Society

Thursday

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

No apology is ever enough for the digital mob

Promoting physical fitness, the left has developed a bracing set of competitive callisthenics. Participants vie over who can complete a marathon crawl on the belly like a reptile, who can flop onto the floor in a pose of the greatest prostration, and who can bend over the farthest, pants down, while begging to have large pieces of furniture shoved up the backside. Athletic displays of public remorse also constitute an increasingly popular spectator sport. The young American poet Anders Carlson–Wee was excited at first about getting ‘How-To’ published in a July issue of the Nation, a storied New Statesman-style weekly. The poetry I read in a year would fit on

Lucy Vickery

That’s chemistry

In Competition No. 3059 you were invited to supply a poem inspired by the periodic table. The writer and chemist Primo Levi saw poetry in Mendeleev’s system for classifying the chemical elements, describing it as ‘poetry, loftier and more solemn than all the poetry we had swallowed down in liceo; and come to think of it, it even rhymed!’ Your entries were witty and well-turned, with many a nod to Tom Lehrer, whom I also had in mind when I set this challenge. Honourable mentions go to Frank McDonald’s smart acrostic, as well as to Martin Elster, Nicholas Stone and Christine Michael. The winners, printed below, snaffle £25 each.  

Wednesday

Andy Chamberlain

Two steps back: the Taylor Review one year on

Citizens of nowhere. ‘Keeping pace with the changing world of work’. Two phrases you might just about remember from 2016, when they were strands of the abortive ‘May-ist’ ideology. They must now seem aeons away to the embattled Prime Minister. If her plan to ‘build a new united Britain’ is draining away faster than you can say Boris Johnson, so too is her commitment to reforming modern work – particularly self-employment. This month was the one-year anniversary of the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices. First commissioned back in those heady days when it looked like the May Government would have at least some policies beyond Brexit, its conclusion turned

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Fewer British workers are sick, so why isn’t the Guardian celebrating?

I know the Guardian is desperate to stop Brexit and will dredge up anything to try to back its case – daily running fanciful predictions of economic Armageddon made by think-tanks as if they were fact, even though those same think tanks have been hopelessly wrong in the past. But honestly, there comes a point when even the newspaper’s editors must be beginning to realise that their demented doom-mongering is making them look ridiculous.     This week the Office of National Statistics (ONS) put out figures showing yet another decline in the number of days lost to sickness by British workers. It is now down to an average of 4.1 days

Tuesday

Josephine Bartosch

The limits of Stonewall’s tolerance | 31 July 2018

‘Acceptance without exception’ is the aspirational slogan emblazoned across the website, merchandise and literature of Stonewall, the UK’s largest LGBT charity.  The problem is that there are exceptions. Those who are not accepted include those who refuse to believe that a person can change their sex simply by saying: ‘I identify as.’ The fractious nature of the LGBT alliance – and Stonewall’s intolerance for dissenting voices within the community – is becoming increasingly clear. At this year’s London Pride, a group of protestors from ‘Get the ‘L’ Out’ made their feelings known by marching to the front of the parade with banners, including one reading ‘Transactivism Erases Lesbians.’ The actions of

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Why the Supreme Court’s ruling on vegetative patients worries me

The Supreme Court ruling yesterday that a man in a vegetative state could have his feeding and hydration tubes removed so as to bring about his death was, obviously, redundant in his case. The man concerned, a banker in his fifties, is already dead – having earlier suffered a heart attack which left him brain damaged – but the wheels of justice ground inexorably on anyway. But the striking thing about the ruling, delivered by Lady Black, that food and hydration can be withdrawn from a patient in a persistent vegetative state, PVS, without the consent of the Court of Protection, is that we have absolutely no idea how many

Sunday

Madeleine Kearns

Fr Morris won’t be the last priest to be expelled from campus for having the ‘wrong’ beliefs

In her column in this week’s Spectator, Mary Wakefield writes about Father Mark Morris, who was fired from his post in Glasgow Caledonian University for having a prayer meeting in response to a recent gay pride march. Mary Wakefield points out that there is more to this story than meets the eye. She’s not alone in wondering: How can a priest be dismissed for stating the Catholic Church’s position (and off-campus besides)? And why have we returned to the days where clergymen are expelled from campus, on ideological grounds? The case of Fr Morris is worth examining because he’s the first clergyman to be caught up in the new campus

Saturday

Danny Orbach

Hitler’s would-be assassins weren’t war criminals

In a Spectator article, Matthew Olex-Szczytowski argued that the German officers who tried to kill Hitler, did so only to save Germany from defeat, and were themselves Nazi war criminals. The first argument is blatantly wrong. In fact, the conspirators tried to overthrow Hitler long before defeat was imminent. The first attempt to assassinate the Führer took place in 1938, one year before the war. The conspirators tried again in 1939 and 1940, when the Nazi regime was still triumphant. Many of them joined the movement in order to oppose Hitler’s genocidal policies. Their resistance to the Holocaust and the crimes against Poles and Russians is documented in wartime diaries,

Thursday

Taki

High life | 26 July 2018

Reading is the best antidote to debauchery I know of, and I’ve been hitting the books lately. History mostly. Once upon a time I used to read novels. Back then I found real magic embedded in the prose of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Maugham, Leo T and Fyodor D, Waugh, Greene, and John O’Hara’s potboilers about upper-class swells. I was friendly with Irwin Shaw and James Jones, of The Young Lions and From Here To Eternity fame and read both men assiduously. Shaw and Jones were tough guys, army vets, and Hemingway types. Yet it was Fitzgerald, whose indelible stamp of grace, haunted my youth. Dick Diver and Tender Is The Night

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 26 July 2018

Towering above this medieval French village is dun-coloured cliff of volcanic rock, dramatically floodlit at night, topped by two ancient lookout towers. A wide waterfall once flowed over this cliff and at night the floodlights pick out the grooves and caverns worn away over thousands of years. For the last couple of millennia these caverns have been the dwelling places of all sorts of refugees and paupers and one of the larger ones was turned into a hospice for old soldiers of Napoleon’s citizen army. The rock is too hard and impervious to allow for much modification of the cavern walls, but a rough stone wall with window and doorway

Melissa Kite

Real life | 26 July 2018

Stefano came back to paint the front of the house. I have never been so pleased to see his red and white van. He emerged with a startling new crew cut instead of his wavy black hair. He was wearing a red and white T-shirt with his company logo on it. But otherwise, he was the same. He grinned a wide grin and held out his enormous hand to shake mine. ‘Hello boss,’ he said. ‘I’m not the boss,’ I said, ‘You’re the boss.’ He laughed. He has not been here for six months since he helped me finish the major works inside the house after the builder boyfriend walked

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 26 July 2018

It’s hard to explain to non-bridge players just how all-consuming this game is. For those of us who move in the same highly competitive circles, it’s simply a way of life. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about bridge. For now, though, my kids are on their summer break, so bridge has to take a back seat. My fellow fanatics sometimes find this hard to grasp. Last week, the England international Claire Robinson sent me a text asking if I could have supper in mid-August. ‘I’ll be in Sweden,’ I replied. ‘Lovely!’ she said. ‘Who are you playing with?’ ‘Er, my children on a beach…’ And I

Raymond Keene

Fiend from Hull

This year’s British Championship commences today in Hull. Among a powerful field, which includes Michael Adams and defending champion Gawain Jones, Luke McShane stands out as a supremely dangerous tactician, who at his best can overrun any opponent. This week’s game shows him outmanoeuvring a leading contender from last year’s championship. McShane-Howell: British Championship, Llandudno 2017; French Defence 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nd2 It is not clear to me that the French Defence suits Howell’s style. In the later playoff game for the title McShane-Howell continued 3 e5 and White also won. 3 … c5 4 Ngf3 cxd4 5 Nxd4 Nc6 6 Bb5 Bd7 7 Nxc6 bxc6

Raymond Keene

no. 516

Black to play. This position is from Brown-Adams, British Championship, Bournemouth 2016. Black has various ways to force mate but only one move does the job in five moves at most. Can you find it? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 31 July or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk. 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 … N4xd5 Last week’s winner Alex Burghart, London SW1

Peter Jones

Water, water, everywhere | 26 July 2018

Given that we use only 2 per cent of the rain that falls on these islands, one would not think it an insuperable job to secure our water supplies during the longest dry spells. If the Romans could do it with their technology, surely we can with ours. Since communities in the ancient world could survive only if they had supplies of fresh water available in the first place — rivers, wells and cisterns — aqueducts were not strictly necessary for human survival. Many places never had one (e.g. London). It was the baths, the Romans’ leisure centres, that created the demand. According to a late survey, Rome had 154

The Spectator

Barometer | 26 July 2018

Relax Asked about her spare time, Theresa May said she liked walking, cooking (she has 150 cookbooks) and watching the US TV series NCIS. How typical is she in choosing how she spends her leisure time? — A Sport England survey in 2016 suggested that 18.6 million Britons had walked for leisure in the past 28 days. — An Aviva survey last year claimed Britons had an average of 158 books in their homes. One in ten homes did not have a single book. — The fifth series of NCIS (which stands for Naval Criminal Investigative Service) has an average of 2.6 million viewers when shown on Channel 5. In

The Spectator

Letters | 26 July 2018

The Stauffenberg plot Sir: Matthew Olex-Szczytowski argues that the German officers who tried to kill Hitler did so only to save Germany from defeat, and were themselves Nazi war criminals (‘An alternative history’, 21 July). He is wrong on both counts. In fact, they tried to overthrow Hitler long before defeat was imminent. The first attempt to assassinate the Führer took place in 1938, one year before the war. The conspirators tried again in 1939 and 1940, when the Nazi regime was still triumphant. Many of them joined the movement in order to oppose Hitler’s genocidal policies. Their resistance to the Holocaust and the crimes against Poles and Russians is

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 26 July 2018

Home Dame Margaret Hodge accused Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, of being an ‘anti-Semite’ and a ‘racist’ in front of a number of MPs at Westminster; within 12 hours she had received a disciplinary letter. ‘People have to be judged on what they do and not on what they say,’ she insisted on BBC radio. The government announced pay rises for a million public sector workers, with 2.9 per cent for the armed forces, 2.75 per cent for prison officers, up to 3.5 per cent for teachers and 2 per cent for police and general practitioners. The budget for London’s Crossrail project rose from £14.8 billion to £15.4 billion. London,

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Pecking order

Nando’s, c. 1987, is a restaurant in the Great North Leisure Park, Finchley, N12, off the North Circular, which is my favourite orbital, solely from familiarity. The Great North Leisure Park includes a cinema, a bowling alley, a Pizza Hut, something called Chimichanga, and Nando’s. But the real draw of the Great North Leisure Park is the car park. If you live in north London, free parking is a destination in itself. Put it next to a nuclear reactor, and they’d come bearing toddlers. I fell into Nando’s due to sloth. I was with children, and people who can’t vote shouldn’t have destination restaurants, but they do, based on their firmly