Society

Sunday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

We should heed the world’s warnings about China

Mathias Döpfner is that still rare thing — an outspoken German. I have known him slightly for many years and admire his brain and boldness: a long time ago he even came close to buying the Telegraph Group. The 6ft 7in CEO of Axel Springer has just issued a challenge to Europe and particularly to his own country. In an article published on Sunday, he told Germany that it must stop dithering and choose. The coronavirus, he says, has brought out the great danger the Chinese Communist party presents to the West. If Germany does not lead the EU to side with the United States (and with post-Brexit Britain, Australia

Saturday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Spare a thought for undertakers during this pandemic

Our neighbour, the much-respected local undertaker, conducted twice as many funerals in April as in the same month last year. One might be tempted to say ‘It’s an ill wind…’, but in fact it has been grim, both from a professional and a human point of view. ‘We have had,’ he says — with a double meaning he notices only after he has said it — ‘to think outside the box.’ Coffins are in short supply, ‘unless people want the willow or bamboo’. With no new traditional wooden ones available until early June, he has had to get in cardboard versions as a back-up. The firm is not allowed to

Friday

Robert Tombs

In defence of the British Empire

Is it my imagination, or are the whitened bones of the British Empire being yet again dug up and trampled underfoot? The latest Labour party manifesto promised ‘an audit of the impact of Britain’s colonial legacy to understand our contribution to the dynamics of violence and insecurity across regions previously under British colonial rule’. The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is redesigning its British galleries to link every statue and teapot to the Empire ‘with all of its systems of exploitation’. Jesus College Cambridge intends to return a bronze cockerel seized from Benin in a punitive expedition in 1897. Some Cambridge students and academics are pressing to ‘decolonise’ the

Merlin Hanbury-Tenison

My father is home at last

Today is my father, Robin Hanbury-Tenison’s, 84th birthday and miraculously he was able to wake up in his own bed and listen to the spring warbling of a green woodpecker while watching the swallows cavorting on the veranda in front of his bedroom. He was brought home three days ago in an ambulance having spent seven weeks flickering between life and death while battling Covid-19 at Derriford Hospital. I would be lying if I pretended my, usually unshakable, faith in his invincibility hadn’t wavered at several points during this ordeal. Many tears of joy and relief were shed as he was wheeled out by a paramedic on Monday evening and

Thursday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Who can tame the virus?

32 min listen

The government is looking at easing the lockdown, but how much remains unknown about the coronavirus (00:40)? In the meantime, Joe Biden is batting off sexual assault allegations (10:15), and we take a look at the upside of lockdown for new parents (21:30). With science writer Matt Ridley, virologist Elisabetta Groppelli, Spectator USA editor Freddy Gray, host of the ‘Democratically: 2020’ podcast Karin Robinson, the Spectator’s Assistant Editor Lara Prendergast, and Editor of the Times Literary Supplement Stig Abell.

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Keeping schools closed until September would hammer poor kids

Schools should stay closed until September, according to a big teaching union: In view of the continued and pressing public health challenges and the considerable task that will be required to ensure that every school is ready to admit increased numbers of children and adults into safe learning and working environments, the NASUWT urges ministers to act to end speculation on the reopening of schools beyond the current restrictions prior to September 2020. That’s the latest from Patrick Roach, head of the NASUWT. This is a hardening of the line from teaching unions, and one that I think has the potential to cause significant tensions with the government. It’s worth noting

Christopher Snowdon

Are public health cuts to blame for the UK’s pandemic response?

As we begin to learn best practice in the fight against Covid-19, it is notable that the handful of countries that have reduced the number of new cases to zero have used diagnostic testing and contact tracing on a large scale and have recommended the use of face masks. After two frantic months, the UK has just about got a handle on testing, but its embryonic contact tracing app has the hallmarks of every government IT fiasco, and there are barely has enough face masks for health workers, let alone the general public. No country can prepare perfectly for a new viral pandemic, but Britain’s public health system has fallen

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Sino-scepticism is becoming a defining trait of the Tory party

Coronavirus has accelerated the deterioration in relations between the United States and China. The US Presidential election is turning into a question of who can be tougher on China and regardless of who wins in November, US policy is going to become more hawkish. As I say in the magazine this week, this has major implications for the UK. It is going to become much harder for the government to further an economic relationship with China while maintaining Britain’s unique security partnership with the US. But just as this crisis has sped up a change in American attitudes to China, it has done the same within the Tory party. One

Susan Hill Susan Hill

In the Covid era, age isn’t just a number

When I told my seven-year-old granddaughter, over Zoom, how much I missed being with her, I added: ‘Maybe it won’t be much longer before I can see you.’ But she said that it would be some time, as ‘the government are going to stop old people seeing anyone because of the virus’. Asked what was meant by ‘old people’, she said: ‘I think anybody more than 54.’ Clearly some misunderstanding. At nearly 25 years beyond 54, I am correctly classed as old; some days I feel it, most days I don’t, but I am well, have most of my marbles and am working hard. Age is just a number. Except

Christopher Fletcher

Even the owl in my garden is self-isolating

My tawny owl has been self-isolating. I say mine but in truth she chose the nest box in my neighbour’s garden rather than the one I almost killed myself to install, balancing it on my head as I scaled a rickety old ladder. A couple of months ago I spotted the owl, happily sitting in the box’s entrance in the weakening sun. A pattern was established. Every evening as day drained away, I went into the garden, balancing my old Zeiss binoculars alongside a glass of white. The owl would fly in silently from the south, sit around for a while and then disappear into the box. These regular sightings

Mark Piggott

Can we stop with the VE Day moral relativism?

Fantastic news that the 75th anniversary of the end of hostilities in Europe will be a more sombre, sober affair this year due to our current mortal foe, coronavirus. Three days of celebrations had been planned, including processions, street parties and church services, almost all of which have had to be postponed. A good thing, too, according to the Guardian – because celebrating the end of war has become ‘toxic’ and ‘divisive’. Whether seeing a bunch of old soldiers meeting up for what will probably be the last time is as toxic and divisive as world war two is, of course, open to question. It’s mind-numbingly predictable to find such

Luke McShane

Magnus wins Magnus Carlsen Invitational

‘I haven’t felt this kind of tension in a long while. This was real!’ Those were Magnus Carlsen’s words, after barely scraping through his semi-final match with Ding Liren at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, which concluded last weekend. The event was hosted on the chess24 website and boasted a $250,000 prize fund. (Carlsen’s company, Play Magnus, merged with chess24 last year). The world champion assembled a formidable line-up, including five players from the recently postponed World Championship Candidates tournament. It is clear that Carlsen finds Ding to be a troublesome opponent. China’s top player has notched up several victories in speed chess, including a memorable triumph in the playoff of

Luke McShane

No. 603

Black to play. Ding–Nakamura, Magnus -Carlsen Invitational, April 2020. The position appears sterile, but Nakamura spotted a clever winning move. What was it? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 11 May. 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 Rg4+! Kf3 2 Rf4+! Ke3 3 Rf3+ Kxf3 is a draw by stalemate. Black can only avoid this by giving up his knight. Last week’s winner Tom Kinninmont, London N10

Fieldfare

2456: So American

Unclued lights (five of two words) are of a kind, singly, three pairs and a trio. Across 11 Ban on cats, dogs, etc about to be crushing (6, two words) 13 Benign swelling of rib worried old woman (7) 15 Almost flat out on a part of boxing ring (5) 16 Titivate to run for Scotland in park (5) 18 Adjusts holidays round Spain (6) 19 Devastate teacher before period (6) 20 Characteristics of a race: them, cycling (5) 22 Vintage in drinking mug, I carp (7) 28 Carnal love defiled old sacred text (7) 30 Pretends an expression of surprise, opening text (5) 31 Place in Ireland good, invariably

The Spectator

Track and trace should not be our only exit strategy

The concept of the state tracking our every movement is anathema to this magazine and, we assume, to its liberal former editor now resident in Downing Street. Nevertheless, such is the impasse over coronavirus that it is right the government should attempt to exit lockdown via the application of a voluntary ‘track and trace’ on mobile phones, trials of which began on the Isle of Wight this week. Track and trace appears to have worked for Asia so, given what’s at stake, it’s reasonable to try it here. South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam — the countries which employed tracking and tracing from an early date — appear to have dealt with

Melissa Kite

My toilet ultimatum to the builder boyfriend

The rain showers had a strange and wondrous effect. All the cyclists, joggers and dog walkers that were coming from miles away to take their essential exercise in the countryside magically disappeared. No one we didn’t recognise took any essential exercise in the downpours, but then resumed it when the weather changed. I find this odd because the explanation of the day-trippers for putting their bikes and their backpacks and their hiking equipment and their picnic baskets into the backs of their cars had been that they really, really needed to do that — come hell, high water or Covid. The locked-down inhabitants of towns and cities needed to pedal

The Spectator

Letters: The toilet paper stockpile that lasted 80 years

The case for small homes Sir: Your editorial rightly highlights what must be one of the government’s priorities once the worst of this crisis abates (‘Call that care?’, 2 May). I have been the owner and manager of a small, five-bedroom care home for nearly 30 years and, having had a majority of privately funded residents, can recognise ‘the iniquity whereby residents with savings have found themselves cross subsidising those who are funded by local authorities’. The government should firstly allow the payment of care home fees to be tax refundable. It is only fair that those who are saving the state the money for their care should at least

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Neil Ferguson quits, Rory Stewart drops out and Boris names his baby

Home The government put its mind to the puzzle of how to get people back to work. Draft advice was for office workers to avoid sharing staplers and to face the wall in lifts. An Ipsos Mori poll found that 61 per cent of people would feel not very comfortable about using public transport. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, appeared at a daily coronavirus press conference and said: ‘We have come through the peak, or rather we have come under what could have been a vast peak, as though we have been going through some huge Alpine tunnel, and we can now see the sunlight and the pasture ahead of

Peter Jones

Cicero would have been quick to end the lockdown

The Prime Minister recently quoted Cicero’s famous dictum salus populi suprema lex esto, translating it as ‘Let the health (salus) of the people be the supreme law’. No surprise there: he had just returned from his sick bed. But as he knows very well, that injunction was military: salus meant ‘security, safety’. The consuls must do whatever was needed to ensure the state’s survival. The state’s survival today is not a military but an economic issue. One interesting consequence is that it has become fashionable among the old to express a desire to help by being unlocked at once and so swept away by Covid-19. Then the young, most of