Society

Thursday

Toby Young Toby Young

This extinction warning just doesn’t add up

Anyone watching the BBC’s News at Ten on Monday would have been surprised to learn that economic growth poses a dire threat to the future of life on this planet. We’re used to hearing this from climate change campaigners, but I’ve always taken such claims with a pinch of salt, suspecting that the anti-capitalist left is distorting the evidence. Apparently not. ‘One million species at risk of imminent extinction according to a major UN report,’ intoned the BBC. ‘It says the Earth’s ecosystems are being destroyed by the relentless pursuit of economic growth.’ So does this mean the Extinction Rebellion protestors are right? I decided to do some digging to

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 9 May 2019

Q. I was invited to birthday drinks in London. On my way there the name of someone I haven’t heard from for months flashed up on my mobile. My instinct was not to answer — I’d heard the host of the party had gone off this woman and thought it best not to answer in case the woman asked what I was doing that night. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings if she’d been excluded. Nor did I want to lie. However, on arrival at the party my host told me that all was now well between him and her and she’d been invited but couldn’t come. When I

Dot Wordsworth

Fungible

‘No darling,’ I said, ‘nothing to do with mushrooms.’ My husband had responded to my exclaiming ‘What does she think that means?’ on hearing Theresa May use the word fungible. This rare word now crops up in discussion of Brexit, perhaps caught from lawyers and business types. They seem to think it means ‘porous, malleable, flexible, convertible’. Dominic Grieve told the Commons last month that he’d prefer ‘a longer and fungible extension’ to the Article 50 process. Stephen Doughty spoke of a ‘flextension, fungible extension or whatever’. Jo Johnson said on another day that he wanted train tickets to be ‘fungible between operators’. Claire Perry assured the House that ‘scientists

The Spectator

Monarchy matters

Strictly in terms of its implications for the succession, the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son this week was not the most important of royal births. The boy has been born seventh in line to the throne, but that position can be expected to fall rapidly once the Cambridge children begin to marry. He is not born to be king, and may never even be granted the title of prince. Nevertheless, the birth has attracted wide attention and celebration, inspiring front-page headlines on foreign newspapers and eliciting interest in Britain from types of people who don’t normally care about royal events. Partly this is down to the

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 9 May 2019

Home John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, blamed Theresa May, the Prime Minister, for leaking details of talks between the government and Labour over Brexit. He said she had ‘blown the confidentiality’ of the talks and ‘jeopardised the negotiations’. He was annoyed that the Sunday Times had said she would agree to a customs union, something predicted four days earlier by the Daily Telegraph. Rory Stewart, the new International Development Secretary, said the Conservatives had to accept the ‘short-term pain’ of a Brexit compromise with Labour. David Lidington, May’s right-hand man, admitted that the failure to reach a Brexit agreement meant that the EU elections on 23 May ‘do have to

Taki

High life | 9 May 2019

New York   Here’s a question for you: if your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, toy boy even, lied repeatedly to you about a serious matter such as fidelity, would you continue to trust them? I suppose some fools would, but most wouldn’t. So here’s another question: how can the British people even countenance voting for those they entrusted with implementing their 2016 decision to leave the bureaucratic dictatorship that is the EU? Duh! Actually, I’d be in the UK by now and trying to stir things up, but I’m stuck in the Bagel with pneumonia, bronchitis, and all sorts of other bugs that caught up with me while in pursuit

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 9 May 2019

So far this latest Mistral wind has blown for two and a half weeks. The Mistral is said to blow for three hours, three days or three weeks. It is also said to unhinge people. I had just arrived back in France when it started, and lately I have felt distinctly homicidal for no particular reason. Every morning, too, I’ve congratulated God for not making me responsible for my dreams. Since this wind got up, I’ve been out to lunch once and twice to dinner parties. The lunch was jolly and I was perfectly sane. After it, the foreign correspondent stood up, drained his glass, said: ‘Don’t you just love

Melissa Kite

Real life | 9 May 2019

A letter before action, or something that looked very much like it, arrived on my doormat from an insurance company. Regarding an incident on 25 October 2018: ‘We are holding you responsible for the damage caused to our insured’s vehicle and the related costs,’ it said. While I had a valid insurance policy, my insurance company was not responding and so they were looking to instruct solicitors to recover their losses direct from me. Proceedings would be served directly on me and not my insurers and could ultimately lead to a court judgment being entered against me, it said. The letter then gave me a final chance to contact my

Robin Oakley

The turf | 9 May 2019

So the Silver Fox has called it a day. We will never see Ruby Walsh, the man whom even Sir Anthony McCoy modestly calls the best jump jockey ever, riding competitively again. Though sad for his countless fans in Britain, it is entirely understandable that Ruby chose to announce his retirement at his beloved Punchestown last week after riding Kemboy to victory in the Gold Cup. But the racing authorities here must find an appropriate way of celebrating his stellar career. Ruby wasn’t as physically resilient as A.P. and had to cope with some dreadful injuries along the way, but there has never been a more intelligent rider over obstacles.

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 9 May 2019

Imagine you are on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. You have just won £500,000 and cannot go home with less than £120,000. You use your last lifeline (50/50) leaving you a straight guess to become a millionaire or drop £380K. Even though it’s mathematically correct to guess, most people would take the money.   We bridge players are luckier. We have lots of clues in the bidding — or lack of it — the opening lead and the carding signals the opps use. If we find out as much as possible, the final answer is rarely a guess.   Both North and South pushed a fair bit to get

Doc

2407: Stickmen

The unclued lights, four of two words, individually or as a pair, are of a kind.   Across 11    After hint turned up, end of match had leftist outwitted (7) 12    Problem with French name turning page (6) 13    January not starting pleasant round island — likely to be soaked?  (9, three words) 14    Break-time first — that’s the general drift! (5) 16    Light-hearted joking when taking tea with F-Fawley (5) 19    Data emerged; half rejected. What a yarn (7) 21    The look of disheartened middlemen (4) 24    Tail, small and trim (4) 25    Tool for shaping wood from a spruce possibly (7) 30    Neapolitans ain’t removed from reviewing European

Ben Macdonald

The scourge of the grouse moor

Britain’s hunting estates were once beautiful. Walking through the New Forest, we can all appreciate how the purchase of land for hunting can radically protect our countryside. Almost a thousand years after William the Conqueror set aside this wooded wonderland, we can still enjoy its aged oak pastures, Britain’s largest herds of free-roaming grazing animals, and a chorus of birdsong that has been lost in most other corners of our land. Britain’s original royal forests model is recognised around the world as a commonsense approach to hunting. From Alaska to Scandinavia, hunters, alongside ecotourists, invest huge profits to sponsor the natural world. Hunters take a quota of animals from these

The Spectator

to 2404: 1+2 = 3+4

The first and second letters of the unclued lights are the same as the third and fourth ones. All the solutions are words or one phrase eight letters long. ARARAT at 32 Down matches the pattern but is only six-letters in length and had to be highlighted.   First prize D. Thorpe, Totternhoe, Bedfordshire Runners-up John Honey, Brentford, Middlesex; Brian Le Marquer, Horndean, Hants

Prue Leith

A Cook’s Notebook

In the past few weeks, on three separate occasions, I have met three different women who for years (one for more than 30 years) volunteered for the Samaritans. All three have now quit. One, Sarah Anderson, said: ‘Chad Varah [the founder] must be spinning in his grave.’ The Samaritans has changed, they say. It still provides a vital service, being the only 24/7 helpline for potential suicides or other desperate people — but it’s become a one-number call-centre, where the call goes to the next available volunteer, probably hundreds of miles away. Face-to-face conversations are now rare, and they’ve given up their old ‘absolute confidentiality’ policy. Sarah has set up

Bruce Anderson

Spare us the new

There is no new thing under the sun. Over the weekend, I read a book which was alarmingly relevant to our present discontents: The Neophiliacs, by Christopher Booker, written at the end of the 1960s. That decade began well. The country had recovered from the austerities of wartime. It seemed to be an era of social stability. Most couples who married expected to stay married and bring up their children in stable families. Living standards were rising. National service was about to end. The public schools, whose oppressive regimes had created many left-wing dissidents, were liberalising. Politics was also stable. Less than three years after the Suez debacle, Harold Macmillan

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Why aren’t there more big infrastructure projects?

In 2012 I finished a meeting in Berlin and headed to Tegel airport. Apparently mine was a historic flight, since the airport was to close that very week. Future flights would soon land at the wondrous new Berlin Brandenburg airport, which would be opening ‘within months’. Seven years later, planes still fly into Tegel. The new airport may open in 2020 or 2021; no one knows. So far, the project has cost €9 billion, triple the original estimate. The roof is 100 per cent overweight. All the electrical wiring may need replacing. The escalators were too short, so end not at floor level but on an ersatz plinth. Underneath, empty trains

William Cook

Windermere

‘A love of boats and sailing is the surest of all passports to a happy life,’ wrote Arthur Ransome. Standing on Windermere Jetty on a crisp clear morning, gazing out across the cool grey water, you can see what he meant. Sailing around England’s largest lake is a great way to spend a lazy day, and the new Windermere Jetty Museum is the best place to embark. There’s been a boating museum in Bowness since the 1970s, but it used to be more modest — a collection of old steamboats saved from the scrapyard by a local builder called George Pattinson. Now his old fleet has a much smarter home:

Sam Leith Sam Leith

‘Come on: cancel me’

‘I grew up in LA where we all thought fame was a joke,’ says Bret Easton Ellis. ‘My class was filled with people from Laura Dern to the girls in Little House on the Prairie. And it always seemed a bit of a joke. I never really imagined that was on the cards for me. And I really haven’t done a lot of the things that you’re supposed to do to stay famous. ‘I haven’t published anything in ten years. I haven’t tried to write that novel that’s going to give critical acclaim or a prize or two — which I’ve never won. And I seem to be continually controversial

Joanna Rossiter Joanna Rossiter

Home truths | 9 May 2019

As any parent of young children will tell you, toddler groups exist as much for the adults as for the kids, and my local meet-up is no exception. We knock back coffee and compete to see who has had the least sleep while the children run riot on trikes. The small talk always winds its way round to nursery: which ones are good, which ones are near work, how much they charge per hour. You’d be forgiven for wondering why any of us chose to have children, such is the zeal with which we plot our escape. ‘They just installed CCTV,’ enthused one mother to me recently. ‘So I’ll be