Society

Thursday

Angelos Sofocleous

What happened when I was banned from a free speech debate on campus

It’s clear that our universities have a problem with free speech. We’ve recently witnessed students at the University of Oxford not only protesting Steve Bannon’s appearance at Oxford Union, but attempting to prevent others from even attending the talk. Only last week, Peter Hitchens had a talk he was due to give cancelled at the University of Portsmouth because the university felt that this would not chime with the students’ union’s LGBT+ month. I’ve also fallen foul of this tendency towards censorship on campus: when I shared a Spectator article in November asking ‘Is it a crime to say women don’t have penises?’, I lost my position as president-elect of

The Spectator

to 2392: Beknighted

The unclued lights (10/1D, 11, 23/38, 29D/28 and 39) received knighthoods or a DBE in the recent New Year’s Honours List. First prize Chris Warburton, Dagenham, Essex Runners-up Peter Hampton, Wimborne, Dorset; Pam Dunn, Sevenoaks, Kent

Doc

2395: Concise crossword

The seven clues below have to be interpreted cryptically and are then entered in the grid where they will fit. (In 10 Down, alphabetical order takes precedence in one unchecked letter.) AL (12, two words) EARTH (10) IF (7) L (9, three words) RI (11, three words) STEW (8, two words) WAND (5, two words)   Across 1    Showily virile Scot by house (5) 4    Note flaps ordered for old overshoes (9) 11    Dismal day at the back (5) 12    Canal by the German forest in the north-east (7) 15    American long time in employment (5) 16    These old coins are suggested by insignificant Scottish fellows (6) 22    Sideways

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will ‘Isis bride’ Shamima Begum really end up in a British prison?

What will the UK do about Shamima Begum, the schoolgirl who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State? The Times’ stunning scoop this morning about the 19-year old’s plea to be allowed home from the Syrian refugee camp prompted Security Minister Ben Wallace to tell the Today programme that ‘actions have consequences’ and that she could face prosecution. Some argue that as a teenager who left when she was just 15, she has been indoctrinated and needs rehabilitation, not punishment. Wallace may well agree with that, but it’s not something he’s likely to say in a broadcast interview, given it is still important for the government to send the message

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

The cautionary tale of Andrea Orcel

There’s a lesson for all boardrooms — and an echo of the lost era of big-bucks, big-ego banking — in the story of Santander’s withdrawal of its job offer to Andrea Orcel. The Italian-born former UBS and Merrill Lynch investment banker was named last September as the next chief executive of the Spanish giant that is Europe’s fifth-largest commercial banking group; but during his ‘gardening leave’ between employers, the deal fell apart. The amount Orcel was demanding in compensation for deferred rewards at UBS — some reports say €50 million — turned out to be way over the top for the Spaniards. And having previously known him only as a

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Salman Rushdie and the origins of ‘Islamophobia’

It is 30 years since the fatwa against Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses, and 40 since the triumph of the Iranian Revolution. The two are related, since the Ayatollah Khomeini, driven to rage by illness and military failure, wanted to mark the tenth anniversary of his glory days by doing something nasty. I have reminded myself of how The Spectator covered the Rushdie story at the time. We captured two contradictory feelings. One was straightforward disgust that a foreign power could order the death of one of our citizens on our soil and try to get his book banned. The other was the dark farce of the situation — Rushdie, the salon

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Isis bride Shamima Begum should be allowed home

So, what do you reckon then about the jihadi bride, Shamima Begum, unearthed by the Times’ Anthony Loyd in a refugee camp in Syria? Should she be brought back home for an NHS delivery for her imminent baby – with the cops hovering backstage – or left to stew in a Syrian refugee camp, to give birth in the same conditions as other mothers-to-be? I may be misjudging my readers here, but I fancy I can discern which way most of us would want to go. But the first thing to say about all this is that this wretched 19-year old is about the least important aspect of the Isis

Douglas Murray

In the 30 years since the fatwa, there’s been little discussion about The Satanic Verses itself 

Today is the 30th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s issue of a fatwa against Salman Rushdie for writing the novel The Satanic Verses. In the run-up to this anniversary there has as usual been much discussion of the controversy, but very little about the novel itself. This is consistent with the pattern of the last three decades. Of the two Satanic Verses that exist – the controversy and the novel – people were always familiar with the former and deeply unclear about the latter. To this day very few people seem interested in what is between the covers of the book that stirred the Ayatollah’s ire. A default presumption has been

Matthew Lynn

Mark Carney is finally right about Brexit

Cripes. At this rate the CBI will be putting out reports on Brexit’s potential benefits, George Osborne will be reminding us he could always see its upside, and even the FT will be running leaders saying Brexit doesn’t quite mean the end of the world. There have been plenty of twists and turns in our tortured departure from the European Union but few quite so unexpected as the apparent conversion of the Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney to the cause. In a speech yesterday, Carney didn’t opt for any of the apocalyptic stuff – no food on the shelves at Tesco, pensioners dying in hospitals because of

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

My diversity targets for the BBC

Terrible news for gay broadcasters —  the BBC has only one year to meet a diversity target which says that 8 per cent of roles on TV and radio must be occupied by homosexuals. This means a reduction in gay TV weathermen by at least three quarters, and they’ll also have to sack a good half of the gay chat-show hosts. This seems to me unfair, but that’s diversity targets for you. The 8 per cent figure has been appropriated by the BBC from the gay lobby, although there are activists who will tell you that a still greater proportion of our country is homosexual. This does not match with

Bruce Anderson

No small beer

We were discussing beer. It is a cheerful subject so I made an appropriate point. In recent years, the quality of civic life in Britain has steadily deteriorated. Change has become synonymous with decay. But there is one delightful exception. In southern England these days, it is almost impossible to find a bad pint of beer. Matters may be different in other parts of the United Kingdom. From my limited experience, we Scots are not good at beer. It is something that is only drunk to eke out the whisky. North of the Tweed, bitter is known as ‘heavy’, which is a fair description and not an encouraging one. In

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

We need to get better at using technology

I’d like to propose a new scientific institution: the IUT, or Institute of Underrated Technology. Rather than trying to invent yet more bloody things, it will instead be devoted to helping us derive greater value from things we can do already using technology which already exists. Innovation is a two-stage process. First you discover something; then over time people discover how best to use it. Many ideas fall at the second hurdle: the Chinese invented gunpowder but used it only for fireworks; early Mesoamericans invented the wheel, but attached it only to children’s toys. In recent times, the internet seems to have delivered a lot more in entertainment value than

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Wine Club 16 February

We should all be firmly back in the saddle by now, with dry January but a ghastly memory. And if there are still any stragglers still toying with glasses of mineral water, I trust this selection courtesy of FromVineyardsDirect will tempt you off your high horse. Four classic French regions are represented (Burgundy, Provence, the Rhône and Bordeaux) along with an Aussie Chardonnay — (don’t panic; it’s unoaked and restrained) and a Kiwi Pinot Noir (don’t fear; it’s reasonably priced). The 2016 Pitchfork Chardonnay (1) from Margaret River, Western Australia, is the only Aussie wine that FVD sells and why bother sell others when this is so good? Margaret River,

Jan Moir

Blues and the royals

Over the centuries, the British royal family have been many things: conquerors, vanquishers, tyrants and buffoons. They have been denied their destiny, gone mad with grief, been exalted and even exiled. They have been beheaded, beholden, belligerent and benevolent, but until now they have never really been victims. And certainly not self-identifying victims. Yet the cult of victimhood has engulfed the royal battlements like a poisoned ivy. It has curled into ducal nook and princessy psyche, and it has turned some of the most privileged people on the planet into a whiny bunch. Recently, we have discovered the following. The Duke of Cambridge struggled in his role as air ambulance

Soutiam Goodarzi

Under cover of darkness

It was World Hijab Day earlier this month. You probably missed it, but you can imagine the idea: ‘global citizens’ of all faiths and backgrounds were asked to cover their heads for a day ‘in solidarity with Muslim women worldwide’. It is done in ‘recognition of millions of Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab and live a life of modesty’. Wearing a hijab is not such an abstract cause for me: I used to wear one a few years ago when I was at school in Iran. And in the spirit of solidarity, I’d like to tell you a bit more about the world I left behind when

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

An epic drive through snowy Spanish mountains

‘Don’t even try,’ said the man on the car deck as Brittany Ferries’ Finistère tied up on the dock in Santander, late because of the winter storm. ‘You’d be lucky tonight to get through the snow to Valladolid. Find a hotel here and try tomorrow morning.’ He was one of those confident Englishmen you meet who seem to know. Working across northern Spain, his business took him always on the road. Passengers had been warned that roads were closed by the snow, and winter tyres and snow chains were a must. ‘The Guardia Civil will stop you and those guys don’t mess about. They’ll check you have neumaticos de invierno.’

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Without forgiveness, we’re all doomed

Over Christmas, I digitised slides from my twenties. In many an unidentified photograph, I didn’t recognise the scene. Where was I? Who are these total strangers? What were we finding so funny? Thus it’s credible that on being confronted with his personal page from a 1984 medical school yearbook, Democratic Virginian governor Ralph Northam wavered: presumably that’s him in the photograph; no, on second thoughts, it couldn’t be. The photo quality is poor, and the two jaunty figures holding cans of beer are disguised — one in blackface, the other in Ku Klux Klan robes. I’m more familiar with Virginia than many of the Americans nationwide clamouring for Northam to

Lucy Vickery

What’s not to love

In Competition No. 3085 you were invited to submit a poem in dispraise of Valentine’s Day. The day is said to have its roots in the Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia. But one scholar has proposed the theory that it was Chaucer who first designated 14 February as a day of love in his poem ‘The Parlement of Foules’, and I wondered if any of you would come up with a Chaucer-ian pastiche (you didn’t). The challenge certainly struck a chord, though, and you captured the ghastliness well: mediocre, overpriced dinners, chocolate genitalia, nasty cards — or no cards at all… A consolatory handshake to Fiona Pitt-Kethley, Susan McLean, Hamish

Wednesday

Andrew Montford

What’s behind climate change activist Greta Thunberg’s remarkable rise to fame?

The rise to fame of Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate activist, has been nothing short of extraordinary. Less than a year ago, she was an unknown schoolgirl from Sweden, albeit an unusual one: she is the daughter of a famous opera singer and an actor. Thunberg also has Asperger’s syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder and selective mutism. The latter, she says, ‘basically means I only speak when I think it’s necessary’. ‘Now is one of those moments,’ she said in a Ted talk watched hundreds of thousands of times on the topic that first brought her into the public eye: her decision to stage a ‘school strike’ last August to draw attention