Society

Thursday

Douglas Murray

The path to re-enchantment

Most social occasions now seem to kick off with a wasted hour or two. The time is spent discussing Covid: who’s had it and who hasn’t, who’s had the most nightmarish encounter with a mask fanatic and who the worst lockdown. After that there can be a second course, discussing things like international travel. Remember when we used to be able to book a ticket, put up with the indignities of the budget airlines but still arrive in any place we wanted? Now everybody has stories of friends and relatives they haven’t seen, places they can’t go, and experiences they’ve had to miss. The world has become a little smaller.

Sebastian Coe

Should Simone Biles listen to Novak Djokovic?

I’ve always been a Spectator reader, so I’m delighted to be writing a diary about the Olympics from Tokyo. My first experience of an Olympic Games was probably the most political of them all — Moscow 1980. I wasn’t sure that I would be competing until a few weeks before the opening ceremony. The build-up was fraught with geopolitical tensions — the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the US-led boycott of the Games. Thatcher’s government fell in line with Uncle Sam — a little too eagerly — only to then lose its fight with the British Olympic Association. So we ended up going. I lost the first of my finals

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Chris Packham’s suggestions to save the world

On Monday 2 August, the BBC Today programme offered its ‘Countdown to COP26’. For the rest of the month, Amol Rajan announced, Chris Packham would give us ‘a different suggestion’ about climate change EVERY DAY. I make that 26 Packham slots — Sunday being Today-free — on the main national news magazine programme. Chris’s Day One suggestion to address the ‘colossal, planet-threatening mess that we find ourselves in’ was that everyone should buy an alarm clock (second-hand if possible to save on emissions), set it to wake up 15 minutes earlier and devote that quarter of an hour to doing something helpful, rather as we did, he said, when we

Peter Jones

Simone Biles, Plutarch and an Olympic trial

The outstanding gymnast Simone Biles has pulled out of several Olympic events, saying: ‘I just don’t trust myself as much any more.’ Many took the view that this was a fashionable ‘mental health’ issue. Ancient Greeks might have come up with a rather different analysis. Plutarch (c. ad 100) is said to have been the author of a letter of condolence to one Apollonius whose son had just died. In it he considered how best one should react to loss in the context of the whole field of human suffering, which Greeks regarded as the common lot of all mankind. For example, Achilles in the Iliad claimed that Zeus possessed

Dot Wordsworth

The dirty truth about ‘wash-up’

‘They asked me if I wanted to wash up before we even went in to dinner,’ my husband recalled with mock horror of a visit to America some years ago. He doesn’t get out much. It is true that Americans use wash up differently from us, to mean washing your hands (and perhaps face while you’re at it) rather than the plates after a meal. Of course washing your hands might be a euphemism for that other euphemism of going to the lavatory. Now there is an outbreak of wash-up in management lingo. We must learn to live with it. Annoyingly, management-speak turns perfectly good phrases into weapons of time-wasting

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 7 August 2021

To be a killer bridge player, you need to be aggressive. Many of us are hampered by timidity, especially when it comes to making penalty doubles. All too often, we ignore our instinct to reach for the red card: we dwell on how foolish we’ll look if we’re wrong, and how cross our partner will be. But as Zia Mahmood says: ‘If every contract you double goes down, you’re not doubling enough.’ Zia routinely doubles auctions where the opponents have bid hesitatingly to game. As he sees it, if they’ve both limited their hands, you’re in with a good chance. Moreover, by upping the ante, the added pressure on declarer

Robin Oakley

Proper racing is back at last

At last proper racing is back. Through the long days of lockdown horses and jockeys have still given their all on the track. But racing is an emotive, instinctive sport which needs the oohs and aahs of sizeable involved and vocal crowds to impart its magic. With Ascot’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, followed by Glorious Goodwood, at last it felt again like the real thing. In 2020, when the great Enable won the King George VI for the third time, it was behind closed doors in heavy rain. When Derby winner Adayar this year walked into the parade ring with the arrogance of a finely tuned athlete,

Jeremy Clarke

The art of losing your hair

Although fatigued to the point of catatonia, and sitting there like a 19th-century Fang funeral mask, I am glad to contribute to the gaiety of a dinner party by being a good listener. But to be a good listener, even a catatonic requires acting skills. I am learning to lift my glass to my mouth and absentmindedly sip while politely maintaining eye contact. I am learning to leave a dignified or at least sane interval between each visit to the glass and to vary that interval. I am learning to appear interested long after interest has waned or petered out. These skills need polish and I am not yet the

Melissa Kite

The lost dogs of Surrey

The woman pulled up in her flashy 4×4 which was meandering along the farm track in that way people have when they have ‘questions’. People in Surrey often have questions as they drive past a farm. For example, I had a gentleman query why the horses were wearing ‘blindfolds’ recently, and I had to explain that owners often put their horses in fly masks during the summer, if that was all right by him? And he said it wasn’t. Because people who know diddly squat about rural matters have the strongest opinions, especially about horses. This lady was meandering and looking out of the window into the stable yard as

Taki

An elegy on yachting

Patmos A very long time ago I wrote in these here pages that spending a summer on the Riviera or the Greek isles without a boat was as useless as a eunuch in a cathouse. That was then and this, alas, is now. The French and Greek seas are the same, if a little bit more crowded, but the people with boats are very, very different. Back then one knew almost everyone worth knowing — that is, everyone with a smart sailing boat, and a few with gin palaces that were graceful. These modern horrors that look like refrigerators on steroids, with top-heavy superstructures from bow to stern, helicopters, jet

Wednesday

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

High on the hog: The Pig at Bridge Place reviewed

The Pig at Bridge Place is not a pig in possession of a country house, but I would be for it. You cannot have enough pigs, or any edible fauna. It is, rather, a hotel inside a Jacobean mansion — or, rather, part of a Jacobean mansion, the rest burnt down, and is all the better for it — in a pleasingly unkempt part of Kent, just beyond Canterbury. There are ten Pigs, dotted across the south coast as if in homage to Armada beacons. They are the successor to the Soho House brand, which is looking increasingly dusty, and in velvet. My main objection to Babington House is that

Jamie Gillies

Why are politicians reluctant to condemn sex-selective abortion?

Women have faced increasing attacks on their rights in recent years. Moves to accommodate gender ideology have resulted in women-only spaces being opened to male-bodied individuals. In the medical sphere, dystopian terms like ‘menstruators’, and ‘birth parents’ have even been coined to appease activists. These kinds of stories hit the headlines and often receive a wide backlash. But an even more acute threat to women receives comparably little attention. Gendercide – the abortion of preborn babies based on sex – continues to occur in countries across the globe, with girls overwhelmingly the target. Sex-selective abortion is often against the wishes of mothers, who are coerced into termination by family members

John Fund

New York’s vaccine passport scheme could have a nasty side effect

The latest French export to the United States is a requirement that people show proof of vaccination to visit indoor bars, concert venues, restaurants and gyms. But will it work? On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City will be the first American metropolis to import the French health pass. Marketed like an upscale perk, the ‘Key to NYC Pass’ program will begin on 16 August and become mandatory on 13 September. De Blasio is doing his best to sell the pass as a carrot, rather than the stick it really is. But his rhetoric is still ominous. He said: ‘It is so important to make clear that

Lynn Barber

‘I’m plagued by worries of disaster’: Dominic Cummings interviewed

I’ve been waiting over a year to meet Dominic Cummings. Any time Mary Wakefield asked me to interview someone for The Spectator, I said: ‘I’d rather interview your husband.’ And she promised he would do it, one day. I began to lose faith, but at last the day dawns. On the way to see him I run into Mary and their son Ceddy outside their home in north London and she takes me to the kitchen to meet Dom. He is friendly, hospitable, takes me to sit in the garden to talk, and gently shoos Ceddy indoors. The one thing everyone, friend and enemy alike, agrees about Dominic Cummings is

Tuesday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why British firms keep getting bought out by foreign investors

Sharks, vultures, asset-strippers: just a few of the names that have been applied to the likes of Parker Hannifin, the US company which is trying to take over UK aviation company Meggitt. It’s the latest in a spate of takeover attempts of UK engineering firms by US competitors and private equity firms. An alternative name for them would be astute businesses which can see the value in companies that dopey British pension fund managers are unable to spot. If the takeover of UK firms is a problem or a scandal, British institutions are the real villains. They have bid down the values of these firms as they go chasing returns on US tech

Debbie Hayton

Was this volunteer cancelled by Childline for his views on gender?

When Liz Truss confirmed that the government was committing itself to banning LGBT conversion therapy, there was some bemusement: is the middle of a pandemic really the time for this? The decision was announced back in May, and Truss – who serves as equalities minister – conceded that ‘many forms of the practice are already prevented under current legislation’. But this ‘new ban’, she added ‘will ensure that it is stamped out once and for all.’ Let’s be clear: coercive and abusive practices need rooting out. But if existing laws doesn’t work, will new ones really help? Or could they have unintended consequences? James Esses – a trainee psychotherapist – worried that normal

Jonathan Sacerdoti

HBO’s The Prince should leave George alone

Last year Netflix refused to add a disclaimer to the beginning of every episode of The Crown, warning viewers that it is part fiction. HBO Max’s new cartoon The Prince, however, had no choice: the series has been sitting on the shelf so long that it was out of date before it was even broadcast, so every episode bears a warning that ‘this isn’t really the royal family. It’s like, a parody, or whatever. And certain recent events will not be reflected in this programme.’ The streaming service’s new cartoon comedy (if one can call it that) is based around an imagined child’s-eye-view of life in the palace. The protagonist

Sue Pascoe

How Margaret Thatcher helped inspire my transgender journey

The gender debate has generated plenty of heat, but as a trans person – and keen supporter of the Conservative party – it’s clear to me that amidst this discussion there are plenty of myths circulating. One that troubles me most – as the first trans person to stand for the Tory party in the European elections in 2019 – is the idea that trans people are all radical left wingers. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Trans people come in all shapes and sizes, with all sorts of backgrounds and all kinds of political affiliations. Of course, I can’t speak for all trans people. But through my charitable and

Monday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Alex Scott, Digby Jones and the snobbery of low expectations

Labour peer Lord Digby Jones has found himself in the eye of a Twitterstorm. His error? He criticised BBC sports presenter Alex Scott for mispronouncing certain words on the Beeb’s daily Olympics show. Specifically, words ending in G. Scott is a G-dropper, he complained. She says ‘fencin, rowin, boxin, weighliftin and swimmin’, he said, and he can’t stand it anymore. ‘Enough!’, he cried. Twitter users, as is their wont, went crazy. What a vile elitist, they said. Stephen Fry accused Jones of ‘misplaced snobbery’ and branded him a ‘disgrace [to] the upper house’ (the Lords is famed for being a snob-free zone, of course). Footballer turned pundit Gary Neville took

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron’s vaccine passport is uniting French anti-fascists and nationalists

Saturday was what is known in France as the Chassé-croisé, the busiest day of the year on the roads, when those who took their holidays in July return home and those who chose August depart. By lunchtime there were 625 miles of traffic jams on the roads. The thoroughfares of many cities were also blocked, but for another reason. For the third consecutive Saturday, thousands of people marched to protest against the introduction of the government’s Covid passport. Almost a quarter of a million people took to the streets in 180 demonstrations, according to the government. These numbers are disputed by the organisers, who claim they are wildly conservative. But