Society

Friday

Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson

Do mask mandates work?

This week there was an update to a Cochrane review, which studies the way physical interventions can interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses. The review, which Tom Jefferson is the lead author of, looks at evidence from 78 randomised trials with over 610,000 participants. In other words, this review is exactly the sort of higher-quality evidence you want when making healthcare decisions.   The review’s fifth update looked at handwashing, antiseptic use, social distancing and barriers such as masks, gloves, gowns and visors. Given past controversies, it’s worth looking at what the review says about the effects medical or surgical masks have on the way respiratory diseases spread.   Interestingly, 12 trials in the

William D. Cohan

The anti-Midas touch of Mad Money’s Jim Cramer

When Tesla, the electric-car company controlled by Elon Musk, went public in June 2010, pricing its IPO at $17 per share, Jim Cramer, the ubiquitous and highly confident American TV anchor, proclaimed on his show Mad Money that investors should avoid the stock at all costs. It was a ‘Sell! Sell! Sell!’ Cramer announced in his typical over-the-top, over-caffeinated style. But he wasn’t finished with his diatribe, not by a long shot. ‘You don’t want to own this stock,’ he continued. ‘You don’t want to lease it. Heck, you shouldn’t even rent the darn thing.’ The next day, another CNBC reporter found Musk on the streets of Manhattan and told him what

Thursday

Terry Barnes

Why is Australia’s bank snubbing King Charles?

Traditionally, the reigning monarch has appeared on the lowest denomination of Australia’s banknotes. It is a practice that harks back to the pound notes of pre-decimal days. It was even maintained by the Reserve Bank when the one-dollar note was replaced by a gold coin in the 1980s, and the Queen took the colonial philanthropist Caroline Chisholm’s place on the $5 note. This was controversial at the time, but only briefly. Before long, the Queen’s place on the $5 note was fully accepted. This remained so until her death in September. Today, however, our central bank showed its tin political ear with its announcement that the image of the late

Christopher Snowdon

Why is the British Medical Journal investigating the Beano?

One of the regular characters in Viz is an old woman called Meddlesome Ratbag who goes to great lengths to engineer situations in which she can be offended so she can complain to the authorities. I was reminded of her this morning when I read the British Medical Journal‘s investigation into the Beano. Yes, you did read that correctly. One of the world’s leading medical journals has been devoting its attention to a children’s comic. It turns out the Beano has a popular website that has been visited by nearly 48 million kids since its launch in 2016, according to the investigators. It stands accused of mentioning the brand names

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Have interest rates finally peaked?

Markets expected another interest rate rise today of 50 basis points. That’s exactly what they got. This afternoon the Bank of England has announced its tenth rate rise in a row, from 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent.  The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted 7-2 to raise rates to 4 per cent; two members voted to hold the bank rate at 3.5 per cent, exposing the dovish leaning that has been a feature of the MPC during the pandemic years. This created a credibility issue for the Bank, as it failed to act on inflation for so long, putting itself in a position of having to play catch-up with

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Shame on the Cardinal Pell funeral protesters

In Sydney today, the LGBT movement had its Westboro Baptist Church moment. It protested at someone’s funeral. Like that cranky religious sect in the US that noisily demonstrates at the funerals of soldiers, LGBT activists waved placards calling the deceased a ‘monster’ and ‘scum’. They chanted for him to ‘go to hell’. ‘Burn in hell’, said one banner. ‘Nonce’, said another. It was a truly disturbing spectacle. A new low in identity politics. It was Cardinal Pell’s funeral. Pell was Australia’s most important Catholic leader. He served as Archbishop of Melbourne and later as Archbishop of Sydney. He then went to Rome where he was Secretariat for the Economy in

Ursula Buchan

Where to find the finest snowdrops 

Who does not love a snowdrop? The pure white of their pendulous petals may be chilly, but who cares when they flower in the chilliest months, often on their own, or accompanied only by hellebores and aconites. I grow a number of snowdrop species and cultivated varieties, as well as unnamed seedlings that seem to appear out of nowhere, since these bulbs are relentlessly promiscuous. They pop up especially in shady borders under deciduous shrubs or among evergreen and herbaceous perennials, and they are the best sight to greet me on my daily garden walks in January and February.  The word ‘galanthophile’ does not quite convey the fanaticism of the

Wednesday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Workers striking, economy shrinking and Tesco buys Paperchase

Home Teachers went on strike. Train drivers and railway workers went on strike for two days, with a day’s rest in between. Civil servants belonging to the Public and Commercial Services Union went on strike, including some who work for Border Force. Firemen voted to go on strike. Nurses and ambulance staff decided to go on strike next week. During a visit to Darlington, Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, told an audience of health workers: ‘I would love, nothing would give me more pleasure, than to wave a magic wand and have everyone, all of you, paid lots more.’ The Commons voted for a bill to impose minimum service levels

Owen Matthews

One year on: how will the Ukraine war end?

In early October 2021 President Joe Biden, the CIA director William Burns and other top members of the US’s national security team gathered in the Oval Office to hear a disturbing briefing from US military chief General Mark Milley. ‘Extraordinary detailed’ intelligence gathered by western spy agencies suggested that Vladimir Putin might be planning to invade Ukraine. According to briefing notes that Milley shared with the Washington Post, the first and most fundamental problem facing Biden was how to ‘underwrite and enforce the rules-based international order’ against a country with extraordinary nuclear capability ‘without going to World War 3’. Milley offered four possible answers: ‘No. 1: Don’t have a kinetic

The Spectator

Britain is becoming a greener and more pleasant land

To listen to many environmental campaigners, you would think that Britain was a toxic wasteland. They tell us that our wildlife is depleted, that our green spaces are endangered and that 40,000 people a year are dying from air pollution. This week, the Wildlife Trusts came up with another figure: that it would cost £1.2 billion a year to repair the industrial despoliation of Britain. Everyone wants clean air and water and to live surrounded by healthy green spaces, and there are places that could be a lot cleaner than they are. Yet in many ways Britain has become a far greener and more pleasant land over the past few

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Ukrainian flag conundrum

If you walk down Whitehall, you will see numerous Ukrainian flags on government buildings. I approve the sentiments. Like many all over the country, we fly the Ukrainian flag in our garden. But is it right that the flag should be flown by HMG? On what basis, and by whom, is such a decision made? Just now, of course, the interests of the United Kingdom and of Ukraine are closely allied; but it is a basic principle of foreign policy that British interests may sometimes clash even with those of close allies. Suppose we fall out with Ukraine while the war continues. Would we keep the flags flying, thus looking hypocritical,

Anthony Horowitz

My clash with ‘sensitivity readers’

‘The end of the novel’: so ran a headline in the Times recently. Well, every few years one pundit or another predicts the death of the novel. They have done so throughout my lifetime and by now many of them may well be deceased themselves. But this article cogently pointed out the dangers of the new culture wars whereby writers are castigated for writing about ethnicities or events outside their own ‘lived experience’. Jeanine Cummins’s American Dirt was probably the most notorious example but even John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas attracted criticism. Could it be that my next murder mystery will have a killer, a victim, a

The Spectator

What’s moved the Doomsday Clock the most?

The final countdown The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved its ‘Doomsday Clock’ from 100 seconds to midnight to 90 seconds to midnight – the closest it has ever been to our apparent annihilation. How close was it during other periods of history? Cuban missile crisis, 1962 The standoff between the US and the Soviet Union brought the world to the brink, yet it was apparently a time of optimism compared with today – a few months later the clock was moved back from 7 to 12 minutes. Chernobyl, 1986 The world’s worst nuclear accident didn’t register on the clock: the hands were not moved for two more years, and then

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

‘Truth’ is not subjective

Once upon a time, a fox with a large bushy tail and a disingenuous smile changed his name from Reynard to ‘Chicken Little’ and applied for a post in a local hen coop. During the interview for the position, which was conducted by members of the Scottish National party, he wore red plastic wattles, which he had won in a Christmas cracker, sellotaped to his chin – although he needn’t have done so. Simply to identify as a chicken was more than enough for the thick-as-mince panel members. Politicians have been happy to go along with the absurdities demanded by the shrieking trans activists However, it was pointed out that

The Spectator

2587: Silver – solution

The five of a kind are stations on the Jubilee tube line in London, derived from: 26/27 (London Bridge), 40/41 (Stanmore), 46/47 (Waterloo), 3/34 (Baker Street) and 10/39 (Westminster). LOVELY JUBBLY (32/12D) suggests mispronounced praise. ORATE/ERATO were both accepted at 46A, as were SETTER/TESTER at 34D. Title: the line’s colour on tube maps. First prize Roy Robinson, Sheffield Runners-up Cathy Staveley, London SW15; R.A. Percy, Southport, North Carolina, USA

Pabulum

2590: Have a go

Seven unclued lights (all real words) are 36s minus one letter. A further 36 formed from the omitted letters will appear in the completed grid and must be shaded. Across 1    Confederate creeshes wheels (8)5    Poem (anonymous) involving ship in port (6)9    Crooked creep with agent making profit (10)16    Tinware company backed predator (6)17    A new Troy with aged columns (5)20    Bovine in old poem digs up underground stem (7)24    Author noticed a probable 36 in Shakespeare (7)25    Medical process still reducing sickness (5)26    Some admit a layman translated Bible (5)28    Language of goon pierced by short dagger (7)31    Reformer from Zimbabwe at home wanting tissue (7)33    Stars mingled in

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: first and last lines of novels seen in a new light

In Competition No. 3284, you were invited to supply a topical short story that begins with the last line of a well-known novel and ends with the first. Much has been written about the rise of AI bot ChatGPT (from zero users to several million its first two weeks!), and reader Alistair Kelman fed it the last and first lines of Nineteen Eighty-Four to see how it would fare with this challenge. There’s no room to share the result, alas, but I can say that while it won’t be winning any prizes for now, the bot’s performance was a marked improvement on that of a predecessor, GPT-2, set the same

Luke McShane

No. 737

Black to play. Adhiban-Warmerdam, Tata Steel Challengers, 2023. Adhiban’s last move, Nd4-e6, prepared a series of checks, starting with Nxg7+. Warmerdam’s response was a rude awakening. What did he play? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 6 February. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Qc4+ Rxc4 (or White collects the rook on c4) 2 Rxd8+ and then mate. Last week’s winner Jeremy Forgan, Middlesbrough

Luke McShane

Tata Steel Masters

Two rounds before the end of this year’s Tata Steel Masters, Jorden Van Foreest, the Dutch no. 2, declared himself ‘excited to play the role of spoiler’. Van Foreest was placed near the bottom of the leaderboard, but had yet to face two of the leaders. His opponent in the penultimate round was Anish Giri. True to his word, Van Foreest attacked him with abandon, and had his compatriot on the ropes, but their game was finally drawn after more than six hours of play. In the final round, Van Foreest faced tournament debutant Nodirbek Abdusattorov, hitherto the star of the event. The 18-year-old from Uzbekistan had led almost from the start, beating

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Wine Club: ridiculously pleasurable picks from Swig

So that’s it, a month on the wagon almost done and dusted. Hurrah! You might recall that owing to a spat over some liqueur chocolates, Mrs Ray declared that I was in clear breach of the Dry January code and promptly zapped me with a one-week penalty, now almost spent. Allies of mine – Dave and Tony down the pub – voiced serious concerns about how the investigation was carried out and question just how independent Mrs R’s independent ethics adviser is, given that she’s her sister (who gave me the chocs in the first place). I plan to appeal. Meanwhile, I’m free to taste wine so long as I don’t