Society

Saturday

Sean Thomas

UFOs or not – something is up

As famous capital cities of world-straddling superpowers go, Washington DC is somewhat disappointing. The grandiose urbanism is surely meant to resemble the boulevards of Paris, with the parks of London, but in reality the dreary post-modern/neo-classical bombast makes it looks like Tashkent married to Milton Keynes. A city that is planned to project power actually projects tedious, if reliable, stolidity.  But that, for my purposes, is the thing. Washington DC is nothing if not boring. And pompous. And self-consciously serious. And yet, over the last few years, months, even days, a story has been emerging, from this same ponderous city, which is mind-bustingly crazy, possibly world changing, yet often unnoticed or airily

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Putin faces challenge from his own creation

It took a characteristically long time for Vladimir Putin to respond to the coup-that-dare-not-speak-its-name launched by Yevgeny Prigozhin, but when his statement came, it was steeped in bitterness. And no wonder, for Prigozhin was essentially Putin’s creation, and we know that Putin’s greatest venom is reserved for those he considers traitors. An ex-con who moved into the hot dog business and then finer dining options, Prigozhin’s early restaurant business in 1990s St Petersburg was given a dramatic boost by the patronage of the deputy mayor, one Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin’s Concord business group expanded dramatically, moving first into supermarkets, then everything from real estate to advertising, but almost always on the

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Exiled Belarusian opposition calls for army to rise against Moscow

With Vladimir Putin facing armed insurrection from Prigozhin’s Wagner Group, the exiled opposition in Belarus has called for its military to assert independence from Russia. Valery Sakhashchyk, Opposition defence spokesman, has released a video where he addressed his countrymen and the 38th Airborne Brigade, which he once commanded and is regarded as still loyal to him. His video (and my translation) are below: ‘All thinking people understood that the Russian Federation was built on lies, corruption and lawlessness and that it will fall apart sooner or later. We are witnessing the beginning of the active phase of this process. We do not know for sure what will happen tomorrow. Perhaps

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

My dog has been cancelled by Pride

Bella is a three-year-old dog of indeterminate breed. I found her by the side of the road.  She is fearless, affectionate and cute, like many dogs, but her place in history is assured because as far as I can tell, she is the first dog in history to have been cancelled for failure to kowtow to Pride. It’s not her fault but mine. In this month of Pride, I received an email from Tractive, the Austrian company that manufactures GPS trackers for dogs, and that charges a monthly subscription so I can keep track of her on her daily excursions amongst the vines. It’s a smart system.  A small device

David Shipley

My battle with bureaucracy behind bars

On my first night in prison, I slept well. Perhaps the previous day’s stress and exhaustion played a part. Neither the thin rubber mattress, scratchy orange nylon blanket nor my feet hanging off the end of the bed stopped me falling into a deep sleep. Banging and shouting from other cells woke me a couple of times, but I soon slept again. When I woke, I felt surprisingly calm. My cellmate in HMP Wandsworth, Peter, seemed fine: stable, calm, not on drugs. And the bad thing I’d dreaded for years had finally happened. Here, imprisoned – sentenced to 45 months for fraud – I no longer had to torture myself

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The French Connection and the trouble with streaming censorship

We are ten minutes into William Friedkin’s The French Connection and we’ve just seen our two heroes beat the shit out of a black guy. Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle (Gene Hackman) is a hard, cynical New York City police detective, a proto Dirty Harry who shoots first and asks questions never. His partner, Buddy ‘Cloudy’ Russo (Roy Scheider), is no less tough but more grounded, often having to pull Popeye back from the brink. They patrol an urban hellscape awash with drugs and crime and have identified the black guy (Alan Weeks) as a pusher. He earns his beating by pulling a blade and slashing Cloudy’s arm.  After they book him, Popeye chides

Friday

Sandy Rashty

The tragedy of Iraq’s Jews

Walk into my grandmother’s living room in north-west London, and you could be forgiven for thinking you had suddenly stepped into the Middle East. The coffee table is laden with treats, from homemade date-filled flatbreads to baklawa and nuts. Al Jazeera plays on the flatscreen, reeling off the latest news about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In the corner of the room is a darbuka drum and my late grandpa’s backgammon set for anyone who fancies a game. In the kitchen there are two pots brewing: one making slow-steamed tea laced with cardamon, the other Arabic coffee ready to be poured into miniature cups. Unsurprisingly, my family are often here – along with the

Andrew Tettenborn

Brussels will regret its crackdown on Hungary’s migrant plan

Hungary, a magnet for numerous would-be migrants because of its 110-mile land border with Serbia, has taken its own steps to stem the flow. One is brutally physical: a twelve-foot razor wire fence. The other is legal. Three years ago, Budapest passed a law preventing anyone not already lawfully resident seeking asylum, except through nominated Hungarian embassies abroad, one of which was that in Belgrade. The application had to be made in person there: the embassy would then decide whether to issue a temporary travel document allowing entry to Hungary while the application was processed.  The object was entirely practical: requiring irregular entrants to leave Hungary in order to apply

Ali Kefford

The Titan deaths were utterly avoidable 

When the news broke that the Titan submersible was missing, naval experts immediately recognised that the chances of saving the lives of those on board were, realistically, tantamount to non-existent.  With rare agreement, they swiftly concluded that the kindest outcome for the five passengers would be that the submersible had imploded.  Hard-hearted as this may sound, their deaths were vastly preferable to the terrifying demise of gradually suffocating in a cold, inky darkness Ruptured parts of Titan’s titanium end caps found yesterday, mere metres from Titanic’s wreck, show that the vehicle did suffer from an abrupt, catastrophic hull collapse.  It may be that those on board were aware of a problem. But

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Inside the world’s most vicious liturgy wars

23 min listen

In the ancient Syro-Malabar Church of south India, clergy who try to change the liturgy do so at their peril. At St Mary’s Cathedral Basilica in Ernakulam last December, a long-standing dispute over whether the priest should face the people led to scenes in which protestors attacked clergy in the middle of the service, sending the sacred vessels crashing to the ground. As a result, the cathedral was closed – and remains so, six months later. This liturgy war is a hideous embarrassment for the Vatican, because the Syro-Malabar Church is the second largest Eastern Church in Communion with Rome. Traditionally dated back to St Thomas the Apostle’s mission to

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The shameful condemnation of the Titan Five

The five departed souls of the Titan submersible suffered two tragedies. First, the tragedy of dying in a catastrophic implosion deep in the North Atlantic. Then the tragedy of posthumous ridicule. There seems to be a stark and bleak lack of sympathy for the men who perished. Instead a moralistic mob has found them guilty in death of the worst sin of our times: hubris. Much of the discussion about these doomed adventure seekers is making me feel nauseous. The virtual chatter is even worse. The bony finger of judgement is being pointed. ‘Who in their right mind would pay a quarter of a million dollars to gawp at the

Thursday

Tom Slater Tom Slater

Free speech is for scumbags, too

It doesn’t take much to get you censored these days. You don’t even need to be that controversial. Believing in biological sex is usually enough. Gender-critical feminists have not only been sacked from jobs and cancelled on campus, but also arrested and dragged through the courts. Sticking up for free speech these days often means defending the rights of eminently reasonable people to air utterly mainstream views. But now and again we free-speech warriors are still confronted with some genuinely difficult cases involving unsavoury individuals. Manchester United fan James White is one such individual. Earlier this month, the 33-year-old from Warwickshire showed up at the FA Cup final at Wembley

Ed West Ed West

The Windrush myth

Seventy-five years ago today perhaps the most famous ship in British history arrived at this island. A new nation was born, and with it, a new founding myth. The story begins in the last few weeks of the second world war, when British troops advancing on Kiel in the very north of Germany captured a ship called the Monte Rosa. Built in Hamburg in 1930, after the Nazi takeover in 1933 the Monte Rosa had been used in the ‘Strength Through Joy’ workers’ holiday programme; later it became a troopship for the invasion of Norway, where it remained until 1945, when the vessel was transferred to help with the tragic rescue of Germans

Hannah Gal

What Avi Shlaim gets wrong about the persecution of Jews in Iraq

In his Spectator review of Avi Shlaim’s memoir Three Worlds, Justin Marozzi refers to the author’s claims about the 1950-51 terrorist bombings of Jewish targets in Baghdad: ‘Shlaim’s bombshell is to uncover what he terms “undeniable proof of Zionist involvement in the terrorist attacks”, which helped terminate the millennial presence of Jews in Babylon’. Marozzi calls these claims ‘controversial’ but he doesn’t delve into just how controversial. The charge is that Zionists attacked Iraqi Jews in order to encourage them to flee to Israel.  There are several problems with this theory. As the investigative journalist David Collier has argued, ‘these explosions did not cause the exodus…the Iraqi Jews were persecuted, were offered a window to leave, and despite the fact they had to

Matthew Lynn

Labour must resist jumping on the mortgage bail-out bandwagon

Millions of potential voters in marginal constituencies face punishing rises in their mortgage repayments over the coming months and years. The government is in disarray on the issue and is largely to blame for the mess. Labour has spied an opportunity to hammer the Conservatives: it is talking about a ‘Tory mortgage penalty’ and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves is jumping on the bandwagon clamouring for mortgage payers to get help. But, if Labour goes too far in its demands, it could pay a heavy price. With inflation stubbornly high, and the Bank of England rapidly losing credibility, mortgage rates are soaring. A two-year fixed rate that cost less than 2

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

What was it really like for the Windrush generation?

This article is not about me. It’s about a woman in her late eighties called Ethel who goes to my local church; she came to this country in the Windrush era, which began 75 years ago today when 500 passengers arrived at Tilbury in Essex on 22 June, 1948. But this paragraph is about me. For most of my life I’ve felt a bit at odds with church, despite trying to join various parishes. In recent years I’ve been going, on and off, to a church in Harlesden whose congregation is mostly black (Caribbean), maybe eighty per cent. I have often felt a bit of an outsider, for obvious reasons.

Olivia Potts Olivia Potts

Cobb salad: a bright idea for summer suppers

They do salads differently in America. Caesar salad, Waldorf salad, even their egg salads and potato salads: they’re big, they’re gutsy and often they’re the main event, not an afterthought shoved to one side. This is never more true than when it comes to the Cobb salad: a riot of colour and instantly recognisable thanks to its various components being plated in tidy rows. The dish was invented at the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant, probably in the 1930s, and is named after the owner, Robert Howard Cobb. Stories abound as to who exactly at the restaurant was responsible for the creation: was it Robert Kreis, the executive chef; Paul J.

Zoe Strimpel

Boozy lunches are back

The financial crash of 2008 didn’t kill the boozy lunch outright, but it took the wind out of its sails. Ever more Americanised work styles further deflated the tradition, before Covid stamped on it. But the boozy lunch is back. It’s certainly surprising. After all, we are in the middle of a cost-of-living squeeze and a hospitality staffing crisis so severe that it has driven many restaurants to bankruptcy. But try meeting a friend for lunch in Farringdon, Soho or Mayfair and you wouldn’t know it. You must elbow your way in, wait for a harried but upbeat maître’d and thank your lucky stars you have a booking – if

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

As good as pub food gets: The Red Lion, East Chisenbury, reviewed

The Red Lion, East Chisenbury, is in the Pewsey Vale on the edge of Salisbury Plain. Wiltshire’s strangeness surpasses even Cornwall and its menhirs: it has the greater volume of ghosts. I once spent an eerie day in Imber, the deserted village on the plain – the inhabitants were given 47 days’ notice to leave in November 1943, so American soldiers could shoot up Imber in preparation for invading Normandy. Its church of St Giles, perfectly maintained, is open one day a year in September. Its pub, the Bell Inn, was sold to the Ministry of Defence, and is not a fine restaurant with rooms but a red-brick ruin, with

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Why we all need an Ollie Robinson

It’s a long way from Edgbaston to Karachi, but that’s where my thoughts were turning after Australia’s last-gasp victory in an unbearably tense, always thrilling, wonderful Ashes Test on Tuesday. Ominously for England, Australia’s three best batsmen, and the three best in the world, misfired simultaneously over five days. But they still managed to win. Oh well… Anyway, we were at the Sind Club ground on a cricket tour to Pakistan. It hadn’t been that long since the Sri Lankans had been shot up in Lahore so there was still a bristling police presence at our game, reassuringly unsmiling blokes wielding very large submachine guns. Pakistan being a country where