Society Archives

Sunday

15 Jan 2023

Ukraine needs more than tanks

What weapons will Ukraine get next? It’s a crucial question that matters perhaps more than anything else for understanding how the Russo-Ukraine war will end. For the last few months two different systems have received the most attention, systems that Ukraine has asked for almost daily. These are tanks, or MBTs (Main Battle Tanks), the key armoured vehicle of 20th and 21st century land warfare, and ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems), the longest-range ammunition now available for the US-made HIMARS rocket launchers already in Ukraine. Both are needed for the quickest possible Ukrainian victory in the war, though for now it seems that the first, tanks, are on their way and the

Sergey Radchenko

Why Putin won’t take Hitler’s way out

The last time Europe fought a major war, there was no shortage of planning. We knew what peace meant. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt issued their Atlantic Charter in August 1941, before the Allied victory was anywhere close. This was followed by more meetings and conferences, including in Tehran in 1943 and later at Yalta, in Crimea, in 1945. The fighting never stopped, but there was a lot of thinking about the future of Germany, Europe and the new world order. This sort of thinking is less evident today with Ukraine. Maybe it’s because Russia’s war in Ukraine, as bad as it is, isn’t yet a world war. It is

Charlie Walsham

The problem with the BBC’s reporting on excess deaths

I recall the newsroom conversations during the dark days of the pandemic only too well. They were upsetting at the time. Now, as we see a disturbing rise in excess deaths across the country, the thought of them fills me with horror and outrage. ‘You do realise these lockdowns and restrictions will end up killing people too, don’t you?’ I would say to senior editorial colleagues with something approaching desperation in my voice. ‘Sure, the virus is a serious threat to a small proportion of the population but the longer-term consequences of shutting the economy down and closing off the NHS will be deadly for huge numbers who were never

James Mumford

The tragedy of selective abortion in Britain

Late last year, Heidi Crowter, a 27-year-old woman with Down syndrome, lost her court of appeal challenge over late-term abortions on grounds of serious foetal abnormalities. Abnormalities such as hers, that is. The law in England, Wales and Scotland makes an exception to the 24-week time limit for abortion, permitting abortion all the way up to birth if there is ‘a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped’. That includes unborn children who have Down syndrome. This rule, Heidi argued, ‘tells me that I am not valued and of much less value than a person without Down syndrome’. She’s right. Current legislation stigmatises those living with Down syndrome by sending out a message their lives are not worth living

Saturday

14 Jan 2023

Mary Dejevsky

Alireza Akbar’s execution is a tragedy

UK officials from the Prime Minister downwards have condemned the execution of Iran’s former deputy defence minister, a dual British-Iranian national, in the strongest of terms. The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has described it as ‘a callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime’. The chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Alicia Kearns, said it was ‘another horrifying example of the Iranian regime… weaponising British nationals and industrialising hostage taking,’ And the Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, warned of consequences, saying it would ‘not stand unchallenged’. There will doubtless be a lot more condemnation from London in the hours and days to come. Alireza Akbari had been charged

John Keiger

Britain’s Ukraine strategy could reap dividends for Brexit

Ever since at least the French revolution it has been in Britain’s strategic interest to ensure no single power or group of powers dominates the continent of Europe. Britain’s motives were always military and, as an international trading nation, commercial. Today the Russian invasion of Ukraine presents the UK with a strategic opportunity to stymie Moscow’s aggression and to mollify the EU’s cussedness over the Brexit settlement. Britain’s stock has risen amongst EU members, just as France and Germany’s has declined Britain’s forward military stance on defending Ukraine against Russia is in the same vein as her defence of Belgium in 1914 or Poland in 1939. Britain was a pioneer,

Christopher Buskirk

Can America rediscover what made it great?

What happens when progress stops? That’s an important question in a country whose self-understanding is deeply tied to the idea of progress — material, technological, political and social. America’s first three centuries were characterised by physically pushing its border across the continent, west to the Pacific and then across nearly 2,500 miles of open ocean. It would not have been obvious to early Americans that Hawaii, a tropical archipelago far away from the California coast, would become the nation’s fiftieth state, joined in a political union with the far-distant original states facing the Atlantic. While the country was expanding in size, rapid progress was made in many other areas: science

Alexander Larman

Is Prince Harry blackmailing his family?

For all of the noise that Prince Harry has made over the past few days (weeks, months, and years) about his loathing of the British media, he knows – or has been made aware by his publishers – of the necessity of sitting down with journalists in order to promote his book. And so it is that, yielding to the entreaties of publicity, he has been interviewed by the estimable Bryony Gordon for the Telegraph. It’s an interesting feature, full of colour and anecdote, and demonstrates, as if it needed to, that the rebellious prince remains a source of endless fascination to everyone in his former home country. Yet the

Theo Davies-Lewis

The race to replace Mark Drakeford has already begun

In Britain it is rare for politicians to be able to decide how their career ends. But that’s not the case in Wales. Welsh Labour leaders enjoy such a tight grip over events that they can pick the exact moment they leave the damp stage at Cardiff Bay, even after a remarkably long time in power. Rhodri Morgan served as First Minister for close to ten years; Carwyn Jones was in the job for nine. Neither experienced serious challenges to their leadership. In the absence of parliamentary drama, electoral upsets and competent opposition, this slumberous pattern will continue. After four years, Mark Drakeford has indicated it will soon be time

Mark Hollingsworth

How oligarchs use Brussels to launder their reputations

When the police raided the home of the former socialist MEP and lawyer Pier Antonio Panzeri and found €500,000 in cash as part of the most serious corruption case in the European Parliament in decades, nobody noticed one of his clients was an oligarch who is the subject of the biggest civil fraud case in British legal history. In exile the oligarch has assiduously courted European politicians to promote his defence This tawdry scandal has focused on claims that Qatar funded an influence operation in the European parliament which resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of MEPs and a former vice-president. Over €1.5 million in cash has since been discovered stashed away in

Julie Burchill

The ghastliness of Vivienne Westwood

Seeing the swathe of superlatives wheeled out about Vivienne Westwood after her death last year at the age of 81, it felt for a moment like Elizabeth the Great had died all over again. Acolytes from Victoria Beckham to Sadiq Khan delivered their fawning tributes – my favourite was from Bella Hadid, who lamented the loss of ‘the most epic human being that has walked this earth.’ But the two women, Queen Elizabeth and Westwood, were as different as chalk and cheesecloth. The designer was a graceless, grasping woman, with an opinion – always wrong – about everything. No matter how much she complained and explained, she never convinced me that she

Friday

13 Jan 2023

William Atkinson

Scrapping university personal statements is a mistake

The decision to scrap personal statements shows up our university system for what it really is: the priority is no longer about educating students, or academic endeavour, but expansion for expansion’s sake. Ucas (the Universities and College Admissions Service) plans to replace the current applicant essay with a survey. This will reportedly ask taxing questions such as why applicants are motivated to study a particular course, why they are ‘ready to succeed’ and any context for their academic achievements – or lack thereof – so far. The justification? That the status quo is unfair on those students without access to ‘high-quality advice and guidance’. Yet the decision to get rid of personal

Katy Balls

Sunak and Sturgeon are heading for a clash over gender self-ID

Rishi Sunak is keen to distance himself from Liz Truss over Scotland. Shortly before she became prime minister, Truss suggested it was best to ‘ignore’ the ‘attention seeker’ Nicola Sturgeon. But Sunak is adopting a more conciliatory approach towards the SNP leader. The pair enjoyed a working dinner last night in Inverness on Sunak’s first trip to Scotland since becoming Prime Minister. They discussed the NHS, the economy and strikes. While there was a ‘robust’ exchange on independence, the post-match report does not point to a war of words between the pair. Yet cordial relations between them could prove short-lived. Speaking earlier today on BBC Radio Scotland, Sunak voiced concerns

John Oxley

A tax break for the over-fifties is a terrible idea

Downing Street’s latest initiative to boost the workforce is a curious mix of good and bad ideas. In the past week Sunak has said he wants to reform the benefits system to get more disabled people into work. But he has also floated the idea of scrapping income tax for the over-fifties. And by combining largely sensible policies on workers with disabilities with an ill-thought-out plan to get the over-fifties back into work, he risks undermining his party’s image . The Prime Minister is right to want to get Britain back to work. There is a labour shortage and a chunk of waiting workers that could be unlocked with

Brendan O’Neill

The war on JK Rowling

The crusade to erase JK Rowling continues. The latest ruse of the Rowlingphobes is to scrub her name from her own books. Yes, they now want to make even the Harry Potter universe a Rowling-free zone. A ‘book artist’ in Toronto by the name of Laur Flom has set himself the task of memory-holing Rowling. He is rebinding Harry Potter books, giving them new covers that make no mention of the witch’s name, and even removing her name from the copyright and title pages inside. The aim, he says, is to ‘help out’ people who are fans of Harry Potter but who have an ethical issue with Ms Rowling. ‘The

Freddy Gray

Is this the beginning of the end for Joe Biden?

Has Joe Biden suddenly outlived his usefulness? That is what many conspiracy-theory-inclined Americans are saying as the fuss mounts around the classified documents found at one of the President’s offices and his home in Delaware. The theory goes something like this: the mid-terms are out of the way, Trump’s power is waning, and everybody in Washington knows that Joe Biden is too old and doddery to fight on to the 2024 presidential election and beyond. So, the ‘deep state’ – the secretive powers who really rule America – feels it can now safely shuffle out the old man and bring in another Democratic leader. Dial up the sinister background music.

Gavin Mortimer

Terror has become banal in Macron’s France

The mother of my daughter was at the Gare du Nord on Wednesday morning when a man ran amok with a knife. Six people were stabbed but she was not one of them. I have a friend who wasn’t so fortunate. In July 2016, three members of his family were enjoying the Bastille Day celebrations in Nice when a Tunisian drove a 19-ton lorry along the Promenade des Anglais. They died, along with 83 others, who had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This has been the fate of the French since 2015: fingers crossed and hope for the best, a philosophy encouraged by

Ross Clark

Could Britain avoid recession altogether?

The idea that we face a certain recession has been drummed into our heads for months. The Bank of England recently produced a graph showing recession lasting into 2024. Just yesterday, the International Monetary Fund repeated its assertion that Britain faces an especially gloomy 2023, with recession inevitable – while simultaneously upsetting the House of Commons Treasury select committee by refusing to testify before it. But could the unthinkable happen? Could Britain now avoid recession altogether? The Office of National Statistics’ (ONS) first estimate for economic growth for November shows that GDP grew by 0.1 per cent – unexciting, but still remarkable given that many economists were expecting negative growth

Alexander Larman

The Royal silence over Prince Harry can’t go on

Even Prince Harry’s critics must concede that his memoir Spare has been an enormous success. The book is the UK’s fastest-selling nonfiction book ever: 400,000 copies flew off the shelves on its first day. The Duke of Sussex’s recent blitzkrieg of high-profile publicity opportunities, on both sides of the Atlantic, leaves little doubt that he is, at least for now, the most famous man in the world. Not bad for a self-described ‘spare’. But there is one group of high-profile people whose thoughts are both eagerly sought and, for the time being, withheld: the Royal Family. William may feel it is beneath his dignity to sit down with an interviewer

Thursday

12 Jan 2023

Michael Simmons

A nightmare month for the NHS

The NHS is struggling. In December, English A&Es saw their busiest month on record: 170,000 people waited more than four hours to be admitted and nearly 55,000 waited more than 12 hours. These are the highest figures ever recorded. Ambulance response times were their worst ever too: the average wait for emergency call-outs was 93 minutes. Things are also bad in Scotland. Last night, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (the country’s biggest health board) ‘paused’ elective surgeries to focus on emergencies and cancer treatment. The NHS as Glaswegians knew it is simply no more. Wards are being converted into ‘flu zones’ in scenes many thought we’d left behind in the