23 min listen
On this week’s podcast, Freddy Gray explains how Trump could still pull his greatest trick yet (00:45) Emma Byrne considers whether she will be bankrupted by the next housing scandal (12:30) Lara Prendergast argues that wearing floral masks isn’t worth the hassle. (19:11)
As billions wait with bated breath for the outcome of clinical trials on the new Covid-19 vaccines, many studies on other diseases have been halted. There are several reasons for this, not least the drop in revenue charities are receiving which is then used to fund studies. Additionally, coronavirus continues to dominate the medical landscape both in terms of the availability of doctors to do research and the willingness of patients to visit hospitals. Given the ongoing impact of the epidemic, it’s no surprise that so many resources are being piled into the search for a treatment for coronavirus. But this single-mindedness is coming at a great cost, not just
There are many reasons why employees might want to return to their offices and why their employers might be keen to get them there – such as to promote the exchange of ideas in an active environment, to help new recruits learn on the job, and, as Matthew Lynn argued here earlier, for employees to avoid their jobs being outsourced to South Asia. But is it really the job of government to launch a ‘back to the office’ campaign just to prop up the nation’s coffee shops? That is how the Prime Minister seems to see it, and he appears to be backed by Rishi Sunak, who, moved by news
The rise of the political satirist Nish Kumar baffles many. If you Google ‘Nish Kumar quotes’ you find a list of the ten witticisms most widely shared by his fans. ‘My parents wanted me to be a lawyer.’ ‘I have a strange nose: it’s big and weird.’ ‘When I am on stage I am often thinking about what I will eat after the show.’ This doesn’t help solve the mystery. Kumar is best known for anchoring ‘The Mash Report’ which the BBC believes is a satire show but which neutral viewers regard as a weekly political seminar that teaches liberals to avoid thinking for themselves. Kumar’s latest venture, Hello America,
What is a suitable punishment for those who kill a policeman? For PC Andrew Harper’s widow, Lissie, the sentences given to her husband’s teenage killers – a maximum of 16 years – were woefully insufficient. Many agreed. And now Lissie Harper has started a petition calling for ‘Harper’s law’. Half a million people have signed up, demanding a change in the law to ensure those convicted of killing a police officer, firefighter, nurse, doctor, prison officer or paramedic are jailed for life. But while it is impossible not to feel horror at the way in which PC Harper was killed – entangled in a tow rope and dragged along a road for over
No more commuting. An end to irritating conversations with slightly dull colleagues. The boss can’t monitor how much time you spend on Facebook anymore, and you have plenty of time to bake sourdough bread/try out online pilates/read the whole of Proust (delete as applicable). A few of us might even be able to carry on earning a salary while spending much of the year in Provence or Tuscany. It is perhaps no great surprise that the British have taken to working from home so enthusiastically. After all, what’s not to like? Well, perhaps this: while it may be great for now, many staffers may soon find that they aren’t employees
35 min listen
With protests in American cities continuing and the Democrat and Republican conventions drawing to a close – are there signs that Donald Trump could win again? (00:45) Plus, could planning reforms be the next Tory battle? (13:05) And finally, can daily commutes really be enjoyable? (25:45) With editor of the Spectator’s US edition Freddy Gray; the Spectator’s economics correspondent Kate Andrews; the Spectator’s political editor James Forsyth; economist and author Liam Halligan; the Spectator’s features editor; and author Sara Yirrell. Presented by Cindy Yu. Produced by Cindy Yu and Max Jeffery.
I have not played a single hand of bridge for about a month, neither have I kibitzed online. Ergo I have no bridge stories to tell and no players to tell them about. However, I have been reading a bit and one of my favourite bridge books is Geir Helgemo’s Bridge With Imagination. In most of the featured hands he finds some magical stardust to sprinkle over the cards, bamboozling the opps with his brilliance. Unusually, today’s hand, from the 2000 Bermuda Bowl round robin, features his teammates, fellow Norwegians Boye Brogeland and Erik Saelensminde (aka Silla) see diagram. West led a low heart which South (Silla) won with the
‘The British Museum stands in solidarity with the British Black community, with the African American community, with the Black community throughout the world. We are aligned with the spirit and soul of Black Lives Matter everywhere.’ So blogged the director of the British Museum, Hartwig Fischer, shortly after the death of George Floyd. Many such messages were rushed out by institutions, colleges and businesses at the time. It was never really clear why. Why did one cruel death, above all the other cruel deaths always happening in the world, require this collective response? What led Dr Fischer to assume that ‘the British Black community’ must be at one with the
Staying in Britain for the summer has been, in many ways, entirely glorious. We have zigzagged from Shropshire through Derbyshire to the Northumberland coast, from Fife and Perthshire to Herefordshire and Devon. On the way, beautiful little towns and sweeping coastlines, not empty but not crammed either; excellent local food and plenty to keep us interested, from echoing cathedrals to buzzing bookshops. But it has also allowed me to see first hand just how desolate so many high streets are: not only the shops closed because of plague, but those shuttered, clearly from a long time back. Boarded up doors, bleached posters… If it wasn’t so wet, the tumbleweed would
After driving around the hospital grounds in concentric circles until I was surely down a wormhole, I found the scanning unit. It was shoehorned down a narrow alley and had four parking spaces outside its door, all of them empty, but the sign above them was clear: ‘Private parking, wheel-clamping in operation.’ It did not say patient parking. Most likely, with a sign like that, it was staff parking. I looked around and realised I was stuck down a dead end. My only option was to reverse backwards, craning my neck around because the old Volvo long ago ceased to have functioning beepers. As my neck was the reason I
Reading the speech Tony Hall gave to the Edinburgh Television Festival, I was struck by his upbeat, confident tone. The outgoing director-general of the BBC talked about how its reporting of the coronavirus crisis had brought its core mission as a public service broadcaster into sharper focus and boosted its popularity, particularly among 16- to 34-year-olds. He said his goal when he arrived at the BBC was to reach a global audience of 500 million by 2022, its centenary year, and this target has now been revised upwards to a billion by the end of the decade. ‘But it needs extra investment from government and that bid is with them
Q. For professional reasons it is important that I am not fat. However I have put on more than a stone and a half during lockdown. This would not matter in the short term as I am not required to appear anywhere physically for some weeks and am already on a successful weight-loss programme. My problem is that one of my competitors, so to speak, rang to say that she is going to be in the area and could she drop in for lunch. My kind but unthinking husband picked up and told her that she would be welcome. Under no circumstances can I let her see how fat I
It’s not about money Sir: Professor Tombs criticises Alex Massie (Letters, 22 August) for ignoring evidence when the latter claims that economic concerns ‘no longer matter’ in great political decisions. But the evidence from the last Scottish referendum tends to support Massie. At the beginning of the Scottish referendum campaign in 2014, polls showed 26 per cent of Scottish voters favoured independence. The Better Together campaign amassed compelling evidence that independence would be a financial disaster and set about presenting this to the Scottish public in an exercise they christened Project Fear. The result was a rise of support for independence to 45 per cent, and it is widely considered
There was only a handful of us arriving at Bristol on flight 6114 from Nice. Oscar and I had the leisure to choose which of the four available UK Border Force officers we most liked the look of. None of them were your usual bruisers. One was a careworn, perhaps broken old man and during the brief wait in the taped corridor we speculated on the nature of the tragedy that had brought him here to this. My speculative theory was that he had impulsively married an unpresentable woman, who had turned out to be an incurable alcoholic who beat him. Oscar’s was that he had been discharged from prison
Gstaad The jokes about keeping a mistress are old and I’ve yet to hear a truly funny one (‘The difference between a wife and a mistress is like day and night,’ and so on). Like many other good things, mistresses have fallen out of fashion, the closing pay gap between the sexes being one of the main reasons for their demise. History tells us a lot about great men who had mistresses, which most great men did. Beauty and physical attributes aside, the most important quality for a kept woman was her discretion, with a capital D. Which brings me to the downfall of ex-King Juan Carlos of Spain, whose
Within the next year or two, I could go bankrupt. My mistake: to join a government-backed affordable housing scheme and purchase a one-bedroom flat in east London. For the past four years, it has been my pride and joy — not to mention my savings, my pension and my financial future. I was grateful for the government’s help in getting a foothold in the city. But now another government policy is hurtling towards me, against which I have no defence. Nor do potentially tens of thousands of first-time buyers and the owners of affordable housing in my position. It might be the next big scandal to hit the government. It’s
Now that we must all wear face masks, it is hardly surprising that they have started to become a fashion accessory. An Israeli jeweller has created a gold and diamond-encrusted mask that is said to be worth $1.5 million. According to the designer, the man who commissioned the extravagant mask — which weighs nearly 100 times as much as a typical surgical mask — had two demands: that it be completed by the end of the year and that it be the most expensive mask in the world. Diamond-encrusted face masks may not yet be everywhere, but floral ones certainly are. Once you start spotting them, you will see them
Crowds, Covid and sport: could it get any crazier? I don’t mind about golf: no idiots yelling ‘Get in the hole’ at every opportunity. But Formula 1 without a few thousand petrol heads going berserk is even more tiresome than usual: a minor wheelspin at the start, then Lewis wins. One-day cricket in an empty ground will feel a bit odd. Not even a lone voice abusing Steve Smith in the upcoming games against the Aussies. Sport as purely a TV event is pretty limited. A friend had missed the PM’s volte-face on letting small crowds into the Bob Willis games, so was turned away when he tried to buy