Society

Thursday

3 Sep 2020

Steerpike

Is Extinction Rebellion extinct?

When Extinction Rebellion took over the streets of London last year, even some of those who disagreed with the aims of the movement found the number of protesters an impressive sight. Thousands of people descended on the capital, blocking streets and causing chaos as they desperately tried to outfox police officers. This week, Extinction Rebellion is back. But the turnout is underwhelming, to say the least. In Parliament Square – scene of a mass gathering last year – only a few dozen protesters were in attendance this lunchtime. And it has been a similar story for much of this week. The coronavirus pandemic has caused political and economic chaos and is likely to

Robert Peston

The case for cautious optimism ahead of a second wave

The cause of the latest spike of coronavirus cases in Bolton points to why we need continued vigilance against Covid-19, and why it would be highly surprising if we were not now set on an upward national trend. The locus of the Bolton surge was some pubs, and possibly one in particular. And it may be connected to young people socialising after returning from higher risk holiday destinations. This is an important phenomenon. It means the outbreak is correlated with life in general returning to semi-normal, rather than to specific cultural or localised factors. The point is that the data shows earlier summer surges in parts of the Midlands and

Ross Clark

We may be closer to herd immunity than previously thought

Are we a lot closer to achieving herd immunity with Covid-19 than has been made out? It is a question which has been asked many times, not least because the disease has a tendency to fizzle out in communities where around a fifth of people have been infected – as has been observed in London, New York, the Brazilian city of Manaus and the Diamond Princess cruise ship. The government’s switch away from a herd immunity strategy to one of full lockdown in March, on the other hand, was based partly on the assumption that we would need at least 60 per cent of people to be infected before herd

Joanna Williams

What’s galling about the Sussexes’ Netflix announcement

All year, the nation has been gripped by one mystery. Exactly how will Harry and Meghan fund the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed? How on earth will they pay for the Californian mansion (£11 million), the security detail (£5 million a year) and the costs of the Frogmore Cottage refurbishment (£2.4 million)? Well, now we know. The couple have signed up to a multi-million pound deal with Netflix that will see them producing ‘inspirational’ children’s programmes and documentaries. Hoping to follow in the footsteps of the Obamas, they will reportedly receive an exclusivity fee of £3.7m, up to £1.5m each year as a retainer, as well as fees

Dr Waqar Rashid

We have lost sight of what a positive Covid case means

In a year that almost everyone will want to forget there is some emerging good news. Covid-19 related hospital admissions are undoubtedly falling. By the end of August there were barely over 300 people in hospital in England with coronavirus listed as a diagnosis, and only 46 in London. To put this into context, the figure was over 15,000 at the peak of the infection. The virus has not gone, of course, but positive data like this is a reminder of how the challenge is now very different. As a doctor I have over the years come to realise a few different things. The more you learn, the more you

Patrick West

The BBC’s bid to axe left-wing comedy will fail

People of a conservative or Eurosceptic disposition should be thankful that the BBC’s new director general, Tim Davie, is to address the widely-held perception that its comedy output is disproportionately left-wing. For years, listeners and viewers of the likes of The News Quiz, The Now Show, Mock The Week and Have I Got News For You have been subjected to – and bored by – an endless stream of quips and invectives at the expense of the Conservative party, Donald Trump and Brexiteers. According to a Daily Telegraph report, the BBC is to tackle this imbalance. Some of these shows might even be axed altogether. Yet this could be a

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 5 September 2020

A major pandemic has been sweeping through the bridge world since the game went online — and it’s called cheating. Who would have thought so many people would succumb to temptation, and what does it say about human nature? ‘Self-kibbitzing’ — that weirdly euphemistic term which means logging on under a different name to see all four hands at your table — has been rife, from club players to world champions (such as the two Janet named in her recent column). Even worse, some pairs have been cheating collusively — yes, actually texting or phoning each other to convey information. Things are so bad that almost half my bridge friends

Luke McShane

Act of God

Man plans, God laughs. Fide, the international federation, organised an Online Olympiad, with 163 teams taking part. We got a global internet outage during the final. The disruption hit the Indian players at a critical stage, in the second of two matches against Russia. (The first was tied 3-3). India were soon to be trailing 2.5-1.5, but had realistic hopes to even the score on the two remaining boards. But when those two players lost their connection to the website where the games were played, their time elapsed and they lost. The Indians lodged an appeal, but the appeals committee couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict. It fell to Fide president

Luke McShane

No. 620

White to play. Zaibi–Napoleao, Online Olympiad, August 2020. White has just sacrificed the rook on a1. He concluded the attack in fine style. What was the winning move? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 7 September. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 hxg5! White eventually drew. Not 1 Kxg5? Qh6+ 2 Kf5 g6+! and 3…Qxf8. 1 Kg3? Qe3+ 2 Kg2 gxh4 is bad too. Last week’s winner Andrew English, Abingdon, Oxon

Doc

2473: May

The unclued lights (two of two words) are of a kind. Across 12 To make sense of Sun puzzle, many go on and on (10)14 17 regularly discloses gun? (3)15 One fated, cruelly, to have no ear? (8, hyphened)17 A medic’s morning tipple? (5, two words)19 We’re told Roman king suffers ruin (6)22 Rallying cry evoking terrible noises (6)24 One in a suit amongst the artillery (5)26 One nominated for a benefice is here mid-week (9)27 Chemical compounds – a kilo lad’s carried away (9)29 Novelist whom Douglas Kidman embraces (5)31 Eloquent and well-off, without a female in the lead (6)34 Bouts of drinking on German water’s enjoyed by shoppers?

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Case takes over civil service, Zoom profits rocket and Ocado adopts M&S

Home Simon Case, aged 41, the private secretary to the Duke of Cambridge 2018-20, was appointed Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, in succession to Sir Mark Sedwill. A civil servant since 2006, Case had been Permanent Secretary at Downing Street since May. Six days earlier, Jonathan Slater was dismissed as Permanent Secretary at the Department of Education. Piers Corbyn, the elder brother of Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the Labour party, was given a penalty without trial of £10,000 for his part in organising a rally in Trafalgar Square calling for the repeal of the Coronavirus Act, passed in March, which gave the government sweeping powers.

Taki

Bob Geldof is an unconventional Zoom host

Gstaad I experienced my first Zoom conference last week, and didn’t think much of it. As the great Yogi Berra once remarked, ‘You can observe a lot by just watching,’ but in my case I observed very little and heard quite a lot. I suppose that one day every meeting will be conducted Zoom-style, but I bet my bottom dollar they’ll never be as preposterous as the annual Pugs Club get-together. As everyone knows, Pugs is the world’s most exclusive club, by a long shot. It once had 21 members, but we lost Christopher Lee, and then our president, Nick Scott, and our commodore, Tim Hoare. Pugs has neither a

Melissa Kite

Beware cars with National Trust stickers

Always the National Trust sticker. It feels like every time a car parks across the gateway to my horses’ field there is a National Trust sticker in the windscreen. Sometimes there are several stickers in varied colours, the permits of different years, one above the other, like a star rating system for lefties. A few weeks ago, a shiny black car with five National Trust stickers parked sideways on, blocking not only the gateway but the stile beside it so people couldn’t access the footpath. When I caught up with the two men who got out of the car, asking them to please go back and move, they were, in

Jeremy Clarke

The A272 is a relic of the golden age of motoring

In France I own a dented old Mercedes and in England a dented old Mitsubishi Carina. The Mercedes is parked in a cave and covered in sand dust and curling police notices in French; the Mitsubishi rots away in a lay-by in a country lane under a layer of wet leaves, mud and thatching straw. Owing to lockdown and poverty neither is fully functional nor has been started for months. Very occasionally I worry about them or experience a stab of shame at my pedestrianism. Last week I hired a budget car from the brand-new car-hire centre at Bristol airport, the first time I’ve rented a car in 20 years.

Andrew Sullivan

My run-in with the New York Times

It’s never a good sign when you’re watching a scene of street terror in yet another gut-churning YouTube video and you find yourself thinking: ‘Hang on a minute, that’s around the corner from my apartment!’ But there’s a now infamous video from last week where a mob of enraged millennials with their fists pumped in the air surrounded a lone young woman sitting outside a Washington restaurant where I often eat. Like a scene from the Cultural Revolution, the crowd demanded she shout certain slogans and raise her clenched fist in solidarity — or be damned as a racist. Most of her fellow diners took the path of least resistance.

The Spectator

Letters: The growing cladding crisis

Cladding fear Sir: Emma Byrne’s report on the cladding scandal (‘Ill clad’, 29 August) will have given many of those affected real hope that our plight is acknowledged. I am the first in my family to go to university, so getting on the property ladder was a major achievement. I bought my flat under shared ownership. Three years ago, we were told our building did not have dangerous cladding — only to learn later that this was not the case. My housing association is still unable to tell us how dangerous my home is. But it has warned we may have to pay to have the cladding removed. If the

Will Heaven

Downside’s downfall: the dissolution of a monastery

The monks of Downside Abbey in Somerset elected a new abbot last Thursday, according to sixth-century rules laid down by St Benedict. The next day, they sent an email notification saying they had voted ‘to make a new start and to seek a new place to live’. It was a shock to those who know the place. The monks will leave behind a beautiful abbey church built in the Gothic Revival style — its 166ft tower visible for miles around — a monastery and cloisters, the largest monastic library in Britain and a grand-looking public school with more than 300 pupils. It’s as if a piece of English Catholicism, like

The Spectator

From the archive: With the Benedictines

From 18 October 1946: Their whole aim and object is to exemplify in their lives and corporate activity their sense of participation in the mystical Body of Christ; and they believe that prayer in common and, above all, the maintenance of a spirit of prayerfulness throughout the day brings them nearer to it than the excessive individualism of such Renaissance mystics as St Theresa and St John of the Cross. Consequently, little or no time is allotted to private prayer, the stress being put upon group-loyalty after the pattern of the early Christians. The whole life hangs together as by a gossamer-thread; but to realise it, to feel its full

Martin Vander Weyer

Now get off your sofa to help save the arts

Along, cold weekend brought a haul of business news more bad than good. The worst was from aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce, which announced a £5.4 billion half-year loss — adverse currency movements plus a collapse in new orders and engine-repair work — and warned that in the ‘plausible downside scenario’ of an extended slump in global aviation, the company might cease to be a ‘going concern’. That’s a horrendous prospect for what’s left of British engineering. And unlike recent losses on a similar scale at BP, there’s no consolation in terms of long-term repositioning of the business: in short, the fewer jets flying, the grimmer Rolls’s future. As cash runs out,

Robin Oakley

Racing can’t survive without crowds

We all have weeks when every win bet finishes second and every each-way comes home in fourth. You begin to feel as though the Fates have something against you personally, as with the American punter who had lost his job, his wife and his home. Call him Fred Jones. On a seaside racecourse he invests his last ten dollars on a Tote jackpot. All six horses come in, but as he approaches the pay window, joyfully brandishing his win ticket, a gust of wind whips it from his hand and blows it out to sea. Despairingly, he sinks to his knees and implores aloud: ‘Just what have I done to