Society

Thursday

25 Oct 2018

Istanbul Polis

My husband, who fancies himself as something of a classicist, was delighted to see the Turkish investigators of the Khashoggi horror in Istanbul with ‘Polis’ on their T-shirts. Against the odds of Ottoman rule and the Turkish cultural initiatives of Ataturk, this Greek word for a city society, polis, still designates the guardians of civic peace. The borrowed word was all the more striking as the police were acting in Istanbul, the name of which derived from the Greek phrase eis ten polin, to the city. Where are you going? Eis ten polin, which by the 16th century had become Istanbul. A Turkish folk etymology derives the name from Islam bol,

Miriam Gross

Diary – 25 October 2018

Eight years ago, in the course of doing some research into literacy teaching in London, I visited many primary schools. One thing that struck me — and I didn’t of course mention it in the pamphlet I wrote on the subject — was how many primary school teachers were severely obese. One isn’t supposed even to notice it. But it’s been worrying me ever since. Obesity inevitably involves lower energy levels, less mobility, reduced staying power — all weaknesses which, however talented a teacher may be, are likely to impair his or her ability to cope with young children. What’s more, teachers are role models. I feel great sympathy for

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 25 October 2018

Q. My wife and I have been married for 50 years. The marriage is basically sound but she has recently developed a new maddening habit when we entertain. She waits until I am in the middle of an anecdote or story and then starts proffering plates of vegetables or more wine — this when everyone has already got well-filled glasses and everything on their plate they could possibly want. And of course they then have to say ‘No thank you’. These actions seem timed to sabotage my performances. When I take it up with her she always insists she is just being polite to our guests. — Name and address

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 25 October 2018

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, found herself in another crisis over Brexit. Backbenchers whispered that 48 letters were being collected to present to the chairman of the 1922 Committee to trigger a vote of confidence. What annoyed some of her own MPs was a scheme (intended to make less likely the imposition of a backstop agreement over the Irish border) to extend by up to a year the Brexit implementation period that was supposed to end on 31 December 2020. During an emergency cabinet conference-call, Esther McVey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, was said to have told Mrs May that she was ‘devastated’ by the provision. An unnamed Conservative

Lavatch

2382: A pointed remark

Three unclued lights make up a nine-word quotation. Remaining unclued lights are of a kind. Across 1 Norway blocking the euro perhaps till now (8) 8 Excuse one departing French city (4) 12 Bill the Spanish for Jew’s harp? (5) 14 Break dance, say, to get going again (7) 17 Hospital’s moved organ in the body (5) 18 Hold off from rating and mark (7) 22 Makes leaves from aloes fit in stew (8) 23 Fool’s tucked into smooth vegetable fibre (7) 24 Box’s function to store crown (6) 25 English lover rejected coat (6) 27 Special ship’s aerodynamic device (7) 29 Argument about curiously older etymology (8) 33

Toby Young

Science is on the side of the trans activists

Some interesting scientific research on gender differences was published last week. Two social scientists studied the preferences of 80,000 people in 76 countries to determine whether there’s a link between the attitudes of men and women to risk-taking, patience, altruism, trust and so on, and how advanced a country is in terms of economic development and gender equality. If gender is a social construct, as many feminists claim, you’d expect men and women’s preferences to be more divergent in places like Pakistan, Malaysia and Nigeria, where gender roles are quite traditional and women have fewer economic opportunities, than in the Nordic countries. However, the opposite is true. The researchers discovered

Olga Fitzroy

What the Government can learn from Piers Morgan’s ‘papoosegate’

When Piers Morgan called Daniel Craig an #emasculatedbond for carrying his daughter in a baby carrier, Twitter responded in the best way possible. Apart from feminists scoffing (and yes, I was one of them), dads from all walks of life tweeted pictures of themselves with babies in carriers. Society has shifted, but Piers didn’t get the memo. What has this got to do with government? Plenty, actually. On Father’s Day this year, the TUC released figures showing that every year, 100,000 self-employed new dads don’t get a single day of paid paternity or shared parental leave. While on the one hand we have a £3 million government advertising campaign encouraging

Spectator Money

Correcting the FTSE

The FTSE100 fell by more than 10%, which is generally regarded as a ‘correction’. How does that compare with other ones recently? Dec 1999–March 2003 -49.6% Oct 2007–March 2009 -47.5% April 2010–June 2010 -16.1% Feb 2011–Sept 2011 -16.7% March 2012–May 2012 -11.8% April 2015-Feb 2016 -21.9%

Dea Birkett

Balancing act

In a British circus, you will no longer find big cats, dancing bears or sea lions balancing on balls. Anne, the last elephant, paraded around the ring for the final time almost a decade ago, after a circus career lasting more than 50 years. The only wild animals that continue to perform under the big top are a fox, three camels, three raccoons, four zebra, half a dozen reindeer, a zebu, and a macaw called Rio. This menagerie travels with two small family–run traditional circuses, Circus Mondao and Peter Jolly’s Circus. Almost a million pounds have been spent on each animal, trying to get them banned from performing. The mighty Royal

Michael Heath

The Battle for Britain – 25 October 2018

The Spectator

to 2379: Shocking

The word is ‘pink’. Definitions of the eight headwords are: CARNATION (9), STAB (43), CHAFFINCH (22D), SMALL SAILING SHIP (41/1A/13), YELLOW LAKE PIGMENT (11/45/14), BLINK (40), SMALL (41) and SAMLET (8). PINK (in the eighth column) was to be shaded. First prize Mrs C.J. Stekly, Guernsey Runners-up Philip Dacre, York; Nick Hussey, Overton, Hants

Martin Vander Weyer

What can Monday’s Budget do to make business feel better?

‘Uncertainty is draining investment from the UK, with Brexit having a negative impact on eight in ten businesses,’ says Carolyn Fairbairn of the CBI. OK, let’s pause for a chorus of ‘She would say that, wouldn’t she?’ But even if we shade off for ‘scaremongering’, her survey (of 236 firms) is bleak: ‘44 per cent of businesses with contingency plans intend to stockpile goods… 30 per cent intend to relocate production and services overseas… 15 per cent intend to move jobs…’ And I’ve seen no rival surveys that contradict the gist of it. So what can Monday’s Budget do to make business feel better? Suggestions abound, and Chancellor Hammond is

Rory Sutherland

Why a four-day working week isn’t such a bad idea

Most people were scandalised by John McDonnell’s proposal to promote a four-day working week. But before we get incensed about giving people more leisure during their working life, we need to ask another question. If it really is so vital to the economy that people spend more time at work, then why does the government spend £41 billion every year (a third of the cost of the NHS) providing tax relief on pension contributions? This merely encourages older and more experienced employees to leave the workforce several years earlier than necessary. Remember, five years needlessly spent in retirement is 20 years that could have been spent enjoying a working life

Charles Moore

Did 750,000 people really attend the People’s Vote march?

If you think about it, it is obvious that The People’s Vote march last Saturday in London could not have been attended by 750,000 people, as its organisers allege. That is the equivalent of every man, woman and child in Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge (to take three Remain-voting cities). Sky News reported that the organisers claimed more than 500,000 (itself a preposterous figure), and by Monday this had swollen in most reports by 250,000. Only the Sunday Telegraph mentioned that such estimates are dubious. It was a big march, certainly (and mostly an amiable one), but visibly much smaller than the march against the Iraq war in 2003 (two million claimed

Why Leavers should support a border in the Irish Sea

Would it really be so terrible if there were checks at the Irish Sea instead of at the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland? Such checks could be carried out without threatening the constitutional status of Northern Ireland as part of the UK. Some say that there should be no differences between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK but there are already differences of the most fundamental kind. The Belfast Agreement accepts that if the majority of people in Northern Ireland vote to join the republic then the UK government will not stand in their way. There is also a British-Irish Council which gives the Irish Government a

Brendan O’Neill

The real reason snobs are calling for a Ryanair boycott

If you had to draw up a list of people and things it is de rigueur to loathe, it would definitely include Ryanair. Tabloid newspapers, Jeremy Clarkson, Brexit, red-hued men who pop up in the Question Time audience to moan about Jeremy Corbyn, and Ryan-bloody-air — these are things that every self-respecting member of the chattering class must bristle against. And that is why one moral error made by a Ryanair crew member has led to demands for the entire company to be boycotted. ‘Let’s all boycott this airline!’, the right-on have cried in response to a racist incident on a flight being badly handled by an attendant. Yeah, right,

Lloyd Evans

What I learned at the People’s Vote march

Two beliefs obsess the Remain cause. First, that voters were lied to during the referendum campaign. (Questionable). Second, that the negotiations are being botched. (Indisputable). But while Remainers believe that their opponents are fibbers, they can’t see that they too are being misled. At the People’s Vote rally last Saturday, I found general acceptance of these four myths. 1. Brexit is a ‘far-right’ policy. 2. Europe will be closed to Britons after we leave. 3. The EU is run by saints who negotiate in good faith. 4. A second vote will heal the divisions caused by Brexit. The rally was vast and good-tempered. Many demonstrators had come to be photographed

John R. MacArthur

All the rage | 25 October 2018

My father, an avowed liberal, taught me old-school manners: hold the door and give up your seat for ladies; stand up when anyone, male or female, enters the room or approaches you at a social gathering; extend your hand in greeting; listen politely when others speak. My mother issued similar instructions in French, and as a consequence I almost never fail to say bonjour before I address a French merchant or telephone operator. Now 93, she recently admonished me that ‘one shouldn’t make fun of people for being incapable of doing this thing or that thing’. So it’s come as a rude surprise that good manners and polite behaviour seem

Lionel Shriver

The march of the migrants poses a dilemma for the US

Trump has hinted that Democrats may have been secretly funding the ‘caravan’ of more than 7,000 Honduran immigrants trooping towards the United States. I don’t think so. In the lead-up to the midterms, if any party would sponsor by far the largest organised mass migration to the US on record, Republicans would. For politically, the spectacle is a gift. Thousands of clamorous would-be asylum seekers crammed onto a bridge with no toilets, stampeding, breaking into fights, demanding to cross the Mexican border, the better to gatecrash the US: it was a premier photo op for anti-immigration Republicans. Trump has threatened to close the American border and bring in the military.

Colin Freeman

Homage to Ambazonia

Calabar, Nigeria Simon Ngwa is a gentle and polite man, and he apologised to me first for what he was about to say. ‘I’m sorry if this upsets you, but we in Cameroon are very bitter towards Britain,’ he said. ‘As a child, I was taught to look up to the British Crown as a symbol of fair play and the Queen as a guarantor of moral values. But Britain is doing nothing to stop this genocide.’ Mr Ngwa and I had our conversation in a shabby refugee centre in the Nigerian town of Calabar, on Cameroon’s western frontier. Despite his impeccable manners, Mr Ngwa is a wanted man back