by my board to cough up a large sum of money to fund a statue of Field Marshal, Viscount Slim, the general who led British forces in India and Burma. This was indeed a huge error of omission. Slim had won arguably the greatest victories of British forces in the Second World War: the Battle of Imphal in India and the Battle of Irrawaddy River in Burma. His splendidly executed statue was duly

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Humza Yousaf can still turn things around for the SNP. Here’s how

Humza Yousaf’s government is adrift, of that there can be no doubt. The question is how much longer the drift will be allowed to continue before the SNP leader corrects course. In the four months since he replaced Nicola Sturgeon, Yousaf has staggered from one catastrophe to another. The First Minister has seen his predecessor and other senior figures arrested (and released without charge) by police investigating the SNP’s financial affairs. His government’s flagship deposit return scheme has imploded after failing to gain the support of business and Westminster. He has been forced to U-turn on plans to ban fishing in 10 per cent of Scottish waters. A scandal-wracked ferry-building

Jawad Iqbal

Sunak’s mother-in-law has divided India with her views on spoons

Sudha Murty, the Indian billionaire and philanthropist, who also happens to be Rishi Sunak’s mother-in-law, has something of a fixation with the cleanliness of spoons. Speaking on a popular food show, Murty revealed herself to be quite the tyrant in the kitchen: ‘I am a pure vegetarian, I don’t even eat eggs or garlic. What I am scared of is that the same spoon will be used for both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. It weighs on my mind a lot!’ The sensible reaction to these somewhat innocuous comments might be to think Murty a touch obsessional, and wonder at the impractical and time-consuming nature of her kitchen habits. Instead her

Sunday

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

Why I’m romantic about climate change

Why hasn’t an anti-technology movement emerged? It seems to me that we face two overlapping crises. One is obviously climate change. AI, if it doesn’t wipe us out, is supposed to help us fix that. But artificial intelligence leads us to the other crisis, one that is harder to name: let’s call it alienation-through-technology. Are they, at root, one and the same? Imagine that Elon Musk solves climate change next month. He develops a totally clean energy source so everything can continue much as we are with no need for apocalyptic anxiety. It would be wonderful news, I suppose. But part of me would feel a bit miffed. Because there

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

What does Japan make of Oppenheimer?

Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster epic Oppenheimer is wowing critics and selling out cinemas across the world. It’s already threatening to eclipse the disappointing Indiana Jones remake and even Tom Cruise’s raved about latest instalment of the Mission Impossible series. But it’s a worldwide hit with one notable exception: the film hasn’t been released in Japan yet, and no word has been given of when it will be. Some are speculating that there may be no Japanese release at all. That would be highly unusual. Japan, unlike some of its neighbours, very rarely bans films and has accepted WW2 offerings, such as Clint Eastwood’s Flags of our Fathers and Michael Bay’s Pearl

Geoff Hill

The joy of rescuing snakes

Snake rescuers like me always get asked the same question: have you ever been bitten? I’ve dealt with mambas, giant pythons, cobras – some of the world’s deadliest snakes – and, thankfully, the answer is no. But why do people always assume the worst about these wonderful creatures? People love to hate snakes. They are the Biblical baddy, the reptile that represents evil. Having nursed a sick cobra back to health, gently holding his head up during a daily bath, I know this depiction is deeply unfair. I’ve long been fascinated by these animals. My father’s family landed at the Cape in 1795 but I was the first to develop

Saturday

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

In defence of the Arts Council

I once knew a monster who said she could not read Proust because there were no figures in Proust with whom she could identify… Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Aesthetics’ (1958-59) Getting an audience to identify themselves in a work – ‘being seen’ – is one of the only reasons why art is commissioned, celebrated or even allowed to exist today. In other words, the 21st century world belongs to Adorno’s monster: we just live in it.  The 20th century’s definition of art, as expressed by another Frankfurt School philosopher Herbert Marcuse, where ‘art is committed to that perception of the world which alienates individuals from their functional existence and performance in

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Who killed comedy?

Wading into the Sadiq Khan #HaveAWord brouhaha, Laurence Fox had a pop at Khan’s ally Romesh Ranganathan thus: ‘You are not a “comedian” #Maaate’. The dig came after Ranganathan teamed up with the London mayor in his campaign urging men to challenge their mates on their behaviour towards women. Fox had a point; when is a droll not a droll, but principally a state-sanctioned lapdog with a few lame gags on the side? Far too often in recent times. One of the most striking things about our modern culture is the lack of creativity, even amongst those who work in the actual creative industries. Writers are now routinely sensitivity-read, censored

Friday

Mark Solomons

Should Oppenheimer have been played by a Jewish actor?

Cillian Murphy is a blue-eyed Irishman with cheekbones you could slice salt beef on but, sorry David Baddiel, as far as I’m concerned he makes a great Oppenheimer. Baddiel has once again opened the argument over ‘Jewface’ – non-Jewish actors playing Jewish characters – as Christopher Nolan’s epic takes cinemas by storm. He questions whether the film might have been more powerful had the many Jewish physicists working on the Manhattan Project to create the atom bomb, including Oppenheimer himself, been played by Jewish actors. ‘Another day, another film/TV show/play in which a famous Jew is played by a non-Jew,’ Baddiel writes in the Jewish Chronicle. The suggestion is that

Danny Shaw

The police are struggling to operate in a smartphone world

These are busy times for the police watchdog. It’s just started an investigation into serious allegations of misconduct against Devon and Cornwall’s Chief Constable, Will Kerr, who’s been suspended. An inquiry has been announced into missed opportunities to root out the serial rapist, former Metropolitan Police officer David Carrick. And this week came an investigation into the police handling of an incident in which a woman was accused (wrongly) of dodging a bus fare.  It might seem odd for the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) to be examining a case of alleged fare evasion when there are so many other priorities, including fatal police shootings and deaths in custody.

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Tories should never have taken their Ulez challenge to court

Expanding London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) may be a bad policy, a regressive tax which will impact on people of modest means while leaving the not-very-much-less-polluting cars of the wealthy untouched. But that doesn’t mean the High Court is wrong to reject the case brought by Conservative councils against the scheme. On the contrary, anyone who values democracy should be pleased that Ulez has been thrown back into the political arena, where it belongs. It is alarming the way that so many matters of public policy now end up being dragged through the courts under the judicial review process. How we impose motorist taxes, whether we build rail lines, runways

Jawad Iqbal

Iran’s morality police can’t save the mullahs forever

Iran’s so-called morality police, loathed and feared in equal measure, are back patrolling the streets of the country. They temporarily disappeared from view in the wake of the widespread public protests over the death last September of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman. She was arrested and beaten, and subsequently died in police custody. Her crime? Not wearing the hijab ‘properly’. She had a few strands of hair showing, enough to be deemed a violation of the strict dress code for women. She paid for this with her life.  Iran’s leaders were rattled by the furious public reaction to her death. Thousands marched in protest, demanding rights and protections for

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

The Guardian issues awkward Seamus Heaney correction

The Irish poet Seamus Heaney had a brilliant way with words, so you would almost certainly want his thoughts on the passing of the Irish singer Sinead O’Connor, who died this week. Perhaps that’s why the Guardian decided to quote the poet paying tribute in their obituary for the singer yesterday. The paper wrote, ‘Seamus Heaney, the renowned Irish poet, tweeted: “A great Irish poet and singer left us today. She was beautiful, courageous and wore her heart on her sleeve.’” A lovely tribute indeed. But with only one problem: Heaney died a decade ago in 2013, and certainly didn’t tweet about Sinead O’Connor yesterday. So what happened? Did the

Joanna Williams

Meghan, Harry and the truth about sexist adverts

Do Harry and Meghan need rescuing from their Montecito mansion? Being part of the royal family and living among California’s elite makes for a rarefied existence. But it appears that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex lack all access to the newspapers, films, television shows or websites that could provide clues about life beyond the perimeter fence. For surely only social isolation can explain their latest focus on pushing advertisers to ‘break the gender binary’. Harry and Meghan have thrown their support behind Equimundo, a charity that ‘works to promote gender equality’. Its newly-released ‘State of the World’s Fathers’ report calls on the media to ‘portray men and boys as caring and competent’ and,

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The damage of Covid lockdowns is only now becoming apparent

There are still those, like Matt Hancock, who think that lockdowns were an unalloyed good – who, indeed, believe that in a future pandemic we must lock down harder and faster. But for the rest of us, the appalling toll of Covid lockdowns continues to become apparent.  The Office of National Statistics (ONS) reveals today that the number of people who are economically inactive due to long-term sickness has grown by 400,000 to 2.5 million since 2019. More than half of these people – 1,350,000 – report depression and anxiety as either the primary or secondary cause of their absence from the workplace.  The pandemic has left us with virtually zero economic

Francis Pike

Why do we forget Britain’s role in the Korean War?

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the Korean War Armistice. Sadly, in the British media it will be forgotten that Great Britain and its Commonwealth forces, roughly some 104,000 troops in total, were America’s junior partner in the United Nations force that took on the defence of South Korea. The United Nations’ call to arms was made possible by the absence of a veto from the Soviet Union (which had temporarily walked out of the UN assembly because of its refusal to recognize the People’s Republic of China). It became necessary after Kim Il Sung, the revolutionary founder and leader of the communist Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and

Sam McPhail

Football fans’ loyalty no longer lies with clubs, but players

The world’s top footballers now have a bigger following than the clubs they play for. Fans are beginning to support superstar players as they move around from club to club rather than sticking with a team – and this threatens the very foundations of the sport. Devotion to a team – for centuries a (largely) peaceful way of channelling our tribalism – is disappearing Streaming and social media are largely to blame. After Pelé signed for the New York Cosmos in the mid-1970s, only 40,000 US football enthusiasts would flock to the old Giants’ stadium. Earlier this month when Lionel Messi joined Inter Miami in Florida, the club’s co-owner David

Robin Oakley

Relief Rally put the Ascot heartbreak behind her at Newbury

‘God it’s hot,’ said a Newbury waitress escaping into the lift from rain-soaked crowds jostling in the bars last Saturday. ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘It’s steaming.’ ‘Oh no,’ she replied. ‘That’s just the ladies waiting for Tom Jones,’ and the veteran Welsh warbler was indeed scheduled to be the after-racing entertainment. The race is framed to give some comparatively cheaper horsesthe chance of a good payday People go racing for different reasons and for punters one significant clue on Weatherby’s Super Sprint Day was the presence of trainer William Haggas. An invariably courteous interviewee when he is on the premises, the Newmarket maestro is by his own admission not one of

Bruce Anderson

The beauty of a serious Burgundy

It was the English summer at its most perverse. We were drinking Pimm’s while hoping against hope for better news from Old Trafford. As the clock ticked and the rain was unrelenting, one of our number emitted a groan which seemed to start from his boot soles. ‘Why can’t there be a bit of global warming in Manchester?’ The girls were growing restive. ‘I can just about put up with you lot discussing cricket, but not if it’s an excuse to talk about the weather’ was one eloquent complaint. A fair comment, so we changed the subject, while keeping a surreptitious weather eye on Manchester. All unavailing. The caravan of