Society

Friday

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Meghan Markle has demonstrated why children won’t like ‘The Bench’

Meghan Markle isn’t one to think small. In a statement on her Archewell website to thank those who put her book, The Bench, at the top of the New York Times‘ children’s picture book list, she wrote:  ‘While this poem began as a love letter to my husband and son, I’m encouraged to see that its universal themes of love, representation and inclusivity are resonating with communities everywhere. In many ways, pursuing a more compassionate and equitable world begins with these core values’. You’d never, think, would you, that this is a picture book for children. And one of the reasons why any sensible tot will hurl it from the

Thursday

Douglas Murray

Cambridge deserves better than Stephen Toope

Regular readers may be aware that in recent months I have been having a running-spat with a Canadian lawyer called Stephen Toope. I am rarely exercised by Canadian lawyers, but this particular one is the current Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, and he seems intent on running that crown jewel of an institution into the ground.  Since taking over as Vice-Chancellor, Mr Toope has been responsible for a wide array of anti-free speech initiatives through which, as I recently remarked in the Daily Telegraph, he appears to want to transform Cambridge University into something like the Canadian bar association, but without the thrills, or the pay. Anyhow – our spat came

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Euros 2021: Turkey deserved to lose to Wales

Turkey 0 Wales 2 (Ramsey 45, Roberts 90+5) Apologies to those of you who have been expecting my annual list of the world’s most loathsome countries, which I usually publish at this time of year. Various stuff has got in the way – not least this tournament. Once it is over I’ll get down to work – but as a taster, I’m happy to inform you that Turkey will be right up there, at number one or two. Thuggish, bullying, inept, humourless, Turkey. If ever a football team embodied the characteristics of its government, this is the one. What a pleasure it was to see them comprehensively outclassed by a

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How Les Bleus united France by not taking the knee

For those who lean to the right and live in France, Tuesday night was magnificent. Not only did Les Bleus open their European Championship campaign with a 1-0 victory against Germany, but their boys defied expectation by not taking the knee before kick-off. The build-up to the match had been overshadowed by an announcement on Monday by the team captain, Hugo Lloris, that France would follow England and Wales in taking the knee. Cue 24 hours of controversy. On social media, in TV studios and in the National Assembly it was ‘La question du jour’. Should they or shouldn’t they? The issue proved as divisive in France as it has in

Julie Bindel

So long to Leeds’s appalling prostitution zone

Goodbye and good riddance to the Leeds ‘Managed Zone’ in which punters were given amnesty to buy the most disenfranchised and desperate women. Following a seven-year campaign by feminists, residents and some of the women who had previously been prostituted in the zone, this week Leeds City Council announced that the zone will not be re-opening following the end of the Covid lockdown. The zone originated following pressure on the police and council to tackle street prostitution in the centre of Leeds. Residents and workers, sick of stepping over used condoms and fending off harassment from kerb crawlers, complained so regularly that the zone was set up by way of

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Charging ahead: how to get the best out of an electric car

Where do you want to go? China or India? I have always found India infinitely more fascinating — for a simple reason. If you ask Sinophiles about China, they always quote statistics; Indophiles tell you stories. It’s fine to know that China has built 24,000 miles of high-speed rail track, or that its GDP is growing at an annualised rate of 8.27 per cent, but it doesn’t make me want to visit. It’s like reading an article about the film industry in the Economist: informative, yes, but it doesn’t make you want to go to the cinema. The electric car market is trapped in a similar numerical morass. The more

A. N. Wilson

Covid has warped our collective attitude to death

So, having been promised that normal life would recommence on 21 June, we are once again frustrated by the Covid scientists. The trouble is, of course, that as far as we know the virus is never going away, so according to the logic of the scientists, there is no reason ever to allow us to return to our old way of life. And although it looks as if we are thereby being sensible and ‘following the science’, what it actually reveals is that we are fools to follow a few boffins in white coats, rather than following the received wisdom of the human race over the past 4,000 years: namely

Dot Wordsworth

Critical issue: The complex language of gender

Seeing my husband in his armchair snoozing, as his unacknowledged habit is, head back, mouth open, stertorous and blotchy, it is sometimes hard to believe in the patriarchy. Along with the doctrine that we women are oppressed, a wave of terminology washes over us from the radio. Its originators believe that by gaining our acquiescence in using it, they have won a battle in the culture war. They might be right. Last week the High Court ruled that ‘gender critical’ beliefs should not lead to a woman losing her job, having her goldfish confiscated and generally becoming an hissing and a reproach among all the nations. Though it is not

Taki

A nicer side of Nero

New York I haven’t felt such shirt-dripping, mind-clogging wet heat since Saigon back in 1971. The Bagel is a steam bath, with lots of very ugly people walking around in stages of undress that would once upon a time have embarrassed that famed stripper Lili St Cyr. How strange that very pretty girls do not shed their clothes as soon as the mercury hits triple figures, but less fortunate ones do even if the number is a cool 80. June is my London party month, or used to be before the city was transformed into a prison camp. And what about The Spectator party? I haven’t heard a woid, as

Stewart Dakers

The fraudulent business of recycling

I am a litter picker. No, not one of those high-minded volunteers who have proliferated of late with litter-picking sticks and black bags, but a professional: I am paid to empty the bins and collect the debris left by the public in a small park in Middle England. And I’m angry, not with the great British public who leave the stuff but with the real litter louts who are the root cause of the problem. As summer approaches and people who have been stuck indoors crowd into the beauty spots and on to the beaches, litter becomes a hot topic and it is important to be clear where the blame

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: Has lockdown de-civilised my husband?

Q. Last night I went to dinner with people I had never met before. Because the host was a friend of my mother, I had to move next to her on a small sofa to send a photo home. We were then left in an awkward situation where we were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder for the rest of the evening. How could I have migrated away without seeming rude, Mary? — R.H., London SW1 A. You might have escaped by asking your host to join you in looking more closely at, for example, a painting which intrigued you and gradually enlisted the views of others while you marvelled. Soon you would have

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Freedom off, GB News on and the Queen’s tea with Biden

Home The lifting of coronavirus restrictions was delayed from 21 June until 19 July, probably. The motive was to avoid a ‘significant resurgence’ in hospital admissions from the more contagious Delta variant of the virus. Public Health England declared that the Pfizer vaccine was 96 per cent effective in preventing hospitalisation, and the AstraZeneca vaccine was 92 per cent effective. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, appealed to the advantage of administering more vaccinations in the extra four weeks. Vaccinations would be made compulsory for care home staff working with older people in England. From 21 June, guests at a wedding would no longer be limited to 30, but there must

Mark Solomons

Why it’s boom time for bitterns

Bitterns are booming, both literally and metaphorically. These handsome brown birds from the heron family make a noise quite unlike anything else in Britain and we are lucky to be able to hear it. If there is such a thing as a birding bucket list then hearing a bittern’s ‘boom’ — the loudest bird call in the country — should be on it. Before the bittern starts booming he performs a warm-up ritual called grunting. He strengthens his throat muscles, which expand to turn his gullet into an echo chamber. His powerful muscles make up a fifth of his body weight and can propel the sound of his boom for

Kelvin MacKenzie

The Sun goes down

A couple of weeks ago Ally Ross, the longtime TV critic at the Sun, was summoned to the managing editor’s office. Such confrontations normally involve expenses. At the Daily Express in the 1950s one Middle East correspondent submitted his — one camel: £125. The narrow-eyed managing editor pointed out that if the camel was bought, it must have been sold, and they would be grateful if the claim was adjusted. Another form turned up 30 minutes later — burying a dead camel: £200. This conversation with Ally was not about money. It was much more serious. It was solemnly explained to him that he had used the word ‘woke’ in

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

A breath of fresh airwaves

A couple of decades back the Radio Society asked me to moderate a debate for its summer festival. ‘Between who?’ I asked them and was delighted when they replied: ‘It’s entirely up to you.’ I chose the charismatic hook-handed Muslim cleric Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri and the then leader of the British National party, Nick Griffin. They were quite big news at the time — but were not really allowed on the airwaves, still less television. Hamza wasn’t allowed on because ‘mainstream’ Muslim organisations objected and we always did what we were told by them. Griffin wasn’t allowed on because he was a ‘fascist’. In fairness, he got an occasional

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Foreign opportunists are turning Britain into a corporate car-boot sale

The snatching of a 12 per cent stake in BT by French entrepreneur Patrick Drahi, last seen here when he bagged Sotheby’s for $3.7 billion two years ago, could be a good thing if it injects dynamism into the telecoms giant’s late-running plans to install high-speed broadband across the UK. But it’s also part of a wave of fast–moving foreign money hunting undervalued UK assets — which is positive if it fuels capital investment for growth, negative if it makes nothing but fast bucks for private investors. The logic is simple. The private equity fraternity is laden with cash and global in outlook; what it sees in London is an

The Spectator

The real value of the Australia trade deal

If Britain had been unable to agree a trade deal with Australia, then Brexit really would have been pointless. The country is one of our greatest allies and we have no rational reason to fear its beef, its sugar or its people. A free trade deal, aligned with visa-free travel, ought to have been the easiest deal to do. A deal is now done, phasing in these freedoms over 15 years. But even this sluggish pace is too fast for the protectionists who are popping up. Some have predicted that our beef farmers will be ruined and the countryside laid to waste as our markets are opened to competition. Many

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Air travel is in terminal danger

During the political car crash of 2019, I couldn’t imagine ever agreeing with Theresa May. Yet last week she exhibited both principle and pragmatism — qualities sorely lacking in her capitulation to the conniving EU paradigm whereby Northern Ireland made Brexit supposedly insoluble. The legacy of that surrender, Ulster’s disastrously unworkable trade protocol, will wait for another day. I come to praise May, not to bury her. The previous prime minister stressed to the Commons that ‘chaotic’ and ‘incomprehensible’ international travel restrictions, more oppressive this summer than last, send the message that Britain is ‘shut for business’. She upbraided the government for failing to register three truths: ‘we will not

Liam Halligan

British broadcast news has gone badly wrong

I’ve worked for some media thoroughbreds — including the Financial Times, ITN and CNN — so I know the sense of assurance that comes from wearing the badge of a long-established journalistic brand. But nothing — nothing — beats the buzz I now feel as a presenter on GB News. It’s the thrill of being part of a start-up, especially one so many want to fail. We GB News types are disruptive and entrepreneurial. We think that British broadcast news has gone badly wrong. It has become smug, stale and monocultural. We want to do something about that. Amid the advertising boycotts, inevitable technical glitches and even more inevitable catty