Society

Wednesday

The Spectator

Letters: Why I love Warhammer

Troubles ahead? Sir: Jenny McCartney’s article ‘Border lines’ (1 October) was a profoundly depressing one. Perhaps there will be a united Ireland within the next 30 years; but will it be a peaceful and happy place? I have my doubts. Might not areas such as overwhelmingly Unionist Antrim, north Down, north Armagh, east Belfast and indeed much of Co. Londonderry become no-go areas for the new Irish governing authorities – rather in the same way as Derry, west Belfast and south Armagh were for the British in the times of the Troubles? Most of the wiser commentators observe that the Good Friday Agreement was only a truce, not a perpetual

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Tory party conference, gas supply warning and Denmark’s royals stripped of titles

Home Liz Truss, the Prime Minister, came up with a message for the Conservative party conference: ‘Whenever there is change, there is disruption… Everyone will benefit from the result.’ Her words followed a decision not to abolish, after all, the 45p rate of tax, paid by people who earn more than £150,000 a year. Backbench Conservative MPs had let it be known they would not vote for it. ‘The difference this makes really is trivial,’ said Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank. But the pound rose and the government was able to borrow a little more cheaply. Kwasi Kwarteng, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told the

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: poems about Her late Majesty’s favourite things

In Competition No. 3269, you were invited to write a poem about Her late Majesty’s favourite things. Alongside the more familiar royal predilections – corgis, horses, Dubonnet and gin, Corrie, the colour blue – was the revelation that the Queen was partial to a spot of heavy metal, and in particular Ozzy Osborne, though perhaps that was just a flight of fancy. Most competitors went the Rodgers & Hammerstein route, but despite some inevitable repetition, it was an instructive and entertaining postbag. An honourable mention goes to Roger Dickinson, Brian Murdoch and Janine Beacham; the winners, printed below, receive £30 each. O I am frugal, regal And when there’s nothing

Toby Young Toby Young

Is Russell Brand really so dangerous?

Once the dust has settled over the government’s mini-Budget, another big political battle looms: the Online Safety Bill. This is the legislation that will make Ofcom responsible for regulating the internet so Britain becomes ‘the safest place in the world to go online’ – at least, that’s how the last government tried to sell it. It was due to go the House of Lords for a second reading in July, but was put on hold because of the Tory leadership contest and I was hoping it would never be resuscitated. Liz Truss and her lieutenants are currently going through the last administration’s legislative programme, seeing what they can ditch to

The Spectator

2573 – solution

The preamble referred to ten symmetrically placed unclued entries which spell out CURRENT PUZZLE NUMBER HAS PRIME FACTORS: THIRTY-ONE, EIGHTY-THREE. First prize Bill Stewart, Leicester Runners-up D.P. Shenkin, London WC1; C.S.G Elengorn, Enfield, Middlesex

Fieldfare

2576: After Eleven

The unclued lights form five pairs, as suggested by the title. Across 6 Fashion blunted by useless needle (6) 10 Sister in action in a moving church feast (12) 13 Lily and Len backing boss (7) 16 Youth turns to another who’s idle (4) 17 Scarper from unstable ice-sheet (6,2) 21 Underclothes hang loosely? Twaddle (8) 23 Push in suggestion commonly vulgar (7) 25 Caledonian couple unwrapping software (3) 26 Being philosophical, making three points (3) 29 Goddess briefly so pink (8) 34 United to play this piece? (8) 36 Asparagus and special fruit (6) 38 Love to afford fancy sort of vehicle (3-4) 39 Sailor embraces my curves (5)

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 8 October 2022

The bridge world is experiencing an explosion of junior talent and enthusiasm. One of the very best is Sweden’s Sanna Clementsson, who may be only 21 but has already won two world titles in the Venice Cup (the Women’s World Championships), was the youngest female to become a World Grand Master, and was part of the Mixed Team who took silver in the WSB in Wroclaw, partnering Swedish International Fredrik Nystrom. This hand attracted attention when it was played, and deservedly so. Here is Sanna declaring 4 ♥. The contract was 4 ♥ at both tables and both Wests led a top Spade. In the first room, play took just

Luke McShane

No. 723

Black to play. Giorgobiani-Sivanandan, Fide Cadets U8 Girls Championship, 2022. Black has a subtle winning move in this position. What is it? (The game continued 32…Rf1 33 Qd5 and Black won after a long fight.) Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 10 October. 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…Qb1! Then 2 Ne3 Qh1+ 3 Ng2 Qf1+, or 2 Nd2 Qd3+ or 2 Nh2 Qh1+ Last week’s winner Keith Escott, Erdington, Birmingham

Luke McShane

Girls compete

Judit Polgar, the strongest female player of all time, conducted an enchanting interview in the commentary room during the Chennai Olympiad. Her interviewee was Charvi Anilkumar, an eight-year-old girl from Bangalore. Asked about her dreams and ambitions, she announced confidently, ‘I need to play in men’s section and I need to be a grandmaster, and world champion!’ Polgar was evidently delighted and expressed her hope to one day see Charvi playing alongside men in the Open section of a future Olympiad. When she was an active player, Polgar was the top-ranked woman in the world from the age of 12, but she avoided women’s tournaments. Her pursuit of stronger opposition

Jeremy Clarke

My battle with an ant

At eight o’clock in the morning a nurse injected me with a radioactive marker and told me to go away and amuse myself for three hours. The metal chairs in the waiting room were uncomfortable and there was nothing to rest my head against. So I wandered outside the 19-storey hospital to look for somewhere to lie down. Every outside space was taken up with parked cars, thousands of them everywhere you looked, some of them jammed in opportunistically at fantastic angles. Eventually I found a patch of rough grass between two car parks. The grass was strewn with stones, rubble and litter but I lay down gratefully, resting my

Taki

The lessons of New York’s carnage

New York I am seriously thinking of visiting a shrink (just kidding) as I now have definite proof that I am crazy. Instead of remaining in England and going to Badminton for the Duke of Beaufort’s 70th birthday bash, and catching a glimpse of the love of my life, Iona McLaren, I find myself in a rotten place where a small headline in the New York Post announces: ‘16 shot during bloody day in NYC.’ All I can say is that the Bagel’s salad days are over. The streets are awash with homeless druggies who are violent and perform their functions right out in the open, even on Park Avenue.

Richard Ekins

What went wrong with policing at Tory conference?

Events in Birmingham this week reveal a crisis in the policing of public protest. It was no surprise that protestors would make their views loudly known outside the Conservative party conference. In exercising their rights to assemble and to speak, protestors play an important role in a democracy. But some of those attending the conference, exercising their rights to assemble and to speak, were, at times, subject to verbal and physical abuse and intimidation. They have also been exposed to levels of noise that, in certain parts of the conference centre, made it difficult for speakers to make themselves heard. The police have been curiously reluctant to act to protect

Alexander Larman

Meghan makes it all about herself, again

Since the Queen’s death last month, the Duchess of Sussex has found it hard to maintain her usual vice-like grip on the world media’s attention. Rumours have swirled that relations between her and Prince Harry and the now-Prince and Princess of Wales are yet to improve — despite the surface show of amiability that was demonstrated over the mourning period. There has been the sense that Meghan has been relegated to second fiddle: a state of affairs that this particular prima donna is reluctant to accept. This week has spelt a comeback of sorts. Photographs have been released of the Duke and Duchess, taken by Misan Harriman, when the Duke

Tuesday

Tom Slater Tom Slater

The trouble with ‘Bros’

Hollywood and identity politics really is a toxic mix. Awards shows are dominated by hectoring actors. Popcorn fluff must now ‘send a message’. Concerns about representation apparently obsess casting directors. And a film being on-message is often prized over it being any good. Lazy recycled stories and reboots are given a ‘diverse’ gloss. We’re obliged to hail an all-female Ocean’s 11 or Ghostbusters reboot as some breakthrough for womankind, rather than another sign that Tinseltown is completely devoid of new ideas. But this obsession certainly has its uses for Hollywood bigwigs, as the confected controversy over the new movie Bros makes clear. Bros is a gay romcom directed by Nicholas

Joanna Williams

Do Oxford students really need trigger warnings?

It is freshers’ week on campus. Brand new students get to make friends, get drunk and find their way around university. The excitement culminates with freshers’ fair, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to find your tribe by joining everything from the paragliding club to the Mao appreciation society. Who cares if you never attend a single meeting? For one brief moment, you can flirt with the person you might become. Freshers’ fairs offer new students a glimpse of the intellectual and political possibilities on offer at university. But sadly not at Oxford. This year, Oxford University’s freshers’ fair comes with a big fat trigger warning. Apologies. I should of course have prefaced

Mark Nayler

Will Catalonia ever achieve independence from Spain?

Catalonia’s pro-independence government almost imploded last week. A major disagreement between its two governing parties occurred after one half of the coalition – hardline secessionist party Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) – proposed a no-confidence vote against president Pere Aragones for not pushing the secessionist cause hard enough. Aragones, a member of the more moderate Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), promptly fired his deputy president Jordi Puignero. He said this was ‘absolutely necessary to strengthen the government’. Although an understandable reaction, it’s also just as likely to have the opposite effect. Aragones is the most capable leader the Catalan separatists have had in years, but he’s in an impossible position.

Monday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

It’s no surprise eco zealots targeted Captain Tom

What drives someone to do something as morally depraved as throw human faeces on a monument to Captain Sir Tom Moore? The video allegedly showing a climate-change campaigner dousing a likeness of Sir Tom, in what was reportedly a mixture of urine and excrement, is deeply chilling.  The person in the video is part of a pressure group called End UK Private Jets. The woman allegedly executed the vile stunt in order to raise awareness about the polluting impact of private jets. Quite how defiling a monument to a national treasure in such an appalling way is going to raise the public’s eco-awareness is anyone’s guess. It’s far more likely

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

The bizarre story of the ‘Jewish Taliban’

One of the more bizarre stories to have hit the headlines in recent days was the unsuccessful attempt by police to arrest 20 members of a radical Jewish sect in Mexico. Where to start with a story like this? We could talk about how their jungle base, 11 miles north of Tapachula in Chiapas state, was raided last Friday and two members were detained on suspicion of human trafficking and serious sexual offences. We could talk about how the raid took place after an investigation and surveillance operation lasting months, carried out by Mexican and Guatemalan authorities with the assistance of a four-man team of former Israeli spooks. We could

Sam Leith Sam Leith

What’s so funny about Elon Musk?

At the end of last week, at an AI event in California, Elon Musk unveiled his latest project: a humanoid robot called Optimus. Optimus wobbled onto the small stage like a contestant in Stars In Their Eyes: ‘Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be a 1970s idea of what a robot butler would look like if he’d been at the sherry.’  Musk told his bemused audience that this was the first time Optimus had walked anywhere without a tether, and admitted he was relieved it hadn’t fallen over – but assured them that the moment heralded ‘a fundamental transformation of civilisation as we know it’. He promised that one day not