Society

Thursday

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

Can we talk about Emma Raducanu’s Christianity?

I’ve just been looking at photographs of Emma Raducanu again, this time focusing on her upper chest. She usually wears a pendant cross, which suggests that she is a Christian. Yes I know that some people wear crosses for fashion reasons, but I don’t think she’s in that camp. Maybe it’s more a sign of cultural than religious allegiance, maybe a treasured gift from a grandparent? Or maybe a sign of solidarity with China’s persecuted Christians. To what extent is it legitimate to inquire into this? The orthodoxy is, not at all, you meddling creep. It’s her business, and it’s utterly irrelevant to her tennis success. But it is not

Wednesday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

A defence of Jess Brammar

I noticed with interest that Gigalum island — off the Kintyre peninsula in Argyll — was up for sale for half a million quid or so. Nineteen rather barren acres, slightly warmed by the Gulf Stream. These little parcels of desolation quite often become available for purchase and I do wonder if Gigalum should be purchased by the state for the dumping of toxic waste. Gruinard island, further north, was used by the government during the second world war as a site for testing militarised anthrax, for example. My proposal for Gigalum is that it should be a repository for everyone in the country with the word ‘diversity’ anywhere in

David Paton

Will vaccinating teenagers really prevent disruption to schools?

After the JCVI recommended against offering vaccines to children aged 12 to 15 on health grounds, the government asked the four chief medical officers to consider the broader case, including the impact on schooling. As we know, the government has now accepted the chief medical officers’ recommendation: that all 12 to 15 year olds should be offered one dose of Pfizer on the grounds that doing so will reduce disruption to education. The government has released details of the modelling that underpins that rationale. The approach was first to estimate the number of infections with and without vaccination under different scenarios of infection spread. Next, they used this to model

Tuesday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The pandemic’s employment paradox

The pandemic continues to cause surprising events in the labour market — and challenges too, many of which were wholly unanticipated when the Covid crisis began. Today’s update from the Office for National Statistics on labour market numbers is case-in-point: the unemployment rate again, down to 4.6 per cent from May to July. Forecasts of nearly 12 per cent unemployment, once predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility, are long in the past. The furlough scheme has starved off an unemployment surge and there’s good reason to think it’s been avoided altogether. Over one and a half million people were still on furlough at the end of July. But even

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

From Neil to Nigel: the descent of GB News

I can’t claim to know any behind-the-scenes rivalries or boardroom brouhaha motivating Andrew Neil’s departure from GB News but I am glad to see him go. Neil is out at the still ill-defined channel which can’t decide whether it’s a populist classical-liberal network, standing up to authoritarian cancel culture, or a British version of Fox News. It excels at neither. Given wobbly ratings, staff departures and one instance of very off-brand knee-taking, it’s not entirely surprising that Neil has finally had his fill and walked away. He was not only chairman but the underwriter of the promise — issued in his opening monologue — that the channel would dissent from

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

AOC, the Met Gala and the misery of fashion

You’ve probably already seen that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rocked up at the Met Gala – where individual tickets are $35,000 (£20,000) and tables start at $200,000 (£150,000) – wearing a white dress saying in big red letters TAX THE RICH. It’s what the Clash called ‘turning rebellion into money’. Not one dollar in tax from the rich is going to be gained from this gesture — fashion can absorb anything and turn it into a trivial trend. Garments with words on are always monstrous. I think of the immortal words of Fran Lebowitz: ‘If people don’t want to listen to you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?’

Tom Bower

How Charlotte Wahl Johnson’s troubled life shaped her son Boris

Attractive, accomplished and admired as an artist, friend and mother, Charlotte Wahl’s promising life could have been wrecked, first by cruel sicknesses and then by an adulterous husband. Instead, she bravely defied adversity and found happiness in a second marriage, her four children’s success, her friendships and painting. Her death at 79 will be particularly painful for Boris Johnson, the eldest of her remarkable children. Despite all the pressures, he regularly visited his mother at her comfortable flat in Notting Hill Gate, recognising how much he owed her. In frail health from Parkinson’s and other complications, Charlotte agreed to meet me in September 2019 for the biography I was writing

Monday

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

Why the NHS needs more bureaucrats

If the NHS’s cheerleaders and detractors can agree on one thing, it’s this: we need fewer backroom staff. If the health service’s doctors, nurses and cleaners are heroes, the pen-pushers, middle-men and legions of drab men in drab suits are sucking the vital lifeblood out of the NHS, while droning on about synergies in management. All this while claiming a salary that could have paid for another two nurses. This debate has re-emerged after it was reported that almost half of all NHS staff are managers, administrators or unqualified assistants. Helen Whately, the care minister, spoke for many when she said she feels ‘strongly that the money we put into the NHS needs to

Sunday

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Let’s not politicise Emma Raducanu’s triumph

It didn’t take long for the open-borders brigade to try and politicise the magnificent feat of British teenager Emma Raducanu in winning the US Open women’s singles. Rather than just revelling in the general outbreak of joy in the country, or praising the astonishing maturity of Emma’s performance, the usual blue-tick suspects piled onto Twitter within minutes of her victory to argue, or imply, that the fact Emma was born in another country (she moved here from Canada aged two) proved that immigration in all its guises is always a good thing. Times columnist Sathnam Sanghera stated the case plainly: ‘Half Romanian, half Chinese. Born in Canada, brought up in

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Emma Raducanu’s victory is being spoiled by the usual suspects

How do you take the pleasure out of something so marvellous and joyful as Emma Raducanu’s US open victory last night? Easy — turn on Twitter, which spoils everything including sport. Raducanu’s victory is truly a great triumph; the most breathtaking sporting feat by a female British athlete in our lifetimes. Emma is 18 and beautiful, just did her A-levels and got A* marks, had been 400/1 to win the tournament, never dropped a set — all these facts make her achievement even more delightful. I’ll stop the adulation there, because an entire industry of sports commentators already exists to make these points over and over. We don’t all need

Friday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Do vaccines pose a risk to young boys?

Should we be vaccinating children against Covid-19? While some countries have been enthusiastically administering vaccines to under-18s — greatly contributing to their overall vaccination rate — the idea has greeted more coolly in Britain. The government and the NHS were relatively slow in making Covid vaccines available to 16 to 18-year-olds — although it was approved. Although we are still awaiting a formal government decision on jabbing 12 to 15-year-olds, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has recommended that members of this age group only be offered a vaccine if they are especially vulnerable to the virus, citing the risk of myocarditis — an inflammation of the heart muscle

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Moaning luvvies have a lot to learn from Brigitte Bardot

I missed Brigitte Bardot mania; by the time she retired from film-making at the age of 40 to concentrate on animal rights activism, I was only 13. But awhile back I saw a film of BB’s – La Verite, made in 1960, a courtroom drama which was her biggest ever commercial success in France and nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar – and was amazed at how good she was. I joined a few Facebook fan pages. Unsurprisingly she is stunningly beautiful in all of them. But something stands out which differentiates her greatly from the alleged film stars of today. She pouts petulantly in studio shots, as befitted

James Jeffrey

The 9/11 anniversary marks a painful moment for squaddies

The sweet salvation of the summer recess over, we returned to Sandhurst for our final term of officer training. It was 11 September, 2001 – a day that started with a hike in the sunshine and which came to define my time in the British Army. The events of 9/11 would lead to my own deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the loss of dear friends and comrades. Of course, on that September morning none of us knew how events 3,000 miles away – and the political decisions taken in the aftermath of those terrible attacks – would have such a momentous impact on our lives. After the buses dropped us off, the hike

Andrew Tettenborn

The snobbery of Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown’s critics

In a few hours’ time, comedy fans in Sheffield will take to the streets in protest. Their cause? Not Brexit, or climate change, but the decision to ban Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown from performing a gig in the city. Chubby, who is not to everyone’s taste, is best described as the North’s answer to Bernard Manning or Jim Davidson. An earthy stand-up comic from Middlesbrough, he is perfectly prepared to talk, joke and trade raillery about race, religion and sexuality in a way few other performers are. This week, after 30 years of performing in Sheffield, he was told he is no longer welcome. Sheffield City Trust, which runs various leisure sites on the local

Thursday

Harry Jenkins

Help! I’ve got ‘schlong Covid’

One of the difficulties with having difficulties in your gentleman’s area is describing it to your doctor. Saying ‘I’ve got a problem with my willy,’ makes you sound like a five-year-old. ‘Penis’ sounds whiny and American, and everything else sounds like you might be being deliberately rude. I went for ‘I think I’ve got Covid on my cock,’ which I hoped didn’t make me sound like a hypochondriac and was suitably forthright for a man-to-man encounter with one’s GP. ‘OK,’ says a politely interested Dr McCall. ‘What’s precisely wrong with your cock?’ I can’t find any figures for ‘schlong Covid’. There are no studies in the Lancet or online support

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

Justin Welby is missing a trick on climate change

Justin Welby urges us, echoing Deuteronomy, to ‘choose life’, so that our children may live. It is an apt use of scripture, in the face of the climate emergency. But his performance on Radio 4 this morning was far from impressive. The Archbishop of Canterbury spoke of the need for ‘meaningful sacrifices’, but when asked which ones he was making he sounded a bit muddled, as if he was not ready for such an obvious question. His first answer was ‘recycling and all that’, a locution with an air of irritation, like a man too often nagged to take the bins out.  Can’t Lambeth Palace afford daily sausages? Asked about

Toby Young Toby Young

The stories that are too good to check

Last weekend, Rolling Stone ran a story about an interview an emergency room doctor had given to a local news station in which, according to the TV reporter, he’d said hospitals in his state were so swamped with patients who’d overdosed on ivermectin that gunshot victims were struggling to be seen. For context, ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug used for deworming horses that has been touted by vaccine sceptics as an effective prophylactic against Covid-19. For boosters of the Covid vaccines, this story was manna from heaven. Here were a bunch of hicks so dumb they were stuffing themselves with horse pills rather than getting jabbed, with predictably disastrous results.

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

What tea with the WI taught me about responsible investment

Late-breaking exam results: many of the City’s top fund managers have failed a vital test of ‘stewardship’ — defined for this purpose as ‘the responsible allocation, management and oversight of capital to create long-term value for clients and beneficiaries leading to sustainable benefits for the economy, the environment and society’. That mouthful comes from the Financial Reporting Council’s UK Stewardship Code; asset management firms seeking to become ‘signatories’ to the code were asked to submit essays describing their own investment principles, highlighting their approach to hot-button ‘ESG’ (environmental, social and governance) issues. Out of 189 applicants, 64 failed to reach the pass mark, while some major firms chose not to

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The economic case for flexible working

Is flexible working better or worse for productivity? What is the correct blend of remote and office work? Billions of once-healthy pixels will die in the conduct of this debate. But is it possible that we are asking the wrong question entirely? Instead of asking the proximate question ‘Do we want our employees to work remotely?’, businesses should perhaps be asking: ‘Are we ultimately better off if consumers can work remotely?’ If you are Pret, the Duke of Westminster or Southeastern trains, the answer is possibly no. For almost everyone else, however, the answer is a loud yes. Having richer, more leisured customers is just as valuable as having more