Society

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

I’m being driven mad by Microsoft Outlook

Call me a cynic, but I suspect this week’s headlines about a revival of Heathrow’s third runway plan amount to little more than a political game. Arguments for and against this project have been aired many times over, from a white paper in 2003 to the Davies Commission’s final report (in favour) in 2015. Much to the detriment of London’s status as a global city, the runway has stayed in the long grass – due to marginal-seat politics under the flight path as much as genuine environmental concern – while no satisfactory alternative at Gatwick or Stansted has ever advanced and the advent of the Elizabeth line is Heathrow’s only

Harry Halem

Britain isn’t ready for space and AI warfare

How safe will this country be under Labour? The Strategic Defence Review (SDR) is supposed to provide the answers. It hasn’t been published yet, but may already be out of date. It’s expected to make the case for defence spending to rise from 2.3 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent – but that won’t be enough for Donald Trump, who has asked allies to devote 5 per cent of their national wealth to the military. And it’s not only what we spend but how we spend it that the government are struggling to get right. The upcoming SDR will be the fourth review in a decade. On past

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Is a soul the only thing unavailable in Harrods?

The Harrods bookshop, which I browse for masochistic reasons, is mesmerising: an homage to the lure of ownership. The first book I find is called, simply, 150 Houses. Is that enough? Then I find Luxury Trains, the Porsche Book, the Lamborghini Book and the Jaguar Book. Then I find a book designed for a lifelong self-guided tour of the world of James Bond, who is a fictional British civil servant. Then I find books called Dior, Balmain, Prada and Gucci. I didn’t know they did words. I want to tell you that the Harrods bookshop is entirely advertorial for the life I can’t afford, but that would be unfair. Because

The Spectator

How Heathrow went from six runways to two

Chocks away Rachel Reeves backed a third runway for Heathrow, reigniting a debate which has been going on for years. Yet Heathrow, when originally laid out in 1946, had six runways varying in length between 5,300 and 9,200ft: three pairs of parallel runways running east to west, north-west to south-east and north-east to south-west. As aircraft grew larger, there was less need for them to take off and land in alignment with the wind, but there was a need for longer runways. Heathrow gained its current layout in the 1970s when the east to west runways were extended to more than 12,000ft each, and three of the other four runways closed.

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

Don’t believe the ‘Believe Her’ movement

I never expected to have strong feelings for a member of Germany’s Green party, but I really do feel extremely sorry for Stefan Gelbhaar, once (but not now or ever again) an MP for Berlin. Women should hang together, say some feminists. I couldn’t disagree with this more  Gelbhaar is a 48-year-old criminal defence lawyer who was, until very recently, running to be a candidate in the 23 February elections. He’s reasonably handsome if you like a Timothy Dalton chin dent. He has two young children and he’s a moderate, centrist Green, which is probably the root cause of his troubles. Late last year, quite out of the blue, Gelbhaar

Angus Colwell

Sex, Socrates and stiff upper lips: an interview with Agnes Callard

Agnes Callard is a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago and she lives with her current husband and her ex-husband. At the same time, yes. They raised the kids together as well (two from her first marriage, now 21 and 16, then one from her second, now 11). I mention this not as gossip, but because her approach to her marriage is an example of how she lives philosophically. Her latest book, Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life, is an argument about how we shouldn’t take cultural norms and rote-learned advice for granted. Instead, we need to talk with others, regularly, about the reasons for our

Conrad Roeber

How Ipso surrendered to the trans lobby

Two months ago, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) upheld a complaint against The Spectator for referring to Juno Dawson, a transgender author, as ‘a man who claims to be a woman’. It may have struck some as unfathomable. I was less surprised. As I read the news, it took me back six years to when I was lead author of a report for Ipso, examining how the press treats trans-related issues. I have been a management consultant for more than 30 years so am used to being asked by institutions as varied as the BBC and the Football Association to help shape strategy. For Ipso’s project, it effectively asked

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Jew and non-Jew: Unity Mitford and aristocratic anti-Semitism

I was touched but not surprised that, despite his illness, the King attended the 80th anniversary of the ‘liberation’ of Auschwitz-Birkenau this week. His paternal grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was a rescuer. She hid the Cohen family in her house in Athens and is honoured as a ‘righteous’ gentile at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, where she is buried on the Mount of Olives. A less friendly aristocrat was Unity Mitford, whose views were probably a more accurate reflection of her class. Her newly published diary describes her friendship with Adolf Hitler. Here is a typical entry: ‘Lunch Osteria 2.30. THE FüHRER comes 3.15 after I have finished lunch. After

Peter Jones

How the ancient Greeks tackled treaties

Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire agreement. Though the ancients would have employed oaths, the practical ancient Greeks often ensured there was a flexibility about them: the real world might intervene. For example, treaties between city-states were agreed between opposing generals. Hostages were exchanged, oaths sworn and the terms of the treaty widely inscribed on stone and bronze pillars, but it was citizens who oversaw the treaty’s maintenance. In a Greek democracy, however, there was no saying how, under the influence of different leaders, policy might change and annul a treaty at a stroke. Then again, though treaties could be sworn to last forever, ‘circumstances’ were very unlikely to remain

Douglas Murray

The hard truth about Britain’s soft power

How hard is your soft power? According to David Lammy, Britain’s soft power is so strong and underrated that he has decided to set up a ‘soft power council’ to show just how hard we are. Put aside such details as waste and futility for a second. Surely there is something rather embarrassing about boasting about such things? It reminds me of the phrase ‘muscular liberalism’. A person may define the political concept of muscular liberalism. He may even be described by others as a ‘muscular liberal’. But no one should go around declaring themselves to be such a thing, without expecting to be greeted with a chorus of ‘I

Toby Young Toby Young

Beware this terrible new AI email feature

A friend of mine got a nasty shock last week after a Google Meet call, thanks to a new AI function that he was unaware of. On this occasion, the consequences were quite funny, but on another day his failure to get his head around this new technology could have ended his career. Had the AI continued to transcribe the call after the other two had left – and sent it to them? We’re all familiar with the poor sod who hits ‘reply all’ when responding to an email and accidentally copies in precisely the person whom he doesn’t want to read it. I’ve done it myself. I’ve also heard

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Gossip is good for you… so I’m told

The Pope hates gossip. In his Christmas message to his Vatican advisers last year, Francis warned that it is ‘an evil that destroys social life’. It’s not the first time he’s attacked rumour-spreading. He once compared gossips to terrorists because ‘he or she throws a bomb and leaves’. The Holy Father’s condemnations are of particular concern for me because I was recently accused of being a ‘notorious gossip’. I vehemently reject the charge, of course, but if it were true, at least I’d be following a proud journalistic tradition. In fact, if it were not for gossip, this very magazine might not exist. The original Spectator’s founders, Joseph Addison and

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Can anyone stop France in the Six Nations?

Winter’s almost done and spring’s on the way. We can tell because the Six Nations is about to muscle into view – with the battle of the world’s best national anthems as Wales meet France at the Stade de France on Friday evening. This year’s tournament could be even better than last year’s, but we always say that – and if France live up to some of the rhapsodic predictions the whole thing could go flat as a wet weekend in Calais as Les Bleus romp to a runaway victory. Some pundits have been advising the other five nations to send out for white flags ready to run up the

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How do I guide my godmother to buy me better wine?

Q. When is the cut-off date for wishing people a happy new year and asking if someone had a good Christmas? I’m finding it increasingly difficult to stay civil. – L.G., Fosbury, Wilts A. 14 January is the cut-off date for wishing people a happy new year. The Church itself puts an end to Christmas officially at Candlemas on 2 February, so it is absurd to persist in mentioning it beyond this weekend. Bear in mind that these well-wishers mean no harm. They are usually just stuck for something more interesting to say. Q. We have bought a house in Somerset, but the council requires the bins to be placed

Rachel Johnson

What I can’t tell you about Lamu

Lamu Ever since we arrived on the syrupy, sweltering Swahili coast – where else would your Best Life columnist be in the dead of winter? – I’ve been writing this in my head, and this was going to be the running order. This succulent island paradise has long been re-colonised by celebrities, princes and make-up moguls First, colour. The cream scoops of the dhows racing the channel between Shela and Manda islands, teak masts tipped at a rakish slant; sundowners at Peponi after a long swim in the mangroves; the Lamu dawn chorus, an ear-splitting stereo of the 5 a.m. call to prayer and the frantic hee-hawing of donkeys; the

Melissa Kite

My turbulent flight with the hen do crew

‘Oggy oggy oggy!’ shouted the Italian flight attendant over his intercom, and all the hen party ladies on the plane squealed with delight. I’m a nervous flier, so as I strapped myself into my seat I was already hyperventilating. It was not ideal that I was sharing my flight from London to Cork with a hen party and a head steward who was acting like he was off his rocker. The blonde girl in the seat next to me was giggling and shouting to her friends, and jumping up and down in her seat. I was about to tell her she really was going to have to stop doing that

Dot Wordsworth

Is it a ‘perigee-syzygy’ or a ‘supermoon’?

My husband was so delighted with the new-found term perigee-syzygy that he kept repeating it, until the syllables merged into his regular breathing and he fell asleep in his chair. The compound word means what the vulgar press call a supermoon. A syzygy is the lining-up of the moon, Earth and sun, producing a full moon (or a new moon, which is invisible because only the far side is illuminated). The perigee is when the moon is nearest the Earth (its furthest being the apogee). The distance varies because the moon orbits the Earth in an ellipse. The funny-looking word syzygy, used in English since the 17th century, merely comes

Luke McShane

Instant grandmaster

Fide, the international chess federation, awards a succession of titles on the way to grandmaster (GM) status – Candidate Master (CM), Fide Master (FM) and International Master (IM). These are significant milestones which usually represent years of effort, so it almost never happens that a player can ‘jump’ to grandmaster level without first becoming an IM. But 16-year-old Xue Haowen from Shenzhen, China is one of the rare exceptions. At the outset of the Hastings Masters, which began in the days after Christmas, Xue was seeded sixth, but he had no title, and his rating was based on just a handful of international events in the past few years. But to

Robin Oakley

From the army to Folly House: the story of Jamie Snowden

It is around 3 a.m. in Northern Ireland in the early 2000s as two British soldiers share a dank ditch waiting for the dawn. ‘What will you do when you leave the army, Sir?’ asks Corporal Jordan Wylie. ‘I’m going to train racehorses,’ says Captain Jamie Snowden. ‘And I’m going to make some money and send you a horse to win the Grand Military Gold Cup.’ As an in-demand amateur rider starting with point-to-points at 16, Jamie had already won Sandown’s trophy for services riders. At Sandhurst in 2002 on a day when his platoon were due to endure the rigours of gas attack training, he was booked out instead