Police

Thursday

Adam Zamoyski

Autocracy tempered by strangulation

‘It was hard to be a tsar,’ Simon Sebag Montefiore writes in his opening sentence, and what follows fully bears this out. In his thought-provoking introduction, he stresses the unique nature of Russian autocracy and its perverse contradictions; the tsar was absolute ruler, yet he was bound by a tangle of restrictions. His subjects were prepared to accept his tyranny and any cruelty its exercise required, but claimed the right to punish him if he failed to provide strong leadership. The system was never meant to give one person tyrannical powers over everyone else. Nor was it intended to work for the greatest good of the greatest number. It was

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 21 January 2016

Roll out the barrel The price of crude oil dropped below $30 a barrel. Why do we measure it in barrels? — A standard barrel for the purposes of measuring oil is 42 US gallons or 35 imperial gallons. This was the size of a ‘tierce’, a unit for measuring wine in medieval England. — When demand for kerosene provoked an oil rush in Pennsylvania in 1859, producers were so desperate for vessels that they used all kinds of containers. — In August 1866, however, producers met in the town of Titusville to agree on a standard measure. A 42-gallon barrel of oil weighed 300lb:  just enough, it was found,

Thursday

Caroline Moorehead

Laughter and tears

The Yacoubian Building, the first novel of the Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany, sold well over a million copies in 35 languages, was made into a film, and turned him overnight into one of the most listened to voices in the Arab world. What followed — Chicago, set in the city in which Al Aswany did his masters degree in dentistry, and some short stories — did not have quite the charm of his sprawling houseful of driven, troubled, passionate characters trying to survive in a country of extreme social ills. The Automobile Club of Egypt is a second Yacoubian, a saga built around an institution, rich in absurdity and

Thursday

Kate Chisholm

Good cop, bad cop

One of the most shocking items of recent news has been the bald statistic that the number of people shot by law enforcement officers in the United States last year was 1,136. Not died by gangland shooting, domestic violence or terrorist attack. But killed by those who are meant to be preventing such deaths. Many of them are black or Hispanic. As if on cue, the World Service this week launched a documentary series to find out why this is happening. What are the deep structural issues that give rise to such inequalities of experience and opportunity in the (supposed) Land of the Free? The first episode of The Compass:

Thursday

Dan Hitchens

Send in the street pastors

Martin Surl, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Gloucestershire, has been buying flipflops. Hundreds of them. Not for the police, but for a local Christian volunteer team of ‘street pastors’. Earlier this year, Surl announced a £40,000 grant to cover the group’s training and resources. ‘Some things are better delivered by people who aren’t the police,’ he says. What street pastors deliver is hard to sum up in a few words. When I first encountered them a couple of years ago in their uniform of baseball caps and blue jackets, both with ‘STREET PASTOR’ printed across them, I thought they were going to ask me whether I was saved. But

Thursday

The Spectator

The ringfence cycle

By now, George Osborne had hoped to have completed his austerity programme. Instead, he finds himself making what is, still, the most ambitious round of cuts of any finance minister in the developed world. The Chancellor is paying the price for the leisurely pace that he decided to take in the last parliament – due to his habit of buying time by deferring pain. The Chancellor still doesn’t seem to be in too much of a rush. In his spending review statement this week, he decided to spend some £83 billion more over the parliament than he said he would at the general election.  Foreign aid is not just protected, but

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Why the tax credit cuts had to go

In the peroration of his statement today, George Osborne declared that the Tories were ‘the mainstream representatives of the working people of Britain.’ This is how he wants to position the Tories and it is why the tax credit changes had to go: they were getting in the way of the Tory attempt to rebrand themselves as the workers’ party. By ditching the tax credit changes, the Tories can now return to this theme—and can try and gain maximum political benefit from the national living wage. Osborne believes that with Jeremy Corbyn / John McDonnell leading the Labour party, the Tories have a real opportunity to pick up support from

Thursday

The Spectator

How they tried (and failed) to make ‘La Marseillaise’ nicer

Friendly words England football fans sang ‘La Marseillaise’ in a friendly match at Wembley. The anthem has not always been so popular. In 1992 a Committee for a Marseillaise of Fraternity was founded to campaign for a change to the words, written as a war hymn by an army captain while French troops were besieged by Prussians at Strasbourg 200 years earlier. The campaign failed, despite the support of Danielle Mitterrand, wife of the then president. The suggested new lyrics began: Arise you children of the Motherland Let’s sing together for Liberty Liberty, oh dearest liberty Your bloody ramparts have fallen The brothel demographic Cynthia Payne, who was jailed for

Melissa Kite

Real life | 19 November 2015

I got on a bus. Well, I wasn’t to know, was I? I just saw a bus stop by the Science Museum and thought, ‘I know, I’ll get on a bus.’ That’s how long it has been since I’ve ventured on to the London roads. Since driving became unfeasible due to congestion charging, I’ve been getting the Tube. I’ve thought about buses, but before credit card swiping the drivers would never let me on. I suppose I shouldn’t refuse to get an Oyster card because I don’t want the state to know where I am. It’s a foolish protest, but it’s my protest. However, the other day I was suddenly

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 12 November 2015

A marathon of cheats Russian athletes may be stripped of the medals they won at the 2012 Olympics, but what of the earliest-known drug-taker in the modern Olympics? Thomas Hicks won the 1904 marathon in St Louis after taking two doses of brandy laced with strychnine. —Hicks collapsed on the finishing line and had to be revived. There being no rule at the time against drugs, he was allowed to keep his gold medal. — Not so a man who reached the finishing line ahead of him, fellow American Fred Lorz. He was disqualified after admitting that he had taken a car most of the way. Police, camera, revenue The

Thursday

Peter Hitchens

The Church of England’s shameful betrayal of bishop George Bell

The Church of England has produced a lot of good men and women, but very few great ones. It is in its modest, cautious nature that it should be so. Greatness requires a lonely, single-minded strength that does not sit easily with Anglicanism’s gentle compromise. And I suspect the Church has always been hesitant and embarrassed about the one undeniably great figure it produced in the 20th century. To this day, George Bell, Bishop of Chichester from 1929 to 1958, is an uncomfortable, disturbing person, like a grim obelisk set in a bleak landscape. Many British people still disapprove of his lonely public denunciation of Winston Churchill’s deliberate bombing of

Thursday

Steerpike

So Theresa May, isn’t your own workforce ‘too white’?

Today Theresa May has hit out at the lack of black and Asian officers in the police forces, arguing that the current diminutive figures are ‘simply not good enough’. She said that the current forces must increase ethnic diversity in order to represent their communities, claiming that there are no black officers in Cheshire, Durham, Dyfed-Powys and North Yorkshire. Strong words from the Home Secretary, which left Mr S wondering just how diverse May’s own personal work force is. Surely with May — an apparent champion for ethnic diversity in the workplace — branding police forces ‘too white’, she herself has a high proportion of staff from ethnic minorities? Alas, in terms of her

Thursday

The Spectator

Four great demolition disasters

Bang goes the plan The demolition of six tower blocks in Glasgow failed when the top half of two of the blocks settled upright on rubble. Some more demolitions which went wrong: — A girl of 12 was killed and several people injured in 1997 when the Royal Canberra Hospital toppled rather than collapsed in on itself. Debris, which was supposed to stay within a 50-metre zone, spilled over more than 200 metres. — A 300ft power station chimney in Springfield, Ohio, toppled onto power lines, cutting off electricity to 4,000 people. — A 80ft flour mill at Cankiri, Turkey, toppled onto its roof and came to rest against a

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 8 October 2015

The death of Diesel The Volkswagen scandal has brought into question the future of the diesel engine. A century ago its inventor, Rudolf Diesel, was himself the subject of scandal. On 29 September 1913 he disappeared from the steamship Dresden on its way from Antwerp to Harwich. He had retired to his cabin after dinner but had not changed into his bedclothes. His body was found off Norway ten days later. He was apparently on his way to discuss selling diesel engines to the Royal Navy for submarines, leading to suspicions that he had been murdered to prevent the technology falling into British hands. His financial situation, however, pointed to

Thursday

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 24 September 2015

It’s hard to turn on the television nowadays without being shown a robot. It might be looking like a grasshopper doing something terribly important, such as helping a surgeon with an operation, or just be a cute little metal humanoid designed to make schoolchildren more interested in their studies. One robot I saw on TV the other day was disguised as a cuddly white seal pup that was feigning pleasure at being stroked on a woman’s lap in an old people’s home. It seemed to make her happy without biting or scratching or doing any of the other unpleasant things that live animals are prone to. Robots clearly have their

Saturday

Charles Moore

When will the paedophile witch-hunt reach Pitt the Younger?

The more one thinks about the current witch-hunt against alleged paedophiles in the establishment, the more beyond satire it seems. What mordant novelist could have imagined, even ten years ago, that the police would be devoting massive amounts of their time to investigating famous people who were a) suspected on no actual evidence and b) dead and therefore beyond the reach of the law? Yet it has happened. It just goes to show that even a society which self-consciously prides itself on its tolerance will always contain those who are desperately searching for people to ruin and then to scream at those who suggest they might be wrong, and —

Thursday

Melissa Kite

Real life | 3 September 2015

‘Yes, you can report it, but it’s going to take ten minutes to go through the process,’ said the oppressively cheerful bureaucrat at Surrey Police when I rang to tell them about my stolen saddle. After the first 30 seconds I could see why. She kept asking me to verify that I was all right — still coping, still breathing, still pumping blood around my body — after every sentence. For example: ‘I just need to take your name and address. Is that all right? I need to open a file and log your personal details. Is that OK?’ ‘Yes, fine,’ I said, before telling her my name and address,

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 27 August 2015

How many cheats? More data on members of extramarital dating site Ashley Madison were put online. How widespread is adultery? — The 2000 National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles found 15% of men and 9% of women admitted an ‘overlapping relationship’ within the previous 12 months. — In 2010 an opinion poll for a dating site found 25% of men and 18% of women had ever cheated on their current partners. — In most cases, however, the cheat seems to get away with it. In 2012, adultery was cited as the reason for one in seven of 118,140 divorces. This accounts for just 0.07% of the UK’s 24 million

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Powder to the people

It’s Notting Hill Carnival this weekend. Two days of skanking, dutty dancing and daggering (the dance, rather than the weapon). No carnival experience would be complete without rum punch and jerk chicken, or for that matter crime, cannabis and cocaine. Drugs are part of the fun at Europe’s biggest street festival. There were 76 drug arrests at the festival last year, and 88 arrests made before the party even started as part of a dawn raid seizing machine-guns and crack. Not that partygoers are about to let a little thing like the law get in the way of their bank holiday. A survey earlier this summer from the European Monitoring

Thursday

Peter Jones

Tacitus on Edward Heath

The press and police have been condemned for the way they fall on mere rumour and plaster it across the headlines, Sir Edward Heath’s ‘paedophilia’ being the latest example. The Roman historian Tacitus (c. ad 56–118) well understood the phenomenon. ‘Rumour is not always wrong; it is sometimes correct,’ Tacitus asserts, well aware that the occasional accurate rumour reinforced the potential credibility of the many false ones; and he understood why they played such a part in the world of the emperors, ‘where men’s throats were slit with a whisper’ (Juvenal). His historical point was the contrast between the freedom of information that he believed Romans enjoyed under the republic,