Society

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Mo Farah’s secret, hot weather warnings and hot competition for the Tory leadership

Home The Conservatives began the process of finding a new leader, which involves balloting MPs and then sending two names for party members to choose between. Eight candidates initially qualified for the process set out by the 1922 Committee, by gaining nominations from 20 MPs: Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Jeremy Hunt, Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Tom Tugendhat and Nadhim Zahawi. Grant Shapps, Rehman Chishti and Sajid Javid withdrew before the off. Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, a fancied contender, had decided not to stand, as had Steve Baker, who was not widely fancied. Michael Gove (whom Downing Street had denounced a week earlier as a ‘snake’ when the

The Spectator

The Uber scandal highlights big tech’s big failure

A few years ago the Conservatives were excited about the march of the tech giants. Uber was offering an alternative to black cabs at a far lower cost, and Airbnb enabled homeowners to rent out a spare room to tourists at a fraction of the rate charged by hotels. Politicians were no longer dependent on traditional media but could reach the public via social networks, and there seemed to be an explosion of entrepreneurs, empowered by the new tech, taking on vested interests. The Tories intended to be part of this revolution. Their enthusiasm for people power was not to last. The government now plans to give regional mayors the

The Spectator

2561: Ports – solution

The unclued entry RECYCLING thematically links six unclued cyclic non-word permutations that appear in the systematic order GCYCLIN, NGCYCLI, INGCYCL, LINGCYC, CLINGCY and YCLINGC. The title alluded cryptically to SPORT/CYCLING. First prize Richard Andrews, Ashford, Middlesex Runners-up Sara MacIntosh, Darlington, Co. Durham; Roderick Rhodes, Goldsborough, N. Yorks

La Jerezana

2564: Sea monster

Five unclued lights are descriptions of another (four words), from another, by another (two words). Elsewhere, ignore one accent.   Across 10 Player and wrestler oddly changing places (4) 12 May take home case of oriental hemp product (10) 14 Regularly fooled veteran (3) 15 Prince’s press officer holding drink (8) 17 Mounts horse with complaints (5) 18 Quite lost, female runs in synthetic fabric (7) 19 State probes spies in high places (6) 22 Violent wind dislodging section of valve (6) 24 Two cobblers turned back in gateway (5) 27 Suppresses strong inclinations (9) 29 Astronomer Ryle going topless behind house (5) 31 Mowed a wild tract of grassland

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: filmericks

In Competition No. 3257, you were invited to summarise a film in limerick form. A nod to Ezra Haber Glenn, American academic, film reviewer and inventor of the filmerick. Here’s his take on Chloé Zhao’s 2020 Nomadland. They may think that you don’t have a plan, When they see that you poop in a can,       But it’s them that did go mad,       You hard-working nomad: You’ve a home on the road in your van. In a large entry, it was pleasing to see so many unfamiliar names rubbing shoulders with the vets. Honourable mentions go to Hugh Keyte, Janine Beacham, Mike Greenhough, Philip Machin, Dorothy Pope and Philip

Luke McShane

No. 711

White to play. Short-Timman, Staunton Memorial 2008. Short played 1 Qb3, missing an unusual opportunity to cause havoc with the pair of knights. Which move gives White a decisive advantage? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 18 July. 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 Bb6! wins the queen, since 1…Qxb6 2 Qxd7 is mate! Last week’s winner Rodney Beddows, Bath

Luke McShane

Silver and gold

The ‘English chess explosion’ that began in the 1970s produced a bumper crop of grandmasters, which meant that by the late 1980s, England was second only to the Soviet Union in international team events. Those days are behind us, but the march of time means that England is now a force to be reckoned with in senior team events. The World Senior Team Championship took place last month in Acqui Terme, Italy. England’s over-50s team got a boost from the addition of Michael Adams, who reached that milestone last year. With Nigel Short, Mark Hebden, John Emms and Keith Arkell, they began the event as top seeds. In the fourth

Toby Young Toby Young

Has identity politics had its day?

Have we reached peak woke? In Hollywood, that seems to be the emerging consensus. Thanks to the box office success of Top Gun: Maverick and the disappointing performance of Pixar’s Lightyear, in which Buzz Lightyear’s commanding officer is a black lesbian, the studios think audiences may be tiring of being lectured to. The same is true of the streaming platforms, with the biggest hits of the year being shows that take the mickey out of corporate virtue-signalling (The Boys) or just celebrate old-fashioned American heroism (The Terminal List). In this context, the reaction of Netflix when some of its employees staged a walkout over Dave Chappelle’s un-PC jokes in his

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 16 July 2022

The return to pre-Covid normality has been slow and a bit dispiriting. Attendance at the popular English tournaments has been worryingly low with some events being cancelled (or moved online) because so few pairs had entered. Going anywhere abroad has been tinged with terror because what if you tested positive and had to isolate for… ever! Well, enough snowflakery. I want to play live and find out if my table presence is still the best part of my game. It’s off to the most luxurious bridge festival of them all – Biarritz! Sun, sand, sea, one long session of bridge starting at 4 p.m., followed by a delicious dinner. Perfect!

Jeremy Clarke

The power of prayerful washing-up

My days pass largely in a state of inanition. The fit and able-bodied express their sympathy, claiming it’s much the same for them. ‘How are you?’ ‘I’m sleeping all the time.’ ‘Oh, but so are we in this terrible heat!’ Meanwhile the young get browner and more beautiful every day while going on with their energetic lives as if affected by the heat scarcely at all. For instance, I look at the cheerful lads digging up our road, putting in fibre broadband in 40 degrees of heat. I want to run up to them and implore them, with the fervour of a dying man preaching to dying men, to enjoy

Taki

The Oprah-fication of Wimbledon

Now that the weakest Wimbledon since 1973 – the year of the boycott – is over, a few thoughts about Pam Shriver’s recent revelations that her coach Don Candy, deceased, was also her lover. Candy was 50 at the time, while Pam was 17, which in my book made Candy a lucky guy, assuming it was legal. The age of consent varies from place to place, and the only time I had to defend myself was when an irate father, whose 28-year-old daughter I had dated, rang me early in the morning and complained about me being 72. ‘There is no age limit as far as being too old,’ I

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

What’s the truth about the Telford grooming gangs?

More than 1,000 girls were sexually exploited in Telford over several decades. The details in the report, published this week, on what happened in the Shropshire town make for harrowing reading. But there’s a curious omission in the way its author Tom Crowther QC refers to the perpetrators of these terrible crimes.  The majority of the men responsible, we are told, ‘were men of southern Asian heritage’. But is this specific enough? Surely the men who groomed and raped so many vulnerable young girls while social services, schools and police turned a blind eye, cannot just be defined by an enormous geographical area comprehending two billion people? When Sajid Javid was home secretary, he commissioned a study,

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Berkeley law professor: ‘Your line of questioning is transphobic’

Britain isn’t America. But that doesn’t stop us letting out a collective groan when we see the same loopy opinions wheeled out in complex and nuanced debates.  Yesterday, the author of Critical Race Theory: A Primer, Berkeley law professor Khiara Bridges, appeared at a Senate hearing about the overturning of Roe v Wade. She gave a masterclass in a form of pseudy smugness we’ve come to expect from the academic-activist industrial complex in recent years.  For example, Professor Bridges accused a questioner of transphobia when asked whether she meant ‘women’ when using the phrase ‘people with a capacity for pregnancy’. Mr S thought readers might enjoy watching some of the highlights: 

Tuesday

Zoe Strimpel

How Love Island killed sex

Love Island’s annual ‘heart race challenge’ – where contestants perform jokily seductive dances on the opposite sex – took place last week, an eternity in villa time. The girls and boys who raise heart rates the most win. It is always divisive, since the women in particular – dressed in nearly nothing and manoeuvring with everything they have – understandably get touchy when their man’s heart rate rises more for a rival. Usually the challenge is extremely sexy, but not outright pornographic. This year that changed. We watched the women put their bare bums – most wore only thong-style garments – up in the men’s faces and waggle them before turning around

Sunday

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Why does the police force attract so many sex abusers?

Growing up, I didn’t really think about the police until I got caught shoplifting at the age of 14. Separated from my comrades in the five-finger-discount crusade, I was stuck in a cell for half an hour but the earache only started when my furious parents came to collect me. I almost asked the kind policeman if I might stay overnight until they’d calmed down. I wouldn’t do that now. Though I know that the vast majority of police are decent people, they also seem to harbour an unusually high number of woman-haters. Why do so many perverts join the police?  This week a serving Metropolitan Police officer appeared in court accused of raping a

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Can Oxford’s new Vice-Chancellor fix the university?

There’s a new Vice-Chancellor taking over at Oxford later this year. She’s Irene Tracey, warden of Merton College, and an expert on pain. Rather brilliantly, she wrote a Ladybird book about it, as well as specialist research, so she’s good at communication. More importantly, she’s an Oxford person all through, with only a postgraduate stint at the Harvard Medical School as a break from the university and the town. That sets her apart from the present Vice-Chancellor, Louise Richardson, whose specialist subject was terrorism and who didn’t have much to do with Oxford before she arrived in 2016. Irene Tracey is, in fact, a welcome return to the old sort

Saturday

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

Can the next Tory leader save Boris’s broken Britain?

Whatever else will be said about him in the days and years to come, Boris Johnson will leave No. 10 having achieved the full extent of his policy ambitions: become Prime Minister. After a little under three years in office, Johnson has been reduced to the status of squatter in Downing Street, pottering about with a cabinet consisting of Nadine Dorries and pocket lint, grumbling about leakers and betrayers. Having successfully weaned itself off foxhunting, the Conservative party meanwhile is preparing for another bout of its favourite triennial bloodsport. The latest leadership contest promises to be as pleasingly brutal as the last few, and the candidates are already engaged in

Danny Shaw

‘They call him the tunneller’: meet the new head of the Met police

Dressed in full uniform and clutching a clipboard, Mark Rowley walked out of the Royal Courts of Justice in London, down the steps and towards a row of microphones. It was January 2014. An inquest into the fatal police shooting in Tottenham of Mark Duggan had just concluded with a verdict of ‘lawful killing’ and the Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner had a statement to make. As he began to speak, there were shouts from a group of Duggan’s supporters nearby. ‘Murderers, liars, racists, scum!’ they screamed, drowning out the officer’s words. One man came up to him, just inches from his face, and hurled abuse, but Rowley carried on. That

Thursday

Olivia Potts Olivia Potts

Sundae best: how to make a knickerbocker glory

I grew up by the seaside. More precisely, I grew up near South Shields, on the north-east coast – somewhere which is British summer beach country for one, maybe two days a year, and salt-lashed and grey for the rest of it. But come rain or shine, ice cream is a permanent fixture. Ice cream was such an important part of life that the first school trip I ever went on, aged three, was to an ice-cream factory. I remember being handed an ice cream as big as my (admittedly then quite small) head, and vehemently declining the bright red sauce offered, known locally as ‘monkey blood’. A kindly nursery