Society

Once again, it’s been another eventful year in Westminster, with 14 Cabinet resignations, a seemingly endless negotiation process with the EU, and more than one attempted coup. After making it through mostly unscathed, politicians headed en masse this evening to the Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the year awards, to celebrate their achievements – or lack thereof. Liz Truss, the Spectator’s host for the evening, had some of the best gags of the evening, saying: ‘Now I know that my jokes haven’t always gone down well with some of my colleagues and friends. So I decided that I was going to do it right this time and I was going to consult them.

Regular savings accounts mean you have to commit to paying in a certain amount every of month – but they can also offer higher rates than most other current or savings accounts. Here are some of the best ones on the market at the moment, from data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.

‘What would happen if somebody ever came to power that you actually agreed with?’ It’s not a question that troubles most people, but spare a thought for the left-wing satirist who is used to lacerating Tory, Labour and coalition governments with equal ferocity. Yet while I am sometimes asked this question, any party – in government or in opposition ­– has been so far from representing my own views that it has always remained largely hypothetical. Until now. How on earth can I attack Jeremy Corbyn when I find myself agreeing with most of what he says? After all, political cartooning is an offensive, attacking medium. Or it is nothing. The prospect of

On Wednesday night, Channel 4 broadcast a much-debated documentary examining the staggering rise in children being referred for consultation on gender re-assignment. In the last nine years, referrals for children to the NHS’s Gender Identity Development Service have risen some 2500 per cent. The presenter of the film, psychotherapist Stella O’Malley, recalled her childhood struggle with gender dysphoria. She had been a girl who wanted to be a boy, and remembers feeling distressed at this. Eventually, these feelings subsided and Stella felt comfortable with her sex and went on to be a mother. Stories like this raise concern that hundreds of children are being pushed into inappropriate and unnecessary treatments

As I write, the London world championship is tied at 3½-3½, after seven games. In striving to move ahead, the challenger, Fabiano Caruana, has been the victim of the awesome mathematics of chess. According to the statisticians there are more possible moves in chess games than there are atoms in the observable universe. Ten to the power of 70 is the official estimate. As someone with a good Italian name and ancestry, Fabiano may be familiar with Dante’s Paradiso. In Canto 28 the poet writes: ‘Ed eran tante, che ‘l numero loro, Piu che ‘l doppiar de li scacchi s’inmilla.’ In other words, the number of angels or intelligences in the heavens