The Spectator

Today

13 Aug 2020
The Spectator

Inflated exam grades let the government ignore its own failures

It was obvious that closing schools would hit the poorest hardest, inflicting permanent damage and deepening inequality. While many private schools and the best state schools maintained a full timetable of lessons throughout lockdown, a study by UCL in June found that 2.3 million pupils — one in five of the total — did virtually no schoolwork at all during the weeks of lockdown. The official response has been to turn a blind eye, and imagine that the damage can be covered up by simply awarding decent exam results. This year’s students are right to protest about the injustice of the system. From the moment the decision was taken to cancel exams, rather than carry out exams with social distancing, this year’s mess was guaranteed.

Inflated exam grades let the government ignore its own failures

Sunday

9 Aug 2020
The Spectator

Best of British tasting with Forman and Field, Hush Heath Estate and Ambriel

Sunday 30 August | 6.00 p.m. - 7.00 p.m. | 2 persons: £109.90 and 4 persons: £134.90Join us on Sunday 30 August at 6 p.m. for a very special bank holiday weekend Zoom tasting that celebrates the best of British. Our hosts will be Lance Forman, fourth-generation owner and CEO of Forman & Field, producers of fine smoked salmon since 1905 (and supplier to the Spectator’s fabled Winemaker Lunches), and two of England’s finest sparkling wine producers: Fergus Elias, head winemaker at Hush Heath Estate in Kent, and Wendy Outhwaite QC, proprietor of Ambriel in West Sussex.Lance will explain the history behind the world-famous London Cure smoked salmon as we sample lean, fatty and royal fillet salmon. Fergus will present Hush Heath Estate’s Balfour Leslie’s Reserve and Wendy will present the Ambriel English Reserve as we discover how English sparkling wine is finally and deservedly conquering the world.

Best of British tasting with Forman and Field, Hush Heath Estate and Ambriel

Thursday

6 Aug 2020
The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Local lockdowns, busy beaches and an explosion in Beirut

Home Some 2.7 million people in Greater Manchester and parts of Lancashire and West Yorkshire, where many Muslims live, were put under tighter restrictions on the eve of Eid al-Adha. Wedding receptions, gambling in casinos and eyebrow-threading continued to be banned when the government decided to ‘squeeze the brake pedal’ to control coronavirus, in the words of Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister. Aberdeen was put back into lockdown. People would have to wear masks in church from 8 August. The sudden actions came after new cases rose from a probable 2,800 to 4,200 a day, according to a survey by the Office for National Statistics, based on 116,026 swab tests collected over six weeks, which found 59 people with Covid-19.

Portrait of the week: Local lockdowns, busy beaches and an explosion in Beirut

Saturday

1 Aug 2020

Friday

31 Jul 2020
The Spectator

From Evgeny Lebedev to Philip Hammond – the 36 new peers

This afternoon, the government revealed the new peers who have been appointed to the House of Lords. New members of the Upper Chamber include Jo Johnson, Ian Botham, Evgeny Lebedev, Claire Fox and Charles Moore. Below is the full list of appointments: Political Peerages 2020 Nominations from the Leader of the Conservative Party 1. Lorraine Fullbrook – former Member of Parliament for South Ribble. 2. Sir Edward Udny-Lister – Chief Strategic Adviser to the Prime Minister and former Deputy Mayor of London. 3. Daniel Moylan – Chairman, Urban Design London and former member of Kensington and Chelsea Council. 4. Andrew Sharpe OBE – Chairman of the National Conservative Convention and ViceChair of Policy Forum. 5. Michael Spencer – Chairman of IPGL (Holdings) Ltd and Centre for Policy Studies.

From Evgeny Lebedev to Philip Hammond – the 36 new peers

Thursday

30 Jul 2020
The Spectator

How Boris should pick his peers

It is no credit to British democracy that we have the second largest legislative chamber in the world. The only one larger than the 792-strong House of Lords is the 2,980-member Chinese National People’s Congress. In the coming days the House of Lords will grow even bigger as the Prime Minister announces another batch of peerages. We can expect a bad-tempered reaction if, as expected, a slew of Brexit campaigners such as Ian Botham are included while former speaker John Bercow is left out. But no one should be too surprised. Prime ministers have always used their patronage to appoint likeminded peers, as have leaders of the opposition. Moreover, the House of Lords’ efforts to frustrate the government’s Brexit bills indicate that the Lords have become detached from the general public.

How Boris should pick his peers

Wednesday

29 Jul 2020

Thursday

23 Jul 2020
The Spectator

Letters: Why is the problem of working-class white boys not considered worth solving?

Left-behind boys Sir: Christopher Snowdon’s perceptive and informative article (‘The lost boys’, 18 July) reflects perfectly my own experiences in trying to highlight the under-attainment of white working-class boys in higher education, particularly in chemistry, a frontline Stem subject. I was elected to the Inclusion and Diversity Committee of the Royal Society of Chemistry to investigate this matter. Despite strong acknowledgment of the under-representation of ‘white working-class males’, any positive action remains painfully slow. It is abundantly clear that while white working-class males are the largest group of disadvantaged young people in this country, their cause is the least fashionable and the problem not considered worth solving.

Letters: Why is the problem of working-class white boys not considered worth solving?

Tuesday

21 Jul 2020

Thursday

16 Jul 2020
The Spectator

The confusion in government goes beyond face masks

When Michael Gove delivered the Ditchley Annual Lecture last month he spoke about why citizens feel that the political system has failed them. ‘The compact leaders offered — trust that we are the best, trust that we have your best interests at heart, and trust that we will deliver — was broken.’ It was a powerful message. Voters have a right to expect honesty and competence from their leaders, not just decisiveness. So Mr Gove will have thought carefully before saying on television last weekend that face masks should not be mandatory, and people should instead be left to use their own judgment. No one, it seems, told him that the Prime Minister was hours away from asking the police to enforce the wearing of masks in shops with a £100 fine for failure to comply.

The confusion in government goes beyond face masks

Thursday

9 Jul 2020
The Spectator

Covid-19 update: most of the UK is almost corona free

Britain is now doing more Covid-19 testing than anywhere else in Europe, offering a detailed regional picture that shows how rapidly the virus has receded in most of the country. The latest figures were released earlier this afternoon, for 29 June to 5 July, using the German definition: how many weekly positive infections per 100,000 people? The German danger zone is 50. Of 150 upper-tier local authorities in England, only one is over that limit: locked-down Leicester. And even now it’s unclear if this is due to more testing or more virus. Some 73 per cent of local authorities now have a score of 5 weekly infections or less per 100,000 people. It is hard to argue that, in these areas, there is a significant risk in allowing theatres to reopen, children to attend school or church congregations to sing.

Covid-19 update: most of the UK is almost corona free
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