Society

Friday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Ricky Gervais is guilty of blasphemy

I have long thought that if Life of Brian came out today, it wouldn’t be Christians kicking up a fuss about it — it would be trans activists. When Monty Python’s classic tale of a man mistaken for a Messiah came to cinemas in 1979, people of faith weren’t happy. They saw it as taking the mick out of Christ and they aired their displeasure noisily. Nuns in New York picketed cinemas. In Ireland the film was banned for eight years. In 2022 I reckon it would be a very different story. It wouldn’t be Monty Python’s ribbing of the gospels that would outrage the chattering classes — it would

Sarah Linney

The NHS was a national treasure – but not any more

I love the NHS and with good reason: it saved my dad’s life twice, it saved my friend’s sight; and two weeks ago, it saved the life of my friends’ five-year-old daughter. At its best, the NHS is remarkable. But the post-pandemic NHS is anything but. It was this side of the health service – stressful, inefficient and downright upsetting – I experienced when I waited hours for urgent treatment for chest pains last week. It’s also a side of the NHS more and more Brits are seeing, as waiting times soar and hospitals resemble war zones. Is that an exaggeration? The A&E waiting room in Ashford was certainly no advert for the NHS.

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Is Jürgen Klopp really football’s Mr Nice Guy?

Jürgen Klopp is football’s Mr Nice Guy. Despite his Liverpool side missing out on winning the Premier League, Klopp was this week named as the League Managers’ Association manager of the year. The German also won the Premier League manager of the year. It’s not the first time Klopp has won both awards in the same season, which are voted on by his fellow managers. It seems everyone agrees: Klopp is a brilliant coach and a gentleman. Is there anyone who doesn’t like him? Perhaps we should ask those journalists whom Klopp has belittled at press conferences down the years. Testy post-match interviews are, after all, something of a speciality

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Frances Haugen Edition

39 min listen

Frances Haugen is an American data scientist, most well known for her whistleblowing of Facebook’s failures at controlling misinformation. Her insider knowledge allowed the Wall Street Journal to publish a series of exposés about the social media platform, which became known as ‘The Facebook Files’. She has testified before the US Congress, the European Parliament and the British Parliament on online safety and Silicon Valley. On this episode, she talks to Katy about first experiencing sexism in tech when she joined Google at her first job; the shocking reality of how Facebook’s algorithm worsens civil strife across the world; and what she wants to see changed from the British government’s

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Why the Russian media thinks Britain is on the verge of cannibalism

Russian disinformation has reached new levels of absurdity. According to the pro-Kremlin media, the UK is on the verge of cannibalism. The unlikely source of this terrifying rumour? None other than TV presenter, journalist and part-time farmer Jeremy Clarkson. Over the past few weeks, the British media has been awash with reports on the spiralling cost of food, utilities and just about everything else. The government and commentators alike have drawn links between the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the cost of living crisis engulfing the country. You’d be hard-pressed to miss it. It seems the Russian media have also picked up on the notes of alarm coming from the

Thursday

James Kirkup James Kirkup

It’s not right-wing to be worried about trans-rights policies

I’ve been writing about sex and gender for a few years now, largely because it’s a subject that needs to be better understood. Far too much about this issue is shrouded in misinformation and dishonesty, not least because some of the people and groups interested in the issue have made considerable efforts to keep this stuff out of the public gaze. Slowly, the veil is being lifted and questions of sex and gender more freely discussed. It’s not yet getting the media coverage it deserves, but the employment tribunal case of Allison Bailey is helping. It’s seen Stonewall and other trans rights advocates saying in public things that most people

William Atkinson

Durham should be proud to be a second-rate Oxbridge

Durham University has long been considered the destination of choice for Oxbridge rejects. But this is an image some students in Durham are keen to shake off. Durham’s Students’ Union hopes to end the stereotype that it is the alma mater of choice for those who don’t make the cut at Britain’s ancient universities. It has published a 48-page ‘Culture Commission’, in which it says the label is unfair since ‘most students are not in fact unsuccessful candidates of Oxford or Cambridge.’ Rather than be embarrassed by this label, Durham students should embrace it. This knee-jerk decision to try and rebrand Durham is hardly surprising at an institution where Rod Liddle’s appearance led to

Toby Young Toby Young

Beware the wrath of middle-class homeowners

‘Apocalyptic’ food shortages, gas and electricity bills soaring, wages not keeping pace with inflation… it’s beginning to look like we’re heading for major outbreaks of civil unrest this summer. As a resident of the London Borough of Ealing, which witnessed some of the worst rioting in the capital in 2011, I’m getting a little concerned. Not for myself and my family, you understand, but for the muggers, car thieves and burglars who prey on the middle-class residents. Will they be all right? The educated bourgeoisie has developed an irrational fear of civilisational collapse, having been taught by books and films like The Road and Mad Max that gangs of marauding

Laura Freeman Laura Freeman

How to mend (almost) anything

‘Sides to middle’, that’s the cry. When your foot goes through the flat sheet in the night, there’s only one thing for it: scissors down the centre, then sew it edge to edge. Good as new – for as long as your stitches hold up. If you’ve paid for Egyptian cotton, you cannot cut your linen into dusters the minute the thread count wears thin. Besides, call it eco-activism, call it penny–pinching, mending things is fun. From time to time, when my husband is washing up, a plate will crumble like a biscuit in his hands. Seeing his ‘it wasn’t me’ expression, I’ll tell him that the plate, glued and

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: sonnets on Mammon

In Competition No. 3250, you were invited to submit a sonnet to Mammon. It was ‘Epigram for Wall Street’, attributed to the oft-impoverished Edgar Allan Poe, that prompted me to set this moolah-themed challenge. In a large, thoughtful and winningly varied entry, there were echoes ranging from Keats, Milton and Barrett Browning to Gordon Gekko. Katie Mallett, Janine Beacham, George Simmers, David Silverman, Bob Trewin and Ralph Bateman earn honourable mentions. The winners, printed below, pocket £20 each. Mammon, I love you. Let me count the ways, Although that’s strictly my accountant’s chore. I live delights and scorn laborious days Thanks to my wealth, while hungering for more. I build

Pabulum

2557: Heroes

Clockwise round the grid from a point to be determined run the names of four knights (2,5,5,5,5,8,5,3) followed by what they are (two words). A clued light tells how many 35 they have amassed between them, while a pair of unclued lights indicate a 17 linking all four.   Across 8 Wearing medal one accepted (5) 9 Estate in Albania attracting hatred (7) 10 Into toads? Wrong – I’m into dragonflies (9) 12 Gosh, old Oscar gains medal! (4) 14 Girl runs in sandals (5) 15 Novelist in court getting large fine (5) 16 Fourth man to mount horse (4) 20 Island graduate arrived in (5) 24 Pigeon avoids master

The Spectator

2554: Going, going… – Solution

The unclued lights were all extinct species. PTERODON was an acceptable variation at 5 Across. DODO was to be deleted from the final grid. First prize Jason James, Cambridge Runners-up Ian Shiels, Leeds; Hugh Schofield, Paris, France

Luke McShane

No. 704

Black to play. Bacrot-Anand, Bastia Rapid 2001. A spectacular blow from Anand prompted Bacrot to resign. What did he play? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 30 May. 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 Be1! And White won in the end. Not 1 Bg3? Qh3+!! 2 Kxh3 Bf1# or 1 Bf2 Qh3+!! 2 Kxh3 Bf1+ 3 Kg3 Nf5# Last week’s winner Duncan Sleigh, York

Luke McShane

Tiger bites man

Viswanathan Anand left the spectators in awe at the Superbet Rapid earlier this month. The ‘Tiger of Madras’, as he is sometimes known, was awarded a wildcard spot to the second leg of the Grand Chess Tour in Warsaw, which began just a couple of days after the first leg ended in Bucharest. At 52, the former world champion was the oldest player by some margin, and at least on paper could not be counted as one of the favourites. And yet Anand devoured the field in the rapid section, winning his first five games in a row, and secured clear first place with 7/9. It was a joy to

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Are you paying attention?

I have just posted a score of 1,625,000 on Bubbleshooter, my best yet. Bubbleshooter is a game where you fire different coloured bubbles at other different coloured bubbles in order, in the end, to make all the different coloured bubbles disappear. It is an elderly game, in its uplifting nihilism, and almost certainly dates me precisely. My latest attempt took slightly over one hour. I had intended to spend the afternoon finishing the book I’ve been reading, but having logged in on my laptop became momentarily and later endlessly distracted. First I did the Times and Telegraph cryptic and ‘toughie’ crosswords, then I did Wordle, of course – identifying the

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The endless tiny errors of the NHS

I wrote recently elsewhere about Jeremy Hunt’s good new book examining unnecessary deaths in the NHS. Someone should write a companion volume about the other end of the scale of seriousness – the literally millions of small mistakes and obstructions effected by ‘the envy of the world’. Since 2014, I have found myself in hospitals many times, though never as a patient. Four close family relations or in-laws have died in hospital in that time, and several living members of my family have received various treatments. This has involved, I think, eight NHS hospitals and dozens of visits. In only one case has a major misdiagnosis contributed to otherwise avoidable

Douglas Murray

Monkeypox, Covid and the trouble with our species

I hate to be one of those columnists who says ‘I told you so’. But I told you so. Looking back this week through the vast underground vaults at Spectator HQ I see that centuries ago in April 2020 I explained the problem with us humans as a species. As I said back then, someone always shags a monkey. There are almost eight billion of us on this planet today, and the likelihood that we’re all going to make judicious decisions all the time is vanishingly small. The mating decisions of the species alone are notoriously prone to trial and error. And the entire future of our species rides perpetually

Ysenda Maxtone Graham

I’m being priced out of eating out

I used to be able to afford to go to restaurants. Yes, it was a treat, but it was just about doable, and though it was never a pleasure to be presented with the bill, it didn’t leave you reeling from shock and buyer’s remorse. The schnitzel in my favourite London restaurant has gone up from £12 to £20 for the small one and from £22 to £33 for the normal-sized one. Meanwhile, restaurants and pubs all over Britain no longer offer a mere hamburger. It has to be called a ‘short rib and flank burger, smoked Applewood Cheddar, shallot marmalade, garlic aioli and skin-on fries’ to justify its £17.50

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Is the Elizabeth line worth the cost?

It’s 8.16 on Tuesday morning and I’m actually writing this on a moving Elizabeth line train. Moving in the sense that we’ve just zipped from Paddington to Liverpool Street in 13 minutes – which if nothing else will be a boon for City commuters from west of London. Moving also in the sense that I’ve been writing about the project formerly known as Crossrail, first in optimism but later in frustration and rage, since its then chairman Terry Morgan gave me a personal tour of the Bond Street diggings back in June 2013. Now that the central section is open at last – even with its Bond Street station still