Society

Thursday

Luke McShane

No. 877

Donchenko-Liem, Fide World Cup, Goa 2025. Donchenko’s next move forced a decisive material gain. What did he play? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 24 November. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher 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 Bf7+!! After 1… Kxf7 2 fxe3 the queen was lost and White won. No better is 1…Qxf7 2 Qxe5+ or 1…Ke7 2 fxe3 Qd6 3 Rad1 etc. Last week’s winner Tim Nixon, Heptonstall, West Yorkshire

Charlie Brooks

Only the Tote can save British racing 

For the past 30 years Robin Oakley has taken you through the front door of the horse-racing world and kept you in the best of company. There’s not a chance of me lasting that long, and more often than not when I try to shine a light on the sport’s brilliant mix of heroes, narcissists and geniuses it will be via the back door. Alex Frost falls firmly into the genius category, so I went to see him in London last week – and I arrived bang out of sorts. My Oura Ring informed me that I had 26 low blood oxygen incidents during the night and my sleep apnea

Victoria Lane

Spectator Competition: Here and there

Comp. 3426 was inspired by Stephen Vincent Benét’s 1927 poem ‘American Names’ (see Charles Moore’s Notes, 1 November): I have fallen in love with American names, The sharp names that never get fat, The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims, The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat, Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.     You were invited to submit poems to do with place names. It was hard to whittle down the very good entries (too many runners-up to single any out) though certain places kept cropping up so I tried to avoid too much repetition. The £25 vouchers go to the following. Morning! After downing booze, Have a fryup, come the dawn

Janet de Botton

Bridge

I first met Susanna in 1987 when Ed Victor, the late literary agent, invited both of us for lunch at the recently opened River Café. It was love at first sight as she chatted hilariously about her up-and-coming blind date with a rather well-known politician and people we knew, all of whom had something in common: they played bridge. Ed and his wife Carol had been taking lessons and were properly hooked. It was typical of Susanna’s generosity that she frequently played with them, not minding at all that they were newbies and she was already a very good player. She asked me if I played and I told her

Doc

2730: Herrlines

The unclued lights, (when taken as an individual, three pairs and one trio), are of a kind, verifiable in Chambers (13th edition). Across 10    Father Gold froze thematically (4) 12    Awkward bra stealer can be nicked (10) 14    An indefinitely large number of alcaics – not odd! (3) 15    OK turning west, pulled along and grovelled (8) 19    Two journalists admitting half the article has been blue-pencilled (6) 22    Anger cut short in pursuit of peace (6) 24    Australia’s Khawaja is chap from the States (5) 26    Metal ring for Jamaican musicians (5,4) 27    Cutting grass and tidying up after start of summer (9) 29    In France it is a

Michael Simmons

The greatest threat to the economy? The Employment Rights Bill

On Monday night, former England manager Gareth Southgate joined MPs and philanthropists for an event in Westminster described as ‘the Oscars of the charity world’. Cabinet ministers Lisa Nandy and Bridget Phillipson joined the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in handing out prizes to five charities that help those who fall through the cracks. Across the winners, a single theme stood out: the transformative power of a good job. But Britain is running out of those jobs. Vacancies are falling, unemployment has risen to 5 per cent, while a deeper crisis sits beneath both: nine million working age people are economically inactive, including more than four million on out-of-work benefits

The Spectator

2727: On track - solution

The unclued lights are F1 RACE TRACKS which include the pairs at 15 & 16 and 36 & 26. First prize Christine Rees, Cowlinge, Suffolk Runners-up Dorothy Mulvenna, Bay Horse, Lancaster; Richard Lawn, Coventry

Rod Liddle

It’s not Starmer’s fault that everyone loathes him

Finding someone who ‘likes’ Sir Keir Starmer is a terribly enervating quest, and I have given up on it without success. It is true that I have not contacted Sir Keir’s close family members, or indeed canvassed inside the walls of Broadmoor hospital, so it may be that some tiny reservoirs of affection remain. Less reservoirs than sumps, really. But the generality is that people seem to loathe him – the responses I get when I accost people in the street and say, ‘What do you think of Sir Keir Starmer?’ are largely unprintable, except in London, where for some reason the most common reply is to invoke the name

The Spectator

It’s not science if you can’t question it

Follow the Science. The Science is settled. Two phrases which invoke the power of open inquiry to close down open inquiry. Science is not a body of unalterable doctrine, a chapter of revealed truths. Science is a method. It is a means of arriving at the best possible explanation of phenomena through thesis, testing, observation and revision. Science depends on a culture of doubt, as one of the greatest scientists of the last century, Richard Feynman, continually argued. Its conclusions, by definition, are provisional models which are subject to future revision as new data and better explanations arrive. The story of science is a chronicle of old models being superseded

Richard Dearlove

Britain’s national security must not be sacrificed to net zero

Those who, like myself, experienced life behind the Iron Curtain understand instinctively that centrally planned economies beholden to an ideology do not bring benefit to the majority of the population on whom they are imposed. A few top-level individuals prosper, but the citizen finds himself and his aspirations crushed by the diktats of central government. The state itself is similarly confined by a set of ideas which are presented as self-evident truths which constrain its policy–making and exclude challenge. That Iron Curtain model describes pretty accurately the UK’s energy policy, driven as it is by the ideological pursuit of net zero and the diktats required to implement it. Thus: I

Charles Moore

What my pyjamas taught me about China

About seven years ago, I bought two pairs of pyjamas, one British, the other Chinese. At the time, they seemed of roughly similar quality, the important difference being that the Chinese ones were half the price of the British. Given that they have the same ‘lived experience’, I can make a direct comparison. The British ones, by Peter Christian (‘gentlemen’s outfitters’ accompanied by an image of two hares boxing), show few signs of the passing years. Their reddish colour with green and yellow stripes holds fast. There is very little wear and no tear at all. The Chinese pair (labelled ‘sleepwear’) tells a different story – the drawstring disappeared, the

Peter Jones

Aristophanes would have loved Zohran Mamdani

Mr Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old elected mayor of New York, who has described the police as ‘racist, anti-queer and a major threat to public safety’, says that his top policy priority is implementing free universal childcare, taxing the wealthy, freezing rents, running buses for free and heaven knows what else. How very Marxist! The Greek comic writer Aristophanes (d. c. 386 bc) would have loved it. It was he who invented communism, after all, and had his audience in hysterics. His comedy Ecclesiazusae (‘Women Running the Assembly’) was produced in Athens in 391 bc. The women of Athens decide to seize power for themselves. They disguise themselves as men, enter

Anthony Seldon

I regret my intolerance over Brexit

Cannabis smoke lingering along the sidewalks of Washington D.C. was the most palpable fruit of liberty since my last visit to the US capital. I’m in town to give a talk at Britain’s dazzling Lutyens Residence about the evergreen ‘special relationship’ ahead of the US’s 250th anniversary next July. Acting ambassador James Roscoe has stepped up with aplomb to fill Peter Mandelson’s big shoes, aided by his renaissance wife, the musician, author and broadcaster Clemency Burton-Hill. America’s anniversary will fall on the watch of its 47th President. The Republic’s first four incumbents, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, inspired by some of the greatest minds of their

Wednesday

Philip Patrick

Scotland’s win showed the beauty of international football

Scotland have qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 28 years. I can hardly believe that I have just written that sentence, so fantastical did this eventuality appear at times, and how specialised in failure Scotland’s once proud national team had become. But it is true. I’ve checked the score, and pinched myself several times.  We beat Denmark 4-2 last night (the classic World Cup scoreline) in what may well be the greatest Scotland international match ever played. As someone who was there in France 10,000 days ago the last time we qualified, it was a euphoric occasion and one that underscored that the true heart of

Tuesday

Dean Godson

Europe's leaders are finally waking up on immigration – but is it too late?

The impressive shift in the terms of trade of the immigration debate in the last 24 hours proves one unlikely proposition: that the British political marketplace actually works. Giorgia Meloni is the only leader of a major European country in these times who seems successfully to have united the grievances of losers and winners in a viable political coalition Nigel Farage was correct this morning to assert that the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood would not have spoken as she did but for Reform successfully conditioning the terms of trade in this Parliament. However, he in turn was forced to concede that her rhetoric, at least, deserved serious consideration – even as

Paul Staines

Inside the BBC’s Trump-bashing Reith Lecture 

A few weeks ago, I received an invitation from Tim Davie, the BBC’s Director-General, to listen to Rutger Bregman deliver this year’s BBC Reith Lecture. Rutger Bregman is the Dutch version of Owen Jones, famously going viral worldwide on TikTok after mocking the Davos elite to their faces. Bregman is the public intellectual du jour and darling of the Guardian reading classes. He is, you might think, an odd choice to follow in the heavyweight footsteps of the likes of previous Reith lecturers such as the philosopher Bertrand Russell or the physicists Robert Oppenheimer and Stephen Hawking. The invitation included dinner afterwards (venison carpaccio, herb-crusted lamb rump followed by tarta

Stephen Daisley

Helen Webberley is terrifying

Ben Leo’s interview with Helen Webberley is a chilling dramatisation of what happens when ideology meets reality – and ideology persists. The GB News host questioned Webberley, founder of telemedicine clinic GenderGP, on the organisation’s willingness to prescribe puberty-blocking drugs to minors and the reported side effects of these pharmaceuticals, which have been said to limit sexual function in adulthood. The exchanges are chilling because as Leo describes the risks of this treatment pathway, Webberley leaps from pedantry to dismissal to denial, and at no point is there even a hint of self-reflection or contrition. The facts are devastating for Webberley’s brand of medicine, but still no match for her

Lois McLatchie Miller

The SNP have crossed the line on abortion

For years, the SNP has relied on a particular political alchemy. It takes on extremely liberal social positions to appeal to the left, while dangling independence as a carrot to those on the right. But with the publication of a recent abortion law review, it appears to have gone too far. In attempting to make Scotland one of the most permissive abortion regimes in the world, the review has not simply drifted from public opinion – it has rocketed past it. It is astonishing that this has been commissioned by a government that claims to champion women’s rights The proposals are extreme by any measure. At present, abortion is available in

Tom Slater

No, Shabana Mahmood isn't far right

We’ve become grimly accustomed to people throwing around the phrase ‘far right’. But seeing it flung at Labour home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s asylum reforms has felt particularly barmy – a new low from the liberal-left midwits who we all hoped couldn’t sink any lower. Mahmood’s punchy announcements this week, in which she laid out plans to fix our ‘broken’ asylum system, has gone down exactly as you might expect Mahmood’s punchy announcements this week, in which she laid out plans to fix our ‘broken’ asylum system, have gone down exactly as you might expect. The Guardian has accused her of entering into a ‘damaging arms race with the far right’. ‘Straight out of the

Jonathan Maitland

The film Nuremberg is almost unforgivable

It is said there is only one rule when it comes to dramatising the Holocaust: don’t. The argument is essentially this: the unique horror of the event is beyond the scope of conventional artistic representation. Illuminate what happened with a documentary, sure, but apply a glossy Hollywood sheen to those monstrous events and you risk artistic catastrophe. I’ve seen many productions which fall into that category but here’s two recent ones: Hunters, an Al Pacino series for Amazon which portrays a gang of 1970s New York Nazi hunters as superhero vigilantes, and Sky Atlantic’s tastefully shot The Tattooist of Auschwitz, a sentimental, semi-fictionalised (why? Is the truth not enough?) account