to 2354: Pioneering
From our UK edition
Parts indicated in clues in italics must each BREAK NEW GROUND (1A 4A), creating entries at 6, 13, 26, 39 and 40; definitions of these entries are 2, 15A, 33, 27 and 20.
The Spectator
Thursday
The Spectator Podcast: Mayday!
From our UK edition
In this week’s podcast, we discuss Theresa May’s impossible situation - how can she get herself out of the bind created by the Brexiteers and the Remainers? We also discuss the hostile environment policy, and ask, will Ireland appeal its Eighth Amendment? First, Theresa May finds herself in a real dilemma. Her cabinet colleagues, the EU and her advisors are all pulling her in different directions over the question of the customs union. While Remainers argue that a ‘customs partnership’ is the only way to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland, Brexiteers believe ‘max fac’ (a maximum facilitation agreement, which includes a technology based border in Ireland) is the only way forward.
Thursday
Barometer | 26 April 2018
From our UK edition
Kill or cure An anti-war protester on a march against the Syrian missile attacks claimed that President Assad couldn’t be a bad man because ‘he’s a doctor, for heaven’s sake’. Some other qualified medics who provide counter-evidence for this theory: — Dr Harold Shipman GP in Hyde, Manchester, convicted of 15 murders in 2000, though it is thought that he may have killed more than 250 patients. — Dr Crippen US-trained homeopath and ear and eye specialist who dispensed medicines, though his qualifications were not recognised in Britain. He was hanged in 1910 for murdering his wife. — Josef Mengele Gained a PhD in anthropology, researched genetics, then gained a doctorate in medicine before taking a job as physician at Auschwitz.
Letters | 26 April 2018
From our UK edition
Resetting Brexit Sir: I agree with Fraser Nelson’s article ‘Brexit blunders’ (21 April). I am a Leaver, but immigration did not figure in my decision in the referendum. On the contrary, I recall many years ago hearing that some 240 languages were spoken in London and the UK, and for some reason it made me immensely proud. If Theresa May does not understand that immigration is not the issue, then we have the wrong leader. My suspicions in this regard are further strengthened by her stated but continually thwarted ambitions to have a special relationship with the EU bloc. Her attempts are relentlessly rebuffed and, because of the EU’s fear of ‘letting us off lightly’, I begin to fear that they always will be.
Rocket men
From our UK edition
After spending most of his presidency posing a nuclear-armed hothead, Kim Jong-un is now presenting himself as a man of peace. ‘I came here to put an end to the history of confrontation,’ he said on his historic visit to South Korea. Which might be so. But his real agenda may be to gain acceptance for North Korea's status as a nuclear power: holding an olive branch in one hand, and a seven-kilotonne bomb in the other. The visit to the south comes ahead of his trips to meet Donald Trump, who has referred to Kim Jong-un as a ‘little rocket man’ and tweeted a photo boasting that his own nuclear button was larger and more effective than that of the North Korean leader.
Portrait of the Week – 26 April 2018
From our UK edition
Home No. 10 insisted: ‘We will not be staying in the customs union or joining a customs union.’ The undertaking came after a defeat for the government on the matter in the House of Lords and before a vote in the House of Commons. The government proposed two alternatives: one being a ‘customs partnership’ in which the UK would collect tariffs on the EU’s behalf on goods coming from other countries, and the other being a ‘highly streamlined customs arrangement’.
Books and Arts – 26 April 2018
From our UK edition
to 2353: Too many
From our UK edition
The unclued lights are (too many) TV COOKS, individually at 18, 21 and 28, and paired at 25/13, 27/1A, 30D/10 and 42/7A.
The staple of our strength
From our UK edition
From ‘News of the week’, 27 April 1918: The Navy has come altogether into its own again. The details of the gloriously daring naval enterprise at Zeebrugge and Ostend have taught the nation to remember that the Navy is not only the staple of our strength, but has a very positive power of aggression even under the conditions of this war. Ultimately our victory will depend upon the exercise of this power… The spirit of the Navy has always been true to the Nelson legend, and it was not the fault of the Fleet that sometimes the opportunities have been withheld from it of acting in accordance with its traditions.
Thursday
Letters | 19 April 2018
From our UK edition
Sit the snowflakes down Sir: I was surprised to read Theo Hobson’s article about ‘snowflake’ Christians in the C of E (‘Holy snowflakes’, 14 April). What most struck me was the timidity of the clergy, who instead of explaining Christian teaching to their gay and other ‘snowflake’ parishioners, merely kowtowed to them by removing a collage depicting an exorcism. Clergy need to teach those who are easily offended that nowhere in the Christian Gospels — as my many readings tell me — does Jesus condemn gays. (That condemnation belongs to the Old Testament, where God commissioned Abraham and the Patriarchs to breed abundantly and build a nation.
Home truths | 19 April 2018
From our UK edition
Much rot is spoken about how the young have it so bad. In fact, this generation is healthier, richer and better-educated than any before — as well as being better-behaved and more conscientious than their parents were. But the one area where they do struggle is in buying a house. The asset boom of recent years has disfigured the economy, sending property prices soaring and conferring vast wealth on pensioners while giving the young a mountain to climb. Home ownership rates stand at a 30-year low. And the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds in private rented accommodation has almost doubled in the last ten years. This marks not just a dramatic socioeconomic shift in a country that was once strongly associated with owning your own home.
Portrait of the Week – 19 April 2018
From our UK edition
Home Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, apologised in Parliament for the treatment of immigrants from the Commonwealth from before 1971, known as the ‘Windrush generation’ (after the Empire Windrush, the ship that brought West Indian workers to England in 1948). The 1971 Immigration Act allowed Commonwealth citizens then living in the United Kingdom indefinite leave to remain, but the Home Office kept no records of these. Some had lost their jobs, others had been refused National Health Service treatment, and others threatened with deportation. Theresa May, the Prime Minister, apologised to Caribbean heads of government who were in London for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Books and Arts – 19 April 2018
From our UK edition
to 2352: Upright Characters
From our UK edition
‘THE WRITING ON THE WALL’ (Daniel 5.5) at 12/22/41 was ‘MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN’ at 23/16/26, according to Brewer, which also gives ‘IF YOU HATE GRAFFITI, SIGN A PARTITION’, at 19/1D/7, as an example of GRAFFITI. First prize C.V. Clark, London WC1 Runners-up Francesca Charlton, Sleaford, Lincs; A.R.
Saturday
Theresa May’s Syria strikes statement, full text
From our UK edition
Last night British, French and American armed forces conducted co-ordinated and targeted strikes to degrade the Syrian Regime’s chemical weapons capability and deter their use. For the UK’s part four RAF Tornado GR 4’s launched storm shadow missiles at a military facility some 15 miles west of Homs, where the regime is assessed to keep chemical weapons in breach of Syria’s obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention. While the full assessment of the strike is ongoing, we are confident of its success. Let me set out why we have taken this action. Last Saturday up to 75 people, including young children, were killed in a despicable and barbaric attack in Douma, with as many as 500 further casualties. We have worked with our allies to establish what happened.
Viktor Orban and Hungary’s muzzled media
From our UK edition
There are several ingredients for a successful democracy: the rule of law, opposition parties working without harassment, and a free press able to discuss every issue from every angle. Viktor Orban won a landslide victory in Hungary’s elections last weekend, reflecting public support that is far wider than his critics allow. But was it the result of a free and fair debate? This week, the last serious independent Hungarian daily newspaper closed. Magyar Nemet — and its sister radio station Lanchid Radio — have been unable to recover from financial problems which have been exacerbated by government advertising being withdrawn from troublesome newspapers and ploughed into friendly ones.
Thursday
Letters | 12 April 2018
From our UK edition
For the many not the few Sir: As is clear from the last paragraph of your leading article (7 April), the ability of Tony Blair to rewrite history (or persuade others to do so) obviously remains undiminished, although it is surprising to find that your own publication succumbs so easily to his ‘charms’. How many more times does the canard that he and the Labour party pioneered the use of the phrase ‘for the many not the few’ have to be refuted? In fact, it was one of your own former editors, the late and very sadly lamented Iain Macleod, who first used that phrase (and, of course, in a different context) at the Tory party conference on 9 October 1969.
Barometer | 12 April 2018
From our UK edition
Disapproving chorus Derbyshire’s Chief Constable told the all-male Derbyshire Constabulary Choir to sever all police ties unless it takes women. How strong is the male choir tradition? — A directory compiled by the Cotswold Male Voice choir lists 238 active in England and one on the Costa Blanca. There are other police male choirs in Avon and Somerset, West Mids, South Yorks, the Met, Kent, Hants, Gloucs, Torbay and Durham. — Cornwall has the most, with 39 male voice choirs. London and Brighton both have gay male voice choirs. — The Welsh Association of male voice choirs lists 91 members, up from a founding 26 in the early 1960s. Northern Ireland’s association lists 26 and the National Association of Choirs lists six in Scotland.
Crown and countries
From our UK edition
Next week, 53 world leaders arrive in London for the Commonwealth summit. It is hard to imagine a better network for the globalised age. Leaders of countries with a combined population of more than two billion will come to discuss issues of common interest. There will be a banquet hosted by the Queen — in her role as the Head of the Commonwealth — at Buckingham Palace, and a day-long leaders’ retreat at Windsor Castle. A nod to history, to be sure, but if the Commonwealth was just about nostalgia the summits would have stopped long ago. The G53 will have much to discuss. The Commonwealth has a shared language, overlapping administrative and legal systems (largely based on English common law) and a shared heritage.
Portrait of the week | 12 April 2018
From our UK edition
Home Parliament was in recess when Theresa May, the Prime Minister, agreed with America and France that the international community should respond to the chemical attack reported from Syria. It was not certain in any case that Parliament would back direct action by Britain. Yulia Skripal, who with her father Sergei was poisoned in Salisbury on 4 March, was discharged from hospital and taken to a safe place. Richard Osborn-Brooks, 78, who killed a burglar with a screwdriver with which he had been threatened, learnt that he would not be charged. He and his disabled wife had to leave their house for fear of revenge by associates of Henry Vincent, the dead man. People removed from a fence bouquets of flowers commemorating the burglar.
