Society

Tuesday

4 Apr 2023

What St Augustine could teach Donald Trump

Two attacks in local villages, leaving 17 dead in one and eight in another, says my teacher friend from Kaduna State in Nigeria in one of his latest letters. He writes regularly about the threats that he and his family and students face from Islamist militias. But what stays in my mind, apart from the horror of the details, is his steadfast refusal to demonise his Muslim neighbours and his eagerness to find resources to think (and pray) through what he needs to do and to communicate. He wants to learn what it is that stops cycles of retribution; he wants to break out of the mentality which assumes that

Charles Moore

Why Tony Blair was a Christian

Easter Monday marks the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. One of the most interesting things ever written by its most famous architect, Tony Blair, appeared (in the Sunday Telegraph) at Easter 1996, two years earlier. The piece, largely devoid of his vague boosterism, suggested he had thought about his subject. Under the title, ‘Why I am a Christian’, Blair wrote of Pontius Pilate: ‘The intriguing thing… is the degree to which he tried to do the good thing rather than the bad. He commands our moral attention not because he was a bad man but because he was so nearly a good man. One can imagine him agonising,

Gareth Roberts

Paul O’Grady represented a bygone era of TV

The tragically early death of the magnificent Paul O’Grady struck a blow at the national heart that’s unusual for a celebrity death. After all, this is, for most of us, the death of a stranger. This was a man who spent much of his professional life portraying a markedly waspish and unsentimental character, and even when he became more of what we used to call a ‘family entertainer’ he was never either sugary or oily. He reflected the British, or how we’d like to see ourselves, very well – unshowy, animal-loving, regularly quite angry, but most of all not fake. This rewriting of even the very recent past is symptomatic of a wider

Dot Wordsworth

The problem with ‘lived experience’

The Chinese emporium where I buy balloons for my husband thinks I am a laughing-gas addict, I buy so many. My husband blows a few up and pops one each time he hears a chosen phrase on the radio. This week it is lived experience. From the kitchen, his explosions sound like a shooting party. He thinks it’s funny. I am his only audience. I’ve found a written source to draw on without any balloon popping. It is from Inclusive Minds, which is credited with helping the publishers of Roald Dahl, who have been rewriting his children’s books. It has a ‘network of Inclusion Ambassadors’ – ‘young people with many

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How do I find a girlfriend who loves grouse shooting?

Q. We have been introduced to some fellow parents at our children’s school. They are not quite on our wavelength – very status conscious and money obsessed – but we want to stay on good terms because our children are friends. Like us, they have moved to the country from London and bought an old property which needed extensive remodelling. We are ahead of the game, having come here a year before they did, and so they have asked if they can come and look at the work we’ve had done. They are the kind of people who will want to know what everything cost. I can’t very well say

Rory Sutherland

What the British could learn from the French

If I ran the British government, to promote more heterodox thinking I would employ a small cadre of French people as an alternative sounding board. I know it may seem ridiculous to seek advice from a country which makes tea with lukewarm water and thinks Johnny Hallyday was better than Elvis but, if only by the law of averages, they can’t be wrong about everything. And on the subject of pensions and retirement, they may have a point. The reaction to pension reform in France is a lesson in how two adjacent countries can frame the same problem in completely different ways. When the retirement age is raised in Britain,

Jonathan Ray

Wine Club: six pale, pale pink rosés from FromVineyardsDirect

If you don’t like fine, well-priced Provencal rosé – crisp, clean, lively, refreshing and perfect for spring – then look away now. If, however, you’re an out ’n’ proud pink-drink lover like me then what are you waiting for? Get stuck in! Rosé has never been more popular, and with reason: the best are very tasty indeed. I’m not talking about so-called ‘lady petrol’, the grim, off-dry to sweet, neon-coloured, bubblegum-like California Blush Zinfandel, designed for chugging back over ice from a goldfish bowl in the beer garden of the Dog and Vomit on a Sunday afternoon. No, I’m talking about beautifully crafted, pale, pale pink wines made with the

Michael Heath

The Battle for Britain | 8 April 2023

Matthew Parris

My messiah complex

In June 1999, I described on this page jameitos, tiny, blind, albino crabs on the sea bottom in a cave in Lanzarote, occasionally caught in a shaft of sunlight they couldn’t see. ‘Might there be searchlights moving across the surface of our world, too,’ I wrote, ‘catching [us] within their purview, and we the objects of this silent inspection, all unknowing?’ It was a long overnight flight from South America last month. Though comfortable, I couldn’t sleep, so I accessed the in-flight entertainment menu, selected ‘Comedy’ and decided to try The Truman Show, a 1998 American movie, not really a comedy, with (I later learnt) something of a cult following.

Lara Prendergast

The beauty of the Easter lily

The Easter lily, or Lilium longiflorum, grows from a bulb buried underground to bear white, trumpeting flowers which face outwards and smell divine. One doesn’t need to be an expert in semiotics to see why it came to be associated with the resurrection. In Christian tradition, lilies were said to have grown in the garden of Gethsemane at the spot where Jesus prayed on the eve of his crucifixion. The Easter lily is sometimes known as ‘the white-robed apostle of hope’. A few stems of lilies tied with ribbon are always a lovely present whatever the occasion, but it is true that some associate these flowers more with death than

Rod Liddle

Sanna Marin and the female leadership myth

It is with great sadness that I must report the departure of the world’s only female head of state who is as fit as a butcher’s dog, Sanna Marin of Finland. Sanna’s Social Democrats – plus her allies in various awful left-wing parties – have seen their votes slump as the Finns turn to the right, meaning that the country’s next leader is likely to be a white male in lateish middle age with bad breath – same ol’, same ol’, etc. Sanna was a kind of progressive Scandi’s wet dream: raised by lesbians and thus from a ‘rainbow family’ (as she put it), the 37-year-old is also a vegetarian

Douglas Murray

The English countryside isn’t racist

I don’t know what your plans are for Easter. Mine generally include a nice walk in the English countryside. There is something incalculably consoling about our landscape. I might even find myself leaning on a stile and looking at some Easter lambs while they do that sudden vertical jump thing, as though they have suddenly found they are standing over a geyser. But perhaps I should instead scour the rolling hills for signs of racism which I could then report to the relevant authorities. What am I going on about, some saner readers might be wondering. Well, I have been reading reports in the British press that the English countryside

The Spectator

Letters: The positive case for daycare

Major mistake Sir: Douglas Murray (‘Our poor deluded MPs’, 1 April) contends that John Major is widely regarded as ‘one of the worst prime ministers in living memory’. If so, that seems unfair. Although a greyish figure, Major had to operate with a narrow parliamentary majority and a fractious party. It is often forgotten that he was instrumental in establishing the foundations of peace in Northern Ireland, for which Tony Blair is perhaps given too much credit. Moreover, it is difficult to name any of Major’s successors who didn’t leave No. 10 without black marks on their record. Ranking PMs is something for history. Clive ThursbyHindhead, Surrey Mother knows best Sir:

Peter Jones

Would Aristotle approve of the Guardian’s reparations?

The Guardian is worshipping at the shrine to its own piety with even more self-satisfaction than usual because it is paying millions in reparations to African-Americans based in Georgia and Jamaica, whose slave labour 200 years ago underpinned the wealth of the newspaper’s founders. But where is the justice in that? Aristotle argued that justice, which was good, depended on a form of equality. So for him, injustice was a matter of a man doing something wrong for his own advantage, thereby gaining an unequal share of something good. This could arise from (for example) buying and selling, ‘when quarrels arise when equals get unequal shares’. That was why money

Svitlana Morenets

The blurred lines between patriotism and profiteering in Ukraine

What is the right way to commemorate a war when it is still being fought? Many victories, tragedies and acts of defiance have already been depicted in Ukrainian books, films and art. Popular subjects include the liberation of Snake Island, the defence of the Azovstal plant, the horrors of the Bucha massacre, a woman offering sunflower seeds to an occupying Russian soldier so they can grow when he dies, and the sinking of the Moskva warship. However, it doesn’t take much to blur the lines between patriotism and profiteering. Anything with a military logo sells. Military–patriotic themes are being used to flog all sorts of products. War symbols have been

The Spectator

How deadly is the Grand National?

Falling at fences Activists from an animal rights group were secretly filmed apparently plotting to disrupt the Grand National, protesting in part at the number of horses killed at the event. – Since 1839, 88 horses have died either during the race or were put down as a result of injuries. Four died in the past decade and nine in the decade before that. The deadliest race was 1954, when the event was held on soft ground. Of the 29 horses entered, only nine finished. Four died. The longest periods without a fatality were 1908-22, 1892-1900, 1873-81, 1961-66 and 2013-18. State of the unions How much are public sector unions

The Spectator

2596: charades – solution

RUNNERS (10), ANSWER (28) and MEADOW (29D) defined FIELD; PROVISIONS (18), MANAGE (38) and PASSENGER (30) defined FARE; and THRUSH (11), PICNIC (16) and COMPILER (20) defined FIELDFARE (above the grid) First prize Steve Reszetniak, Margate, Kent Runners-up Alan Norman, Impington, Cambridge; Amanda Spielman, London SW4

Mr Magoo

2599: Slow to change

Six unclued entries (4, 1, 2, 2, 2 and 3 words) give a proverb (verifiable in ODQ), and the remaining unclued entries (one of two words) give examples of a noun therein. Across 1 Spelt ‘sorry’ with an E in (5)4 Triangular prism arranged by bouncers I rejected (5,4)11 I party, and not outside – not outside (6)12 Ghana keeps a big person bound (7)14 King advanced prince for local governing body (5)15 Trendy dog to suffer (5)16 Shutter obscuring viewfinder? (6)22 Idiot’s survey of masses of Earth? (8)23 Wagner finally topped wicked musical ornamentation (7)24 Put notes into this work (4)25 Fabric used regularly to make pink pants (4)27

Christopher Howse

The surprising beauty of Mass in a burnt-out church

As I sat down on the folding chair at Sunday morning Parish Mass, it sank a little into the mud. We were in a tent with one side open, floored with bruised and quaggy grass, like an agricultural show on a chill bank holiday. There were 13 of us and nine in the choir, who sang a brief setting by Monteverdi. The celebrant, the Revd Kate Harrison, in alb and stole, sat behind the wooden altar on a tall office chair. A server produced clouds of incense with a thurible. A homemade board hanging from the tent-poles gave the hymn numbers: 430, 234, 408, 440. A blackbird joined in after

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners; interesting lives made extraordinarily dull

In Competition No. 3293, you were invited to provide an extract from the autobiography of a well-known public figure which manages to make a very interesting life sound extraordinarily dull. I am grateful to Sarah Drury for suggesting this terrific challenge. Honourable mentions, in a modest-sized entry, go to Sir Alec Guinness’s Spam anecdote (Jonathan Taylor), Elon Musk’s account of founding the Boring Company (John O’Byrne) and tales from St Paul’s tent-making days in Tarsus (Revd Richard Coles). The prizewinners below take £25. The Battle of Rivoli was my twenty-second substantial victory (for my definition of ‘substantial’ see Appendix IV, ‘Definitions’), which puts me one ahead of the duc de