Society

Monday

Sunder Katwala

England’s diverse World Cup team is something to celebrate

England kick off their World Cup campaign today by putting their faith in youth as they take on Tunisia: Gareth Southgate’s squad have the lowest average age and the fewest caps won of any of the 32 teams at the tournament. Only three of the squad – Gary Cahill, Ashley Young and Jamie Vardy – had even been born when Gazza’s tears captured a nation’s hearts at Italia ’90. Yet while the team’s youth has been the subject of much hype, another factor about this England squad has not captured any headlines: this is the most ethnically diverse squad that England has ever taken to the World Cup. Eleven of the squad

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Commons defeat looms as peers back ‘meaningful vote’ amendment

This time a week ago, Theresa May and her whips were trying to avert a looming Commons defeat on Brexit. As if the lengthy farce of the government trying to negotiate its way out of the European Union wasn’t surreal enough, the Prime Minister now seems trapped in one of those repetitive Hades-style punishments in which she is forced to go through the same miserable exercise over and over again. Except this time, after peers sent back the issue of a meaningful vote to the Commons again, it’s going to be even harder. The Upper Chamber backed Viscount Hailsham’s amendment which roughly reflects what Dominic Grieve had been calling for

Douglas Murray

The true cost of the Stepford Students | 18 June 2018

It has become abundantly clear in recent years that becoming a Social Justice Warrior (SJW) is bad for your health. But recent developments in north America suggest that it is also very bad for your bottom line. It is now three years since the University of Missouri underwent a prominent bout of SJW-itis. On that occasion various students at the university demanded that the college President should resign, acknowledge his ‘white male privilege’ and henceforth organise both faculty and staff along strictly racialist lines. Instead of telling these students who the grown-ups were, and where to go, the university authorities repeatedly bowed to radical student pressure. During the ensuing protests,

Sunday

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up | Dominic Grieve: ‘We could collapse the government’

Theresa May – NHS to be given £20 billion ‘birthday present’ Andrew Marr’s pre-recorded interview with the Prime Minister has led the day’s news coverage, featuring some notable highlights. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is the announcement that the government will be injecting £20 billion of extra cash into the National Health Service over the next five years. May explained her proposals in more detail: The NHS in England is to receive an extra £20bn a year as a 70th "birthday present", Theresa May tells #Marr https://t.co/rymEFOPEnR pic.twitter.com/ov6ldmkOMX — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) June 17, 2018 AM: The NHS is 70 years old… What are you bringing to the birthday party?

Saturday

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Virtuous hypocrites are everywhere

I was amused to read recently that supermarkets were mystified as to the sudden passion for the humble carrot sweeping the nation; more specifically, swiping the screens of supermarket self-checkouts, to the extent that Britons allegedly bought 800 million more of the orange denture-denters last year than they did in 2013. Perhaps shoppers had finally heard the Medieval rumours about them being a cure for sexually transmitted diseases, and with syphilis up 20 percent year on year considered it a convenient and crunchy way to swerve embarrassment at the doctors. But no, the merch in question wasn’t humble carrots at all, but a flighty fruit much loved by the airheads

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The question is not whether upskirting is gross, it’s whether it requires a new criminal offence

About three days ago, most of us wouldn’t have had much notion what upskirting was; now we are, I think, all very alive to the reality that there are creeps, pervs and predators who like to put their mobile phones up women’s skirts or dresses and take pictures of their crotch. And I think we are all at one in considering this is an outrageous thing to do. Nem con, so far, I’d say. Mrs May, for her part, has made clear that she’s very down on this sort of thing too, which is always nice to know. The question is not whether upskirting is gross; it’s whether it requires

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Why I will miss Paul Dacre

I really will miss Paul Dacre when he steps down as editor of the Daily Mail. There have been times, I must admit, when I have attacked the Mail’s grotesque behaviour and stupefying hypocrisy, but the following are good and true points to be made about Paul. 1) He fully, properly edits, and his proprietor has the sense to let him do so. 2) He values good writers, and pays them accordingly. 3) He is brave, especially in not minding the disapproval of polite society; and this courage has enabled him to crash around in the china shop of political correctness at a satisfying decibel level. For us in Sussex, there may

Friday

Evan Fowler

China’s attempt to control the narrative in Hong Kong

It has been a difficult week in Hong Kong. Opposition to the government’s proposed amendments to the city’s extradition laws spilled onto the streets in two large scale protests. More are expected this weekend. The extradition bill was initiated by the Hong Kong government to allow for the extradition to Taiwan of a Hong Kong national wanted there for murder, and to supposedly close a legal loop-hole that currently prevents Hong Kong residents from being extradited to China. Taiwan, however, opposes the amendments, with Taipei stating it would not seek extradition under the new laws. And Lord Patten, Hong Kong’s last governor, and former UK foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

In defence of Christopher Chope’s ‘upskirting’ objection

Sir Christopher Chope is not, perhaps, a household name, but he is a man of quite considerable courage. By raising an objection to the preposterous private member’s bill, brought by Wera Hobhouse, a LibDem MP, to make upskirting – taking pictures up girls’ skirts –  a specific criminal offence, he has seen off a bill which was a preposterous waste of time. The Government and Wera H has been hoping to get through the bill on the nod but it could only happen if no one in the chamber had the bad taste to object to it being passed without debate. Sir Christopher, one of parliament’s tough nuts, took the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The NHS bus pledge could have a sting in the tail for the Tories

Today’s newspapers have managed to catch up with our cover story from last month: Theresa May has agreed to a massive cash splurge on the NHS. Rather than wait until the spending review to announce this, there will be a political stunt presenting the cash as a 70th birthday gift to the health service. But it is instructive nonetheless: it underlines how this is not a serious assessment of the health service’s needs but a politically motivated gesture. Once it would have been opposed by the fiscal hawks in the Tory party but now these people tend to be keener the Brexit bus pledge of £350m a week for the

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

It’s not always true that bosses should walk the plank when something goes wrong

Should he stay or should he go — or will he already have gone by the time you read this? These are frequently asked questions about chief executives whose businesses hit troubled waters. It’s true that the higher you rise, the higher the risk if you don’t deliver, but it’s not always true that bosses should walk the plank whenever something major goes wrong: sometimes it makes more sense to stick around, take the flak and solve the problem. However, in the cases of Gavin Patterson of BT (ousted a week ago) and Paul Pester of TSB (still in post as we go to press), it would be fair to

Thursday

Raymond Keene

Viktor the Terrible

Viktor Korchnoi is the subject of a poignant new book from the distinguished pen of the Dutch grandmaster and former Soviet emigré Genna Sosonko. The title Evil Doer (published by Elk and Ruby) refers to the damnatio memoriae meted out by the USSR after Korchnoi’s very public defection to Amsterdam from the socialist paradise in 1976. Thereafter, Korchnoi combined the pursuit of a successful chess career, including two challenges for the world title, with the life of a persecuted traitor to the anointed heirs of Marx, Lenin and Stalin.   As a fellow ‘betrayer’ of the Soviet chess empire, Sosonko is well placed to chronicle the inner emotions, haunting fears and

Raymond Keene

no. 510

Black to play. This position is from Korchnoi–-Karpov, World Championship game 17, Baguio 1978. Can you spot Karpov’s dramatic finish? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 19 June 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 … b5+ Last week’s winner Jeff Aronson, Oxford

The Spectator

Letters | 14 June 2018

Exacerbating incivility Sir: I agree wholeheartedly with David Goodhart that if our politics is to ever recover from its current vicious state then all of us need to do our bit to ‘stand up for civility’ (‘The age of incivility’, 9 June). Goodhart explains well that what has ‘gone wrong’ with our politics is exacerbated by, but not entirely due to, social media. If the mainstream media were also to stop and ask whether it has contributed to the problem, that could be a positive step. The Spectator, for example, has at least two regular columnists in Rod Liddle and James Delingpole who seem to find it difficult to express a

Taki

High life | 14 June 2018

New York The summertime exodus is upon us. The Hamptons are overflowing with mouth-frothing groupies looking for celebrities, and the Long Island Expressway is ringing with the hissy fits of enraged drivers stuck in traffic for hours on end. One reason I gave up a beautiful estate in Southampton L.I. was the inability to get there before a lady who had initially said yes changed her mind because of the fatigue and boredom of sitting in a car watching other stationary cars. The Hamptons have become an artistic pit stop for the summer. The nouveaux riches need art as badly as #MeToo needs sexual predators; it justifies their grandstanding. A

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 14 June 2018

Last year the BBC radio drama department received 3,797 scripts from hopeful authors, of which just 33 were recommended to BBC radio drama producers. I came across this sad statistic when I was well into my first attempt to write an hour-long radio drama set in a trench during the first battle of Ypres in 1914. My chances of hearing my poor little play performed on the radio were reduced from slight to negligible when I then read that the BBC will be accepting no more drama scripts until the end of the year; and from negligible to zero when I belatedly looked into The Way to Write Radio Drama,

Melissa Kite

Real Life | 14 June 2018

After sanding floorboards for two days I became even more demented than usual. The hand sander was the exact right size to make it horribly arduous but just about possible to do the entire downstairs floor this way, and so I persisted even when I should have given up and hired a large machine. By the time I had sanded seven boards I had started to mildly hallucinate. What was the keeper thinking, leaving me with a Black & Decker ‘Mouse’ while he went on holiday? I suppose he wanted to tie me up with a job that couldn’t lead to decapitation or electrocution until he got back. The Mouse

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 14 June 2018

I’ve just come back from Ostend, where I spent four perfect days. No, not sun, sea and sand — eight hours of intensive bridge, followed by non-stop hand analysis over supper. I was there for the European women’s pairs, partnering the wonderful Marusa Basa (soon to become Mrs David Gold). After qualifying for the A final, we finished a disappointing 16th. But I’m still on a high from the sheer adrenaline of it — especially as the European open teams championships were taking place at same time and venue (indeed they’re still going on), so we could check on England’s progress. This slam, played by Andrew Robson, caused a fair

The Spectator

Barometer | 14 June 2018

Mortal combat Health secretary Jeremy Hunt promised more protection for medical staff accused of criminal malpractice after a doctor was struck off over a boy’s death from sepsis. How many people die as a result of inadequate healthcare? — In 2016, the ONS listed 141,101 out of 597,206 UK deaths as ‘avoidable mortality’, which was 24 per cent of the total. — The leading causes were neoplasms (cancer and non-cancerous growths), cardiovascular disease, injuries, respiratory diseases and drug use. — Among children, 1,674 out of 4,995 deaths were judged avoidable. — The highest rate was in Merthyr Tydfil (384.4 per 100,000 population) and the lowest in Monmouthshire (232.4). Nation stats

Toby Young Toby Young

A decent proposal

According to a new study published by some feminist academics at the Australian National University, women risk damaging their health if they work more than 34 hours a week. That’s not because women are the weaker sex, obviously, but because they do more housework and childcare than men, effectively working just as hard but dividing their labour between the office and home. On the back of this, the report’s authors have called for women to be paid the same for working a 34-hour week as men are for a 47-hour week. Until this happens, according to the researchers, women are being forced to choose between their health and gender equality.