Society

Friday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Inflation is coming down – but when will we start to feel better off?

Despite this week’s inflation update, broad consensus remains that the headline rate is going to fall – significantly – this year. One of those people is the governor of the Bank of England. Andrew Bailey has told Media Wales that ‘a corner has been turned’ on those price hikes, as it appears the consumer prices index (CPI) has peaked and is now on a downwards trajectory. Bailey, ever the optimist, has a bad track record on these kinds of predictions. Having insisted for the better part of 2021 that inflation would simply be ‘transitory’, he and the Bank underestimated price hikes at almost turn, always playing catch-up with interest rate

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How Marine Le Pen became the voice of France’s red wall

It sums ups the sorry state of the Socialist party in France that they can’t even elect a new leader. After yesterday’s vote by members, the two contenders are this morning both claiming victory.  To be frank, whether it is the pretender Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, or the incumbent Olivier Faure, who emerges victorious is immaterial; the decline of the Socialists will continue, as I’ve been documenting on Coffee House for a number of years.   Put simply, Le Pen won the vote of men and women for whom identity still matters In 2006 the Socialists boasted a membership of 280,000, a figure that today stands at 41,000. Last week the party’s

Peter Van Buren

Joe Biden’s failure of leadership

Leadership, real leadership, requires setting an example. As far as security is concerned, the leader of the federal government, Joe Biden, has earned an F- for security. His setting of a double standard for the handling and storage of classified materials drives home once again (Hillary, Trump, you out there?) that there’s one set of rules for those on top and another for those underneath. I am a retired State Department official who held a Top Secret clearance without incident for some 23 years. Not once did I break the rules by violating my promise in return for access to the classified material I was privileged to see. I never

Anna Arutunyan

Putin is running out of options – and shopping for more

As Vladimir Putin geared up to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Siege of Leningrad, all the chatter pointed to a second wave of mobilisation to prop up Russian troops struggling to hold on to occupied Ukrainian territories. But the Russian president announced no such thing. Instead, addressing veterans and workers at a weapons factory in St Petersburg on Wednesday, he rallied Russians with promises of an ‘assured victory’ and pledged that he was trying to end the war. It was, in the end, a rather anticlimactic message. Vladimir Rogov, the Kremlin appointed head of Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia had promised ‘a very important statement,’ before the speech while

Thursday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The unhinged environmentalism of Al Gore

Lucky old Americans. They only had to put up with one fruitcake as president, in Donald Trump. It could have been worse. But for a few hanging chads in Florida in the 2000 Presidential election, they could have ended up with Al Gore.  It isn’t just the hanging chads, though, that have become unhinged, but Gore himself. In an extraordinary speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, an increasingly crimson Gore angrily berated the rest of the world – Greta Thunberg and other youthful activists excepted – for failing to realise just how close we are to climate apocalypse. ‘People are familiar with the thin blue line which astronauts

David Cohen

Jacinda Ardern’s tattered legacy

Wellington, New Zealand Jacinda Ardern has announced she will be stepping down as the prime minister of New Zealand, saying it would be ‘doing a disservice’ to continue in the position she has held here over the past five years. Ardern said she will leave office on February 7. The 42-year-old premier will not seek re-election. ‘I know when I have enough left in the tank to do it justice,’ she said during a hastily arranged press conference during what ought to have been an unremarkable start-of-the-year political retreat with colleagues in the city of Napier. Napier, the setting of the country’s worst-ever earthquake nearly a century ago, now becomes

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

The Tories can’t be trusted

Accusing the Tories of starting a culture war against minority identity groups and their supporters is rather like accusing Ukraine of starting a war against Russia. Or at least it would be had the Conservatives shown even a tenth of the pluck demonstrated by Ukrainians in seeking to repel their tormentors. That didn’t stop the SNP’s new Westminster leader Stephen Flynn having a go at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. ‘This is the Conservative party seeking to stoke a culture war against some of the most marginalised people in society,’ claimed Flynn about the government’s blocking of Scotland’s radical new gender recognition legislation. There are so many Tory MPs who

Steerpike Steerpike

Fresh Tory fury over Levelling Up funds

To the battalions! Yet another Tory row is unfolding, this time over the thorny issue of funds for deprived communities. ‘Levelling-up cash favours south east over red wall’ roars the headline of today’s Times. Inside are anonymous Conservatives aplenty, full of righteous anger and indignant quotes. Tuesday saw the announcement of the second round of cash payments from a £2 billion-plus levelling up fund, shared between 111 communities across the UK. In England 52 Tory constituencies benefit, more than twice as many as those represented by Labour MPs – though there are obviously many more Conservative MPs across the country. And clearly a number of them feel as though their interests have

Olivia Potts Olivia Potts

Sussex pond pudding: the perfect January pick-me-up

I always feel pulled toward citrus at the start of the year. Initially it was subconscious: I’d just find myself in the kitchen making a lemon drizzle cake. But now I actively plan my citrusy January. As Christmas recedes, I make notes of recipes that I’m craving, and almost all of them call for a whack of lemon or grapefruit or orange. It doesn’t take much analysis, does it? It’s a bit like having a dream about doing an exam unprepared – what could it possibly mean?! The literal brightness of the fruit and the figurative brightness of the flavour – its zinginess – bring you back to life; it

James Snell

Germany has no excuse for not sending tanks to Ukraine

When a man is in a hole, he is best advised to stop digging. When a German chancellor is in a hole, by contrast, he seems to think it his duty to chide others for failing to dig their own. So it is with Olaf Scholz, Germany’s increasingly ridiculous chancellor.   Scholz lost a defence minister and appointed an unknown quantity as her replacement mere days ago. That new defence minister, Boris Pistorius, will soon meet up to 50 Nato and allied defence ministers in Ramstein on Friday to coordinate supporting Ukraine. It’s a tough thing to do within your first week on the job. Especially when the chancellor and his officials

Toby Young Toby Young

When did Steve Baker become a social justice warrior? 

About ten years ago I thought seriously about becoming a Conservative MP. I jumped through a series of hoops and managed to get myself on the candidates’ list. Had I taken the next step, I might have been selected to fight a marginal seat and, given the party’s success in 2019, could have been elected. But in 2018, when the offence archaeologists did a number on me, I decided to withdraw and spare Central Office the embarrassment of removing me from the list. Probably just as well because if I had won a marginal seat in 2019 I’d now be worrying about how to earn a living after the next

Nicholas Sheppard

Why Jacinda Ardern is stepping down

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will stand down on February 7. In an announcement in Wellington, choking back tears, Ardern said she had hoped to find the energy and heart to continue in the role over summer, ‘but I have not been able to do that’. ‘I am leaving because with such a privileged job comes a big responsibility. The responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead – and also when you’re not.’ A caucus vote will be undertaken on Sunday for a new party leader – and new Prime Minister. New Zealand has an election every three years, and yet, extraordinarily, the last time

Wednesday

David Kynaston

Was the closure of the grammar schools really such a tragedy?

In 1959, the public (i.e. private) schools were responsible for 55 per cent of the Oxbridge intake. By 1967 they were down to 38 per cent, with the majority of places going instead to the grammar schools. Four years later Anthony Sampson welcomed how ‘the trickle of grammar school boys to Oxbridge has turned into a flood’, adding that ‘both in intelligence and ambition they compete strongly with the public school boys’. In short, a new, largely state-funded elite was now emerging to rival the familiar products of Eton, Winchester et al. ‘Egalitarians didn’t want ordinary people to go to conservative, hierarchical and Christian schools’ Yet at this very point,

Steerpike Steerpike

Corbynista MP backs down after attacking ‘transphobic’ Tory

Lloyd Russell-Moyle is no stranger to controversy. The Labour MP previously said sorry to JK Rowling after accusing her of using her own sexual assault as ‘justification’ for her views on trans people. Back when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader, the Brighton MP said those who quit the party were ‘scabs’. This week, Russell-Moyle has been busy in the Commons blasting a Tory MP. The Corbynista MP lashed out against Miriam Cates after she expressed concern that the Scottish gender bill would make it ‘vastly easier for a predator to get access to children’. ‘The idea of linking trans people with predators is disgusting and you should be ashamed,’ he told Cates, before

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Why is Jeremy Hunt pretending he can control inflation?

When Rishi Sunak laid out his five pledges at the start of the year, his first and most prominent one was to halve inflation in 2023. A few weeks on: how’s that going?    This morning’s inflation figures would suggest not so well. Inflation fell in the 12 months leading up to December 2022 to 10.5 per cent, down from 10.7 per cent in November. So prices are moving in the right direction, but at a snail’s pace. Ross Clark has the details here, where he highlights how the rising cost of food and domestic services is cancelling out falling energy prices. Inflation is still projected to fall significantly by the time

The Spectator

Letters: Harry, Charles and the way to reconciliation 

Back to work Sir: I read with interest Martin Vander Weyer’s clarion call to ‘Mr and Mrs Early-Retired Spectator Reader’ to return to work (Any other business, 14 January). The successful realisation of this aim is likely to require both a nudge from government, possibly through the tax system, and employers to show greater creativity. This pressing economic need will not be met if ‘grey returners’ are treated to the same expectations and orthodoxy as thrusting 35-year-olds. What is required, as Martin rightly notes, is flexibility. Flexible hours, flexible work practices and a flexible attitude to those who, having ‘seen and done it’ several times over, are confident in challenging,

Iain Macwhirter

Gender wars: the Union’s new battle line

When Rishi Sunak had dinner with Nicola Sturgeon last week, the idea was to show he was interested in a friendly relationship: a ‘constructive dialogue’. Liz Truss had dismissed Sturgeon as an ‘attention seeker’ who was ‘best ignored’, but Sunak preferred a more positive approach. He was keen to pose for pictures afterwards. This new friendship lasted four days. Sturgeon is now accusing Sunak of ‘a full-frontal attack on the democratically elected Scottish parliament’ because he has become the first Prime Minister in history to veto a bill passed there – the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. Sturgeon has put on a virtuoso performance of grievance. It’s ‘an outrage’, she

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Paul Johnson’s great mind

Obituaries of Paul Johnson, who died last week, have captured his prodigious gifts of exposition, wide range of knowledge and formidable power of attack. All true, but there are good things to be added, which I saw as his editor at this paper in the 1980s, and as a friend. Despite his reputation for uncertain temper – Jonathan Miller said he ‘looked like an explosion in a pubic hair factory’ – Paul was a most reliable and easy contributor. His copy was self-starting, to length, on time. It hardly needed editing (except that he was, like Evelyn Waugh, surprisingly bad at spelling). Given that he lived entirely on what he

Richard Madeley

My Sunday lunch with George Michael

All is grist that comes to a columnist’s mill. The late Alan Coren once wrote that if he heard a screech of tyres in the road outside his house, he rushed out, notebook in hand, ‘because you never know where the next 300 words are coming from’. I find that the Anniversary Almanac can be a reliable source of copy during thin times; my particular favourites being 40th, 50th and 60th anniversaries because they’re all potentially still in living memory. I’m already eyeing up anniversary options for 2023. And here’s an early heads-up – expect a deluge of words to mark the 60th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. Just as everyone

Charlie Taylor

Why are our prisons still in lockdown?

When the Covid pandemic began, one fear was that the virus would tear through prisons and cause up to 5,000 deaths. The prison service, at its best in a crisis, introduced lockdowns and control measures. These were effective and, from March 2020 to September last year, only 207 prisoners died having tested positive for Covid-19 within the previous 60 days or with the virus confirmed as a contributory factor post-mortem. Locking down was always going to be the easy bit – there is an old prison-officer saying that ‘happiness is door-shaped’ (meaning that prisoners who are locked up can’t do any harm). The hard bit is getting prisoners back into