Society

Thursday

Paul Dacre

Paul Dacre: Do I regret the ‘Enemies of the people’ front page? Hell no!

So what to make of the extreme language, veering from the histrionic to the hysterical, dominating political discourse? The words ‘surrender’, ‘treachery’ and ‘sabotage’ ricochet around Westminster. According to Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Supreme Court’s verdict is a ‘constitutional coup’. For the Sun it’s ‘an incendiary coup by political judges’. David Cameron describes Michael Gove as a ‘foam-flecked Faragist’. Boris Johnson is painted as the Antichrist. All of which puts into perspective my own somewhat hackneyed contribution to this lexicon of acrimony. It is nearly three years since the Mail’s headline ‘Enemies of the people’ detonated a national debate over whether judges were hijacking political powers. Written five minutes before deadline,

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Why rugby is a perfect match for Japanese culture

The ITV set for the channel’s thunderingly good coverage of the Rugby World Cup is more Japanese than anything in Japan. And after the Brave Blossoms’ quite sensational victory over the Irish team — until recently rated world No. 1 — we need more Japaneseyness. More sushi. More Hiroshige. More Hokusai. We should never lose sight of how remarkable Japanese rugby is. The country has had a love affair with the game for more than 150 years. It’s all about konjo — the Japanese word for discipline, endurance, sacrifice, sincerity, courage, strength. There’s the samurai warrior for you: not somebody to mess with but deeply honourable too. They don’t look like

Aidan Hartley

Britain is following in the footsteps of Africa’s former failed states

Kenya   ‘In the past months the people of Uganda have been following with sorrow the alarming economic crisis befalling on Britain,’ Uganda’s President Idi Amin telegrammed the Queen in 1973. ‘The sad fact is that it is the ordinary British citizen who is suffering the most… I’m sending a cargo ship full of bananas.’ Back then Fleet Street hooted with laughter at this African buffoon trying to patronise the United Kingdom and its leaders. Yet I wonder what Idi Amin would be able to say about Britain and its leaders today. When I first started out as an FT Many African political systems today would never tolerate the things

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Sorry, sir, we only stock books we agree with

I was on my way to the pub the other evening, about seven o’clock, rain lashing down on my head, when I saw that there was a dim, yellowish light on in the bookshop. Peering closer through the downpour I could see five women sitting on a circle of chairs around either a table or a cauldron, talking animatedly to one another. Or perhaps chanting, I don’t know. I crossed the road and stood directly outside the shop window with my arms outstretched, mouthing at those inside: ‘Where’s my book? Where’s my book?’ Six weeks previously I had wandered into the shop to see if they were stocking The Great

Patrick West

Small but perfectly formed: The Romney and Hythe Railway

‘The smallest public railway in the world.’ So proclaims a faded poster at New Romney Station, the midpoint of the 15in gauge Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway which runs almost 14 miles along the south-western Kent coast from Hythe to Dungeness. Well, almost. The railway was indeed the world’s smallest public railway by gauge from 1927 until 1978, the year it lost the honour to the 12¼in gauge Réseau Guerlédan in France. The RM&DR regained the accolade the following year when the French line closed, only to lose it again in 1982 with the opening of the 10¼in gauge Wells and Walsingham Light Railway in Norfolk. Although the RM&DR steam

James Delingpole James Delingpole

At last, the TV-hogging space invaders have returned to university

‘Hands up which other university parents are bloody glad to have got rid of their lumpen, food-gobbling, space-invading kids…’ When I tweeted this the other day having just dumped my offspring at Durham I got accused of being a bad father. But I don’t think I am. A bad father wouldn’t have been labouring in the dark at 12.30 a.m. getting the car packed for the long trek north. A bad father wouldn’t have forked out so liberally and uncomplainingly for all those things they spring on you when you arrive — 30-odd quid for the week’s JCR induction entertainments; 25 quid (50 if you’d been naive enough to buy

Wednesday

Joanna Williams

Prince Harry’s misguided attack on the press

It had all been going so well. Coverage of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s tour to South Africa kicked off with footage of them dancing, before moving on to feature their work promoting the importance of gender equality in education and the horror of violence against women. We’ve been treated to rare pictures of baby Archie being introduced to Archbishop Desmond Tutu. And who doesn’t love a cute baby – especially one dressed in £14.99 chain store dungarees? So right on, but so relatable. We know all this because the press have been there, dutifully on message, diligently recording every royal smile. And the reward for this slick, glossy

Monday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Is plastic the enemy?

Is plastic the enemy? To watch Blue Planet and listen to Greta Thunberg, you might think so. But there are some things that plastic simply does better than the alternatives, which are not necessarily more eco-friendly in any case. So should we be looking for a better way to use the material, rather than to get rid of it altogether? To this end, we’ve brought together a few people who might know what they’re talking about – Julie Hill, Chair of the charity, Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), Michelle Norman, Director of Sustainability at Lucozade Ribena Suntory, and Kate Geraghty, Director Advocacy Europe & Middle East, Dow Packaging and Speciality

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