Society

I’d been suffering under the misguided illusion that the purpose of mainstream publishers like Penguin Random House was to sell and promote fine writing. A colleague’s forwarded email has set me straight. Sent to a literary agent, presumably this letter was also fired off to the agents of the entire Penguin Random House stable. The email cites the publisher’s ‘new company-wide goal’: for ‘both our new hires and the authors we acquire to reflect UK society by 2025.’ (Gotta love that shouty boldface.) ‘This means we want our authors and new colleagues to reflect the UK population taking into account ethnicity, gender, sexuality, social mobility and disability.’ The email proudly

They say that the devil is in the detail – and that is certainly the case with the government’s Brexit plans on defence and security. On 24 May, Gavin Williamson delivered a major speech on defence at the First Sea Lord’s Seapower Conference. It was a good speech, but then, under cover of the positive news coverage which it attracted, the Department for Exiting the EU slipped out a ‘Technical Note’. They must have hoped nobody would notice. Plenty of Brexiteer ministers didn’t seem to spot it, although goodness knows why not. But at Veterans for Britain, we did notice. We are on Red Alert. There are key civil servants and ministers

If you’re thinking about investing your money in cash and want a tax-efficient way to do it, this week’s Best Buys, of two year, fixed-rate ISAs, might help you out. From data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.

Jeremy Hunt is now Britain’s longest-serving health secretary. Having held the post since September 2012, he has been in office for almost six of the 70 years of the NHS that the Government will shortly mark with a major new funding settlement. The occasion seems appropriate for an evaluation of Hunt the politician, as distinct from Hunt the health chief.  Because health is a job that tends to consume and define its holder, we don’t hear much about Hunt except as part of the conversation about the NHS, its funding and its performance. It’s an obvious point today, but reflect on how resilient Hunt has been. Health is a brutal

A neat but delusional mythology appears to be gaining currency (see, for example, Lloyd Evans’s interview with Bernard-Henri Lévy) that the Brexit referendum can be understood as a conflict between metropolitan elitists voting Remain and the frustrated masses beyond the M25 longing to Leave. This analysis may chime satisfyingly with recent trends in some other democracies, but it distorts what happened in this one. In the two UK countries furthest from London, the votes went against Brexiting by bigger margins than the UK-wide Leave majority: 56-44 in Northern Ireland, and 62-38 in Scotland. London vs The Rest only works if The Rest ends at Carlisle. Incidentally, both these margins were

Those who worry that Channel 4 has become risk-averse might be fretting needlessly. The broadcaster has shortlisted Glasgow as a location for its new headquarters. Currently, C4 has only 30 staff based outside London and hopes shifting its HQ to the regions, along with two other ‘hubs’, will help it better reflect that narrow slice of the country beyond SW1. In shortlisting Glasgow, Channel 4 has decided either that there will be no second independence referendum any time soon – which is bold – or that any such re-run would not be commercially disruptive – bolder still. Independence is the elephant in the room of Glasgow’s bid, a project spearheaded by SNP-run Glasgow City

When Mark Thompson, a Briton, took over as CEO of the New York Times in November 2012, he was under a dark cloud. He’d just served as Director General of the BBC, and the corporation had been accused of covering up the sex crimes of one of its biggest-ever stars, the late Jimmy Savile. Ever keen to demonstrate objectivity, the Times ran an opinion piece a few days before Thompson took over, asking whether he was really the right man for the job. ‘Since early October,’ wrote columnist Joe Nocera, ‘all anybody has asked about Thompson are those two most damning of questions: what did he know, and when did he know it?’