Society

Friday

9 Apr 2021

Steerpike

The wit and wisdom of Prince Philip

After 74 years of marriage to the Queen, Prince Philip has today died at the age of 99. During his many decades in the public eye, the Duke of Edinburgh earned the respect and admiration of many for his selfless dedication to duty. Attending quite literally thousands of events besides his wife he developed a reputation for off the cuff gems and blunt speaking. Steerpike has gathered up 74 of the Duke’s best quotes from 74 years by the Queen’s side. On his role and family ‘I’d much rather have stayed in the Navy, frankly’ he said of his role in 1992. ‘If it doesn’t fart or doesn’t eat hay, she

Melanie McDonagh

Prince Philip epitomised a very British stoicism

So, Prince Philip has died, at home in Windsor Castle, thank goodness, and the Queen could be near him at the end. That’s something to be grateful for. The other thing to be grateful for is a life well lived. More than a man has passed with Prince Philip. A culture, the sensibility of his time, a reticence about emotions, a sturdy willingness to put your best foot forward, has died with him. He was Phil the Greek for his contemporaries, with rather an interesting back story. But, for the generations that succeeded him, he epitomised a very British stoicism. More than a man has passed with Prince Philip For an

Andrew Tettenborn

Europe’s human rights judges are right not to ban compulsory vaccines

If you think public health authorities in England are overbearing, spare a thought for the Czechs. Parents who fail to have children vaccinated face being fined or having their offspring excluded from nurseries. Now, in a landmark ruling, the European Court of Human Rights, has backed that policy. But even critics aghast at the thought of compulsory vaccinations should welcome the court’s verdict. Why? Because human rights judges should not be butting in here. The Czech law bends over backwards to accommodate welfare concerns: vaccinations are free; there are exceptions for good medical reasons; and any vaccine-generated injury is automatically compensated. Yet it was still an obvious target for human rights challenge on

Steerpike

Prince Philip: a round-up of tributes

After a long life of public service, Prince Philip has died at the age of 99. Below is Steerpike’s rolling guide to the tributes paid by leading figures to the Duke of Edinburgh. Faith leaders Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘He consistently put the interests of others ahead of his own and, in so doing, provided an outstanding example of Christian service. During his naval career, in which he served with distinction in the Second World War, he won the respect of his peers as an outstanding officer. On the occasions when I met him, I was always struck by his obvious joy at life, his enquiring mind and his

Philip Eade

A tribute to Prince Philip, 1921-2021

Prince Philip played a pivotal, yet often underestimated, role in ensuring the survival of the modern British monarchy. His self-confidence and irreverence served as an invaluable foil for the young Queen Elizabeth, enabling her to overcome her natural shyness and giving her the confidence and stability to reign so calmly and irreproachably for such a long time. As Britain’s longest-serving consort, he outlasted 14 prime ministers and carried out a staggering 22,000 solo public engagements, joking shortly before his retirement from royal duties in 2017 that he was probably the world’s most experienced plaque-unveiler. When the mathematician Sir Michael Atiyah told the prince how sorry he was to hear he

Thursday

8 Apr 2021

Lara Prendergast

Roadmap to nowhere: will life ever return to normal?

38 min listen

Will life ever return to normal? (00:50) Is the government pandering to statue protestors? (14:30) And what’s Prince Harry’s new job? (27:55) With Kate Andrews, the Spectator‘s economics editor; Spectator columnist Matthew Parris; Spectator contributor Alexander Pelling-Bruce; Historic England CEO Duncan Wilson; Dominic Green, deputy editor of the Spectator‘s US edition; and Sam Leith, literary editor of the Spectator. Presented by Lara Prendergast. Produced by Max Jeffery, Cindy Yu and Arsalan Mohammad.

Ian Acheson

Northern Ireland’s sink estates are fertile ground for fundamentalists

Northern Ireland is routinely voted one of the happiest places to live in the UK. A few weeks ago, a survey revealed that Belfast was the best city to raise a family in Britain. The Province is in the top ten digital economies of the future. A world-class film production industry is transforming it into the Hollywood of Europe adding tens of millions of pounds to the local economy. It’s a stark contrast to the ugly scenes from over the Irish Sea flashing across our screens this week. Working-class loyalist communities are in a dangerously mutinous mood that is hard to square with this parallel world. Alienation and opportunity often exist in

Ross Clark

Did Covid cases plateau in March?

Should we be concerned about the latest React study, which claims that the fall-off in new infections began to plateau from the middle of March? The latest instalment of the monthly study, led by Imperial College, tested a randomised sample of 140,000 volunteers between 11 and 30 March, each of whom was given a PCR test. While the results showed that incidence of infections had fallen by 60 per cent compared with tests conducted between 4 and 23 February, the researchers say that their data shows a flattening-off from mid March. That is interesting because data from the Public health England test and trace system shows a similar pattern: steep

Dr Chris Papadopoulos

Vaccine hesitancy is more dangerous than rare side effects

‘If you sail a massive liner across the Atlantic, you are going to have to make at least one course correction.’ This was the analogy used by professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the UK’s deputy chief medical officer, when explaining why the UK has opted to change its approach to vaccinating healthy 18 to 29-year-olds. For this group, officials argue, there is no point in taking any risk whatsoever, no matter how negligible, and that instead they should be offered the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines instead of Oxford-AstraZeneca. What we need now is urgent action to re-vitalise vaccine confidence On the one hand, from a clinical perspective, this seems very reasonable —

Carl Heneghan

The hidden death toll of lockdown

The last patient I treated was 105 years old. She has lived through two world wars, a depression and at least five pandemics. It’s a real honour to treat centenarians. They teach me much about life: how it is and how it ends. I can also lighten the mood with my 80-year-old patients by telling them that they’re still young. It’s common to hear talk about an ‘ageing society’ being some kind of disaster befalling the country. Yes, people are leading longer, healthier lives now than ever before. Is this really a ‘demographic timebomb’? I’d call it the greatest achievement of our time. When my patient was born in 1915,

The Spectator

Letters: The inconsistencies of Mormonism

A leap of faith Sir: I live not far from the ‘London Temple’ of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most summers, the local streets are trodden by American Mormon missionaries, polite teenagers who occasionally approach to ask if we know Jesus Christ. Some years ago, I read the book on which the new Netflix series Murder Among the Mormons (‘Latter-day sinners’, 3 April) appears to be based. So when I was accosted by a couple of missionaries, I was able to ask them why the practice of polygamy, so avidly promulgated by the founder of their church, Joseph Smith, had been abandoned. My interviewee explained that Smith

Mike Daunt

The cruelty and cunning of the cuckoo

St Tiburtius’ Day, on 14 April, is traditionally when you will hear the first cuckoo. Since at least the Middle Ages, cuckoos have been seen as heralds of spring. They are also often associated with romance, and yet they are some of the cruellest birds found in Britain. The adults arrive in this country at the end of March or the beginning of April and depart in late July or August. They return to central Africa and fly, either via Italy, resting near the River Po and continuing over the Sahara, or stopping in Spain before entering Africa from the far western end. They live mainly in and around the

Rory Sutherland

America isn’t speaking our language

I haven’t yet read the report published by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. But, looking at the recommendations, I think there is one missing detail. We also need some loose agreement on terminology attuned to the conditions of British English as distinct from American English. Let me explain. I would not dare to pronounce on what is acceptable terminology in Spanish, for the simple reason that I do not speak the language and certainly don’t understand the context. Without context, you can’t fully understand meaning. So I truly do not know whether ‘negrito’ is offensive or, as many claim, a term of affection. Perhaps it can be both.

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How do I reject a wedding invitation without causing offence?

Q. I have just been invited to a wedding where the groom will be the only person I know. Much as I like the groom, I don’t really want to go, because the wedding is on New Year’s Eve, in Glasgow. However, he has asked me so far in advance that I can’t think of a reason to say no. Mary, what should I do?— Name and address withheld A. Accept immediately with great enthusiasm and the proviso that there is a very small chance there may be a work thing at that time which you can’t talk about but would definitely pre-empt your coming. Send a generous wedding present

Charles Moore

Aintree is doing Rose Paterson proud

On Grand National Day at Aintree this Saturday, the Rose Paterson Trust will be launched. This time last year, Rose was the chairman of Aintree, and had to cancel the meeting because of Covid. In June, she took her own life. The purpose of the trust is to help prevent such events. Owen, her widower, is very frank. He believes that: ‘If Rose had been aware of the utter catastrophe she has wrought — the first victim being herself — she would not have done it.’ The worst is that it cannot be undone. It is a wound that time can do frighteningly little to heal. He says it is

Jenny McCartney

The competitive cult of cosiness

Do you remember the first wave of hygge, in 2015? It seems a long time ago — back in the freewheeling technicolour of a pre-Covid world — but at that time hygge was the hottest thing to come out of Denmark. The country already attracted envy for its vigorous welfare state, covetable knitwear and high rating on the international happiness index, but the new export outshone them all. It roughly translated as ‘cosy’, people said, but the English word was frail and puny next to the soul-feeding, friendship-cementing, quasi-spiritual force that was hygge. The latter signified home-baked bread and cakes, hand-knitted socks and friends laughing around a wooden dinner table

Alicia Munckton

Do schools really have a problem with sexual violence?

I hadn’t heard of Everyone’s Invited until a few weeks ago, despite being mother to a 15-year-old girl. I was a little surprised to learn that the forum making the front pages, on which predominantly teenaged schoolgirls share their experiences of every-day sexism, sexual harassment and worse, was actually founded in June last year. The site received no prominence until it went viral following the death of Sarah Everard. As I write, the testimonies of those Wikipedia is terming ‘survivors of rape culture’ number almost 14,000. That the connection made between a horrifying yet rare occurrence and an ‘endemically’ misogynistic society might be tenuous is an argument that cannot be

Peter Jones

Models of obedience: how to make people obey the law

Protests are being staged against the proposed bill to change the laws on protest. But there is a bigger issue here. Obedience to the law is at the root of civil society, but what systems best achieve that end? The ancients provided three models that underpin western thinking on the subject. The Athenian model was that of radical democracy, the law to be made by the majority of citizens (males aged over 18) meeting weekly in assembly and then publicly posted. Further, all male citizens over 30 were available to sit as jurors in the courts. No judges or official legal authorities controlled their decisions. Behind all this lay the

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Vaccine passports, Northern Ireland riots and a cocaine-smuggling kayaker

Home The government sketched a scheme for a coronavirus passport, or ‘Covid status certification’, to be tried out at the FA Cup Final on 15 May. It would record vaccination, a recent negative test or natural immunity after recovering from Covid and might admit the bearer to public places, such as pubs or soup kitchens. Dozens of MPs opposed the passport, including Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, who sits as an independent, and Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader. In the meantime everyone could have two lateral flow tests a week at pharmacies or at home, and would have to self-isolate if the result was positive. For travel

Dominic Green

How Prince Harry became celebrity frontman for a very questionable industry

Prince Harry is now chief impact officer for BetterUp, a Californian corporate consultancy whose ‘mission’ is to sell online life coaching with — in his words, — ‘innovation, impact and integrity’. Harry may not realise it, but he is the latest celebrity frontman for the rapidly growing, broadly unregulated and frequently dubious corporate ‘coaching’ industry. And you might not realise it, but Harry, Duke of Malibu is your future, because California’s today is America’s tomorrow and Britain’s next week. BetterUp is one of a group of Californian companies on the growing, corporate edge of life coaching. Its competitors have names like Workbot, Hone and Clear Review and they all claim