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Plutarch’s lessons for Labour
The lives of those daily in the public eye are bound to attract attention, especially when they are politicians telling us what to do. The Greek essayist Plutarch (d. c. ad 120) wrote at length on this topic. How does Labour match up to his ancient ideals?
A politician’s aim, Plutarch said, was to win the trust of the people so that they would accept his authority ‘without being frightened off like a suspicious and unpredictable animal.’ To do this, the politician had to put his private affairs in order since the moral standard of the rulers determined the moral value of their regime.
So he had to ensure his life was scandal free, because the public was interested in every aspect of it: ‘dinner parties, love affairs, marriage, amusements and interests’. Plutarch cites the lengths to which the public would go to find fault (Scipio was reproved for sleeping too much). When a builder asked the Roman politician Drusus if he would like his house less open to public sight, he replied: ‘Open up the whole place: everyone must see how I live.’ Politicians had to be purer than pure. Yes, Sir Keir?
Likewise, it was the task of the statesman not just to exercise power but to serve the community. That meant the politician stood up especially for weaker people: ‘The multitude can have no greater honour shown them by their superiors than not to be despised.’ Did all your MPs live up to that after the riots, Sir Keir?
But the Labour party has scored one great success. Plutarch saw advantage in being seen to disagree. It carried conviction among the voters, he argued, when in large policy matters party members should at first disagree and then change their minds. It looked as if they were acting from principle. In small matters, however, they should be genuinely allowed to disagree, because then their agreement in important matters did not look pre-concerted. So there was something to be said for controlled party splits. Well done, then, Sir Keir, and especially his erstwhile chief of staff, Sue Gray. How expertly they have exploited this cunning Plutarchan tactic!
Britain’s foreign policy is increasingly feeble
For those of us who grew up during the Cold War, it’s heartbreaking to watch the western countries fail to defend the interests of liberal democracy. The free world is being challenged on three fronts, by Russia, Iran and China, all of whom threaten the international order established so painstakingly after the second world war. The West should be standing up for its values, yet even Britain, the great bastion of democracy, the country that heroically held out alone in 1940-41, seems to have lost the will to fight.
The fact that the government has transferred sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is symptomatic of a country that no longer has geopolitical perspective. Britain is obsessed with its own shame over its imperial history – and has been for quite some time. During Gordon Brown’s premiership I held the position of UN special adviser on Cyprus. In that role I called on a senior aide to Brown to discuss the progress we were making in negotiations between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots to reunite the island. One of the issues was the 99 square miles of British sovereign bases there. Much to my astonishment, the official at No. 10 told me that the PM would be happy to give up those bases as part of a settlement.
Britain is obsessed with its own shame over its imperial history
The official conceded that there would be huge resistance from the intelligence and defence establishments to such a surrender. It would clearly limit any UK capacity to contribute to peace in the Middle East: not only because those bases act as an unsinkable aircraft carrier for the RAF (as demonstrated by their role in shooting down the Iranian missiles heading for Israel recently), but also because to give them up would deny the western alliance access to intelligence.
British security policy seems to be lost in a post-colonial torpor. The government claims in its defence that it has retained a 99-year lease on the vital Chagos island of Diego Garcia with its military base, but a lease is not the same as sovereignty. What happens if Diego Garcia is to be used for an operation of which Mauritius does not approve? And Mauritius, as you may know, is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, which is far from being an unequivocal supporter of the West.
The Policy Exchange thinktank made the legal and strategic case against ceding the Chagos Islands to Mauritius almost a year ago, pointing out that international law simply does not require the British government to hand over Diego Garcia.
The Navy Support Facility Diego Garcia is critical in enabling US power projection into the Indian Ocean, Africa and the Middle East. Its infrastructure supports military activities, including heavy-bomber aircraft resupply, nuclear attack submarine tending, military supply pre-positioning and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. While nominally a US base, Diego Garcia is used by allied militaries, including Australia, which deployed it as a staging post for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
If the western alliance is to unite to deter adversaries, ceding sovereignty in the Indian Ocean is just folly. The ocean is contested territory. China has established what is known as its ‘string of pearls’ there: among them port facilities in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Djibouti. If the West is to maintain a balance of power with China, it needs the ability to deploy forces quickly and effectively in the Indian Ocean – and Diego Garcia is critical to that.
Put another way, the presence of US and allied forces in the middle of the Indian Ocean underwrites the peace of the region. The Chinese understand the huge capacities that can be channelled through Diego Garcia to stabilise the area, and so its very existence as a major military base helps to deter Chinese adventurism. Without it, expect China to try to reduce many of the Indian Ocean littoral states to tribute status – and, as it does so, to end up (at best) in an intense diplomatic competition with India.
Mauritius, for its part, doesn’t want to upset China or be seen to be collaborating with the West to tame Beijing’s ambitions. On the contrary: in recent years Mauritius has been investing substantial diplomatic capital in China. In 2019 it signed a free-trade agreement with China and is part of China’s Belt and Road initiative. Many in China see Mauritius as a gateway to investment and economic activity in Africa. Mauritius is an investment entrepôt and the free trade agreement foreshadows the establishment of a Yuan clearing and settlement facility for the continent. And if you’re flying to Mauritius, note that the new airport terminal was built by the Chinese government.
In the event of conflict erupting between China and the United States and its allies, what will the Mauritian government’s reaction be to its territory being used to launch attacks on Chinese assets? What sort of pressure would Beijing put on Mauritius to guarantee that its territory is not used for hostile intent towards China? Although we don’t know the answers to these questions, we can easily imagine them: in these dire circumstances, lawyers would be briefed and the UN activated by the Mauritian government – at the urging of Beijing – to limit the use of Diego Garcia.
It’s hard to think of a worse time for the British government to have created this uncertainty. Under Xi Jinping, Beijing has become robust and aggressive in the South China Sea, the East China Sea and in its threats to Taiwan. Meanwhile, its ally Russia is at war with Ukraine and its friend Iran is at war with Israel – putting the West under more pressure than at any time since 1945. Britain’s actions have now raised questions about whether it will be prepared to maintain its sovereign bases in Cyprus and Gibraltar. There are also negotiations going on with Spain over the airport in Gibraltar. It seems the government feels that the territory is just a legacy of Empire and that it would be best to at least cede the airport, although it is first and foremost an RAF base and therefore critical to Gibraltar’s strategic role. Meanwhile, the Cypriots would like the British to give up their sovereign bases there, because they, too, are an Empire legacy.
The sentiment expressed to me by Gordon Brown’s adviser all those years ago seems still to reign supreme in the Foreign Office. Why is the political establishment so traumatised by the British Empire? My country, Australia, was created by the British Empire and is one of the most successful in the world. The UK government should understand there were both good things and bad things about this period of history.
In recent years, Britain wisely embarked on a policy known as the ‘Tilt to the Indo-Pacific’. This made perfect sense if we were to continue participating substantially to the defence of the West. The UK is a permanent member of the UN security council and still has more force projection capability than any other European country. It also has substantial soft power in the Indo-Pacific.
Defending western interests, maintaining the balance of power in the Indo–Pacific region and deterring rogue behaviour by Iran, Russia and China will require involvement by more countries than just the US. But Britain is sending a message to the world: that it no longer has the desire or the energy to be a major contributor to world peace. For those of us who love Britain this is deeply troubling. It is also very sad.
Confessions of a political gambler
What could be more exquisite than the life of the professional gambler? I began my career in 2016 with a modest punt of £1,000 on the London mayoral election. Bingo. Sadiq Khan won and I banked a profit of £100. Then Brexit. My guess was that the pollsters had overestimated support for Remain and that the country was keen to evict the conjoined twerps, David Cameron and George Osborne, from Downing Street. The referendum was our chance to vaporise both their careers simultaneously. One cross, two graves. That’s what happened. And I cleared another tidy sum.
I cursed the day that I’d ever started gambling. I was a fool. A dunce. A clueless moron
But I was haunted by a wager I’d laid in the winter of the same year while watching Fox News over a relaxing pint of Tesco claret. I bet £800 on a Donald Trump victory. Over the ensuing months I watched in disbelief as the candidate set about destroying his reputation with improvised asides and unforced blunders, including a claim that he could ‘shoot somebody’ on Fifth Avenue without harming his popularity. Trump was a lost cause. So was my money. Hillary Clinton confirmed the news in her pre–victory statement on 26 October. She tweeted a picture of herself as a schoolgirl alongside the caption: ‘Happy birthday to this future president.’ She’d already won. It was over. I cursed the day that I’d ever started gambling. I was a fool. A dunce. A clueless moron.
And then the results came in and everything changed. Hillary was out. Trump was president. And I was a genius. A maestro. A visionary. I could gaze into the future and anticipate events before they happened. And there was money to be made as well.
The Trump result was a one-off, obviously, and I devised an ultra-cautious strategy. Choose dead certs and stake large sums at very short odds. That would shield my money from danger. By betting on council elections and city mayoral contests, I could turn my gift of clairvoyancy into a steady income.
Theresa May called an election in the spring of 2017 and Nostradamus got to work. The projected Tory landslide seemed unlikely to me and I expected the Conservatives towin a decent but not a massive majority. Maybe 20 or 30 seats. Fifty was possible. A hundred was a fantasy. Using my steady-Eddie strategy, I placed a large stake on the least risky outcome.
Polling night arrived and I showed up at a drinks party in Westminster full of political hacks and spads who were seated around a screen tuned to the BBC. I nudged the wonk beside me. ‘You know, I’ve had a little flutter on the outcome,’ I said. ‘How much?’ he asked. My answer surprised him and he passed the news around the room and it spread rapidly into the surrounding corridors. As the main room filled up with people, I noticed a few of them whispering and pointing in my direction: ‘It’s him. Over there. The guy who bet 6,000 quid on the Tories.’ Someone asked me how large a majority I expected but before I could answer the bongs began.
It was ten o’clock. David Dimbleby appeared. ‘The Conservatives are the largest party. Note – they don’t have an overall majority at this stage.’ A weird singing noise began in my ears and I felt myself gulping uncomfortably as I gazed at the TV. ‘No overall majority.’ I stared and stared at the caption at the base of the screen, hoping to make it disappear by sheer eyeball power. At the same time I tried to compose my features into a smile of triumph and yet I could hear myself coughing and clearing my throat involuntarily. And I kept folding and unfolding my arms in a vain search for a relaxed position in my chair. All eyes were on me. I looked back at the circle of party-goers and I saw my ruin written in their expressions. Pity, shock, wonder, ridicule, disgust, contempt. They knew. They could tell from my panicking eyes and my fidgety demeanour that I’d blown it. Six grand. Six sodding grand had vanished.
They could tell from my panicking eyes that I’d blown it. Six grand. Six sodding grand had vanished
But why? My plan had been so reasonable, so wise, so shrewdly insulated from risk. Stake a large sum on a dead-safe outcome – a simple Conservative majority – and collect a nice little profit. But the Tories had let me down. Those bungling idiots. All they needed was a handful of extra seats. And they’d failed. The bunch of morons.
The next day, following my public humiliation, I closed my online account and resigned as a soothsayer. I made one intriguing discovery from my gambling career. Every wager, whether it succeeds or fails, delivers a stab of anguish to the heart. If you win, you feel that you should have bet more. If you lose, you feel that you should have bet nothing. Even in triumph you experience no joy, no respite, no escape from the guilt and the curses of self-laceration. Every winner in the casino knows that his haul would have been twice as big if only he’d been twice as brave. Truly it’s a dreadful business. And I’m glad it’s all behind me now. Well, nearly. I’ve put a hundred on Kamala.
Help! I don’t speak emoji
My friend replied to my text with seven sets of animal paw prints, interspersed with pink hearts and rounded off with a cat face.
This was in reply to me telling her it had been nice to see her when she stayed with us in West Cork.
I squinted at these emojis, trying to make out whether I was looking at ‘What a lovely country house you have’ or ‘What a dump! Cats and dogs everywhere, which is obviously your thing, but I won’t be coming again’.
Earlier that day, another friend replied to my message asking how she was with a burst of gold stars, some prayer hands and a smiley face. Was she all right, or had she dropped dead and started texting me from heaven, using the celestial wifi?
This is the future. Staring at faces with tongues hanging out and faces vomiting green sludge
More to the point, will we all speak to each other using only emojis one day? I think it is perfectly possible. And maybe it will be a good thing, once grammar and punctuation hit (or even hits) rock bottom. I went to La Bohème at the London Coliseum the other evening and, baffled by their interpretation of it, I looked at the English National Opera’s website afterwards and was horrified to find this, which I reproduce exactly as written: ‘La bohème is a timeless piece of opera which seeks to explore the themes of enlightenment, good versus’ [sic] evil, and friendship…’
Note the making of versus possessive. While lecturing us about enlightenment, which I’m pretty sure Puccini wasn’t bothered about, they show themselves to be utterlyunenlightened by using incorrect grammar. Even the English National Opera, with its English surtitles on a digital board above the stage where the opera is being sung in English, cannot be trusted to get English right.
It is almost time to give up on the attempt to sing, speak or write in our native tongue at all. We must resign ourselves to these infuriating emojis and to working out what they all mean.
Let us start with prayer hands, which is surely the most infuriatingly ambiguous. ‘Folded hands is used as a gesture of prayer, thanks, request, and greeting, as well as to express sentiments of hope, praise, gratitude, reverence and respect,’ says one definition. ‘This is a symbol meaning love, warmth, caring, affection,’ says another.
In other words prayer hands means anything. They are the pictorial equivalent of saying: ‘Mmm.’
Next, facial expressions. In a recent exchange, I texted a neighbour that the builder boyfriend would pop round soon and check her boiler as she was worried about it.
She replied with a face with eyes closed and the mouth less than half smiling. I could not even see what that expression was without wiggling my contact lenses sideways. It looked a bit sarcastic, like she was saying: ‘If you really cared about my boiler maybe you would have come round earlier.’
I asked her what time was convenient and she replied that any time would do, then red heart, smiley face, kiss kiss, burst of stars.
A shower of emojis generally means the person is trying to be nice, I think. So I heaved a sigh of relief. We are getting to the point where unless someone texts you an entire row of kisses and hearts you are worried they are angry with you.
The colours of faces is becoming an issue. I never thought to pick anything other than the standard yellow.
But I notice other people are selecting colours now. My IT man, who is Irish and pale-skinned, has a slightly tanned thumbs up. I wonder whether he is making a political point to do with the Troubles or placing himself in an ethnic category so as to sympathise with the Palestinians or other freedom fighters, as the Irish often do. Then again, I know he likes to go to Rhodes. So perhaps his slightly more golden thumb is simply meant to show him tanned from his holiday?
People choose the most unlikely emojis. The builder boyfriend sends me those girly unicorn heads adorned with hearts, and sometimes he does a giant mouse with hearts for eyes. He does prayer hands too, and I am certain he has no idea what they mean, as he puts them on the end of phrases like ‘Yes, OK’.
Another friend litters her texts with a woman holding up her arms as if to say: ‘What can I do?’ No matter what I say to her. I feel we are going to fall out soon. I don’t like her any more, because of these shrugging gestures.
This is the future. Staring at faces with tongues hanging out and faces vomiting green sludge and eyes inside a triangle of what looks like a pile of poo. There is an emoji for everything. The only problem is, no one knows or cares which one is which. The result is somewhat less efficient than a series of Neanderthal grunts. At least by the tone of our grunt when we were cave dwellers we used to communicate to each other what mood we were in.
It took me years to work out what two particular friends were saying when they sent me a red ‘100’ with two red lines under it. It means 100 per cent and saves them having to type the phrase ‘I agree’.
What does a face with green dollar signs for eyes mean, or an ethnic minority guardsman in a bearskin hat?
And when do you use the figure in a burkha with what looks like a sword or a gun slung across their back? That should not exist under anti-terror law, surely, and yet there it is, between the waiter and a man in a Dracula cape wearing a purple Venetian mask.
If you pressed all three in a row, followed by a question mark and some prayer hands, I guess you’d be saying: ‘I could get work as a waiter, but I’m thinking of going jihad, or maybe I should try acting classes. What do you think? I’d be grateful if you could let me know your thoughts as I do so respect your opinion.’
Bridge | 12 October 2024
The Metropolitan Cup, played on RealBridge in mid-September, was won by the Sussex A team. The following hand, played by Stephen Kennedy, contained a number of interesting points. Creating an entry to partner’s hand sometimes takes creativity and imagination. It’s usually easy on a piece of paper and when it’s pointed out to us, but for some reason it’s much harder to spot at the table.
West led the ♥6, won in dummy by the Jack. It’s not easy to know where to start, but Clubs have to be touched at some point so at trick two Stephen led a Club towards his hand, and when East played low, he contented himself with the 8. This was a smart play as West is the danger hand and his possible entries need to be knocked out. West won the ♣10 and persisted with a high Heart. Declarer won and tried the Diamond finesse, but East won and switched to the ♠9. South put in the King, which was allowed to hold, but the ♠Q came next, which West took and finally established his Heart suit.
Stephen cashed the ♦J and got the bad news. Two more tricks were needed and they can only come from Clubs, which need to be 3-3 with the Ace onside. The ♠J enabled him to get to dummy, and a Club towards hand left East with no reply; whether he takes or ducks, he can’t stop the declarer making two Clubs for nine tricks.
Have you spotted it yet? By the time West played his third Heart, the hand was like an open book to East, and discarding the Ace of Clubs shouldn’t have been impossible!
Labour’s first 100 days: the verdict
This Saturday marks Labour’s 100th day in office. But they are unlikely to be popping champagne corks in Downing Street – even if Lord Alli offered to pay for the Dom Pérignon. This has been a disheartening time for the government and those who wished it well. The promise of dramatic change has been overshadowed by a series of errors, misjudgments and scandals that one would associate more with an administration in its dying days than a government enjoying a fresh mandate, a massive majority and an absent opposition.
Ministers might fondly hope voters will have been encouraged by the introduction of legislation to help renters, the abolition of one-word Ofsted judgments or the establishment of Great British Energy. But these achievements, if one can call them that, have been eclipsed by the Great British Farce of cabinet ministers’ birthday parties paid for by millionaires, spousal wardrobes stuffed by donors and access to Downing Street secured at the drop of an optician’s bill.
The voters who gave Labour victory were those who backed Brexit and Boris
If the government had proved sure–footed and accomplished in its other dealings, such undignified transactions might not have excited much scorn. But an early decision to remove winter fuel payments from all save a minority of pensioners while handing handsome pay rises to already well-remunerated train drivers – compounded by confusion over plans for VAT on private school fees and consternation at the idea of banning smoking in pub gardens – have all contributed to the sense of a government at once heartless, maladroit and missing the big picture.
William Hague once observed that New Labour would inspire first fascination, then admiration, then disillusionment and finally contempt. He was right. But what Tony Blair and Gordon Brown achieved after 13 years, Keir Starmer has accomplished in a mere three months. Opinion polls now indicate that voters already prefer, by a small margin, the last Conservative government to this Labour one. Given the precision-targeted and uniformly violent force with which that last government was ejected from office, that is not a happy portent.
That polling confirms the one enduring truth about contemporary politics – its volatility. Across the developed world the past decade and a half has seen convulsive change in political systems and fortunes. Traditional loyalties have been eroded. The old class basis of parties such as the SPD in Germany or Les Républicains in France has fractured. In America, a president who left office roundly accused of trying to subvert the last election now stands at least an evens chance of winning the next one.
So Labour’s current troubles need not mean certain failure. The Prime Minister, whatever his other characteristics, has shown that he can learn from mistakes, act ruthlessly and focus relentlessly. At his party’s lowest ebb in opposition, after losing the once safe Labour seat of Hartlepool to Boris Johnson in a by-election, he contemplated resignation. But he resolved to be a fighter not a quitter. He reshuffled his team, demoting some of those most loyal to him, such as the then shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds, and aides who had been with him from the beginning. He tacked to the centre, having promoted Rachel Reeves to shadow chancellor and entrusted electoral strategy to the County Cork street-fighter Morgan McSweeney. He was helped by the Conservative party reverting to its traditional recreation of forming circular firing squads, only this time equipped with semi-automatic weaponry. Nevertheless, Starmer maintained that grip on his party and discipline over policy, which secured a landslide.
It is to Rachel Reeves and McSweeney that he has now chosen to turn again to recover his fortunes. Naturally, attention has so far focused on the personnel changes the Prime Minister has made in No. 10 at McSweeney’s behest and on the invidious tax choices Reeves is contemplating. Both fascinate. But there is a much bigger challenge Reeves and McSweeney must meet.
There is still a gaping hole where the government’s vision of how all of Britain will grow and prosper should be. There is, as yet, no coherent and comprehensive political economy for the nation. There is no vision for reviving our overlooked and undervalued communities. The Tories’ levelling-up agenda has been abandoned. Nothing meaningful has appeared in its place.
That failure can be addressed in the Budget and beyond. But it requires hard choices. If high-quality jobs are to return to the North and the Midlands then re-industrialisation is presumably the answer. But how can that be reconciled with a decarbonisation strategy that raises prices for energy-hungry industries and has already spelled doom for the Port Talbot steelworks and Grangemouth oil refinery?
Relaxing rules on government capital spending may boost economic activity, but why have so many of the capital projects in left-behind areas been axed already? Proposals to deregulate land planning may also drive growth, but why lower ambitions for new housing in London, the area that needs it most? And what prospect is there of delivering major infrastructure projects, such as the Lower Thames Crossing, if decisions are pushed back and there is no progress on reforming the inherited EU laws which most inhibit new development?
The Chancellor has a capacious and inquisitive mind. McSweeney has a keen sense of how impatient Labour’s electoral coalition is to see change. Both know the voters who gave them victory this time were those who backed Brexit in 2016 and Boris in 2019. We shall see in the next 100 days if they are being properly listened to.
Portrait of the week: Sue Gray resigns and the Chagos Islands are handed back
Home
Sue Gray resigned as chief of staff to Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister. She will become Sir Keir’s envoy for the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. She was replaced by Morgan McSweeney, 47. James Lyons, a former political journalist who has more recently worked for the NHS and TikTok, was brought in to take charge of strategic communications. Sir Keir paid back more than £6,000 for gifts and hospitality, including six Taylor Swift tickets, four tickets to the races and a clothing rental agreement with his wife.
More people in the United Kingdom died than were born in the year to mid-2023, according to the Office for National Statistics. Nonetheless, the population grew by 1 per cent to 68.3 million, because net migration was 677,300. In the seven days to 7 October, 1,368 migrants in small boats arrived in England – 973 of them on a single day: the most on any day this year. According to French authorities, a child was found to have died in a migrant vessel off Boulogne-Sur-Mer, and two men and a woman were crushed to death in a vessel off Calais. The High Speed 2 rail project will run to Euston in the centre of London, Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, confirmed, rather than ending at Old Oak Common, near Wormwood Scrubs. Ofwat ordered water companies to repay customers £158 million through lower bills next year after they failed to meet targets on pollution and leaks. Abu Dhabi wrote off its 9.9 per cent investment in Thames Water.
Russia’s ‘GRU in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets’, Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, said in his annual update of security threats. Tom Tugendhat was knocked out of the Conservative leadership contest, leaving MPs with one more to eliminate from Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Kemi Badenoch before a choice of two is put to party members. James Murray, the Treasury minister, said that VAT would be imposed on private school fees from January, despite warnings from unions and tax experts that it was too soon. Tesco in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis announced plans to open on Sundays. The Pope named Father Timothy Radcliffe, the English Dominican, as one of 21 new cardinals to be created on 8 December.
Abroad
Israel sent thousands of additional ground forces into Lebanon, seeking to root out Hezbollah and destroy its infrastructure. In a video Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, urged Lebanon to free itself from Hezbollah to avoid ‘a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza’. He also said that Hashem Safieddine – the successor to Hezbollah’s former leader, Hassan Nasrallah – had been killed. Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, reaching the city of Haifa on three consecutive days. Some 1.2 million people had been displaced, according to Lebanese authorities. An Israeli strike on a mosque and former school in Gaza, used by Hamas as ‘command and control centres’ according to the Israel Defence Forces, was reported by Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry to have killed 26.
Britain is handing over to Mauritius the Chagos Islands, including the atoll of Diego Garcia, which will still be used as a military base by the United States. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, criticised the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, for making the announcement before telling parliament. Britain offered dozens of stranded Tamil migrants, held for years in a camp on Diego Garcia, a temporary move to Romania. An ocean-imaging ship of the Royal New Zealand Navy ran aground off Samoa, caught fire, capsized and sank; all 75 aboard were saved. Millions in Florida were told to leave their homes to avoid Hurricane Milton. TikTok was sued by 14 US states, which claimed that the social media platform contributed to a mental health crisis among teenagers.
Ukraine said it had carried out a strike on the large Feodosia oil terminal on the coast of occupied Crimea. Ukraine will not renew beyond the end of the year a contract with Russia’s Gazprom to allow transit of gas, Denys Shmyhal, its Prime Minister, told Robert Fico, the Prime Minister of Slovakia – which, like Austria and Hungary, relies heavily on Russian gas. The European Union decided to raise tariffs on electric cars made in China from 10 per cent to up to 45 per cent for the next five years. China, which buys 99 per cent of its imported brandy from France, retaliated with tariffs on EU brandy. CSH
My plans for The Spectator
Michael Gove has narrated this article for you to listen to.
Shortly after Boris Johnson was selected as the Conservative candidate for Henley, he invited me to lunch at The Spectator. It was, he said, to be an intimate affair. The magazine’s then proprietor, Conrad Black, had made it known that he expected Boris to stand down as editor now that he was embarking on a political career. Speculation as to who might succeed him was intense among ambitious young journalists. And I was one of those at the time who harboured secret hopes. Was this invitation a sign of favour, a laying-on of hands, the anointing of an heir? On arriving at lunch I discovered that there were other guests. Three of them. All of whom were fellow hacks who had also been either tipped as Boris’s successor or had welcomed their names being canvassed. As we sat around the table, we realised that Boris had invited us there to be teased and tested in a form of journalistic Squid Game. Who would break first? In the end it didn’t matter. By the time the last crumbs were being cleared away it had become apparent that none of us was there to be welcomed into the vacant editor’s chair, because the editor wasn’t going to vacate it. And so Boris continued to enjoy the best job in the world for several years more. And in due course he also managed to bag the second-best one. For my assessment of how he did, do read my review.
I recall that act of Johnsonian mischief because, 20 years later, I now occupy the chair he once graced. Since then the magazine has prospered mightily. Boris, Matt d’Ancona and, most recently and most powerfully, my predecessor Fraser Nelson have built circulation, grown subscriptions, broken scoops, entertained, informed and provoked to the point where The Spectator was acquired by a new proprietor for a sum five times its value when Conrad owned it. Taking over after their successes is daunting, like following Jacky Fisher at the Admiralty or De Gaulle at the Elysée. But what I hope I can do is bring the precious essence of The Spectator to even more readers – that sense of mischief, the commitment to stylish writing, incisive commentary, original and provocative opinion and love of freedom.
Freedom? Oi, Gove, I can hear some readers cry. Weren’t you the Torquemada of lockdown, the Covid Cromwell who bound this country in a web of restrictions during the pandemic that reduced the British public to the status of compliant sheeple? Well, I shan’t attempt to re-litigate now the painful compromises of that time. Good men and women can differ on what was right. But I was involved in decision-making then as a politician. I am now relieved of that responsibility, to the relief of many. I am, once more, a journalist. And it is the role of journalists, particularly Spectator editors, to challenge authority, champion liberty and above all, defend free speech. That freedom must extend to knowing the editor’s opinion is only one of many and his past as a minister is of only historical interest and certainly no sort of ideological guide. Writers in this magazine should never and will never follow any party line. The only requirement is that they should be the sort of people you’d want to invite to a party.
The best magazines are parties on paper. A tidbit of political gossip here, a whiff of glamour there, humour running throughout everything, naughtiness indulged. And you, dear readers, are the people who make the party work. Your opinions, your contributions, your orders from Jonathan Ray’s peerless Wine Club, your entries to our competitions, your presence at our events. I first joined the party (of Spectator readers that is, not the Conservative party) as a teenager in Aberdeen. Alexander Chancellor was the editor then, one of an illustrious succession that included Charles Moore, Dominic Lawson and Frank Johnson before Boris, Matt and Fraser. Alexander succeeded as editor because he knew that while The Spectator was a magazine that covered politics, indeed covered it better than any rival, it was not a political magazine. It should have the best writers on foreign affairs, food, music, new books, culture generally and human frailty everywhere. I never made it to No. 11 but Alexander is the Chancellor I most want to emulate.
The ladies who punch
Double jab, right, hook body, duck, right… Right, left, right, upper, four hooks… Ten straight punches… And ten more… Twenty roundhouse kicks… Now the other leg…
When I tell people that I’ve started kickboxing, they tend to think they’ve misheard. It’s true I’m not who one might think of as a typical fighter. I’ve spent my life working with books and now along with the books I juggle three kids and a dog. The closest I usually get to fighting is when I drag my whippet away from a scuffle in the park, or get elbowed out of the way in the school bake-sale scrum. Although I always seem to have multiple schoolbags looped over an arm, I have minimal upper body strength and have never managed to do a press-up, or even use the monkey bars (I broke my arm mistakenly thinking that I could, aged five). My usual exercise takes the form of cycling at breakneck speed to get to school pick-up on time, throwing a ball for the dog and my walking book club. I have long held hopes of becoming someone who swims year-round in the Hampstead ponds, or who runs fund-raising half-marathons, but frankly I’ve had neither the time nor energy. When I attempted a new mums’ fitness class soon after one of the children was born, the soles of my ancient running shoes fell off.
There is always the worry my pelvic floor might not quite be up to the challenge of a hundred jumping jacks
It was, inevitably, a book that made me see that there could be a fighter hiding in the mess of modern-day mothering. My children range in age from four to nine and every Friday for the past year I’ve been taking them to martial-arts classes after school. While the younger two were busy with punch bags and burpees, my elder daughter and I sat on the side reading together while she waited for her class. On this fateful Friday, she was reading Hetty Feather by Jacqueline Wilson and I was in the middle of Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel, a debut novel that went on to make the Booker longlist. This brilliant book takes the form of a boxing tournament; through the bouts, Bullwinkel tells the stories of the eight American teenage girls taking part. Strikingly, the author suggests that fighting is fundamental to femininity. I looked up from the book and watched my daughter tie her belt, readying herself for her class. So where, I wondered, is the fighter in me?
The next week I began one-on-one lessons alongside the children’s group classes. After a gruelling warm-up, the gloves and boots go on, and I begin to learn and repeat combinations of punches and kicks. Each week culminates in a final unbelievably long two minutes of nonstop fighting.
Humiliating moments abound. I jog forwards and backwards, knees high, punching into the air, while other parents waiting for their kids pretend not to stare. There is always the worry that my pelvic floor might not quite be up to the challenge of a hundred jumping jacks. Meanwhile, the children sharing the mats are so obviously better than me, learning long sequences and displaying complex moves like spinning roundhouse kicks while I struggle to remember which hand I’m supposed to be hitting with.
But I don’t mind in the least. I’m too busy embracing the surprising discovery that inside me there is a fighter. I’ve learnt that beneath the placid mother who always has her hands full or nose in a book, there is a seam of rage, and here, in the dojo, that rage can flood out. Each thwack of my glove against the teacher’s pad is electric. Boom. Boom boom boom. Out it comes – frustration, anger, fury – and in that moment of release it becomes… power.
‘But why are you angry? I don’t get it,’ my husband asks over dinner when I tell him about this incredible force that I tap into every Friday afternoon.
Of course there’s nothing really to be angry about: my life is extremely comfortable. It’s just… well, how can I explain that inside my head – and inside the head of so many other mothers and primary carers – is a terrible noise, made up of tiny things that when they all combine become deafening. They are the complicated timetable of recorders and wellies and snacks; the water bottles and play dates and laundry; the sheer impossibility of trying to walk along the pavement with children, or to get everyone on and off a bus; the perpetual stress of constantly being late, of having forgotten something, of hating yourself for forcing down spellings or sums or scales. Somehow, when I’m fighting, this senseless, maddening noise turns into a single reverberating note.
As I wonder how to reply to my husband, I realise that although I spend so much of my life wrestling meanings from words, in this instance they fail me. But it’s OK. At least I’m learning to throw a good punch.
Can Morgan McSweeney reboot the government machine?
The Queen is dead: long live the King. This week brought an end to Downing Street’s unhappy experiment in dyarchy. Out goes Sue Gray, banished to the regions. In her place stands the Irishman who won the No. 10 power struggle: Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s first chief of staff in opposition, is back on top. McSweeney’s allies believe that the new government will flourish into maturity after a troubled start. ‘We’re back to being political,’ one crows.
As another minister prefers to put it: ‘He needs to go around and crack some heads – and quick’
The new chief’s strengths are threefold. First, he is familiar with how the PM thinks. Unlike Gray – who knew little of Starmer before her appointment – McSweeney has been intimately involved in his rise to power. He ran Starmer’s leadership campaign in early 2020, served as head of his team for the next 18 months, then moved aside after the Hartlepool by-election humiliation before overseeing Labour’s landslide victory in July. The pair have spoken ‘almost every day for the past five years’, says one adviser, celebrating triumphs and dissecting defeats together. ‘He grew as a leader with Morgan next to him,’ says one insider. ‘They won together – and Morgan grew into this winning figure because of him.’ Aides and officials hope that McSweeney’s knowledge of his master’s mind will help him make decisions faster than Gray.
That knowledge speaks to McSweeney’s second strength: his confidence. ‘He’s won,’ says an adviser. ‘He is clearly the top dog.’ Gray’s demotion – as well as wider staff changes – ends chatter about which of them is more senior. As undisputed head of the No. 10 machine, McSweeney can afford to spread the load of governing. ‘He needs to empower the staff around him so they feel confident to tell secretaries of state what to do,’ says a Whitehall veteran. The recruitment of James Lyons as director of strategic communications is cited as one such example. The hope is that Lyons, a former Fleet Street hack, will improve No. 10’s ability to spot media pitfalls ahead of time. The new deputy chiefs of staff are Jill Cuthbertson, a Labour loyalist who was present for both Gordon Brown’s ‘bigotgate’ and Ed Miliband’s brush with a bacon sandwich, and Vidhya Alakeson, who ran the party’s outreach to business during the election. They are the first in a series of hires as McSweeney strengthens the political team within No. 10.
Filling such roles is where McSweeney’s third strength comes in. Twenty years rising through the Labour ranks have given him an intimate knowledge of its figures and factions. He got Steve Reed elected as council leader in Lambeth, ran Liz Kendall’s 2015 leadership bid and first met Labour’s general secretary, Hollie Ridley, when they fought the BNP in Barking together. His allies form the upper echelons of Starmer’s government. ‘The Praetorian Guard surround the Emperor,’ remarks one Labourite. Within Whitehall, some hope McSweeney’s grasp of the party will help officials make more informed judgments on new ministers’ priorities.
But this being Labour, not all are happy about McSweeney’s appointment. Critics question his effectiveness in steering government. One aide says she was ‘thoroughly unconvinced’ about McSweeney’s ‘short-lived reign’ as chief of staff in opposition. ‘He was never very good at setting direction outside of a very select group, so it never felt like ploughing in the same direction.’ Few doubt McSweeney’s skill as a campaigner, but some question whether it can be sustained over five years in office. ‘Morgan’s MO is “winning”, which he has done very successfully,’ says a former colleague. ‘But that’s not a political programme for government.’ His defenders recall the words of Bill Clinton’s great strategist, James Carville: ‘Campaigning prepares you for governing. It prepares you to get hit, stand strong and, if necessary, hit back.’
Those around McSweeney say he wants an ‘insurgency’ mindset – a word he has used publicly, too. Such talk might evoke memories of Dominic Cummings’s supposed ‘war on Whitehall’. Yet McSweeney’s supporters suggest he’s emphasising a focus on delivery after the drift of the past 100 days. ‘Massaging existing institutions will not cut it,’ remarks one MP. Or, as another minister prefers to put it: ‘He needs to go around and crack some heads – and quick.’ McSweeney also shared his vision to aides at ‘Spad school’. His promise of a ‘new chapter’ was met with applause while Ridley pledged to put politics at the heart of government.
Without upgrading the machinery of government, though, some fear Labour risks falling victim to No.10’s patterns of failure. To this end, in the coming days it is expected that Labour will name five ‘mission chiefs’ who will work with ministers on policy implementation. They will work closely with Pat McFadden – the man many consider the ‘de facto deputy PM’.
Within the Cabinet Office, the ‘mission delivery unit’ is up and running, based on the work of the Future Governance Forum, a thinktank run by McSweeney’s ally Nathan Yeowell. Institutional reforms will be accompanied by personnel changes, too. A slew of permanent secretaries will leave in the next year, while applications for cabinet secretary close next Sunday. The replacement of Gray could influence Starmer in his decision regarding who follows Simon Case.
Labour’s woes have been met with wry amusement on the opposite benches. Yet wiser Tories know a shaky start could teach Starmer’s team some hard-earned lessons about the realities of office. ‘Even amoebas learn,’ says one shadow minister. The Conservatives could face a tougher No. 10 operation in future – just as they start trying to rediscover the muscle memory of opposition. Some MPs marvel at the novelty of having to invent party policy on a daily basis; others miss the comfort of the Whitehall machine. ‘The leadership stuff is a distraction,’ admits one ex-minister. ‘We can laugh at Labour but where’s our five-year plan?’
After 14 years of political churn, both parties are still getting used to their new places in parliament. While the Tories seek to fill the leadership vacuum, there is no debate in Labour about who is in charge. Starmer has given McSweeney the position he always wanted: chief of staff in a Labour government. If his appointment fails to reboot things, it will not just be McSweeney’s future at risk – but Starmer’s.
Meeting the Chagos islanders of Crawley
Max Jeffery has narrated this article for you to listen to.
Departing Gatwick train station, with nine minutes till Crawley, I tried to get in the head of a Chagossian. In 2002, Tony Blair gave everyone from the Chagos Islands British citizenship, permitting 10,000 Chagossians to live wherever they liked in the UK. About 3,500 have chosen Crawley. And what a weird thing to do. They took a 6,000-mile Air Mauritius flight to Gatwick airport to start a new life, then settled just a mile from the runway. Why so close?
I was visiting Crawley to meet these people I didn’t understand, to find out what they made of our government handing over their islands to Mauritius. On the train I clicked through a few Facebook groups and found a man named Maxwell Evenor who said he was around to talk. Maxwell is part of Chagossian Voices, a campaign group which says it ‘takes the Chagossian voice to the highest levels of decision-making’. I asked him to meet me at a picnic table in Crawley Memorial Gardens.
The Chagossian people were expelled to Mauritius in 1968 by Harold Wilson’s government. The islands were then a British colony, and the US Navy requested to use the largest one, Diego Garcia, as a military base. Wilson wanted to please his American friends, so his government asked the Chagossians to leave. When they wouldn’t, it restricted shipments of food and gassed their pet dogs in sheds. The Chagossians fled, and the Mauritian government was paid £3 million to look after them.
The local Asda stocks Chagossian snacks such as Apollo instant noodles
Maxwell brought his friend Jemmy along to our meeting. ‘I like Crawley,’ Jemmy said. The local Asda stocks Chagossian snacks such as Apollo instant noodles, and there’s a good Chagossian takeaway called Island Kitchen nearby. Jemmy has lived in the town for 21 years but still looked uncomfortable. She kept putting the hood of her coat up and down as if she couldn’t get a grip on the weather. Maxwell has been in Crawley for 14 years. ‘Just got on with it really,’ he said.
Jemmy told me why she left Mauritius: ‘My grandma was adamant. She’s not Mauritian. She’s Chagossian. So is my mum. So is my grandad. So are their brothers and sisters. Chagossians. So you grow up living in the country, but you are not of the country, if that makes sense.
‘I kept learning our history, obviously from my mum, my dad, my grandma, my grandpa. I was told the UK government gave money to the Mauritian government to take care of us, to rehouse us, to rehabilitate us, to allow us to have a decent life. Education and work programmes, all of that. But less than 5 per cent of the population benefited from being removed from our home and thrown into Mauritius. The vast majority of us will tell you this is the reason why we came to the UK. For a better life. If our life was already amazingly great or good in Mauritius, why would we come here?’ Maxwell said that Mauritians were racist to him because he was of black African descent.
I asked Jemmy what she thought of Mauritius being given the Chagos Islands. ‘Yesterday morning we had reporters from the BBC, we had people from human rights groups contact us to say, “Look, you guys, get ready. This deal has happened. It’s been signed off. It’s coming on the news soon. Give your views on this.” Then we get a call at 4 p.m. telling us “We’re really sorry, but it’s a done deal.” And that was by… What’s his name, minister Doughty? Doughty? What’s his name?’
I said I didn’t know, but that Doughty could be correct. (Gov.uk says his name is Stephen Doughty, and he’s the minister of state for Europe, North America and Overseas Territories.) Had Doughty ever spoken to them or any other Chagossians in person? ‘Not in person. Zoom. Everything is done online.’
I said I was sorry, in part because I was, but also because Jemmy was getting angry. She raised her voice until it became so loud that I worried the people of Crawley might intervene in some way. ‘I’m fuming,’ she said. ‘It’s abuse,’ Maxwell added.
It seemed a good idea to pivot the conversation to the Northgate Community Centre. In June, 77 Chagossians arrived at Gatwick without any arrangements for accommodation. They were put in a leisure centre on Crawley’s outskirts, and after two weeks were moved to Northgate, on the other side of town, where they lived on the floor of the village hall. Local papers said the council had booted them out, so I guessed they were now drifting around Crawley’s streets. ‘No. There’s still people in the Northgate Centre,’ Maxwell said. ‘And they’ve been taken to court because the council told them to move. But they don’t have anywhere to go. So they’re going through court proceedings.’
Later I went to the centre: a single-storey building with pebbledash walls and drawn curtains. Two wads of paper were Sellotaped to the glass door. ‘NOTICE TO TERMINATE LICENCE,’ read one dated 26 June. The other was a recent court summons.
The door opened into a plain and dark corridor with a locked disabled loo straight ahead. Someone was in there listening to rap music and making regular hawking and spitting noises. The tap was on too. I sat in the foyer and waited for him to finish.
A different man arrived before the hawking man came out. He wore a tracksuit and had his hair pulled back in a bun. He said his name was Guy, and he lived at the centre. He grinned and two gold teeth glinted. He asked me to wait while he found Kenny, another resident who could speak better English.
Kenny said that of the 77 people who came in June, there were maybe ten left in the centre – those who were under 35 and didn’t have children. He showed me the hall where they were living. It was unclean and filled with rows of camp beds. A sort of screen had been erected to create a second, smaller space, where people could change. Towels were hung over the top of it. Along the walls were cartons of medicine, and people kept their possessions in supermarket bags by their beds.
Kenny handed me a 38-page summary of the case against him and the other lodgers, given to them by the council. The first page invited them to go to the county court on 13 August. Kenny said they’d been, and the magistrate had ruled that bailiffs would come next week. They would bring police to remove the Chagossians from Northgate if necessary. Guy asked to see my identification, because he was worried I was a Mauritian spy. He said he’d seen many of them, and when I asked what he did to spies he stomped his foot on the ground.
At the back of the summary was a letter from Ian Duke, the chief executive of Crawley Borough Council: ‘Many of the group have asked a question regarding where they will go… This is a question that you must answer for yourself. This is why the government advises people travelling from Mauritius to the UK to have first considered how they will be housed. Unfortunately, you have chosen to make the journey without having arranged housing first… We do fully understand the history of the Chagos Islands and the plight of the Chagossian people.’
Finally the hawking man came out of the bathroom, and Guy wanted to show me what he had been doing in there. In the back corner was a blue bucket, the size of a car tyre. They used it to wash, filling it from the tap, rubbing themselves down.
Guy said the council provided them with food and provisions when they arrived in Crawley, but support was cut off once they were ordered to leave Northgate Centre. The town’s smart administrators had learnt lessons from history. They could starve them out. Is that why the Chagossians live so close to the airport?
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Labour’s new approach to China
The Foreign Secretary David Lammy will touch down in Beijing next week to pay his respects. Next year, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, is expected to do the same.
We haven’t seen this level of deference to the Chinese Communist party since 2019. Back then, Philip Hammond heaped praise on his hosts. He endorsed their Belt and Road initiative – of Chinese-funded infrastructure spanning the globe – and promised British co-operation ‘as we harness the “Golden Era” of UK-China relations’.
The calls from Tory China hawks to label Xi’s empire ‘a systemic threat’ hold little sway with the new regime
That was the high-water mark of Anglo-Chinese collaboration. George Osborne and David Cameron had courted the Chinese hard. Boris Johnson, too, was initially tempted to follow a pro-Sino approach – backing Huawei for 5G access. But, under pressure from the US, he stepped back, concluding that China posed a substantial threat to the liberal global order. The Belt and Road initiative soon began to be seen as a Beijing power grab – a way to spread influence with strings attached. Then came the Hong Kong crackdown, more accusations of espionage, cyber attacks, human rights abuses – followed, of course, by the Covid pandemic. The UK-China relationship turned from warm to wary at best. ‘They tend to start off thinking there is a third way,’ says one Whitehall figure. ‘Then they realise you can’t negotiate with China.’
But Labour is looking afresh at what Beijing has to offer. For a government with growth as its central goal, the Chinese market is alluring. When money is tight, the world’s second-largest economy looks like a more appealing place to turn. China has plenty to invest in return.
Lammy’s trip should provide an indication of how far Labour is prepared to go to embrace Beijing. It has already been conducting a China audit, aimed at setting a general direction across government. The first fruits will be published shortly. Those privy to the work in progress suggest the idea is a course correction from the past 14 years of Tory rule. The government will set out where Britain differs from China but also, crucially, those areas where collaboration should be welcomed.
There are various signs to suggest the way the wind is blowing. In its first few months in power, Labour paused the Free Speech Act, which contained protections against Chinese interference in universities. The Tories suspended significant economic co-operation with China after Beijing imposed its repressive national security law in Hong Kong in 2020. Lord Mandelson criticised that decision last month. Now relations can resume. The decision to cede sovereignty over the Chagos Islands and hand them over to China’s ally Mauritius is another indicator of broader détente (though officials insist the US government backed the move).
In 10 Downing Street, much of the institutional memory on China has gone – John Bew, the foreign affairs adviser to the last three prime ministers, is out. Keir Starmer’s new foreign affairs lead is the former civil servant Laura Hickey – very respected but someone who specialises in the Middle East. This week, Starmer appointed a new head of strategic communications, James Lyons, straight from TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media firm.
Foreign Office sources play down the intensity of any rapprochement. Lammy’s supporters point out that even the US, where a bipartisan anti-Beijing consensus holds, has engaged directly with Chinese leaders. When he met his Chinese counterpart in July, I’m told, Lammy privately raised concerns about human rights, Hong Kong, sanctioned British parliamentarians and the imprisoned businessman and dissident Jimmy Lai – as well as Beijing’s dealings with Russia against Ukraine.
These concerns are real. Yet so is the glimpse of an opportunity to open new lines of communication and channels of investment. Dialogue is viewed as key. The insulting rhetoric and the tabloid-friendly calls from Tory China hawks to label Xi’s empire ‘a systemic threat’ hold little sway with the new regime. ‘It’s a waste of time and energy,’ says one party figure.
Add to that the change in the backbench pressures. The last four Conservative leaders fronted a mutinous party that would not allow too close a relationship with China. If Boris Johnson hadn’t U-turned on Huawei, his MPs may well have made the decision for him. Several Tory politicians have been sanctioned by China (a badge of pride in the leadership contest); not a single Labour MP has. It is true that John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, has spearheaded efforts to stand up for the Uigher Muslims – but he is currently without the whip.
If Ed Miliband is to have any chance of delivering clean electricity by 2030, China will be key
This all means that Starmer and his ministers have some room to manoeuvre. There are two main areas where China could be helpful. On the economy, Reeves has a dilemma concerning growth. It’s the main mission of the government, but she is facing obstacles as consumer and business confidence fall amid dire warnings about the state of public finances. Establishing closer relations with the EU is both time-consuming and politically unpalatable (rejoining the customs union is seen as a no-go for the first term). So it’s only logical that Reeves will look to other markets for growth.
The importance of this mission was hinted at this week when the head of MI5, Ken McCallum, gave a rare public address. After warning repeatedly about the threat from Iran and Russia, he suggested that China was different, as the ‘UK-China economic relationship supports UK growth – which underpins our security’. He went on to say that it ‘rightly’ falls to ministers ‘to make the big strategic judgments on our relationship with China’.
One key test is Shein, the £50 billion fast-fashion chain, accused of human rights abuses and environmentally unethical practices. The China-founded company had planned to list in New York, but the plan fell apart following opposition from US politicians. So far, there are no such problems here. Reeves sounds more open – previously noting: ‘I want Britain to be a place of choice to IPO and grow your business.’
The expectation is that Shein will be given the go-ahead. With current concerns in the City that the London Stock Exchange is running aground, Reeves can hardly afford to sniff at it. Next week, she will host the government’s investment summit – where HSBC will be among the companies present. It was meant to be a big moment for her plans for growth. However, worries about the Budget mean that the event is proving rather tricky.
‘It doesn’t make sense to do it before the Budget,’ says one attendee. Business will want answers to questions on tax that the government will not be able to give. The mood among attendees has not been helped by the fact that an email was sent to them with their contact details in full view. ‘They didn’t BCC anyone, it’s amateur hour,’ says a recipient.
If the summit doesn’t deliver all that is hoped, more openings to China may prove increasingly attractive. There will be shoals to navigate in any revival of trade with China. Labour will face crosswinds – not least from the United States. As Johnson discovered, if the UK goes too far, its counterparts across the pond will make their voices heard. Should Trump win next month, there will be more pressure on Britain. In 2020, amid the Huawei controversy, the US secretary of state Mike Pompeo flew across the Atlantic to urge the UK to change course.
Another issue is steel. De-industrialisation is a live concern in No. 10. Thousands of jobs have been lost at the Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales. This week the Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen went public with his concerns that the Scunthorpe steelworks are next in line. If the UK stops producing steel, it will have to look abroad for imports. Houchen is concerned that China will be the ultimate beneficiary.
Labour MPs in seats where Reform came second are already panicked. ‘Reform’s threat over Labour is completely bound up in the question of what is a sustainable growth model for places like Port Talbot,’ says an MP. Some in the party hope the promotion of Morgan McSweeney, a blue Labour strategist, to Downing Street chief of staff this week could help.
But McSweeney will know that it’s not just on growth that Labour could seek Beijing’s embrace – it’s also on energy. Ed Miliband is the most energetic of Starmer’s cabinet, which is natural given that he has the most ambitious of all Labour’s pledges to deliver: clean electricity by 2030. Many of Miliband’s colleagues see that target as pie in the sky – but if he is to have any chance of reaching it, China will be key. The country produces 86 per cent of the world’s solar panels – some of which have been linked to forced labour. When it comes to batteries, the rare-earth minerals that are needed come largely from African countries which Beijing has a grip on through its Belt and Road initiative. ‘If Ed stays in post, they can’t meet the targets unless you are relying on China,’ argues a former minister.
China’s dominance of the electric-vehicle market is already well established. Where the US and EU have slapped heavy tariffs on China’s cheap EVs, the UK is so far resisting that move. Officially, no final decision has been made – but Reeves’s instinct is not to follow suit. The question is whether America will start to exert pressure on the Foreign Office. China could ease the transition and reduce the cost of the switch to electric vehicles for the consumer. If it does so, though, the British government could be handing China control over one of the industries of the future. Is that wise?
For Reeves and Miliband and their government-defining missions, China may soon seem to be the indispensable partner. For want of a better alternative, Labour could find itself re-entering the dragon’s den.
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Rushed finish
There’s a piece of chess clickbait which occurs with tiresome regularity. The players are deep in the endgame, but have so little time remaining that the game cannot be concluded with dignity. Pieces land in between squares, or get dropped and clatter across the board. In their final seconds, players will attempt to move before their opponent has completed their own move, which is just as farcical as it sounds. One should not blame the players: against a well-matched opponent, such situations are inevitable from time to time. The arbiters sometimes get flak for not intervening, but in the heat of the moment, nobody knows if a rook landed cleanly on a8 or just outside the lines, and interrupting the game to check would do nothing to improve matters.
The responsibility lies with the organisers. Digital chess clocks have existed for decades, and almost all modern tournaments are played with a time increment. The World Blitz Championship is played at three minutes for each player, with a two-second increment after every move, which eliminates the vast majority of disputes.
The only explanation for playing without increment is that organisers believe that these incidents make the event more exciting. On the contrary, fans of any sport welcome clear rules of engagement, with as little subjectivity as is practical. The controversial cases always attract attention, but deliberately designing the rules to encourage them is perverse.
As I write, the second Tech Mahindra Global Chess League is taking place at Friends House on London’s Euston Road (ends 12 October). Teams are headed by stars including Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand and Hikaru Nakamura. But, you guessed it, no increment, and with entirely predictable results. One of many games which ended in a desperate time scramble was Nihal Sarin, representing the PBG Alaskan Knights team, against Daniel Dardha (Alpine SG Pipers). Sarin had a trivial win on the board, but no time to execute it. But Dardha still had a rook left, enough to give checkmate, so he would have been awarded a win if Sarin’s time had elapsed. With two seconds remaining, Sarin stopped the clock and claimed a draw on the grounds that Dardha had no realistic hope of winning on the board, to which he agreed. The rule supporting this originated when chess was played with analogue clocks. It was always an imperfect solution, requiring the arbiter’s judgment about realistic winning chances, but at the time there was no decent alternative. Magnus Carlsen, on the same team as Dardha, vented his frustration on camera in the players’ room. ‘We can do this, but then we shouldn’t play without increment… I understand it’s a rule, but it’s bullshit…’ On X, he posted, ‘This happened after Nihal [Sarin] had made several illegal moves and the arbiter never stepping in – we’re not a serious sport unfortunately.’
Perhaps here the arbiter should have stepped in, but in a wider sense the point is moot, when the simple measure of playing with increment would eliminate so many problems. But I have to agree with his conclusion – these shambolic scenes make a mockery of the game.
A neat finish below, where the move 27 Qxd8 is tempting, but White must be careful: 27…Qxd6 28 Qxg5+ Kh7 29 d8=Q Qxd8 30 Qxd8 Bc5+! even wins for Black. Duda found a better solution.
Jan-Krzysztof Duda-Santosh Gujrathi Vidit
Tech Mahindra Global Chess League, 2024 (see diagram)
27 Rg6+! fxg6 28 Qe6+! A crucial extra check. Kh7 29 Qxg6 mate
No. 822
Black to play. Mamedyarov-Maghsoodloo, Global Chess League, October 2024. Maghsoodloo chose wrongly here. Out of 1…Kd3, 1…b2+ and 1…c2, which one is the best? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 14 October. 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 Qxh7+ Kxh7 2 Rh3#
Last week’s winner Roger Holdsworth, Marlborough, Wilts
Spectator Competition: Space to think
Competition 3370 invited poems about the predicament of the Nasa astronauts stranded on the ISS – thanks to Paul Freeman for this suggestion. There was a wide range of ideas about how they could use their time, from self–improvement to… other things. Due to a different space issue, many good entries had to be jettisoned, but those below win £25.
Five miles a second, travelling at speed,
Recycling the water we’ve formerly weed,
Dusk follows dawn every hour and thirty,
There’s too much to do to be shouty or shirty –We came for a week, but our taxi was iffy;
No need to be uppity, none to be sniffy –
The wires need testing, experiments checked,
Back in the spring, so we hope and expect –We eat what we like when we raid the reserves;
We’ve no time to get on our crew members’ nerves –
The Middle East rages, the Russians throw wobblers;
Up here we say that all conflict is cobblers –The camera’s off now. You jackass, you moron!
What do you mean that there isn’t a war on?
Light-headed, hair up like Frankenstein’s Bride!
Let’s settle this argument quickly. Outside!Bill Greenwell
A half a year or so in space
Is neither here nor there,
For those who like a rinseless soap
To squeeze upon their hair.It’s time to try Mongolian,
To conjugate its verbs,
Or saunter through auxiliaries
Beloved of the Serbs.And why not read the smallish print
On contracts one’s agreed?
How regular’s the shuttle craft
They said was ‘guaranteed’?Remember all those Christmas cards
(‘Oh, let us meet this year!’)
And start to make some astral calls
To friends who wait in fear…Nicholas Lee
We’ve had the leisure to confirm perspective’s overrated.
We’ve done the ride, we’ve seen the view – our zest for quest’s deflated.
A meteor has landed on our work-life balance scale,
When we set off we did not plan for cosmonauting jail.
You might think that your colleague’s fab, perhaps that they’re a blast?
Take them to a space station, the feeling will not last.
There’s nothing much but time up here so we’ve been making plans.
Please like, subscribe and donate to our astro OnlyFansJuliet Radcliffe
They held a kind of freshers’ day
Of groups that we could meet and rate.
We were surprised by the array
In which we could participate.
Our choice was to put on a play
And both of us now have a role
As people sent from far away
With orders by remote control.
We work at learning lines each day,
We run the whole play now and then,
And Elon Musk says he will pay
To stage it when we’re home again.
Come and see – sooner or later –
Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter.David Blakey
When we’re drifting in space at an orbital pace
And the Earth’s a blue speck in the distance,
And we’re not in the mood for the concentrate food
That is all we have here for subsistence,
We need recreation because our space station
Is limited in its amenities
And the window shows space, and then space and more space,
And oh what a desolate scene it is.Things could have gone wrong if before very long
Our thoughts hadn’t got pornographic
With sweet contemplations of nice conjugations
(My own taste inclines to the sapphic).
If it wasn’t for choosing to share all such musings,
I fear that we might have gone bonkers:
Prudes may not approve, but when we’re in the groove,
Time flies – and ennui never conquers.George Simmers
We few, we happy few, in cramped conditions,
We Major Toms in orbit, bored to bits,
Reduced to urine-drinking competitions,
Are desperate to exercise our wits.
We’ve found that hide-and-seek has limitations,
Played Snap, learnt languages, named half the stars,
Spent months in cogent thought and meditations,
Done jigsaws, rated albums, chocolate bars.
So we’ve reported noises, inexplicable,
A tapping, banging echo out in space.
It’s odd, we say. No cause can be applicable –
Asked Nasa, can they source it, find a trace?
Next we’ll send garbled warnings from the station,
Then cut-off screams that cannot be explained,
Cry ‘SOS! An alien invasion!’
It’s childish, but it keeps us entertained.Janine Beacham
We’ve seen every movie, read every damn book,
Carried out all the maintenance checks,
Both sick of the sight
Of the sky, day and night;
And no, Butch, we’re not having sex!Look out the windows and what do we see?
A big bunch of stars, plus the moon;
With due thanks to Boeing
We won’t yet be going
Back home, or back anywhere soon…Sartre assures us, ‘L’enfer, c’est les autres’ –
Not existentially true;
For in our special case
While we’re stranded in space
I’m your hell, Sunita; mine’s you.Mike Morrison
No. 3373: It is what it is
‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.’ You’re invited to write a passage or poem that incorporates this notion, substituting the cigar for another object if you want (16 lines/150 words max). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by 23 October.
2675: Over the sea
The unclued lights give various things which two lovers took or used on their journey. These include two of three words (one split over two lights) and one of two. The name of one lover is hidden in the grid and should be highlighted. Ignore two accents.
Across
1 In a way, round university stifle speech (8)
6 Almost extinguish not initially far distant light (6)
11 Commotion as Irish stick said to need strapping (5-5)
12 One fool, with hidden conscience (5)
13 Bard’s to efface mild sin, reforming (7)
15 Hot wind no friend to Honduras (5)
16 Is worried about pillar of ice (5)
17 Old food allowances to leave college (6)
22 Singing group’s delight with beat (4,4)
23 Liberal Republican Society smothered in lots of love and alcohol (7)
27 Mouthful, one stinging, that hurts to be swallowed (7)
28 Bat: smooth it with constant working backwards (8)
34 Signal alert about work for negligent guardian of flock (2,4)
35 More than a bit in Durham coalmine? (5)
38 Like a fruit in the shade? You turned on ape (7)
39 One town ripped asunder (2,3)
40 Acclaimed a confused person from Scots school (10)
41 Trap half open, setter quiet (6)
Down
2 Queen cross with suite short of clothing added rooms (6)
4 Charity receives nothing on time, practically (6)
5 Part of liturgy repeating in a circle (4)
7 Walk in garden, finally stroll into a shelter (5)
8 Run through a fully-developed part of motor (8)
14 Island NATO for example picked up, European for years (7)
16 Accompany to door, and look through the glass? (3,3)
18 Excitedly interrupted cadences at first giving musical effect (6)
19 Dear chap, oxymoronic member of network? (3,3)
20 Amateur left two articles about a hollyhock (7)
21 One believes in a single principle, but a second isn’t wrong (6)
24 Attractive person attached to The Spectator (6-2)
29 Crippled, finally preach Letter to the Hebrews (6)
30 Wannabe liana reduced to a honeysuckle (6)
31 One rotating rapidly suffering sprain (6)
32 Flycatcher’s two goes? (6)
37 Legendary dwarf heard in Alaskan city (4)
Download a printable version here.
A first prize of £30 and two runners-up prizes of £20 for the first correct solutions opened on 28 October. Please scan or photograph entries and email them (including the crossword number in the subject field) to crosswords@spectator.co.uk, or post to: Crossword 2675, The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP.
2672: Seamless Schemes – solution
The unclued lights are all gems. The title, ‘Seamless schemes’, cryptically suggests ‘stratagems’ without ‘strata’.
First prize M. Barret, Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead, Herts
Runners-up Kim Christison, Larbert, Stirlingshire; Mary Caldecott, London W12
Yvette Cooper wants to lock up your sons
In his independent review of the Prevent programme last year, Sir William Shawcross warned that something had gone very wrong with Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy. Instead of focusing on Islamism, Prevent was wasting its time investigating complaints of ‘far-right’ extremism from left-wing teachers, e.g. 14-year-old boys ‘caught’ watching TikTok videos of Nigel Farage. He has pointed out that 75 per cent of MI5’s caseload is taken up with Islamist threats, but 11 per cent of referrals to Prevent are related to Islamist terrorism. The result, Shawcross said, is a ‘dangerous’ surge in anti-Semitism, as we can see from the pro-Palestinian marches that have disfigured our cities for the past year. These reached their apotheosis last Saturday, when 300,000 protestors paraded through London spewing bile about the state of Israel and celebrating the largest pogrom against the Jews since the Holocaust.
Teachers will be encouraged to refer boys who make sexist remarks to Prevent
If you think Yvette Cooper is going to rectify this, think again. In August, she announced a review of Britain’s counter-extremism programme, whereby the definition of extremism would be broadened to include ‘extreme misogyny’. Her priorities have evidently taken root in her department, because last week it was reported that high-level meetings had taken place between Home Office officials and counter-terrorism experts about how to tackle the alleged growth of ‘misogyny’ among teenage boys. The solution, they concluded, was to encourage teachers to refer boys who make sexist remarks to Prevent.
Ominously, we also learned the government is planning to slap Asbo-style orders on children found to be downloading ‘terrorist content’, which, if Cooper has her way, will include Carry On films and copies of Portnoy’s Complaint. Any spotty youth who’s given one of these orders will have to undergo mandatory psychiatric treatment, in a sinister echo of life behind the Iron Curtain.
When I heard about this, I immediately thought of Sexmission, the cult Polish comedy made in 1984 in which two young men take part in a hibernation experiment conducted by a mad scientist. They’re put to sleep in a communist-controlled state and are revived in 2044, by which time Poland has become a matriarchal society in which men are extinct and reproduction takes place via a form of parthenogenesis. Lust is verboten, and the two protagonists are told they’ll have to undergo sexual reassignment surgery. When they resist, they are forced to endure a ‘trial’ in which they’re told that men are responsible for all the evil in the world and their only choice is having their bits cut off or ‘liquidation’. It’s extremely funny, but the real target of the film’s satire is not feminist misandry but communist tyranny. The director, Juliusz Machulski, managed to avoid arrest by cleverly disguising his scathing attack on the Polish People’s Republic as a science fiction romp.
Now it looks less like a dystopian satire and more like prophecy – a version of Nineteen Eighty-Four in which Big Brother has been replaced by Big Sister. The message to teenage boys thinking of trading mildewed copies of Men Only behind the bike sheds is: Yvette Cooper is watching you.
Take a look at the information about ‘toxic masculinity’ being given to teachers in secondary schools, as approved by the Institute of Education, Britain’s most prestigious education college. ‘Do staff understand the concept of rape culture and the connection between lad banter, everyday sexism and sexual violence?’ reads some of its guidance.
Don’t be surprised if your son is referred to Prevent for claiming that women’s football isn’t as exciting as men’s. It’s a slippery slope between such ‘everyday sexism’ and ‘rape culture’. And if he points out that Islamic extremism is more likely to lead to sexual violence than watching Match of the Day, a ‘safe-guarding officer’ will throw in an accusation of Islamophobia when turning him in to the local stasi.
I hate to think how I would have fared as a teenager if Cooper’s new counter-terrorism strategy had been in place. A quick rummage through my satchel and I would have ended up in Belmarsh sharing a cell with an IRA bomber. I can picture Mr Knight, the deputy head of my comp: ‘This pen with the lady undressing when you turn it upside-down, Toby – you do realise this normalises sexual violence? I think a spell in chokey will do you the world of good.’
I remember being at Oxford with a lad called Edward whose idea of a lark was to dress up in a Wehrmacht uniform. It’s just as well Yvette wasn’t such a humourless scold back then or she might not have married him.
The Battle for Britain | 12 October 2024
Beware the ‘sourdough effect’
As the joke goes, there are two ways to become a top judge. You can study law at university, then enter one of the Inns of Court as a trainee barrister, before embarking on a period of pupillage. If all goes well, you may be called to the bar. Play your cards right and you might take silk, and then as you reach your fifties, with a following wind, you may be invited to become a judge. Ten years later, with a few widely admired judgments under your belt, you may reasonably claim to be a ‘top judge’.
If I am to endure the peculiarly dysfunctional queue at Gail’s, I want choice. Where is the cornbread?
The alternative is to become a minor local magistrate and get caught in flagrante with a farm animal. At this point every tabloid newspaper will splash your photograph across its front page with the headline: ‘Top Judge in Goat-Sex Shocker.’
I never intended to become one of those tin-hatted nutters who obsess about the ‘mainstream media’. But it is increasingly hard to ignore the extent to which the media distort the world to suit their own ends: rather than what is important becoming a story, what is a good story is made out to be important. Hence ‘top judge’. Yet there is a world of difference between what is important and what is newsworthy. I spent the years after 2016 in a completely frustrated state, not because I was a fanatical Remainer or Leaver, but simply because I thought that leaving the European Union was perhaps only 5 per cent as important as the attention it received.
This is worse than it once was. For one thing, our rapid news cycle is increasingly in the grip of a bizarre feedback loop. If you visit the newsroom of a national paper, you will see lots of screens displaying Sky News. Then, when you go home in the evening and turn on Sky News, you will see people discussing what is in tomorrow’s newspapers. It’s turtles all the way down.
As a consequence, certain stories become absurdly over-amplified, whereas others are neglected entirely. The Post Office scandal, which broke in Computer Weekly in 2009 (read that again – 2009), went nowhere for 15 years, despite the best efforts of Private Eye. There are at present many conflicts other than those in the Middle East, but you’ll need to Google them.
I call this distortion ‘the sourdough effect’. It is a form of ‘Fisherian runaway’ where one manifestation of something arbitrarily comes to dominate a whole ecosystem to the exclusion of everything else. I quite like sourdough bread and I am grateful that it exists. But let’s be frank, it’s not nearly as nice as its ubiquity suggests. If I am to endure the peculiarly dysfunctional queue at Gail’s – where the coffee-ordering process at the end creates a totally inefficient bottleneck among its impatient and somewhat self-regarding clientèle – I want choice. Where is the cornbread? The Irish soda bread? The challah? The pao de alfarroba? No dice. It’s bloody sourdough all the way down. Nobody knows what ‘sourdough’ means – it has simply become a shorthand for ‘posh bread’, in the same way that ‘organic’ became a shorthand for ‘posh food’ and IPA became a shorthand for ‘artisan beer’ (in France, where I am writing this, you ask for ‘Une Eepa’).
The tech equivalent of sourdough is currently artificial intelligence. It’s highly important, yes, but it dominates both discussion and investment to an unhealthy extent. There are plenty of soda-bread technologies out there which may be equally important and worthy of investment – think video-conferencing, say, or Starlink. The effect on the world if only 15 per cent of people are free to live where they like seems potentially immense.
But these changes are slow. Most big, enduring changes involve significant behavioural change, which is by its nature slow. But what happens slowly is never newsworthy. Unless it involves a goat.