Society

Friday

Douglas Murray

The false equivalence between ‘Islamophobia’ and anti-Semitism | 8 March 2019

I have been travelling in the Middle East for the last few weeks and slightly regret returning to the maelstrom of ancient animosities and unbridgeable sectarianism that is modern Britain. But in my absence I see that one of the worst tropes of our time has been stalking unhindered across the land. That is, of course, the latest push to make an equivalence between anti-Semitism and the crock term ‘Islamophobia’. It is not just in the UK that this play has been made. In America over recent days people have been able to follow the progress of the new Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar, with her supporters deciding to deflect attention

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

The Spectator Podcast: woke corporations and an apology from Rod Liddle

When did corporate giants like KPMG, Proctor and Gamble, and Accenture become extensions of the campus safe space culture? Rainbow lanyards inspired by the LGBT Pride flag, email sign-offs to say that you are an ‘ally’ of minorities, and so-called unconscious bias training – these are just some of the things that corporations are encouraging their employees to take part in to demonstrate their wokeness. So, is this meaningless virtue-signalling or actually helpful to the minorities these measures profess to protecting? Toby Young bashes the entire woke corporate culture in this week’s cover article, and goes head to head in a fierce back and forth with our guest Berkeley Wilde,

Robert Jackman

Why ‘nice’ workplaces can be the nastiest of all

For those of us who have experienced life in a ‘woke workplace’, Toby Young’s Spectator cover story this week makes grimly familiar reading. My former workplace might even have a claim to be the worst of them all: Amnesty International. Some years before joining The Spectator, I worked a lowly communications gig at Amnesty’s London HQ. And while it’s true that many individual researchers were brilliant (constantly making life more difficult for some of the world’s ugliest regimes), the organisation itself was, well, a bit of a mess. And for the exact reasons Toby describes. But perhaps the worst thing about these workplaces is that, for all their progressive language,

Thursday

Toby Young Toby Young

The rise of the woke corporation

New employees at the British headquarters of Accenture, a global management consultancy, were slightly taken aback during a recent induction morning when the head of human resources encouraged them to wear rainbow-coloured lanyards declaring themselves ‘allies’ — not just at the meeting, but permanently. In addition, they were given the option of adding the word ‘ally’ in the same rainbow pattern to the footers of their company email addresses. Anyone confused by HR language — a reference to the second world war perhaps? — was referred to the company website, where the word ‘ally’ was helpfully defined: ‘An ally is someone who takes action to promote an inclusive and accepting

Raymond Keene

Bunratty | 7 March 2019

The Bunratty tournament in Ireland is one of the highlights of the chess year and always attracts an impressive field. This year grandmasters Luke McShane and Mark Hebden shared first prize on 5/6 in the main event. It is traditional in Bunratty that, although prize money can be shared, the title must go to a sole victor. McShane, accordingly, demolished Hebden 2-0 in a play-off. Places 3-8 were shared by Nigel Short, David Howell, Matthew Turner, Adam Hunt, Bogdan Lalic and David Fitzsimons.   McShane’s play was characterised by a fierce will to win. During the game which preceded the following extract he had already declined a draw in a

Raymond Keene

no. 544

White to play. This position is from Hebden-Williams, Bunratty 2019. How did White finish in fine style? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 12 March 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 … Bxg2+ Last week’s winner Anne Teague, Chester

Peter Jones

Testing teachers’ limits

Next year the London Interdisciplinary School (LIS) will offer one degree, in design, technology and the humanities, to teach students to solve ‘complex problems’ like (they suggest) knife crime. Really? The key to problem solving is the development of two essential faculties — the imaginative and the critical. Can LIS really teach for those — or just how to pass exams? The philosopher Seneca insisted that the search for what really counted (his example was virtue) ‘cannot be delegated to someone else’. He illustrated it by telling the story of Calvisius Sabinus, who had the brains and bank account of the Roman equivalent of Sir Philip Green. His memory was

The Spectator

Barometer | 7 March 2019

Trolley dollies Virgin Atlantic dropped its requirement for air hostesses to wear make-up at work. What was required of the first air hostesses? — United Airlines introduced hostesses in 1930 on its multi-leg flights from California to Wyoming. They had to be registered nurses, aged 25 or under, weigh no more than 8st 2lb and be no taller than 5ft 4in. — The first UK airline to introduce hostesses was Air Despatch in 1936. They were expected not only to be able to cook and mix cocktails but also to be able to type letters for businessmen on the flight. On a knife edge Is knife crime rising everywhere? Offences per

Taki

High life | 7 March 2019

Gstaad   As everyone knows, the definition of serendipity is searching for a needle in a haystack, and instead finding a farmer’s daughter. Not so fast, as they say. I live among farmers and haystacks up here in the Alps, and I’ve yet to run into a farmer’s daughter who is worth the buckshot in the bottom. I was thinking of such matters all last week while skiing with my son and his two children. How happy I feel now, surrounded by wife and children and grandchildren — something I’ve avoided throughout my life while chasing daughters. Incidentally, the little turd Taki (just turned 13) is now so good a

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 7 March 2019

Standing in a messy kitchen at the tendril tip of a county line at three o’clock in the morning, Trev was applying his concentration to the intricate business of washing the coke in a dessert spoon with acetone and a lighter flame. When the impurities had burnt away, Trev goggled with incredulity at what remained in the spoon. Then he swore in a low, disbelieving voice because the washed remainder was the most he’d ever seen. Three were a crowd in the small, narrow kitchen. Our hyperactive host, whose eyes were out on stalks and whose voice was hoarse from shouting, was carrying on two conversations at once. He would

The Spectator

Letters | 7 March 2019

The point of Article 50 Sir: I read Paul Collier’s article in your 23 February issue, which has just reached me in la France profonde, with interest. The principal author of Article 50 was John Kerr, aka Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. I have known John for quite a long time, and enjoyed his company: when I became chancellor in 1983 he was my principal private secretary. He explained to me some time ago, before the referendum, that the purpose of Article 50 was to make it as difficult as possible for a country to leave the European Union. A clever man, he did a good job. Nigel Lawson House of Lords, London SW1

Toby Young Toby Young

Why the squeezed middle are poorer than their parents

It won’t be news to readers of The Spectator that one of the long-term effects of globalisation is the hollowing out of the middle class. In a study of wage growth in ten advanced economies published a few years ago, the Resolution Foundation found that median pay lagged behind growth in GDP, with the gap between the middle class and the highest-paid growing and the gap between them and the lowest-paid shrinking. The phenomenon is particularly pronounced in the US. There, the top 10 per cent of income earners have seen their share of national income increase since the 2007-08 recession, while the remaining 90 per cent have seen their

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 7 March 2019

Q. I run a very small mail-order company from home. Recently I received an exceptionally rude email from a disgruntled customer. On discovering that the problems arising were her own fault, I sent a polite email proving this. Her response was even ruder. I know this woman socially and she obviously doesn’t realise I am the owner of the company. She would be mortified to realise I know about this ‘fishwife’ side of her character, but of course she inevitably will find out if she continues to escalate things. I would not want to humiliate her so how should I handle this? — Name and address withheld A. Write to her

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Ducks and bills

Imperial Treasure is a restaurant in the part of St James’s where Leopold von Hoesch, the German ambassador to George V, buried his dog Giro after Giro electrocuted himself by eating a cable. (Everyone is a food critic. Giro was merely an unlucky one.) And this seems apt. Because it’s rare to see people in St James’s these days. Dog bones and tourists and BBC crews shooting dramas in which actors are spying or arguing about politics are multiple. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Benedict Cumber-batch pretending to be Liz Truss pretending to be Josip Tito. But not real people. They have all gone, presumably to Zone

Dot Wordsworth

One fell swoop

The Sun, reviewing a new laptop from Huawei, mentioned a combined fingerprint sensor and on-switch that lets users ‘power up and log in in one fell swoop’. Logging-in is not usually a fell act, but one fell swoop has long been a cliché, rather than a quotation from Macbeth, where Macduff, on hearing of their murder, asks: ‘What, all my pretty chickens and their dam / At one fell swoop?’ The phrase at one swoop was in the Jacobean air, for Webster in his White Devil has Lodovico declare: ‘Fortune’s a right whore. / If she give ought, she deales it in small parcels, / That she may take away all

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 7 March 2019

Home Two 17-year-olds were stabbed to death in London and Manchester, bringing the number of teenagers killed in knife crime this year to ten. Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said that there was ‘no direct correlation between certain crimes and police numbers’. Next day, Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said: ‘There is some link between violent crime on the streets obviously and police numbers, of course there is.’ The owners of Giraffe and Ed’s Easy Diner are to close 27 of their 87 restaurants. The family that has owned the British sports-car maker Morgan for 110 years is selling it to an Italian venture capitalist firm, Investindustrial. The philosopher

Andrew Roberts

Diary – 7 March 2019

John McDonnell might think Churchill a villain, but he’s beloved in America. I’ve just returned from a ten-week, 18-state, 27-city, 87-speech book tour there, and can report that the enthusiasm for all things Churchillian in the USA is stronger now than at any time since his death. Merely bringing out a new biography of him secured me interviews on all the major TV morning news shows, invitations to speak at three presidential libraries, and a place on the New York Times bestseller list for nine weeks. There are active Churchill appreciation societies in 14 states and more being set up. Of course it can go too far: in Coral Gables,

Susanna Gross

Susanna Gross

Geir Helgemo is the most revered bridge player in the world — and that isn’t about to change just because he failed a drug test at the World Bridge Series last September. You probably read about it at the weekend; some newspapers found it positively comical that the No. 1 player had been suspended for ‘doping’. Yet ever since bridge was recognised as a sport by the International Olympic Committee in 1998, players have been subject to random drug tests. Helgemo tested positive for synthetic testosterone. There’s no evidence it improves anyone’s game — indeed, no drug has been shown to do that. But it’s a substance that’s been banned

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 7 March 2019

A kind billionaire called Jeremy Hosking, whom I do not know personally, has invited us to join the Britannia Express, a steam train, on 30 March, the day after Brexit. The train will traverse Wales and England, starting at Swansea and ending in Sunderland. In an unspoken rebuke to the metropolis, it will not travel via London. The train will, says the invitation, commemorate ‘the UK’s exit (or non-exit) from the European Union’. This is the opposite, I suppose, of the European train which people like the late Sir Geoffrey Howe constantly exhorted us to climb aboard. What to do? The most likely situation on the day is that we still

Doc

2398: All steamed up

The unclued lights (five of two words, two pairs and a singleton) are of a kind, verifiable in Brewer.   Across   11    Ore obtained by worker underground, a trainee (7) 12    DJ due to broadcast around ten (6) 16    Bound by discretion, one is silent (5) 19    Quandary of back-cover girl (7) 21    Bridge closure? (4) 23    In France the one certain time for relaxation (7) 24    Second bird in winter nest (4) 25    Setter’s quick riposte around the end of June — does it get on your nerves? (7) 31    Crossing-point for number of French (4) 32    Treads that are relative (7, hyphened) 34   Top of robe that’s