Society

Monday

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Why are bishops so rude?

This is a slightly misleading headline for today’s Holy Smoke podcast, because Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith, Lara Prendergast and I didn’t spend a lot of time duscussing episcopal rudeness. The episode is actually about snobbery in church circles. Fr Alexander muses on clergy who name-drop like dowagers while Lara picks her way through the minefield of wedding invitations. But rude bishops do crop up, because it’s something I’ve wanted to get off my chest for years. That’s a bit rich, I know, given some of the articles I’ve written. But I reckon most journalists would rather deal with a slimeball from the Palace of Westminster than an over-promoted middle manager in

Saturday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Siblings turn on congressman in brutal attack ad

In recent weeks, Westminster has given Washington a run for its money when it comes to unpredictability in politics. However, there are some areas in which the US still leads the way in suprises – namely attack ads. A political advert to support the campaign of Democrat David Brill running for Congress in Arizona has gone viral thanks to a plot twist at the end. In it, six speakers explain why they are unhappy with the sitting congressman, the Republican Paul Gosar: ‘If he actually cared about people in rural Arizona, I bet he’d be fighting for social security, for better access to healthcare,’ says ‘Jennifer, medical interpreter’.   The twist?

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: Ode to a rowing machine

The most recent challenge was to submit an ode to a piece of sporting equipment. There is a long and distinguished tradition of verse inspired by sport, going all the way back to Pindar’s odes celebrating ancient Greek athletic achievement. (As London mayor, Boris Johnson commissioned a poem in the style of Pindar to mark the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games.) Some entries adopted the grand ceremonial tone and structure of classical odes Pindaric, Horatian or Sapphic. Others took the more modern, anything-goes route. Ian Barker and Philip Machin earn an honourable mention, as does Adrian Fry’s clever, Kipling-esque entry. The winners below are rewarded with £25 each. Sylvia

The Spectator

The method behind Donald Trump’s madness

Donald Trump campaigned as an unrepentant protectionist and, on the face of it, he has lived up to his word. He has torn up the US-Pacific free- trade partnership, threatened the European Union with trade wars and imposed tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of imports from China. As you might expect, Beijing’s retaliation has been immediate — as has the damage. American cherry growers, for example, estimate that they have lost about $85 million after suffering retaliatory surcharges. Farmers are now having to be bailed out by the US government. Yet this week Trump has doubled down, introducing tariffs on another 6,000 Chinese imports. When China responds in kind,

Friday

Zak Mir

Is ethical investment only for millennials and hipsters?

In the ‘bad old days’ – namely before the late 20th century – it was traditionally the case that the less ethical and the less green a business or sector, the better. There was, and still is, a whole cacophony of ‘sin stocks, from tobacco to oil and gas to defence and junk food. The reason for an enthusiasm for all things sinful was, and probably still is, because such businesses tended to have the most secure profits profile. After all, people will always smoke, go to war and binge eat. However, from a moral standpoint investors would be scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of a clear

The Spectator

The Irish border was always going to be a sticking point in Brexit talks

I’m afraid Brexit has always been about Ireland. Perhaps Salzburg will finally, brutally, illustrate that point. The Spectator declared its support for Leave in the final week of the 2016 referendum campaign. The editorial arguing in favour of a leave vote hinged not on free trade, but sovereignty: which is a different way of saying control. It did not mention Ireland at all – but very few did. It was of marginal interest. I read that leader in Downing Street, where I then worked. I did not then, and do not now, agree with the sovereignty argument – but I can respect it. Since EU membership necessarily involves compromising on pure national

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

The Spectator Podcast: can we fight back against digital addiction?

It seems that everyone, young or old, has a smartphone these days. But why are the brightest in Silicon Valley taking screen time away from their children? Have they realised that we’re addicted? Also on this podcast, Tory MEPs recently voted in favour of the Viktor Orbán government in European Parliament. Are British Tories flirting with the far right? If they are, it could be because the Conservative Party has no attractive policies. Should we return to One Nation Toryism? First, it’s time for a wake-up call. Smartphones now seem so attached to us that they may as well be organically grown. Both adults and children are addicted, and it’s

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 20 September 2018

Stand by your plan Sir: Matthew Parris (‘Must the will of the people always be respected?’, 15 September) asks when it is permissible to seek to overturn a referendum result. He missed a crucial point, which is that the answer depends on the locus of the individual considering the question. To my mind an ordinary citizen is always free to campaign to overturn the result. An MP, possibly, but not when elected on a manifesto to implement said result or who when campaigning in the referendum said they would abide by the result. Any member of a government who has promised to implement the result must clearly do just that.

Raymond Keene

Interregnum

The only official interregnum in the reigns of the world chess champions was that between the death of Alekhine in 1946 and the accession of Botvinnik in 1948. There is, however, an unofficial interregnum which occurred when Bobby Fischer won the world title in 1972 but did not play a serious game of chess as champion and forfeited the title without play to Karpov in 1975. At this point, step forward Mikhail Tal. According to statistician John Ellis in the August issue of the British Chess Magazine, it was Tal who filled the void created by Fischer’s disappearance. From July 1972 to April 1973, according to the BCM, Tal played

Raymond Keene

no. 524

Black to play. This position is from Gurgenidze-Tal, Moscow 1957. What is the most direct way to break into the white position? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 25 September 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 … Qc1+ Last week’s winner Peter Hickling, Cromer, Norfolk

The Spectator

Barometer | 20 September 2018

Trans mission Equalities Minister Penny Mordaunt ordered research into a huge rise in referrals of under-18 girls to transgender services. What are the relative numbers of men and women seeking this help? — The Tavistock and Portman Trust reports a rise in gender identity referrals from 97 (41 per cent born female) in 2009-10 to 2,519 (72 per cent born female) in 2017-18. — A 2009 survey by the Gender Identity Research and Education Society found 80% seeking medical care for gender variance were born male and 20% female. — A 2015 study by the US Census Bureau revealed that 65% who had changed their social security gender identity were

Taki

High life | 20 September 2018

Perception and reality, truth and falsehood, black and white; nowadays the salivating chattering classes don’t know their arse from a hole in the ground, as they used to say in Brooklyn before the yuppies moved in. Take, for example, the latest kerfuffle about the moon landing 49 years ago. I remember it well because it was summer, I had just acquired my first sailing boat —thanks to good old dad, naturally — and the Americans, under the great president Richard Nixon, were going to land and walk on the moon. As everyone but a few doubters knows, Neil Armstrong was the first to take a step on its cheesy-looking surface,

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 20 September 2018

Moving day. The contents of a hillside shack to be moved four miles to a cave house perched high on a cliff above the village. The cave house’s only access from the road below is a steep, narrow and stony footpath. Three removal men for the job: me plus two French day-labourers. The elder of the Frenchmen, Philippe, was 67. I called him Philippe Phillop because that’s what he wore. He is a patriotic Parisian and his character, I would say, is the Parisian equivalent of a chirpy cockney. The same ready wit, the same cynicism born of urban poverty. He did not, however, find my nickname for him as

Melissa Kite

Real life | 20 September 2018

The little lodger is moving in. I chose her after an exhaustive search of twentysomethings looking for accommodation, during which I met a terrifying selection of millennials and members of generation snowflake. The highlight has to be the 22-year-old engineer who came with his parents. They toured the house and inspected the room on offer. They then fixed me with a withering stare and, as the lad stood by saying nothing, fired at me the most frightening list of questions I can imagine being asked about a prospective lodging situation. ‘And where will we sleep when we come to stay?’ was the first, asked by the mother, a very nice

Max Hastings

Diary – 20 September 2018

The Hastingses have idyllic lives but, like most seventysomethings, we find ourselves in ever-closer proximity to mortality. We hold season tickets for hospital and care-home visits, funerals and memorial services. Prostates are a staple of dinner-party conversation. We have not got quite as far as the 94-year-old contemporary of the painter Raoul Millais, who quavered in the churchyard after the two had bidden farewell to a friend: ‘Hardly worth you and I going home from here, is it, Raoul?’ But we are mindful of La Rochefoucauld’s observation that compassion represents the intelligent anticipation of one’s own troubles to come. When my old friend Christopher Bland was diagnosed with the cancer

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 20 September 2018

Home Britain was overwhelmed by Brexitry. Before flying off to an EU summit in Salzburg, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, interviewed on Panorama, said that if Parliament did not ratify the Chequers plan, ‘I think that the alternative to that will be having no deal.’ The International Monetary Fund warned against ‘a no-deal Brexit on WTO terms that would entail substantial costs for the UK economy’. Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: ‘We must heed the clear warnings of the IMF.’ Mr Hammond was said to have suggested in cabinet that Britain might have to remain a member of the EU beyond 29 March next year, but he

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 20 September 2018

Around this time each September, I get to say, ‘I’m off to Tangier for a few days to play high-stakes bridge’ — which always makes my life sounds wonderfully Bond-esque. The invitation comes from my generous friend Stuart Wheeler, and really is as glamorous as it sounds: stunning house and gardens, pool, Pimm’s… But what really stands out is how convivial everyone is — I mean, for a group of bridge players. Playground-style bickering is far more normal. But then Stuart’s guests are mostly Portland members, who are famously courteous; they’re only half-kidding when they insist just two comments are allowed after a hand: ‘Well played’ and ‘Bad luck’. Andrew

The Spectator

Trading blows

Donald Trump campaigned as an unrepentant protectionist and, on the face of it, he has lived up to his word. He has torn up the US-Pacific free- trade partnership, threatened the European Union with trade wars and imposed tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of imports from China. As you might expect, Beijing’s retaliation has been immediate — as has the damage. American cherry growers, for example, estimate that they have lost about $85 million after suffering retaliatory surcharges. Farmers are now having to be bailed out by the US government. Yet this week Trump has doubled down, introducing tariffs on another 6,000 Chinese imports. When China responds in kind,

Toby Young Toby Young

As I suspected, my defects can’t be cured

I’ve just finished making a one-hour documentary about character for Radio 4 that’s due to be broadcast on Saturday at 8 p.m. It starts with the premise that there’s been a decline in what we think of as British values — honesty, fortitude, duty, modesty, charity, hard work, good manners, a sense of fair play, etc. — and asks whether anything can be done to restore them. Should they be taught in schools? Do parenting classes help? Or is the younger generation doomed to sink into a morass of indolence and vice? I was originally commissioned to present it because I’ve written about character before, as well as helped set

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 20 September 2018

Q. A neighbour, a wonderful old friend in his late eighties, is a marvellous raconteur. As a family we have enjoyed his company for years. Our problem is that our children have entered their mid-teens and become pompous and intolerant. When we entertain at lunchtime they and their friends ruin the atmosphere by trying to gag our friend, complaining that his remarks are racist, homophobic, snobbish — the works. They particularly object to his imitation of foreign accents, one of his party turns. We love our children but this is causing tension at the table. What do you suggest? — E.D.G., Calne A. Explain to your children that it is