Society

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Petition calls for Alastair Stewart to be reinstated

Last night, the veteran ITN news presenter Alastair Stewart announced that he was stepping down, after he was accused of racism when he quoted a Shakespeare passage to a member of the public online. In a statement following his departure, ITN said Stewart had made ‘errors of judgment in his use of social media’. The Shakespeare passage, from Measure for Measure, included the phrase ‘angry ape’, and was directed at a black man. But, soon after his departure it was discovered that Stewart had quoted the passage before, and in a statement this afternoon, the man who had complained about the newscaster’s behaviour, said that ‘a private apology would have

Fiona Mountford

Will ‘performative Europeanness’ end on Brexit day?

The Rubicon has almost been crossed, the die has almost been cast and whatever other choice phrases from European history spring to mind. As we leave the European Union, to the cheers of the 52 per cent and the tears of the 48, what most interests me as a reluctant Remainer is how, or indeed whether, it will affect our collective national sense of Europeanness. In certain – London, metropolitan – quarters, this somewhat elusive quality has been getting an exhaustive airing and we may well need to brace ourselves for a further mass outbreak of EU flag waving in the coming weeks. One of the most fascinating aspects of

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

The Michelin Guide’s tiresome sustainability award

The Michelin Red Guide is a marketing device to sell tyres by selling pastries. The guide was invented in 1900 by Michelin, the French tyre company, which is now the second-largest tyre company in the world. The guide initially covered restaurants in France, then spread to Belgium, the Alps, Germany, north Africa, Britain and, eventually, the USA and Japan. It began to award stars – the golden number is three – for restaurants in 1926, copying Baedeker’s and Murray’s guides and it insinuated the idea that French food is the best in the world. The Guardian quoted someone calling the Red Guide, ‘a tool of Gallic cultural imperialism’. One Michelin

Wednesday

Douglas Murray

In defence of Alastair Stewart

Here is a good test case going on before our eyes. The broadcaster Alastair Stewart has left his job of decades after sending a quotation of Shakespeare to a member of the public. The quotation (because it refers to an ape and the recipient happens to be black) is being interpreted as a sign of racism. A sign so grave that a long and illustrious career is over. So here is a test. Does ITV actually think that Alastair Stewart is a secret racist, really hates black people and has spent his life hating black people? Does it think that he has managed to hide this throughout the course of

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Don’t abandon privatisation because of Northern Rail

Jeremy Corbyn likes to say that he ‘won the argument’ at the last general election, where he argued – amongst other things – for the re-nationalisation of the railways. It was a popular policy. Today, as if on cue, the government announced that Northern Rail is being taken into public ownership, stripping Arriva Rail North of the franchise. So what’s going on? Should we now regard rail privatisation as a failure? For a start, we don’t have privatised rail. We have a hybrid system created under John Major, with private firms running (but not owning) the trains, and a notorious state-run Network Rail owning the track – its failures are

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: MEPs sing Auld Lang Syne as Brexit deal passes

Members of the European Parliament voted this afternoon to pass Boris Johnson’s Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, ensuring that Britain will leave the EU on 31 January, with a Brexit deal in place. The passing of Boris’s deal also heralded the close of Britain’s participation in the European Parliament, ahead of Brexit day on Friday. And, as expected, the vote ended up being an emotional moment for many MEPs, who chose to mark Britain’s departure by singing Robert Burns’ Auld Lang Syne. Watch here:

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour MP’s futile Select Committee protest

After the departure of Laura Pidcock from the House of Commons, many hoped that Labour had finally gotten over its factionalism and refusal to cooperate with politicians across the aisle. Apparently not though, judging by the behaviour of one of its MPs today. The party’s new MP for Coventry South, Zarah Sultana – who came under fire during the election, when several of her past social media posts implying she would celebrate the death of Tony Blair and Benjamin Netanyahu came to light – appeared very unhappy that Tory candidates might be seeking election to be the chair of a Select Committee. Sultana even posted a video of herself throwing

Ross Clark Ross Clark

In defence of Northern Rail

What a joy it is to travel on trains in Germany, where services are fast, efficient and always seem to arrive on time. Why can’t we have Deutsche Bahn running our own trains, rather than those imbeciles at Northern Rail, whose slovenly late-running services using rattling old rolling stock from the 1980s were so bad that its services are to be nationalised from 1 March? Oh, but hang a minute. Deutsche Bahn already is running those trains. Northern Rail’s parent company, Arriva, is a subsidiary of the German state railway company. In which case the question becomes: why can a company that seems to manage to run rail services in

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Westminster Cathedral’s musical heritage is under threat

The Catholic diocese of Westminster announced last week that it is holding ‘a strategic review of the role of sacred music in the mission of Westminster Cathedral’. It didn’t add: ‘because our master of music has walked out in despair, after warning that recent changes to the choir will ruin its sound’. But that is the situation and I suspect the purpose of the review is to extract Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, from the hole he has helped dig for himself. It’s a nightmare for Nichols because Westminster owns what you might call the Berlin Philharmonic of Catholic choirs. And even that doesn’t do its reputation justice,

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

We should be wary of our spooks’ complacency about Huawei

I might be feeling more confident about the government’s decision to give Huawei a limited role in building Britain’s 5G network, ‘on the advice of intelligence agencies’, were I not reminded of the effectiveness of British spooks by the recent appearances of Alexandre del Valle on French radio. Del Valle is the author of numerous books on Islamism and the Middle East, a knowledge accrued over many decades, including a spell in the late 1990s working for France’s General Secretariat for Defence and National Security, an inter-ministerial body answering to the Prime Minister. His latest book, The Project, explores how the Muslim Brotherhood has successfully spread across the West, and

Charles Parton

Why we’ll regret the Huawei gamble

It is apparently fine for China to ban western technology from its telecommunications network but quite unacceptable for us to prioritise our national security. The decision to allow Huawei into the UK’s 5G network is the first of many tough choices in the new technological era. And we’ve flunked it. Why is it a new technological era? Because we no longer simply buy goods in return for money. Increasingly we pay not just in coin, but in data as well; not just in a one-off transaction, but in a perpetual transfer of bytes back to the vendor. And when it comes to 5G, since it will underpin so much more

Louise Perry

The strange world of the radically left-wing Soas university

My alma mater, The School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas), enjoys a reputation disproportionate to its size. With fewer than 7,000 students, it is dwarfed by other the colleges of the University of London. Nevertheless, I find that any mention of where I studied tends to raise eyebrows: ‘oh I’ve heard a lot of stories about Soas’ a bank advisor told me recently. I replied that the stories were probably true. When it comes to Soas, they usually are. The university has come a long way since its founding in 1916. Its original function was as a finishing school for colonial officers, described by Lord Curzon as part of

Tuesday

Michael Auslin

The West can only blame itself for failing to prepare for Huawei

With Boris Johnson’s government deciding to allow Huawei into Britain’s ‘non-core’ 5G networks, London is charting a new path for Western nations dealing with Huawei. The UK is not the first European nation to accept Huawei as part of their national 5G systems, but it is perhaps the most significant. London’s success in limiting Huawei’s influence in the system, not to mention ensuring cyber security, will be the test of whether the world truly can live with Huawei, or whether resistance is futile against the dominant global telecommunications company. It also will force the American government to decide whether its current information-sharing arrangements with the UK are now at risk.

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

There’s a lot to like about today’s immigration recommendations

This morning, the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) released its much-anticipated assessment of an Australian-style points-based system, which has been touted by this government as their immigration system of preference after Brexit. The report has endorsed a combined system, including employer-led job offers (and salary thresholds) and a points-based system for those without a job offer. It recommends maintaining the current Tier 2 visa system for the majority of highly skilled migrants (currently the main non-EEA pathway to work in the UK, the Tier 2 already has some elements of a points-based system but requires the applicant to have job offer and predominantly relies on meeting salary requirements, with the threshold

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The stupidity of ‘smart’ motorways

How nice to hear Sir Mike Penning, chairman of something called the all-party parliamentary group for Roadside Rescue and Recovery, condemn ‘smart’ motorways as the death traps they are. The motorways use a variety of ‘smart’ methods to vary traffic flow, including part-time hard shoulders managed from a central control room and enforced using electronic motorway signs. Some smart motorways have no hard shoulder at all. This relatively new innovation was described by Penning’s group as a ‘public policy failure’ that has been introduced with a ‘shocking degree of carelessness’. In the past five years, 38 people have been killed on these stretches of motorway – which are so ‘smart’

William Cook

Nicholas Parsons: 1923 – 2020

Nicholas Parsons died this morning at the age of 96. In 2011, he was interviewed by William Cook for The Spectator, who noted that Parsons’ enduring success lay in his ability to laugh at himself: When I was a kid, watching Sale of the Century on my grandma’s colour telly, Nicholas Parsons used to seem like the smartest man in show business. Meeting him half a lifetime later, in a rooftop restaurant in Kensington, I’m pleased to find that he still looks just as dapper. His blue blazer is neatly pressed, his white shirt is crisply ironed and his bright eyes sparkle like a schoolboy’s. You’d never guess he was

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What will Boris’s immigration system look like?

What will the UK’s immigration system look like after leaving the EU? During the general election campaign, Boris Johnson committed to an Australian-style points based system. He also committed to bringing immigration levels down. But besides these two points, little is currently known about the specifics of how the new system will operate when it comes into effect next January after the transition period ends. Today, the Migration Advisory Committee – which provides the government with recommendations – has published a report intended to help the government add flesh to the bones of their plans. However, it raises potential issues over the current strategy being pursued by Johnson. The committee

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The Church of England isn’t ‘obsessed’ with sex

There’s been a shocked, wounded response on the part of pundits to the Church of England’s statement last week in response to the introduction of heterosexual civil partnerships. The Church observed that: ‘for Christians, marriage – that is, the lifelong union between a man and a woman, contracted with the making of vows – remains the proper context for sexual activity’. Just to clarify, the statement went on: ‘Sexual relationships outside heterosexual marriage are regarded as falling short of God’s purpose for human beings.’ In other words, the CofE restates the Christian understanding of sex. As in, the view shared by Catholics and Orthodox and by Christians generally over the

The Spectator

Wanted: a podcast producer for The Spectator

The Spectator is the world’s oldest (and Europe’s fastest-growing) magazine and is read by more people than ever. But our podcasts now get over 1.5 million downloads a month: demand is pretty big and we need a podcast producer to help the expansion. We currently have a one-person podcast team, Cindy Yu, who produces nine regular podcasts covering everything from Brexit and Trump to the latest releases in the literary and culinary world. We need someone who, at 8am, can have a decent idea for what to discuss on a Coffee House Shots; who can look at a copy of the magazine and suggests not just three topics for our

Monday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The deranged rage against the Brexit 50p coin

Remoaners are having the mother of all meltdowns. What’s rankled them this time? The Brexit 50p, of course. Yes, they’re now raging against a coin. I’m genuinely starting to worry about these people. To clarify, I’m not talking about Remain voters. There were 16.1m of those and the vast majority of them are perfectly normal people who understand how democracy works. They aren’t having sleepless nights about the new 50p, released to mark the UK’s departure from the EU. No, I mean hardcore Remainers, the FBPE people, the folks who think Brexit is literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to Blightly. I mean the kind of people who think