Society

Thursday

Melissa Kite

Chump or champ? Why Ben Wallace could be the next PM

During the Afghanistan crisis last summer, Ben Wallace decided that he had what it took to be prime minister. He had suspected it before then, according to friends, but during the evacuation of Kabul the Defence Secretary came to a definitive conclusion. His prediction that the Taliban would take Kabul had been proved correct, when other senior ministers involved had failed to see it coming. And as the desperate situation played out following the US withdrawal, he hit his stride. His row with the then foreign secretary Dominic Raab over the fall of Kabul was a turning point for the way he saw himself, insiders say. Raab was caught off

Melissa Kite

It’s not cruel to shout at dogs

‘Missing Dog, Please Do Not Call, Chase or Try To Grab Her!! She Will Run!!’ This notice, featuring the face of a cavalier spaniel, is once again pinned around the village where I live and all the neighbouring villages, country lanes and roadsides. I say again, because about six months ago an identical message was pinned up everywhere, but featuring another missing dog incident. Is there a template for these missing dog notices, because they all seem to say the same daft thing, in Surrey anyway? ‘Do not call, chase or try to grab.’ Yes, that’s kind of why you lost your dog in the first place. I think you’ll

Dot Wordsworth

Are we living in a new pornocracy?

Are we living in a new pornocracy? The first one spanned six decades of the 10th century, during which there were 12 popes. Their elections were much influenced by Theodora, wife of the powerful consul Theophylact, and her daughter Marozia. The idea of loose women running the papacy so excited Edward Gibbon that in The Decline and Fall, he claimed ‘the bastard son, two grandsons, two great grandsons, and one great great grandson of Marozia – a rare genealogy – were seated in the Chair of St Peter.’ In his enthusiasm he mistook Theodora and Marozia for sisters, not mother and daughter. One of Marozia’s lovers, Pope John X, certainly

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris’s plans for a new Brexit clash

In next week’s Queen’s Speech, a remarkably controversial bill will be announced in the most anodyne language. The government will legislate to protect the Belfast Good Friday agreement in its entirety. These words will be a coded threat to the European Union that the UK is prepared to unilaterally tear up parts of the Brexit deal relating to Northern Ireland. The EU has previously said that if this happens, the whole deal could fall. To which the Prime Minister may well respond: so be it. Northern Ireland was the great compromise of Brexit. Boris Johnson got his deal against all expectations because he agreed to what is, in effect, a

Roger Alton Roger Alton

The rise and rise of women’s sport

You might have missed this but something very big is happening in women’s sport. The sheer numbers watching are sensational: the crowds might have been papered, but who cares? At Madison Square Garden, 19,000 watched Katie Taylor of Ireland just have the edge on Amanda Serrano in a brutal ten-round title fight. At the same time Newcastle United women’s football team attracted more than 22,000 to see their first appearance at St James’ Park – for a fourth-tier match against Alnwick. In France, more than 42,000 saw Lyon put PSG out of the Champions League, where they will now meet Barcelona in the final in Turin. A world women’s football

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

A cake shop from the time of the Profumo affair: Maison Bertaux reviewed

Amid the bronze cladding of Soho, with its pop-up, suck-down restaurants – the Cadbury’s Creme Egg Café was a nadir – Maison Bertaux hangs on, the oldest French patisserie in the UK, and 151 this year. It was founded by Monsieur Bertaux, a Communard fleeing France with a book of recipes. Their loss, our gain. Perhaps in 2173, if we are still here, there will be a similarly beloved patisserie in Rwanda. Let us hope so, for their sakes. He came here because Soho was polyglot, though it isn’t now. It’s an impersonation of a former Soho because that’s the fashion now: destroy something, pretend to lament it and build

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: how do I alert my neighbour to my generosity?

Q. We went for lunch over the bank holiday with the parents of one of my son’s schoolfriends. We had hardly talked to them before this. They and their friends were perfectly nice but my problem is that the slightly pushy wife kept photographing us. I am not on social media myself and had no idea she intended to put the photos all over her Instagram. For all sorts of reasons we are unhappy about the misleading impression these photos (and their captions) give of the degree of our friendship. Is there a tactful way of asking someone you don’t know that well not to post photographs of you on

Toby Young Toby Young

A bonfire of the quangos should start with the College of Policing

I welcome Jacob Rees-Mogg’s recent announcement that he intends to reignite David Cameron’s ‘bonfire of the quangos’ in his capacity as minister for government efficiency. I’m sure many Spectator readers will have a particular quango, or arm’s-length body, they’d like to incinerate and I hope they write to him with their suggestions. I’d like to nominate the College of Policing, which is responsible for overseeing the police in England and Wales. The college made headlines last weekend when it emerged that it had urged the 43 different forces to ‘decolonise’ their training materials in order to recruit a more diverse workforce. It also advised them to ‘consider introducing gender neutral

Peter Jones

What Angela Rayner could learn from Hera

Whatever one thinks of her politics, Angela Rayner is clearly a pretty sporting party, and the joke she made about using her charms to distract the PM in the House is surely well in character. The ancient Greeks knew all about such crafty female tricks played on benighted males, never more delightfully exemplified than (surprisingly) in the West’s first work of literature, Homer’s Iliad (c. 700 bc). In Book 14, the pro-Greek goddess Hera, wife of Zeus, is furious with her husband for supporting the Trojans. So she decides to distract him – by sending him to sleep. She dolls herself up, persuades the goddess of sex Aphrodite to give

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week: pornography, ‘sulky livers’ and abortion

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, announced £300 million more in military aid for Ukraine. Speaking by video to the Ukrainian parliament, he said: ‘This is Ukraine’s finest hour, that will be remembered and recounted for generations to come.’ BP lost $24.4 billion by withdrawing from its shareholding in the Russian energy giant Rosneft, but would have otherwise made a profit of $6.2 billion in the first quarter of this year. Only 27,100 refugees from Ukraine had arrived in Britain by 27 April, the latest figures available, though 86,100 visas had been issued. At least 254 non-Ukrainian migrants were brought ashore from small craft in the Channel on 1 May,

The Spectator

2551: Madness – solution

The four-letter word was BAND. Unclued lights suggest bandicoot (7A), bandh (11), banda (41), bandana (1D), bandoneon (3), bandook (7D), bandar (14), bandolero (19) and bandy (35). BAND (ending on 26) was to be shaded. Title: name of a BAND. First prize Tim Knox, London WC1 Runners-up Kathleen Durber, Stoke-on-Trent; Peter Chapman, South Perth, Western Australia

Lavatch

2554: Going, going…

The unclued lights, including one of two words, are of a kind, all confirmed in Chambers. A further example (4) must be deleted from the final grid, leaving blank squares. New words thus created are real words.   Across 1 Get dry people keeping dry home (6) 11 Getting makeover helps, i.e., for freckle (7) 13 Spanish poet saving one piece of armour (6) 14 Express contentment leading around clergyman (4) 18 Tramp leaving hospital with electronic instrument (4) 20 Unseat characters in jousting (4) 21 State something guaranteed, we hear (6) 22 King and Emperor held to be slowing down (8) 23 Scottish girl lives by US city (4)

Luke McShane

No. 701

White to play. Reshevsky-Savon, Petropolis 1973. Reshevsky played the awful 1 Qxg6+, and resigned after 1…Bxg6. Many moves win, but which one forces mate in just three moves? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 9 May. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer picked. Please include a postal address. Last week’s solution 1 Nf4+! Rxf4 2 h8=B and stalemate follows. Not 1 Ne7+ Bxe7 2 h8=B Bf6! allowing Kf8, or 1 h8=N+ Kh6 and Black wins Last week’s winner Ilya Iyengar, Amersham, Buckinghamshire

Luke McShane

Gorilla tactics

There is a video in which a small group of students amble about passing a basketball back and forth. The instruction at the start is to count how many times the players pass the basketball. Then comes the punchline – did you see the gorilla? Halfway through, a figure in a gorilla suit walks through the middle of the scene, beats its chest and walks off. It was designed as a psychological experiment, with the startling outcome that about half the viewers missed the gorilla altogether. One explanation is obvious – they were focused on the basketball. But how can you miss a gorilla? Blunders at the chessboard can be

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 7 May 2022

My teammate Thor Erik Hoftaniska is having a bit of a moment. He won last year’s (online) Gold Cup (on my team), hoovered up the Champion’s Cup playing for Norway in Slovakia, won the main pairs event in the Easter Guardian, and has just taken the gold medal for winning the Norwegian Premier League. Not bad for six months’ work. Last week we played a rescheduled Super League match against Martin Lerner’s team. Waiting to score up, T E’s partner Tom Townsend said: ‘Hoffa made a great play. He ducked the ♠Q.’ Doesn’t sound that great, I thought, but sure enough we picked up 12 IMPs. Before you could say

Aidan Hartley

The sin of neutrality

Yet again, millions of civilians across the Horn of Africa are starving. The world blames the crisis on drought and climate change, which nowadays is the way we excuse these countries for environmental mismanagement. But as ever, war is really the single greatest reason why people are killed year after year in this region. And while western countries pour billions of dollars of food aid into Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan, the weapons flooding those states originate mainly from Russia, China, Belarus – and Ukraine. In response to an article I recently wrote in The Spectator about why I think so few African governments condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I

Taki

The day Elizabeth Taylor kidnapped my daughter

New York Back in the good old days the Carlyle Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side was the hotel for Yankee swells, rich politicians such as JFK, and, of course, upper-class Eurotrash. Both my children were born at a hospital nearby, and both newborns spent their first month of life at the hotel. Alexandra and I would leave our nearby brownstone, which was more upside down, and move to the Carlyle, which was more sideways, thanks to my dad’s generosity. We were given the presidential suite with round-the-clock service and doctor availability galore. While waiting for her brother to be born, my five-year-old Lolly had the run of the hotel

Wednesday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Hands off Dave Chappelle!

The attack on Dave Chappelle last night was chilling. Sure, Chappelle wasn’t hurt. His attacker, having encountered the ire of Chappelle’s quick-witted security team, seems to have come off a lot worse. But the fact that controversial comics are now being physically accosted is deeply concerning. It suggests that the new intolerance, the widespread distaste for anything ‘offensive’, might be reaching its violent stage. Chappelle was recording a Netflix special at the Hollywood Bowl when a man leapt on stage and barged violently into him. According to the LAPD the man was carrying a replica gun that shoots out a knife blade ‘when you discharge it correctly’. So this was a

Debbie Hayton

Mermaids’ ‘help sheet’ risks confusing trans kids

Mermaids is one of Britain’s most controversial trans charities, yet its overarching aim is hard to fault. The organisation says it wants ‘to create a world where gender diverse children and young people can be themselves and thrive’. To that end, its goal is ‘to relieve the mental and emotional stress’ of transgender kids. Unfortunately that laudable objective is hard to square with what it tells vulnerable children who identify as transgender. The organisation has recently put out a ‘help sheet’ in light of guidance issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). Mermaids says it is ‘not happy’ with the EHRC document because ‘it is not inclusive enough of trans people’. Yet its own