Society

Thursday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The Tavistock is a national scandal

How noble of the British Library to have apologised to the family of the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes for having identified him as a beneficiary of slavery. The library’s scrupulous and deranged researchers had unearthed evidence that Hughes may have been a distant relative of a man called Nicholas Ferrar, born in 1592, and that Ferrar had some early involvement in the slave trade. Ferrar died childless so the precise link was not known, but it was enough for Liz Jolly’s maniacs to besmirch the man. Ms Jolly is chief librarian and the woman who said that racism was ‘a creation of white people’ — along with body odour,

The Spectator

2483: In my soup – solution

Unclued lights are anagrams of animals: PRAENOMINA (1A: Pomeranian), MARTIAN (18: tamarin), LARBOARD (21: Labrador), SHORE (28: horse), PROTEIN (42: pointer), MACLE (6: camel), MENTALISM (24: Simmental), LATER (25: ratel), CREMATE (31: meercat) and MAGYAR (34: margay). The title suggests the song ‘Animal Crackers in My Soup’. First prize A.R. Wightman, Harpenden, HertsRunners-up Roderick Rhodes, Goldsborough, N. Yorks; G.H. Willett, London SW19

Lucy Vickery

What Mr Micawber thinks of Charles Dickens

In Competition No. 3177 you were invited to submit a well-known fictional person’s view of their author. Highlights in a varied and engaging entry included Janine Beacham’s Mrs Malaprop: ‘I am indelibly proud to be the procreation of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a calibrated writer of plagues…’; Anthony Blanche’s withering verdict on Evelyn Waugh as told to J.C.H. Mounsey: ‘My dear, what can I say? An absolute horror. Snobbish of course, being trade through and through. Constantly claiming gentry in his own b-b-background when the best that could be found were rows of sturdy yeomen…’; and Peter Quint giving the lowdown on his creator, courtesy of David Shields: ‘This personage, impressive

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs: Johnson jabs at Starmer’s Covid queries

That was risky. The PM came to the House for today’s session with nothing at all in his briefing folder. Not a fact. Not a statistic. Not a single detail to rebuff his opponents. Usually he tosses out figures in all directions to create the impression of authority and control. Today he had nothing more than a little speech of thanks for Pfizer’s Covid jab which has just got the OK from the regulatory boffins. ‘I would like to thank all those who have made this possible,’ he said, like a tearful starlet clutching a Golden Globe. Sir Keir Starmer echoed his delight. ‘Fantastic news,’ he gushed. Then he treated

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Two unanswered questions on the Covid-19 vaccine

Britain, we learned this morning, has become the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which is likely to be deployed from Monday onwards. Is Britain being reckless, or are other countries dragging their heels?  The first point to make is that, however tempting though it may be to think so, it is not a case of Britain taking advantage of new-found freedoms enabled by Brexit. It may be in the future that Britain develops a more nimble regulatory system than the EU, and that British patients can benefit for the earlier administration of drugs, but the UK will remain under the European Medicines Agency’s regulatory system

Debbie Hayton

Why Keira Bell’s victory matters

Keira Bell has won her case against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. As a transgender person, I am delighted for her but I am also relieved for the thousands of children who are chasing the impossible dream that it is possible to change sex. Bell’s victory is an important one for teenagers and pre-pubescent children who are not old enough to make decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives. The High Court judgement made it clear that it is ‘highly unlikely’ that children aged 13 or under would be competent enough to give consent to the administration of puberty blockers. The judges went further

Joanna Williams

Prince Harry should dial down his eco-alarmism

‘What if every single one of us was a raindrop?’  I have no idea what goes into the Californian drinking water, but the Duke formerly known as Prince Harry seems to have been knocking it back. We are fortunate indeed that, despite having fled State-side to secure greater privacy, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex continue to send us regular character-improving missives. This week sees Harry return to a favourite theme: climate change. Speaking at an online event to mark the launch of WaterBear, a new subscription television platform for environmental and conservation documentaries, Harry pondered: ‘Every single raindrop that falls from the sky relieves the parched ground. What if

Dr Mark Toshner

The dangers of Covid-19 far outweigh the risks of a vaccine

For all the good news that has emerged about Covid-19 vaccines in recent weeks, it is clear that we are not doing a particularly good job addressing people’s reasonable concerns about vaccine safety. Before we go on though, it is important for you to know who I am, and who I am not. I am a minor academic in a decent university. I don’t normally work on vaccines, have never had any funding from Big Pharma (or anyone else) for vaccine studies, have no career in vaccines and not much to gain from writing this, other than a spike in trolling. I have never met Bill Gates and have no

Tuesday

Bissan Al-Lazikani

The solving of a biological mystery

DNA is the blueprint that encodes the instructions to make proteins. Proteins are the building blocks and the machines that power life. And proteins make up the tissue that in turn comprise the organs and muscles that make up us. Considering how crucial proteins are to life itself, there is still so much we do not know about them. But Google’s AI firm Deepmind may just have helped us make a giant leap forward. When a protein is first made inside a living cell, it is merely a chain of connected amino acids — like beads on a string. Yet, it instantaneously folds into unique three-dimensional, beautiful shapes, which enable

Julie Bindel

Keira Bell’s landmark victory against hormone blockers for children

Keira Bell has won her legal case against the NHS’s only gender identity development service (GIDS) for under-18s, after the High Court found that children are unlikely to be able to give informed consent for taking puberty-blocking drugs. As a teenager, Keira began to suffer from gender dysphoria and was referred to GIDS for treatment. She was prescribed puberty blockers aged 16 followed by testosterone at 17. Keira underwent a double mastectomy aged 20, because what else do you do when testosterone gives you an Adam’s apple, facial hair and a deep voice? Keira has since regretted her transition and no longer identifies as a man, which is why she

Hardeep Singh

Renaming streets isn’t necessarily a bad idea

A few days ago, Ealing Council put out a statement saying that ‘following consultation’ the local authority had decided to rename a street in Southall. Part of Havelock Road, the Labour-led council explained, would be renamed ‘Guru Nanak Road’. It appears the local authority wanted the renaming to coincide with the 551st anniversary of the birth of Sikhism’s founder Guru Nanak and that the London council was planning to ‘celebrate and honour’ this religious figure. According to the pressure group Save Our Statues (SOS), just 16 households of the 345 contacted for their views on the proposed renaming had actually engaged with the process. Of those 16 who replied, just

Mabon ap Gwynfor

Farmers aren’t to blame for climate change

Welsh hill farmers are a hardy lot. Despite the almost mystical and romantic images that come to mind when you think of a Welsh hill farm, the truth is a far soggier affair. People have struggled to eke a living out of what is an extremely difficult terrain for generations, which has, in turn, created the communities and the culture we enjoy in rural Wales today. Such is the case where I live: a small parcel of land stretching from the river Dee and up the slopes of the Berwyn mountains in the north of Wales. My father-in-law is the third generation to farm this land. He and those that

Monday

Debbie Hayton

The misery continues for the Covid class of 2020

England might be coming out of lockdown – some of it at least – but there is little cheer for students. This week’s government mandated ‘student travel window‘ will extinguish any vestiges of face-to-face teaching to allow students to Zoom out the term from parental homes. My son Barney is among the class of 2020, the group of students forking out high fees to be cooped up in their overpriced university accommodation, seeing few people apart from the flat mates they have been billeted with. November’s lockdown has hit these students hard. Clubs and societies have been curtailed; Facebook groups and mailing lists have taken their place. Barney was not alone in deciding to

Matthew Lynn

Philip Green gave capitalism a bad name

The giant drug companies that are on brink of delivering a Covid vaccine in record time? Well, that’s easy. The technology companies that have relentlessly innovated to transform the way we communicate with one another? That’s not too hard. The power generators, food manufacturers and automobile conglomerates that supply most of our daily needs? That’s a breeze. Heck, even the banks can justify their existence, at least in theory. Most entrepreneurs and businesses are fairly easy to defend. But Sir Philip Green? Errrrr… The free market needs defending, perhaps more now than at any time in the last 50 years Of course it was just about possible to explain his

Sunday

Neil Oliver

A British state of mind

I was born British and as a British citizen I will live out my days. My nationality is a state of mind and I have no intention of changing either. I know who I am and what I love – and what I love is Britain, the whole place, every nook and cranny. This is my island. No pronouncement by any politician – here today and gone tomorrow – and no referendum on this or that issue of the day will have any effect on my understanding of myself and where I belong. It makes me feel better just to put those words down on the page. The Canadian anthropologist

Nigel Biggar

Britain’s slave trade and the problem with ‘decolonisation’

Colonialism and slavery. There is, of course, a connection between them. Yet the reason for our present interest in the topic assumes something stronger – not merely a connection, but an equation. That is why we are told we have to ‘decolonise’ ourselves. Because until we do, the vicious racism that slavery incarnated will continue to be our own. The assumption, however, is mistaken. It is true that the British were heavily involved in trading slaves across the Atlantic from Africa to the Caribbean and the southern colonies of North America, mostly between 1660 and 1807. Britain transported around 3 million Africans in conditions that were infamously dreadful, with human

Tim Spector

The second wave appears to have peaked before lockdown

It was only four weeks ago that Boris Johnson plunged Britain into a second lockdown. The Prime Minister, flanked by Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, said that he could not ignore the modelling. Deaths, the Prime Minister explained, could reach ‘several thousand a day’, with a ‘peak of mortality’ worse than April. ‘Doctors and nurses would be forced to choose which patients to treat, who would get oxygen and who wouldn’t, who would live and who would die,’ he warned. Today, however, with the country about to enter a new, tougher tiered system, the latest figures raise serious questions over those claims – and consequently, the need for a second

Saturday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Spectator Out Loud: Rod Liddle, Paul Embery and Rachel Johnson

24 min listen

On this week’s episode, Rod Liddle reflects on the public sector pay freeze, and wonders why teachers won’t teach. (00:50) Next, Paul Embery argues that the Labour Party has become disassociated with the working class. (07:03) Finally, Rachel Johnson explains why she wishes Christmas was cancelled. (17:40)

Dr Jade Norris

Why I can no longer police the coronavirus restrictions

Earlier this month I resigned as a Special Constable, after serving for ten years as a volunteer officer in three different police forces. Policing has been an important part of my life for a long time, and I will miss serving my community and working with extremely dedicated, brave, and caring officers. But I have long been disturbed by decisions made by the government during the coronavirus crisis, and have decided that I can no longer in good conscience play any part in enforcing the restrictions. I have had concerns about the government’s coronavirus policies since the first lockdown. While I have volunteered as a Special Constable, my full-time job

Simon Clarke

If tiers don’t work, expect a third wave in the new year

‘The difficulty is that we’re coming out of the tough autumn measures, out of the lockdown… with the incidence of the disease still pretty high,’ Boris Johnson explained on Friday. It is against this backdrop that he finds himself trying to sell tougher Covid rules as England emerges from the November lockdown. It is an especially difficult sell, of course, when an area has been placed in a higher tier than before the lockdown – even if, as in many instances, cases are now lower than when the tier system was first introduced. It understandably appears incoherent and arbitrary. The Prime Minister’s case is that he hates lockdowns too, but