Society

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 25 June 2015

The spirit of 1945 No one would have been more surprised at the sight of 100,000 people marching in London under the banner ‘End Austerity Now’ and demanding ‘Tories Out’ than Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade and briefly Chancellor of the Exchequer in Attlee’s government. — Hard though it might be to remember now, but austerity was once a proud Labour policy. The rationale of the policy, devised by Cripps, was that by suppressing private consumption, resources could be spent instead on boosting exports. — Any anti-austerity march in 1947 would have been led by the Conservatives, whose slogans of the time included ‘Starve with Strachey’

Peter Jones

Hesiod on Grexit anxiety

Why do Greeks want to keep the euro, or remain in the European Union? The combative, creative, competitive, mercantile classical Greeks throve on independence. The farmer-poet Hesiod (c. 700 BC) makes the point about competition by calling it Eris, ‘strife’, which he characterises as painful but also helpful. On the one hand, he said, it creates conflict and discord; on the other, ‘It gets the shiftless working. For when someone whose work does not come up to scratch sees someone else, a rich man, busy himself ploughing and planting and managing his household well, then there is competition between neighbours in the race to riches. This Eris is good for

Toby Young Toby Young

In defence of Gove’s grammar

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/angelamerkel-sburden/media.mp3″ title=”Toby Young and Oliver Kamm debate Gove’s grammar” startat=1394] Listen [/audioplayer]Few things are more likely to provoke the disapproval of the bien-pensant left than criticising someone’s grammar. The very idea that one way of speaking is more ‘correct’ than another is anathema to them. Under the guise of being helpful, it asserts the supremacy of the white educated bourgeoisie and seeks to rob the working class and ethnic minorities of any pride in their own culture. It’s a form of ‘linguistic imperialism’. This explains the tidal wave of hostility that engulfed Michael Gove earlier this week after he issued some letter-writing guidance to officials in the Ministry of

Taki

High life | 25 June 2015

Last Wednesday, 24 June, Pugs held a luncheon in honour of our first member to depart for the Elysian Fields, or that large CinemaScope screen up above, Sir Christopher Lee, age 93. Pugs club is now down to 19 members, the ceiling being 21. Our president for life, Nick Scott — I was actually the first chief, but was overthrown in a bloodless, as well as a vote-less, coup by Nick — gave a wonderful address, and we broke our custom concerning the presence of ladies. Our guest of honour was Lady Lee, Christopher’s widow. Now there’s nothing more that a poor little Greek boy can add to Sir Christopher’s

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 25 June 2015

Ninety-two readers (thank you!) sent accounts of their worst debacles on drink or drugs. I printed out each one and clipped it into a ring binder. Last Thursday afternoon I made a pot of tea, opened the file, and settled down for a good read. The first sentence of the first entry was: ‘Priggish as it sounds, I am ashamed of the lesbian orgy I initiated while off my nut on champagne.’ I read that — it was amazing — then I took a restoring sip of Rosie Lee and turned the page. The next one was from a soldier. His first sentence was: ‘Kabul was darker than a Pashtun’s

Melissa Kite

Real life | 25 June 2015

Why won’t the middle classes shout at their dogs any more? My suspicion is that the bleeding heart liberals, having succeeded in stopping right-minded people from shouting at their children, have moved on to stopping us from emotionally scarring animals. The result, of course, is that our four-legged friends are becoming about as unpleasant as your average infant. The spaniel and I take our lives in our hands every time we venture on to Tooting Common, running the gauntlet of ADHD dogs throwing their weight about as their owners cower in the distance calling politely at them to desist. These are not dangerous dogs, in any official sense, you understand.

Alexander Chancellor

Long life | 25 June 2015

It is nearly two years since the police were granted new powers to fine motorists for ‘hogging’ the middle lane of a motorway, but it’s only now that anyone has been convicted in court of this offence. A person driving a van at 60 mph on the M62 near Huddersfield has been fined £500 and given five penalty points for doggedly refusing to move out of the middle lane on to the inside one. Press reports of this judgment failed to say to what extent, if any, police have exercised their two-year-old right to give on-the-spot fines to drivers behaving in this way, but I have yet to hear or

Robin Oakley

Simply the best | 25 June 2015

Nothing pleases the Royal Ascot crowd more than a winner for the meeting’s crucial supporter, the Queen. Imagine, then, the dilemma of one of her Windsor Castle lunch guests, trainer Roger Charlton, when Her Majesty asked him, ‘Are you going to beat me?’ on the day of the Tercentenary Stakes. Charlton is one of the six Flat trainers with whom she has horses, but in that race his entry was Times Test, whom he trains for Khalid Abdullah, and Her Majesty’s runner was Peacock, trained by Richard Hannon. Charlton didn’t know how to answer and just hoped for a dead heat. After Times Test had run out one of the

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 25 June 2015

A feast of bridge is looming! Tromso in Norway is host to the Open European Championships starting on Saturday, and wild horses couldn’t stop me going. We kick off with mixed teams and pairs and I will bring you the news next time. Meanwhile congratulations to Willie Coyle and Graham Orsmond who won the third 2 session Sunday pairs duplicate arranged by the London-based Israeli duo, Lee Rosenthal and Yaniv Vax. Look at this hand where they maximised a bad layout for declarer by expert communication: Graham was West and led ♥3 against the standard, but doomed, 3 NT. When Willie took Ace and King and then played the six,

Mary Killen

Your problems solved | 25 June 2015

Q. My partner, a leading political commentator on a national newspaper, recently agreed to shave off his hair at the suggestion of his editor, in order to write and illustrate a feature piece on the charms of baldness. The timing, at the height of the summer season, could of course not be more embarrassing. He is due to attend a dinner at your magazine in the next few days. Mary, how do I explain this horror to anyone we meet before it grows back — if it ever does? — J.G., London A. It seems likely that your partner may have been nursing a secret urge to upstage you. Now

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Myths and legends

The Ivy is a Playmobil-style faux-medieval restaurant in a triangular building opposite The Mousetrap; of the two, The Ivy is more ancient and threatening. It has mullioned windows, a photogenic lamp post and a parking space for paparazzi to shoot people who want to be shot, as in early Martin Amis novels. It has been refurbished for its 100th birthday, in the manner of an ancient dowager empress seeking new fingers. Of the ‘celebrities’ or ‘notables’ or ‘people who are better than you’ who used to dine here I cannot speak; but apparently it was a live-action re-enactment of a Nigel Dempster diary. Christopher Biggins blah. The pig from Babe blah.

Dot Wordsworth

On the cusp

‘A stalker who dressed a pillow “mannequin” in his ex’s nurse’s uniform, then sent her a picture, has been told he is “on the cusp” of jail,’ reported the Scottish edition of the Daily Star. ‘Sheriff Alastair Carmichael told Mark Glass: “I don’t think you understand just how serious this is. You are on the cusp of a custodial sentence.” ’ He’s not the only one on the cusp. Idris Elba is ‘on the cusp of landing the Holy Grail of film-star roles, James Bond,’ reported the Daily Telegraph in a splendidly mixed metaphor, as though the Holy Grail were a kind of giant marlin to land, and a marlin with

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 25 June 2015

Home Tens of thousands took part in a demonstration in London against austerity, and thousands more in other cities. Russell Brand was heckled for being too right-wing: ‘Fuck off back to Miliband,’ protestors in Parliament Square cried. David Cameron, the Prime Minister, explaining his thinking on further benefit cuts: ‘There is what I would call a merry-go-round: people working on the minimum wage having that money taxed by the government and then the government giving them that money back — and more — in welfare.’ The government sold more shares in the Lloyds Banking Group, bringing its ownership to less than 17 per cent. The village bank that appeared in an advertisement

Dumpynose

2217: Poem

Unclued lights (one hyphened) are words from a poem whose subject appears in the completed grid. A clued light is an anagram of the poet’s name and must be shaded. Elsewhere, ignore an accent.   Across   7    Pass through range heading west (3) 11    Any chap can empty nappy (6) 14    Gigs annoy heartless Giles (7) 15    Possibly enough said about dipsticks (5) 17    Dumpynose is punching person who’s still more acid (6) 18    Girl rebuffed game statesman (5) 20    Pearly queen in wild dance (6) 22    Instrument jingled needling capuchin (7) 28    Trumpet blasts needing prime instruments (7) 31    Mobile mat one folds (6) 34    Behave no longer

Dumpynose

To 2214: What’s Up?

The theme word is CLIMBER. All unclued lights are therefore entered going upwards. There are three different types of climbers: plants (1, 8 and 22), mountaineers (4 and 27) and social climbers (14 and 18). First prize Andreas Fabian, Dunsden, Oxon Runners-up Hugh Aplin, London SW19; Sandra Speak, Dursley, Glos

Kate Maltby Kate Maltby

Since when was the hijab a feminist statement?

Over ten years ago, the satirical American magazine the Onion published an article under the headline: Women Now Empowered By Everything A Woman Does. If you’ve ever heard someone insist that pole dancing is empowering, the Onion predicted it. In a take-down of the lazy gluttony of ‘choice-feminism’, it told us: ‘Whereas early feminists campaigned tirelessly for improved health care and safe, legal access to abortion, often against a backdrop of public indifference or hostility, today’s feminist asserts control over her biological destiny by wearing a baby-doll T-shirt with the word “Hoochie” spelled in glitter.’ I thought I was reading the Onion all over again yesterday, when I stumbled across the

Douglas Murray

Some gay people are right-wing. Get over it!

Is being gay ‘left-wing’?  You wouldn’t have thought so.  If being gay is something which some people just are then there is no obvious reason why gays should not be of every political persuasion and none.  Why should the fact that you are attracted to members of the same sex mean that you are in favour of higher taxes?  Or entirely open borders?  Should being gay affect your attitude towards the European Union (in any case hardly a left/right question)? I ask because this weekend the annual ‘Gay Pride’ event happens in London and the organisers have tried to ban Ukip from attending.  The sweeping generalisation – not to mention political

Samantha Callan

The poverty of the UK poverty measure

It’s sad to see so many genuinely well-meaning people judge the fight against poverty by the publication of a massive spreadsheet, but that’s the trap the UK government has been caught in for years. The Child Poverty Act is about income redistribution, and success is judged by how many people are seen to be below an arbitrary threshold: 60 per cent of average income. The figures came out today, and show that the number in poverty has barely shifted – which will surprise those who thought government cuts would push poverty figures higher. But is this really much cause to celebrate? There are still 2.3 million (17 per cent) of children in

Oliver Kamm

Ignore the ‘good grammar’ crowd and your prose will be better for it

‘Few things,’ says Toby Young, ‘are more likely to provoke the disapproval of the bien-pensant left than criticising someone’s grammar.’ I haven’t consulted all my colleagues in the Metropolitan Media branch of the bien-pensant left so speak for myself. Young is wrong. I have no objection to criticising someone else’s grammar, and I’m a zealot for English language teaching in schools. What I won’t do is cede that field to people whose complaints are unwarranted and – on matters of fact, not opinion – untrue. That category includes purported traditionalists who have secured the undeserved attention of Michael Gove, lord chancellor and former education secretary. NM Gwynne, author of a