Society

Saturday

Johnny Reed

In a city of extremes, skyscrapers and teenagers grow taller as shares plunge

Moderation has never been popular in Shanghai. Over the years the city has been home to many types of excess, from opium and sing-song girls to Red Guards. At the moment the favourite is construction, and its partner, destruction. One of the newest and boldest examples of the immoderate is the Shanghai World Financial Center. After a false start at the time of the Asian financial crisis, this megalith has shot up quite suddenly across the river from the Bund. Billed as the world’s tallest building for roof height, but second to Taiwan’s Taipei 101 if you count pointy bits, this one is big by any standards. The original design

Richard Northedge

Is that a new boom on the far horizon?

The real economy has taken only the first step towards recession but the housing market has already clocked up four successive quarters of negative growth. Indeed, house prices have now fallen further in 13 months, according to the Halifax, than they plunged in the whole three years of the 1989-91 crash. And like the rest of the economy, the housing scene is still deteriorating. But for those who see the glass half full rather than half empty, from now on a series of signs will justify a degree of optimism in the housing market. We’re probably not halfway into the property slump yet, but we should be very soon —

Allister Heath

The great downhill bicycle ride

A little over a year ago, when it was already obvious to virtually everybody that the boom was over, the City’s Panglossian crowd came up with one last, seemingly profound, argument to allow them to continue to deny reality. Going by the ugly name of ‘decoupling’, the theory was that the emerging economies were no longer reliant on exports to the West. America and Europe could plunge into recession, the argument went, but Indian and especially Chinese consumers would take over, allowing their economies to shrug off the West’s downturn. Like assumptions underpinning the boom years, this one has since been found wanting. With the British economy shrinking, much of

The Spectator

Riders on the storm

It is one of the peculiarities of a recession that it cannot officially be acknowledged until, often, it is already history. This week, we learned that the economy shrunk 0.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2008. It will not be until January, however, when two quarters of negative growth have been recorded, that Gordon Brown will finally reach his statistical Stalingrad, and we will officially be in recession. It is futile for anyone to talk now about ‘avoiding’ recession. We can no more avoid recession than we can avoid the Beijing Olympics, or anything else which started last summer. Yet that hasn’t stopped the Prime Minister this week

Kate Chisholm

Powerful prose

To the British Academy last week for a heartening prizewinning ceremony. No gongs, no red carpet, no dangerous stilettos on this occasion — not even a fabulous cheque to dole out to the winners. But instead tributes (and modest money) to the work of two writers — Adam Beeson and Stephen Wyatt — who have crafted original work for radio. The prizes are given each year in memory of two great radio men, the comic writer Peter Tinniswood, who made his name on TV but transferred, and the script editor and drama guru Richard Imison, who brought so many great writers over to the listening medium including Samuel Beckett, Ludmilla

Alex James

Slow life

Being driven is one of the great luxuries. It’s right up there with breakfast in bed, silence, sunshine, new socks and vast expanses of marble. It’s elevating. It’s relaxing. It’s addictive. How lovely it is to fall into the back of a waiting car to be expertly magic carpeted off to, well, even to places one would rather not be going. My car expired at the start of summer, and, despite my best efforts, until this week I hadn’t replaced it. I seemed to be coming out ahead, more by sloppiness than by design. I needed a car, or thought I did, but the cost of second-hand cars was falling

Paul Johnson

Here’s the secret of humour. But don’t tell the Germans.

V.S. Naipaul, that clever and often wise man, once laid down: ‘One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.’ Well, where’s the comedy now? There is certainly plenty of hysteria. Old Theodore Roosevelt used to say: ‘Men are seldom more unreasonable than when they lose their money. They do not seek to apportion blame by any rational process but, like a wounded snake, strike out against what is most prominent in their line of vision.’ I notice that the OED, as a rule politically correct, thinks hysteria is chiefly female: ‘Women being much more liable than men to this disorder, it was originally thought to be due to

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

First Amendment Principles

So, back from Dublin. As expected, the students heartily endorsed an Obama presidency. A shortage of McCain backers led to my speaking against the Democratic candidate. That meant standing up for, er, “angry apathy” (whatever that is) and, if pressed, a vote for Bob Barr. Rather like the staff at Reason, I suppose. But it was all good fun and grand indeed to be back in Trinity. Blogging will be back on track over the weekend. Meanwhile, courtesy of ABC, here’s Sarah Palin providing toda’s reason for running like hell away from the McCain-Palin ticket. If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Julia Pirie: A Real Miss Froy

Cracking obituary in the Telegraph the other day: Julia Pirie, who has died aged 90, spent two decades as an MI5 agent at the heart of the Communist Party of Great Britain, most of it as personal assistant to the party’s general secretary. A small, dumpy woman with the appearance of a confirmed and rather matronly spinster, Julia Pirie was the most unlikely of spies. But her unassuming demeanour masked a sharp intellect and the powers of observation essential for the task of a secret agent. She was recruited to infiltrate the party at the beginning of the 1950s, at a time when many Britons still remembered the Soviet Union

The Spectator

The week that was | 31 October 2008

Matthew d’Ancona congratulates Marcus du Sautoy on his appointment to the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science. Mary Wakefield asks the Debbie Purdy question. The Skimmer attacks the BBC over BrandRossgate. Fraser Nelson says George Osborne needs to recast his policy for the new era, and marks the moment Alistair Darling read the last rites over the fiscal rules.  James Forsyth highlights the Japanese experience of pump-priming, and questions what public service Russell Brand’s radio show performed. Peter Hoskin asks: Labour sharpens its attack, but to what end?, and defends David Cameron’s performance in PMQs. Daniel Korski asks: What next in Afghanistan? Stephen Pollard experiences the banking industry’s

The Skimmer

Growing distrust of the Beeb

Is the Beeb’s reputation in tatters after Manuelgate?  Sure looks like it, if Politics Home’s latest PHI5000 Index is anything to go by.  I quote from their findings: The PoliticsHome Phi5000 Public Opinion Tracker, powered by YouGov, consists of a politically balanced panel of 5000 voters across the UK who are asked their opinion on a range of issues every working day. For over six months, PoliticsHome has tracked public perception of a variety of institutions on a daily basis. Since records began, the BBC has been the country’s best loved institution, with an average net approval rating of 30. The BBC’s approval rating, however, has plummeted this week as

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Do the math

The crucial number on Tuesday night is 270, that’s the number of electoral college votes needed to win the presidency. The Obama campaign has multiple options for getting to 270. Karl Rove’s map, which is based on public state by state polling, has Obama with 311 supposedly solid electoral college votes with another 70 too close to call. Realistically, it is hard to see McCain winning every toss up state and peeling off Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire from Obama’s column which is his quickest route to 270. McCain needs the race to change nationally, to be reframed around who would be an effective Commander in Chief—a question on which

Peter Hoskin

The call for cuts

The pressure on the Bank of England to slash interest rates is mounting – if, indeed, pressure can be exerted on an independent body.  The list of politicians who have near-enough called for a dramatic reduction in rates includes Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and George Osborne.  And today, in a persuasive article for the FT, Martin Wolf also states the case for a hefty cut.  The whole thing’s worth reading, but here’s the crux of Wolf’s argument: “So what is to be done? The starting point has to be monetary policy. My increasingly strong view is that the MPC must, at this juncture, rethink its stance from scratch. It cannot

Peter Hoskin

Another poll; a similar story

Today’s You Gov poll in the Telegraph tells a similiar story to the ComRes poll from a few days ago – that the Tory lead has more than halved over the past few weeks, but they’re still 9 points clear of Labour.  Here are the headline figures in full: the Tories are on 42 percent (no change from a YouGov poll two weeks ago); Labour on 33 percent (down 1); and the Lib Dems on 15 percent (up 1).  The unchanged Tory position leads Political Betting’s Mike Smithson to deduce that the polls have reached a “new normality” – by which Cameron & Co would achieve only a “bare majority”.

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Big Jacqui is Watching You

Simon Jenkins signed off from his Sunday Times column with a spankingly good piece last weekend: Is Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, a pocket dictator? Is there no drop of liberalism in her veins, no concept of personal freedom, no fear of a repressive state? Or is she just another home secretary? This month she apparently felt obliged by dark forces beyond her control to add another weapon to the armoury of illiberal power. She wants to record at her Cheltenham communications headquarters every mobile phone call, text and internet message of every Briton living. This is close to madness. Home secretaries always speak with forked tongues… Each new repressive

The Skimmer

Punishment enough?

And so the sordid BrandRossgate (or should that be Manuelgate?) row steams on. The latest developments are the 12-week suspension of Jonathan Ross without pay and the resignation of the Radio 2 controller, Lesley Douglas, ending her 20 year career at the Beeb.  As rolling heads go, Douglas’s is quite a significant one. But every resignation that isn’t Ross’s just focuses more and more attention on his continued employment. Despite his suspension, people will ask – and quite reasonably – why others are taking the fall for the brash talk show host. As always, it probably comes down to cash. Ross is the most expensive talent the BBC has, and one

Peter Hoskin

Labour sharpens its attack, but to what end?

It’s no secret that Gordon Brown loathes George Osborne – and that loathing manifests itself in a dossier that Labour released earlier today.  It lists what Labour calls Osborne’s “schoolboy errors” over the economy, and is certainly the most shameless version of the “experienced heads vs novices” argument that we’ve seen so far.  Whether you agree with the substance of Labour’s attack or not, there’s little doubting that this dossier reflects a general sharpening of their spin/attack operation.  There’s a brutal efficiency about them that was lacking during Stephen Carter’s time at Downing Street.  But that efficiency could bring trouble down on their own heads.  If it comes down to tittle-tattle,

Peter Hoskin

Understanding Brown’s Bust

Do check out Tom Bower’s superb article in this week’s issue of the magazine (you can read it here).  It traces Gordon Brown’s personal journey from attacking the Lawson years as “a boom based on credit” to overseeing one of the most spectacular busts this country will ever suffer.  I’ve pulled out Bower’s overview of the current crisis below, but I’d recommend you read the whole piece: “To travel full circle within 20 years from scorning ‘Lawson’s Boom’ to masterminding ‘Brown’s Bust’ is probably unrivalled in modern British history. Just as Thatcher was harmed by her misquoted phrase, ‘there’s no such thing as society’, Brown’s damnation of ‘the age of irresponsibility’ was uttered by

Peter Hoskin

Too nice?

Steve Richards’ balanced New Statesman article on the extent of the Brown bounce is well worth reading in full.  But this passage jumps out:  “Another view from inside the government is that Brown is too loyal to colleagues. As one minister who had been pressing for changes in Downing Street for months put it, ‘the untold story about Gordon is that he is too nice’.” 

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Could McCain’s Pennsylvania gamble be paying off?

Last night’s Barack Obama infomercial was a typically high-quality, well produced Obama product. There wasn’t much in it that was audacious but it sold the Obama message effectively and made him appear a safe choice. But this morning, spirits will have been raised in the McCain camp by a new poll which shows him within four points in Pennsylvania, a blue state that McCain now probably has to win to get to 270. This is the first bit of good polling news the McCain campaign has had in a while. However, the other polling numbers out today are really grim for McCain—he is even trailing in North Carolina and another