Society

Damian Thompson

Why the legal harassment of today’s Christians is the last legacy of the Soviet Union

33 min listen

Today’s Holy Smoke podcast is about the increasingly brutal bullying and silencing of people – especially Christians – who hold the ‘wrong’ opinions on controversial topics. A culture of censorship is becoming ever more deeply embedded in public institutions not just in Britain but also throughout Europe. In London last month we witnessed the nasty spectacle of John Sherwood, a 71-year-old Christian pastor, being dragged off the street and surrounded by policeman for public preaching against gay marriage. In Finland, former interior minister Päivi Räsänen, an Evangelical Lutheran, faces a jail sentence because she tweeted out the same view. The authorities took offence, rooted through all her previous statements on

Boris’s animal rights laws could come back to bite him

Boris Johnson wants to beef up animal rights. The new rules will include a ban on importing stuffed heads as hunting trophies, and possibly on fur as well; a mandatory microchip for every cat in the kingdom; no more exports of live animals for slaughter; a ban on keeping primates as pets; and, most bizarre of all, a law requiring government to accept that animals are sentient and feel pain and angst like the rest of us. This looks odd. There was no extensive pressure except from a small fringe for any of these measures. To most traditional conservatives, animal rights conjure up unattractive visions of young men in dirty

Ross Clark

Will our vaccines stop the Indian variant?

As we have often found with Covid-19, no sooner does a path seem to emerge out of the woods than the trees close in again. On Monday, the Prime Minister confirmed that the further relaxation of lockdown rules – including the reopening of indoor hospitality – would go ahead as planned next week. Daily totals of deaths from Covid-19 have been running at very low levels – indeed deaths from all causes are now running 7.3 per cent lower than the recent five-year average, according to the ONS. If the variant is able to get around the vaccine, there may still be a useful effect in preventing hospitalisations and deaths

Mary Wakefield

The Proustian power of handwriting

Towards the end of April, my mum sent me a letter. She doesn’t write as a rule — we speak on the phone — but this time she sent something. It’s hard to explain the effect her handwriting had on me after so many months of being apart. It was as if she was there, in envelope form, on the doormat. And because her handwriting’s been so familiar for so long, it wasn’t simply my mum as she is now, but Mum through three decades. I stood there in the gloom of the hall, vertiginous with memory, and I realised how unlikely it is that any future generation will have

Letters: China has peaked

China has peaked Sir: Niall Ferguson makes some good points about the nature of Xi Jinping’s imperial aspirations but misses two important parts of the picture (‘The China model’, 8 May). First, the Chinese Academy of Science predicts that China’s population will peak at 1.4 billion in 2029, drop to 1.36 billion by 2050, and shrink to as few as 1.17 billion people by 2065. They even forecast that China’s population might be reduced by about 50 per cent by the turn of the next century. And second, China’s economic rise is stalling. Rather than being on track to displace the United States as the next economic superpower, China now

The strange magic of the mountain hare

The numbers of the dear old mountain hare in England are becoming perilously depleted. A researcher, Carlos Bedson, has suggested there may be only 2,500 left in the Peak District. Warmer weather seems to be finishing them off. It is time to appreciate them and their cousins, the brown hare, more and to look after them. I was in my thirties when I’d head up on to Saddleworth Moor with my father-in-law to watch the white-furred mountain hares. We didn’t say much, we just took in the old magic of those beautiful creatures. I’m not the only one to love hares. That great English poet and hymnodist William Cowper suffered

Dear Mary: How do I tell my fiancee that she eats with her mouth open?

Q. I’ve recently been approached by a very good friend who — with genuinely admirable candour and tact — pointed out that my fiancée ‘eats with her mouth open’, and that I ought to mention it to her to prevent future embarrassment. I suppose I have occasionally noticed this habit in the context of pizzas and wine on the sofa, but now that my friend has addressed it I can’t help but see — and indeed hear — his concern daily. Mary, how can I approach this rather unedifying conversation about a very unedifying habit with my otherwise cultured thirty-something fiancée, without causing embarrassment? — Name and address withheld A.

Martin Vander Weyer

The pandemic’s transatlantic divide in executive salaries

‘Consider a temporary cut in executive salaries’ was the Confederation of British Industry’s advice to members at the start of the pandemic. Back then I was gripped by fears of a backlash against capitalism: top pay cuts would indeed be wise, I wrote, not least because ‘sacrifice now is sensible insurance’. Looking at last week’s election results, I needn’t have been concerned about a second coming of socialism. But I’m one of many advocates for responsible capitalism who have long worried about growing disparities between executive and average pay — the key multiple having risen from 50 to 120 over the past two decades — that rarely reflect underlying performance.

Roger Alton

Thoughts on a foreign clash of the English titans

Thank heavens the Champions League final is being played in Portugal, now Turkey’s off the menu (sorry). It will certainly be a damn sight easier to get to than Wembley: have you tried to go round the North Circular these days? And at least the capital will not have to accommodate what is ominously described as ‘the Uefa family’, all 2,000 of them. Pity no one told them about family planning. And where would you prefer to go out for a post-match bite: Porto or Wembley Way? Anyway, then we will see quite how far Chelsea have got inside Manchester City’s head, with two very efficient victories in the League

Tanya Gold

Pretty food with a side order of pollution: 28-50 reviewed

You cannot have cars and dining tables in the same dreamscape: it doesn’t work, unless you think carbon monoxide is a herb, or are wearing full Hazmat, like some teachers. London is in much denial about its air pollution; in the East End child asthmatics are choking. But we must embrace it for a few days more; others have lost more in pandemic than an attachment to the convention that if we dine outside it should be in a flower-filled garden. Perhaps there are enchanted restaurant gardens in London, but I have never found one. I conclude that, outside fiction or aristocracy, they do not exist. Instead, we have modish

Toby Young

Our confusing voting system has cost me £25

Some 114,201 ballots were rejected in the first round of the London mayoral election, approximately 5 per cent of the total votes cast. This wasn’t because people were deliberately spoiling their ballots to protest about the fact that no one standing represented their views. After all, there were 20 candidates in the election encompassing a broad spectrum of opinion. No, it was because they didn’t understand the supplementary vote system, whereby you’re supposed to put a cross next to the candidate of your first choice and a cross next to your second. According to official figures, 87,214 of the spoilt ballots were discounted because people had voted for more than

Charles Moore

Should monuments to past Archbishops of Canterbury come down?

This week, the Church of England issued its document ‘Contested Heritage in Cathedrals and Churches’. It is guidance for what those locally running more than 12,000 churches should do about their monuments ‘to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation’ and address ‘the Church’s own complicity in structural sin’ and ‘oppression or marginalisation of people on the basis of their race, gender, religion or sexual orientation’. In church monuments, this usually boils down to whether the person commemorated had links with slavery. Seen from a parish level (where the poor churchwardens, such as my dear wife, will have to do the

The C of E’s misguided obsession with statues

The Church of England has once again misunderstood the mood of the nation. Guidance published this week urges the country’s 12,500 parishes and 42 cathedrals to address, search out, assess and remove offensive artefacts of ‘contested heritage’. The framework follows the call by Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, for a review of church statues. Of course racism must be taken seriously, but I doubt I was the only cleric who, upon hearing this development, let out a loud groan. The edict is both a concession to advocates of divisive identity politics and a distraction from the more pressing issues on which the church should be focused. Covid unleashed untold misery

Portrait of the week: Scotland votes, Queen speaks and Israel-Palestine crisis escalates

Home A new complexion of British politics was revealed by the capture of Hartlepool by Jill Mortimer for the Conservatives in a by-election, with 15,529 to the Labour candidate’s 8,589. Since its formation in 1974, the constituency had been Labour. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said his party had ‘lost the trust of working people, particularly in places like Hartlepool’. The Conservative Ben Houchen was re-elected as mayor of the Tees Valley with 72.8 per cent of the vote. Of 143 English council seats, the Conservatives now control 63, 13 more than before, with 2,345 councillors; Labour lost control of eight councils to end up with 44, and 1,345

No. 653

White to play, Jones–Dominguez, New in Chess Classic, April 2021. Gawain Jones was hoping that his rook and pawn would cordon off Black’s king indefinitely. But here, at move 125, a surprising opportunity arose. What move should White have played? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 17 May. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address. Last week’s solution 1 Rh8! Kf6 2 g8=N mate Last week’s winner John Brown, Rolleston on Dove, Staffordshire

Our local councillors who’ve lost their seats must be sighing with relief

An angry text exchange between me and a former Tory councillor after she lost her seat has got me thinking. During the campaign, I asked this lady if she would like to put a poster in my front garden as it adjoins the village green. Even more to the point, next door to me is her main rival, who has a placard fixed to his front wall. Her reply came back no thanks. She did not want me to put up a poster or placard as it would only make matters worse by reminding the opposition to vote. In terms of the effect on her main opponent, she said it

Mary Wakefield

‘This was a horrible pandemic – but it wasn’t the big one’: Michael Lewis interviewed

Michael Lewis’s new book, The Premonition, is a superhero story — though one in which the superheroes don’t, in the end, win. It’s the true story of a group of far-sighted, tough-minded scientists who, in January last year, saw the coronavirus pandemic coming in the USA, and the politicians who wouldn’t listen to them. And at the heart of the book is the terrible discovery, as true here as it is in the States: we imagine that, come disaster, the people we elect will look after us. We’re told they’re well prepared. But when it comes down to it, they protect not us but themselves. The villain of Lewis’s book