Society

Thursday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The BBC’s new direction

I am becoming terribly worried about the people of Sunderland with regard to how they will cope in this coming winter. The greatly increased fuel bills will affect all parts of the country, of course – but none more so than the Mackems who, I suspect, will largely die as a consequence. Their particular problem was highlighted by the local Labour MP, Bridget Phillipson, on BBC2’s Politics Live hosted by the excellent Jo Coburn. Ms Phillipson said people in her constituency opened their doors to her wearing their coats and possibly mufflers, because they were trying to reduce their energy bills. The temperature up here has not dropped below about

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Kwasi Kwarteng is a politician from a different age

Liz Truss doesn’t waste energy on unnecessary emotion. At the announcement of her victory at the QE2 Centre, she ditched the convention of hugging your partner and shaking hands with the runner-up. Instead she grabbed her notes from her husband Hugh O’Leary and marched past Rishi Sunak without a second glance. No time for sentimentality! Different from Johnson, surrounded by his siblings and ubiquitous father, or the uxorious Cameron and doting May. She knifed to the microphone with the same steely determination she showed all those decades ago when she told the Lib Dem conference to abolish the monarchy. The script has changed, the focus has not. Just before midnight

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

Kill badgers to save hedgehogs

Until last month I hadn’t seen a hedgehog for close to 30 years, though they were part of everyday life when I was a child. In the school holidays, we’d rush first thing to the nearby cattle grids to check for animals who’d fallen in overnight. It’s what passed for fun back then: picking damp critters out of concrete prisons. Sometimes there were lambs, wedged in up to their woolly armpits; sometimes there were angry, pulsing toads. But it was hedgehog rescue that was our sacred duty. We’d pick them up in towels and take them to the hedgehog spa in the boiler room, where they’d spend the day lounging

The Spectator

2569: Anadad – solution

The quotation was ‘I WAS BORN TO SPEAK ALL MIRTH AND NO MATTER’ from Much Ado About Nothing (II.i.321) by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. BEAT/RICE (23D/17) is the speaker and BENE/DICK (12/31) the sparring partner. Title: Much Ado About Nothing in cryptic form. First prize R.R. Alford, Oundle, Peterborough Runners-up Gordon Hobbs, Woodford Green, Essex; Fergus Jamieson, London SE26

Lavatch

2572: Blown up

Around the perimeter, beginning at square 1, is a line of poetry (seven words, in ODQ) followed by the title of the poem (six words; one abbreviated word in the original title must be written out in full). Remaining unclued lights are of a kind, suggested by the quotation.   Across 11 Drug ring spread round India (6) 12 Quiet New Year last of all for Jewish community (6) 13 Nothing in drink for succulent plant (4) 14 Awfully neat image, oddly, shows ribbons (7) 20 Girl dancing around current king’s cabinet (7) 21 Save wild birds (4) 27 Lament trouble on flipping Internet (6) 29 Deity has gravitas periodically

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: Ebenezer Scrooge asks for a loan

In Competition No. 3265, you were invited to submit a letter to a friend asking for a loan as it might have been written by a well-known character from the field of fact or fiction. John O’Byrne earns an honourable mention for his letter from Hamlet to Laertes. Equally impressive were Susan Firth, Mike Morrison, Ralph Bateman, J.C.H. Mounsey and John Megoran. But the cash prizes go to the winners, printed below, who pocket £25 each. When, in the course of domestic events, it becomes necessary for a man so to impose on the goodwill of his fellow creature, as to request of him pecuniary succour, assistance, and augmentation, it

Luke McShane

No. 719

White to play. Cornette-Feller, French Champion-ship, August 2022. Black has just played 13…h7-h6. How did White capitalise on this mistake? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 12 September. There is a prize of £20 for a correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 c3! Qxf4 2 g3! wins. Any queen move to an unguarded square allows a knight fork Last week’s winner Richard Hughes, London SW17

Luke McShane

Chess speaks for itself

‘Plug the fucking laptop in!’ Hans Niemann, the lively 19-year-old from the US, was left fuming – understandably – after his loss to Jan-Krzysztof Duda at the FTX Crypto Cup in Miami. The organisers set up the equipment, but Duda’s laptop ran out of juice at a tense moment when both players had about a minute remaining. By the time it was resolved, Duda had gained several minutes to think and found an accurate continuation, posing difficult problems in the endgame. An exasperated Niemann lost the game, and collapsed in the next two as well, losing a clean 3-0 sweep in the four-game match. The technical mishap was all the

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 10 September 2022

When was the last time you made a doubled slam – a slam that could and should have been defeated – and lost IMPs on it? Today’s hand comes from the qualifying rounds of the Mixed Teams at the World Bridge Series in Wroclaw. The North hand was shared all over social media, but it’s not a play problem or a defence problem. It’s a judgment call and it’s probably happened to many of us, but as South said modestly at the end of the hand: ‘I know I’m a terrific player, pard, but even I can’t know you have an Ace in your hand when I doubled!’ Here it

Jeremy Clarke

When the bone pain gets bad, my inner NCO keeps me in check

In Frederic Manning’s classic Great War novel, The Middle Parts of Fortune, the shattered battalion shambles out of the line after battle to parade briefly before being dismissed. Noting a general loss of soldierly comportment as the infantrymen limp into camp, a watching NCO urges: ‘Come on, get hold of it now.’ As my bone pain worsens, passing milestone after milestone with dismaying rapidity, Manning’s anonymous fictional NCO speaks that expressive army phrase into my mind. He gives the order sternly, with unmistakeable undertones of regimental pride and kindliness. Milestones passed so far: single site intermittent bone pain easily tolerated; single site continuous pain, easily managed by half a gram

Taki

I’m a one-woman man

Gstaad There’s a fin de saison feeling around here, but the restaurants are still full and the sons of the desert are still moping around. Building is going on non-stop and the cows are down from the mountains, making the village a friendlier and more civilised place. Something of a twilight mood has crept in, especially when I compare the cows with the people. Reclaiming vanished days is a sucker’s game, but it’s irresistible. I was up at my friend Mick Flick’s chalet the other afternoon, talking with Gstaad regulars about how much fun the place used to be. I tried the reverse of an old Woody Allen joke, announcing

Wednesday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Why Liz Truss’s political journey matters

As is now well known, Liz Truss has travelled politically. Her parents are left-wing, and there is a photograph of her as a child posing with them and their CND banner in Paisley. She herself was active in the Liberal Democrats. Professor Truss is reportedly upset that his daughter became a Conservative. I can identify with this story a little since both my parents were/are (my mother is still alive) ardent Liberals and I fear my own move to the right – though never really a party-political thing – upset them. Parents tend to be more upset by children moving to their right than to their left. This is because non-conservative politics

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Why the ‘ThickLizzie’ slur is so stupid

There’s a funny thing about humans: when we want to help people, we often end up hurting them — and vice-versa. Take the ‘ThickLizzie’ hashtag that has been trending on social media. The new Prime Minister is, according to large numbers of Tory-loathers, a moron. There is an undercurrent of sexism here, yes. There’s also an overcurrent of stupidity. It’s just clearly not true. Truss may not be the most dynamic public speaker. She can be awkward. She may have poor judgment. She may turn out to be a disaster as Prime Minister. How many of the people calling her stupid on Twitter today got into Oxford to read Philosophy, Politics

Daisy Dunn

Emily Maitlis tries too hard not to be teachery on her new podcast

The competition between news-led podcasts is nearing boiling point. If you tuned in to The Media Show on Radio 4 last Wednesday, you’d have felt the tension between the podcasters leading the guard: Alastair Campbell of The Rest Is Politics, Jon Sopel of The News Agents, plus his executive producer, Dino Sofos, Nosheen Iqbal of the Guardian’s Today in Focus, and Adam Boulton, who has just launched a politics show with Kate McCann on Times Radio. Kiran Moodley and Minnie Stephenson might reasonably have joined this line-up as they launch a new series of their news pod with Channel 4 this week. The Fourcast, like The News Agents (where Sopel

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Meghan Markle’s self-centred psychobabble

Move over Liz Truss, the real leaders of our global future are in Manchester this week – not Westminster. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, having apparently got bored of their LA exile, appeared at the One Young World Summit to speak to the next generation of ambitious strivers. The event, described as ‘a chance for the individuals responsible for shaping the future, to come together to confront the biggest challenges facing humanity,’ had Meghan down for a speech about gender equality. What they got was a lecture about… Meghan. Leadership tomorrow means talking about yourself today. In seven short minutes, the duchess managed to squeeze in 54 references to

Alexander Larman

The Harry ‘n’ Meghan circus shows no sign of coming to an end

It seemed fitting that, for her return to Britain, Meghan Markle was joined at the One Young World summit in Manchester by none other than Sir Bob Geldof. The presence – on a Monday, no less – of the Boomtown Rats hitmaker-turned-all-purpose humanitarian was designed to show the worthy company that the Duchess of Sussex keeps these days. But it also ran the risk of suggesting that she, too, is in danger of repeating her single greatest hit all too often. Does Meghan still have a loyal audience, or is her schtick in danger of wearing thin? She decided to be emollient. Although recent press interviews with her have trotted

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

Why don’t we put warnings on smartphones?

On a recent trip to Sainsbury’s, I was perplexed to find nothing where it should be. I’m used to things being switched about to a small extent. It can even be quite fun to track down rice pudding where the clingfilm used to be and the clingfilm where the baked beans once were. But this was a dizzying change of topography, like returning home after a tsunami to find your bathroom in the basement and your sofa sailing off into the sea. All was made clear by a helpful sign: ‘LOOKING FOR YOUR FAVOURITES? The government is introducing new rules in October for products containing high fat, sugar or salt.

Monday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Joe Lycett isn’t funny – or brave

Can we all take a moment to marvel at the courage of Joe Lycett? Imagine the cojones it must take to go on the BBC and make fun of the Tories. How truly stunning and brave. Roll over Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks – there’s a new comedy insurgent in town. I’m being sarcastic, clearly. And sarcasm, as we know, is the lowest form of wit. Apart, perhaps, from going on the BBC to make fun of the Tories. I honestly cannot think of anything more pedestrian and less amusing than that. Witness the way Lycett kept looking over at Emily Thornberry, the doyenne of bourgeois London leftism Lycett is

Friday

Tom Slater Tom Slater

The truth about Extinction Rebellion

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse – Extinction Rebellion are back! Well, if you thought an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis, fuelled by a global scramble for gas, would have led the eco-irritants to sit things out for a bit, you don’t know XR. For them, the ‘climate emergency’ trumps all. Plus, reading a room has never really been their strong suit – as we saw when they tried to win the hearts and minds of commuters by climbing on top of Tube trains, or when an animal-rights XR offshoot went after that most universally disliked of figures in Britain, the Queen. This time their target is the Houses