Society

I am heading off to rural south-west France for Christmas. This is the 25th Christmas running that I’ll have spent in France. One of the attractions is that Christmas is a one-day holiday there. Everyone is back at work on Boxing Day. You have a large meal with your family and that’s it. I have no regrets about missing the weeks-long commercial bacchanalia that we experience here in Britain. In our local village in France a few tinsel-draped pine branches are propped against walls — the only sign that a global fête nationale is taking place. Church bells ring for midnight mass. Then it’s over and the pine branches are

Each Christmas, The Spectator invites a well-known Westminster personality to contribute a special recipe. This year, we are delighted to offer a delicious recipe from Veronica Crook, otherwise known as the Rees-Mogg family nanny. Enjoy! Every parent (and nanny) knows that Christmas day is both the most exciting day of the year for little ones, but also one of the most boring. Having leapt out of bed long before a winter dawn, children are waning by lunch, dropping by the time of the Queen’s Speech and fractious long before bed time. Not only do fairy cakes distract them but provide a little burst of energy to keep everyone happy. In

The Irish border question has grabbed political headlines this year, but spare a thought for those who live near it. The border takes a haphazard route along river banks, and even through farms. I recall visiting a farm in Fermanagh: I drove into the farm from Northern Ireland but the farmer showed me an exit which led straight into the Republic. For a number of years the Methodist Church in Pettigo (NI) had a minister whose house was on the other side of the border. This porousness is remarkable considering the historical conflict between our two countries. To this day, many Irish call Northern Ireland ‘the North’, as if to

It is 25 years since Stephen Lawrence was murdered in a London suburb, solely because he was black. The subsequent Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, chaired by Sir William Macpherson of Cluny, which I helped to compile, uncovered in this particular case, ‘institutional racism’ in the Metropolitan Police. That carefully chosen wording has been misquoted ever since. We did not say that police were institutionally racist, as if it were official police policy to stigmatise black people. It was — and clearly still is — more subtle. Institutional racism is the product of unwitting prejudice, ignorance, carelessness, stereotyping and a reluctance to change. That aggregates to a festering prejudice. And it’s widespread.

Venezuelans are preparing for a difficult Christmas – the worst of recent times. The middle-class families I have spoken to in Barquisimeto, Venezuela’s fourth largest city, are not able to afford even the most basic of ingredients for their traditional Christmas meal of pork leg, hallaca, ham and potato salad. These are families who, in the 90s, owned two cars, bought second homes, studied abroad and went on regular holidays to the Andes or the coast. They enjoyed a standard of life much like middle-class Britain, but now their salaries and pensions won’t even stretch to cover a weekly shop. The average Venezuelan lost 11kg in weight last year alone.

About this time every month, diplomats, UN delegates, and humanitarian officials sit around the circular table in the UN Security Council chamber to take stock of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The meetings are a constant fixture on the Security Council’s agenda, yet the lack of any tangible diplomatic progress in the Middle East’s oldest dispute means that the sessions usually adjourn in much the same way.  The UN special envoy warns the chamber about the violence hovering just around the corner; the United States blames the Palestinian Authority for obstructing the process; and the rest of the Security Council reiterates stale talking points about a two-state solution. Yesterday’s meeting carried on