Society

Wednesday

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: poems for Betty Boothroyd

In Competition No. 3292, you were invited  to provide a poem to mark the death of Betty Boothroyd. The formidable Lady Boothroyd – the Guardian obituarist’s description of her exuding ‘warmth and wit’ and ‘a whiff of glamour’ was spot-on – brought out the best in you. There were neat acrostics from David Silverman and David Shields, and head–turning double dactyls from Richard Spencer and Alex Steelsmith. Here are Mr Steelsmith’s final two quatrains: Eulogists speak of herHonourability;Countless admirers, whileRaising a cup, Picture her shatteringParadisiacalCeilings of crystal whereTime’s never up. It was a struggle to whittle down a large and stellar field, and Janine Beacham was only just nudged out

Alex Salmond

My advice to the new First Minister

Last Friday I found myself in the magnificent Carnegie-funded Central Library in George IV Bridge, Edinburgh. I was due to speak at a Scotonomics conference and, after glancing at some of the more challenging questions that had been sent in advance, concluded that an hour or so’s revision was urgently called for on the respective attributes of new monetarism and wellbeing economics. Entering the reading room, I was asked by the kind library staff if I had a reading card. ‘Well, I was a regular user as a student,’ I ventured. ‘When was that? Our records go back a fair way,’ they said helpfully. ‘1973,’ I answered. ‘Please fill in the

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Scotland’s new First Minister, Prince Harry’s day in court and Amsterdam’s campaign against British men

Home Humza Yousaf was elected leader of the Scottish National party, beating Kate Forbes by 52 per cent to 48 per cent after Ash Regan was eliminated; MSPs then elected him First Minister. Of 19 transgender prisoners in custody in Scotland, 12 began their transition ‘after their date of admission’, according to data obtained under Freedom of Information laws. The National Executive Committee of the Labour party voted 22 to 12 to bar Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate at the next election. The terrorism threat level in Northern Ireland was raised from substantial to severe, meaning an attack was highly likely. The Grenadier Guards who carried the

Toby Young Toby Young

There’s no bargaining with my wife

For me, one of the joys of going abroad is bargaining with the local sellers. They name an extortionate price; I make an insulting counteroffer; they threaten to walk away; I increase my offer by a fractional amount; they accuse me of not being serious, then name a price that’s fractionally lower than their opening bid, accompanied by elaborate hand gestures to indicate this is their absolute final offer; now it’s my turn to start walking away; and so on, until eventually we arrive at a mutually agreeable price that leaves us both feeling we’ve got the better of one another. In reality, of course, I’ve been ripped off, but

Luke McShane

No. 745

White to play and draw. Composed by A. Lifanov, 2002. The pawn on h4 looks unstoppable, but the draw is still within reach with an accurate sequence. What should White’s first move be? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 3 April. 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…Qxd2+! 2 Bxd2 e3+ and 3 Kxe3 Nd5+ or 3 Bxe3 Ne4+ or 3 Ke1 exd2+ 4 Kxd2 Ne4+ Last week’s winner Mark Benson, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire

Luke McShane

The American Cup

An uncharacteristic blunder from Wesley So handed tournament victory to Hikaru Nakamura at the American Cup, which finished at the St Louis Chess Club last weekend. The event was held with an unusual ‘double elimination knockout’ format, in which players who lost a match would continue playing in the ‘elimination bracket’, and only a second loss would see them exit the tournament. Nakamura won their first encounter, which shunted So into the elimination bracket. But since So triumphed in the elimination bracket, he was resurrected to face Nakamura in the final, where he took his revenge. Each player having lost one match, they were left to fight it out one

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

Beware the AI voice thieves

After years of blissful indifference, finally I’m scared of AI. I’ve been complacent, slept soundly beside my husband as he stares and mutters, sleepless with anxiety about robots. But now I’m frightened too. What happened was this. The sound of a person you love goes straight to your heart. You respond instinctively and emotionally A few weeks ago a friend received a phone call from her son, who lives in another part of the country. ‘Mum, I’ve had an accident,’ said the son’s voice. She could hear how upset he was. Her heart began to pound. ‘Are you OK? What happened?’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry Mum, it wasn’t my

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

The plan to house migrants on barges could soon come unstuck

Frank Sinatra once sang about the seductive properties of bright and shiny ephemera. ‘Her heart will sing, singa-linga, wearing baubles, bangles and beads,’ crooned Ol’ Blue Eyes. There is a temptation for anyone cynical about politics – that’s nearly all of us by now – to view the Government’s announcement of planned new asylum-seeker accommodation as a similarly knowing exercise in buttering us up with something eye-catching but insubstantial. Barges, barracks and airfields make up Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick’s latest attempt to get the electorate in the mood to couple-up with the Conservatives at the next election. These are the favoured and suitably Spartan-sounding new locations for thousands of the

Douglas Murray

Our poor deluded MPs

They say that death and taxes are the only certainties in life. But I would add a couple more things to that list. ‘French rioting’ is one. And ‘MPs getting caught trying to make cash on the side’. This week a campaign group called Led by Donkeys released footage of a sting operation they have been running to try to trap MPs into agreeing to do consultancy work for a South Korean company. You may not be surprised to learn that the company does not actually exist. A number of MPs, however, clearly were. After some initial flirting, Gavin Williamson did not fall for it, though we can see from

Charlotte Eagar

Getting a job after 50 is easier said than done

I am fed up with the government claiming that half a million professionals aged over 50 are reluctant to get back to work. They make it sound like we’re all on cruises, gardening or watching telly. But have they actually tried getting a job after the age of 50? I’m not doing nothing, I hasten to add. Part-time, I run a successful, if tiny, NGO, producing plays with refugees. Our work is studied at universities all over the US and Europe. I write books and screenplays and I once made a film that got into Cannes. But none of this has yet translated into the security provided by cold hard

Peter Jones

The contrasting worlds of Aesop and Charlie Mackesy 

Charlie Mackesy’s bestselling and Oscar-winning stories about a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse deal in aperçus such as ‘Nothing beats kindness. It sits quietly behind all things’; ‘always remember, you’re enough, just as you are’. The ancient Greek Aesop – whoever and whenever he was (6th century bc?) – is the West’s inventor of animal fables, and his creations are rather more challenging. The c. 350 fables credited to him mostly feature stereotyped animals – the mighty lion, tricky fox, ravenous wolf and so on. Some examples: a fox and donkey agreed to hunt together. But a lion appeared and the fox, hoping to save himself, said he

Sean Thomas

The decline and fall of urban America

They’re calling it ‘revenge travel’: the desire to make up for the touring opportunities we all lost when we were locked down in our pandemical homes. As a keen professional traveller, I confess I’ve got a fearsome case of this bug: I’ve spent the past 20 months going just about anywhere I can, playing catch up. Here’s a brief list of the cities I have visited since mid-2021: Tbilisi, Seville, Munich, New Orleans, Lisbon, Reykjavik, Bangkok, Yerevan, Rome, Istanbul, Athens, Da Nang, Nashville, Los Angeles, Florence, Phnom Penh, Tucson. I could add a dozen more, but you get the gist. I’ve missed a terrific number of domestic social engagements; but

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Is the cult of victimhood turning violent? 

This week I read the most extraordinary and chilling statement. It was issued by a fringe group called the Trans Resistance Network. It was about the horrific gun attack at the Covenant School, a private Christian school, in Nashville this week.  The suspect in the attack is Audrey / Aiden Hale, a young woman who, according to the police, identified as a trans man. Hale was a former student at the Covenant School. She shot her way through the school doors and opened fire on anyone who crossed her path. Three kids, all aged just eight or nine, were killed, as well as three teachers. Eventually Hale was shot dead by cops.  It

The Spectator

Who was the first April Fool?

Fooling about When did the tradition of 1 April pranks begin? One theory is that it derives from the ancient Roman festival of Hilaria, which involved games and pranks – although that was held on the spring equinox, which falls more than a week earlier than 1 April.  — In Chaucer’s ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’, a fox fools a cockerel ‘since March began thirty days and two’. Another explanation is that ‘All Fools’ Day’ referred to backward country folk in 16th-century France who didn’t realise that the adoption of the Julian calendar had moved New Year’s Day from 25 March (a week’s festivities used to end on 1 April) to 1

The Spectator

Letters: Speak up for our children

Care of children Sir: At last people, namely Harriet Sergeant (‘The ghost children’, 25 March) and Rod Liddle (‘Childcare: an inconvenient truth’), are speaking up for the children. In so many areas of life today we sacrifice our children for the sake of our adult fetishes and fancies. The only people who have no political voice are our children. I am not suggesting that we lower the voting age to five; only that we try to do our best on their behalf. Why not spend the money that is going to provide 30 hours of childcare per week for babies over nine months old simply to pay the mothers to

Ross Clark Ross Clark

What David Attenborough’s ‘Wild Isles’ doesn’t tell you

It is not just Gary Lineker, apparently, who has fallen victim to sinister right-wing forces at the BBC. A follow-up programme to David Attenborough’s BBC1 series Wild Isles, focusing on the decline of UK wildlife, will not be shown on terrestrial television but only made available on iPlayer. ‘The decision has angered the programme-makers and some insiders at the BBC,’ reports the Guardian, ‘who fear the corporation has bowed to pressure from lobbying groups with “dinosaurian ways”.’ The BBC has claimed that the extra programme – which, like the whole of the Wild Isles series, is co-produced by the WWF and the RSPB – was never intended to be shown

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Is the Guardian letting itself off lightly over its links to slavery?

When you read the Guardian free online, a yellow notice appears asking you for money (‘Will you invest in the Guardian?’) to support its fearless journalism. But now arises a donor’s dilemma. After two years’ work, the paper has just produced a full report on and apology from its current owner for its founders’ involvement in slavery. The historian David Olusoga, part of the project, says that what the Guardian owes the descendants of slavery for this is ‘an unpayable debt’. The paper is attempting to pay it, however, setting aside £10 million for the purpose of restorative justice over ten years. So for the conscientious Guardian reader (is there

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 1 April 2023

The idea of going to a bridge tournament where you have to sit in a separate room to your partner, and play with tablets instead of cards, sounds like a dystopian nightmare. But that’s exactly what’s planned at the next US Nationals. The idea is to eliminate cheating between partners via unethical hesitations and mannerisms. But most of us love the feel of cards in our hands. And we want our partners in the same room! As Zia says: ‘The day bridge is no longer played with cards is the beginning of the end.’ Luckily, at the recent Nationals in New Orleans, there wasn’t a tablet in sight, and Zia

Melissa Kite

My pony has an astonishing digestive system

The pony grabbed the bag of carrots and ran across the field with it in her mouth, tail in the air, munching on the entire thing, including, of course, the plastic. She was so pleased with herself there was no way I was getting near her. She ran around in circles, bucking and cavorting and flinging the bag about in her mouth, stopping occasionally to chew, as I ran one way, then another to try to catch her. Mothers nowadays do notapprove of their children beingflung about like rag dolls ‘No no no no no! I can’t take any more!’ I begged her, because the spaniel is under the vet