Society

Sunday

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: Speeches as sonnets

Your latest challenge was to recast a famous political speech as a sonnet. Lots of you opted for Elizabeth I’s address to the troops at Tilbury, but James Aske got there first in 1588, the year she gave it, with a verse reworking that appeared in Elizabetha Triumphans, his celebration of the Armada victory. You were on mischievous form this week and clearly gave careful thought to your choice of speech. The winners, who each pocket £20, are printed below. First up is Ann Drysdale’s version of Cromwell’s dissolution of the rump parliament. Ann Drysdale/Cromwell’s speech to the Commons, 1653 Its time to close the curtain on this farce, Your

Friday

Matthew Lee

The Spectator Podcast: is there any hope for Brexit?

This week, the Supreme Court gave its bombshell ruling – Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament was unlawful. With parliament resuming the very next day, Boris Johnson has been dealt a humiliating defeat. Yet, MPs still won’t trigger a general election, until Boris requests a Brexit extension. So is there any escape for the Prime Minister, or for Brexit? In this week’s cover piece, Rod Liddle is less than optimistic, arguing that, as he predicts in his book, the Establishment just will not let Brexit happen. On the podcast, Lara Prendergast speaks to Rod and Anand Menon, Director of the think tank UK in a Changing Europe. Rod rails against the

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: We must grasp the dangers of cannabis before it’s too late

On judging the judges Sir: The spectacle of judges questioning essentially political decisions is not an edifying one. But we should be slow to dismiss the importance of the role of judicial review. Dr Ekins is justifiably troubled by the escalation of appeals to the Supreme Court in politically sensitive terrain. (‘Judgment day: the danger of courts taking over politics’, 21 September), but there are a number of positive features of this always contentious activity. First, it is the proper responsibility of the judiciary to determine the moral principles which underpin our law and to apply them as they do the law itself. Secondly, judicial review is a powerful check

The Spectator

How many people have swum the Channel?

Journey’s end Holidaymakers are being flown home after travel company Thomas Cook failed. The idea might have horrified the company’s eponymous founder, whose first excursion was a temperance outing from Leicester to Loughborough on 5 July 1841, on a charter train from the Midland Railway Company. All 500 tickets were swiftly sold. A holiday from Leicester to Liverpool and North Wales followed in 1845, including several nights in temperance hotels and a night-time ascent of Snowdon. Thomas Cook went on to organise trips to the 1851 Great Exhibition for 150,000 from the Midlands. Financial health A Labour activist and parent of a patient accused the Prime Minister on a visit

Taki

An elegy for New York

New York The master of the love letter to New York, E.B. White, eloquently described the city as a place that can ‘bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy’. Like many of us, he believed that the place would last and that it would always matter. White was an optimist, sophisticated and thoroughly American. He was lucky to die in 1985. I say lucky because fate spared him from seeing the wreckage of his dream city. New York was also my dream place, an indelible part of my youth: a poem of steel-and-limestone majesty, of high-end shops, hotels, theatres and nightclubs, of dandies and high-class women, of

Jeremy Clarke

Why Sodom and south Devon are a million miles apart

We gathered around in the sunshine and watched the coffin being lowered into the freshly dug trench. Stratifications visible on the interior sides of the excavation showed that she was being laid to rest in shallet (compacted broken slate) and I felt sorry for whoever it was who had volunteered to dig it by hand. The 180-year-old graveyard was perhaps seven eighths full; her allotted plot was in a pleasant, even beautiful spot, far away from the cold shadow of the church, with a small, wind-bent hawthorn tree close by and panoramic view of the blue bay. I think some of those present will remember this dazzling September and our

Melissa Kite

The rise of the Brexitainers

The Union Jack is flying on the front of my house. After a long discussion with the local council, planning officials confirmed that anyone can fly the national emblem on their home, so long as they don’t use a flagpole, which requires planning permission. I was advised by an official to drape the flag from an upstairs window, so that is what the builder boyfriend has done. It looks beautiful. I do hope lots of us will out ourselves as patriots in this way — a 5ft by 3ft flag is only £4.99 on eBay, free P&P. The next four weeks is a battle for the idea of the nation

Robin Oakley

When nice guys come first

With shorter days and leaves falling, I begin to itch for the more sporting, less obviously commercial world of jump racing. But Newbury’s classy card last Saturday, sponsored for the 24th year by Dubai Duty Free, proved the perfect reminder that the Flat too can provide character, good humour and success for the small battalions. Eric Alston started as an apprentice jockey on two shillings and sixpence a week and began his training career in 1981 while a dairy farmer rising at 4 a.m. for milking. Plying his trade on the outskirts of Preston he is hardly in fashionable racing territory but anybody who loves the sport knows that he

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: A Supreme Court ruling, Labour’s messy conference and Donald Trump’s ‘impeachment’

Home Eleven justices of the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that in advising the Queen to prorogue parliament ‘the Prime Minister’s advice to Her Majesty was unlawful, void and of no effect’. This was because the prorogation had ‘the effect of frustrating or preventing, without reasonable justification, the ability of parliament to carry out its constitutional functions’. The court was not ‘concerned with the Prime Minister’s motive’. The court cited the Case of Proclamations (1611) to show that the limits of prerogative powers were determined by the courts. The judgment overturned the decision of the High Court that the prorogation should not even be considered by the courts. Lady Hale, the

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: Is it OK for a couple to ask us to contribute to their savings as a wedding gift?

Q. Every three months or so my PA blossoms into a great beauty for a couple of weeks, then has a savagely short haircut. My wife agrees that the almost shaven-headed look is unflattering, but thinks the problem lies with her young peer group, many of whom work in fashion. She is not the sort of colleague to accuse me of harassment, but I cannot think of a tactful way of telling her, without seeming as though I am spending too much time thinking about her looks. — Name and address withheld A. Do nothing. It is a pity for your PA not to make the best of herself but

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The rule of law has become the rule of lawyers

Is that enormous silver spider that Lady Hale wore her badge of office? If so, it is appropriate. The Supreme Court has decided to tie up the government in a web of legal reasoning so tight that it can no longer govern. In his dissenting judgment in the earlier Miller case about Article 50, Lord Reed warned that ‘the legalisation of political issues is not always appropriate and may be fraught with risk, not least for the judiciary’. Unusually — as if to compensate for these words — his name was joined with that of Lady Hale in giving the judgment on Tuesday. He would have done better to heed his

The Spectator

The balance of power in our constitution has been lost

Until recently, we used to comfort ourselves with the thought that the United Kingdom’s uncodified constitution was a great national strength. We didn’t need guidance laid down in one document because precedence, compromise and common sense were enough to ensure the smooth operation of power. As soon as a document is written, power passes from democratic institutions to courts where activist judges can interpret these documents in a political way. In Britain, this is not meant to happen. Our legal system has been seen, world over, as politically neutral, one of the most trustworthy in the world. So what are we to make of a Supreme Court granting itself powers

Raymond Keene

Double fianchetto

In my pantheon of heroes a particular place of honour is occupied by the hypermodern grandmaster Richard Réti, the first to adopt the double fianchetto since the days of Howard Staunton.   Réti-Yates: New York 1924; Réti Opening (See diagram 1)   12 Rc2 This manoeuvre connected with this rook move must have struck onlookers as nothing short of revolutionary. Réti is planning to place his queen, the most powerful piece, on the extreme flank at a1. This is consistent with his theory that occupying the centre with pawns in classical style, as Black has chosen to do, exposes the pawns to pressure from the wings. 12 … Bd7 13 Qa1 Ng6

Raymond Keene

no. 573

White to play. This position is from Van Foreest-Bortnyk, St Louis 2019. How did White break through on the kingside with a fine blow? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 1 October or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk. 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 Qxe8+ Last week’s winner Reginald Chaplin, Woodford Green, Essex

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 26 September 2019

The World Championships, held in Wuhan, China, came to the end of a gruelling eight days of qualification (eight teams out of 24 go through to the knockout stage) and England made it in all four events: Open, Seniors, Women and Mixed. The Open team was not clear until the very last match when a dramatic board appeared earning them 16 badly needed IMPs. In one room Artur Malinowski made two spades doubled (+670) while at the other table Andrew Robson and Tony Forrester beat four spades doubled by three tricks for +800. In they sailed to claim seventh position.   Unfortunately, I haven’t watched many boards due to the

Lavatch

2427: In other words

The unclued lights are of a kind, all confirmed in Chambers or Oxford. A portmanteau word (7) defining this phenomenon (verified in Oxford) must be highlighted in the completed grid. Ignore two accents.   Across 1    Fazed soldier losing face before VE Day (8) 8    Book musical with delayed start (4) 12    Playing records with no musical instruction (9) 13    Time to stop monkey goddess (5) 15    Person chanting beside private houses (7) 17    A figure in divine sun (4) 18    Stripped off Greek girl (5) 19    As grain may be, or pea under ground (8) 22    Swinger welcoming popular retailer (8) 23    Tiles of oak star designed (7) 25   

John Keiger John Keiger

Jacques Chirac leaves behind a limited legacy

The death today of the Fifth Republic’s fifth president, at the age of 86, is also the passing of its most romanesque character. Tall and debonair, Jacques Chirac’s charms worked their magic with the ladies at a higher rate than even the standard operating procedure for most French presidents. Chirac’s social and political ascension bears the stamp of Balzac. A provincial lower middle-class republican upbringing in the rural Corrèze is transformed by the stereotypical transfer to Paris at the behest of a local patron. Good schooling followed by the elite nurseries for top civil servants – Sciences Po and ENA – put the boy Chirac on the right path. Marriage in

The Spectator

to 2424: Poem V

The poem is La Belle Dame sans Merci by John Keats. ATONY (2), CORYZA (3), LOCKJAW (6), ENTERITIS (8) and NEUROMA (13) are examples of WHAT CAN AIL THEE (1A), while AND NO BIRDS SING might be a comment on GOOSE (26), MARABOU (28), CRANE (38) and RAVEN (39). JK, upwards in the tenth column, was to be shaded.   First prize David Threasher, London W5 Runners-up Chris Edwards, Pudsey, Leeds; Mrs J. Sohn, Gorleston, Great Yarmouth

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cast off: how knitters turned nasty

At first glance, Nathan Taylor might seem the very definition of a ‘right on’ hipster. He goes by the name of ‘Sockmatician’ online and he’s famous in the knitting world for his complicated double-knit patterns. On his Instagram, in between videos of people speed-knitting and many, many photos of socks, Taylor had posts about what it was like to be an HIV-positive man who came out in the 1980s. He dislikes Donald Trump and Brexit. He has even set up ‘inclusive hashtags’ such as #diversknitty, and his profile carefully sets out the pronouns people should use to address him. So far, so woke. But recently Sockmatician has found himself accused