The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 7 June 2018

From our UK edition

Home A third runway at Heathrow Airport was approved by the cabinet; £2.6 billion was earmarked for compensation and soundproofing. Northern Rail brought in a temporary timetable that removed 165 train services a day until 29 July, but scores more trains were still cancelled; all trains to the Lake District were cancelled for a fortnight. Thameslink and Southern also wallowed in incapacity. Petrol prices rose by a record monthly sum of 6p in May to an average of 132.3p a litre. The government reduced its holding in the Royal Bank of Scotland from 70.1 to 62.4 per cent, losing £2.1 billion on selling the shares which it bought to save the bank in 2008. The Visa payment system failed for several hours and four days later Tesco Bank’s online services failed for hours.

The Spectator

to 2359: Down

From our UK edition

The unclued lights can be preceded by BLUE which was hidden at the start of the third row and had to be highlighted in blue. BADGE at 15A is the theme word not listed in Brewer or Chambers as a ‘blue’ phrase.   First prize Joy Verth, Newton Mearns, E. Renfrewshire Runners-up C.D. Dobbs, Carrickfergus, Co.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 31 May 2018

From our UK edition

What the NHS needs Sir: James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson are right (‘The great Tory health splurge,’ 26 May): an extra 3 per cent will not solve the Tories’ political problem. Labour will still trumpet NHS deficiencies, waste will continue and the NHS will demand ever more resources. Only structural change will solve the problems inherent in our state healthcare monopoly. First, we need to set sustainable limits on what the NHS should provide, learning from other countries how to restrain demand responsibly. Second, we need to look beyond how adult social care is funded, to how it should fit with the NHS. Third, we must slash the top-heavy bureaucracy and split NHS England into manageable units (the size of NHS Scotland, say).

The Spectator

Life matters

From our UK edition

Predictably enough, there have been no calls this week for the Irish referendum on abortion to be re-run, no complaint from Ken Clarke about the ‘-tyranny of the majority’, no moaning that the campaign had been in any way unfair. Neither should there have been. The Irish people have made a fair and democratic choice and the result should be respected. Less respect seems to have been forthcoming, however, for the views of the Northern Irish on abortion. On the contrary, no sooner was the result from south of the border announced than the calls began for the government in Westminster to impose its will on Northern Ireland and liberalise the province’s abortion laws.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 31 May 2018

From our UK edition

Home Arlene Foster, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, said that the referendum in Ireland on abortion had no impact on the law in the province, where it is a devolved matter. But the Northern Ireland Assembly has not sat since January 2017, when power-sharing arrangements broke down. The DUP currently provides the British government with a parliamentary majority. Ireland had voted by 66.4 to 33.6 per cent (with a turnout of 64.1 per cent) to repeal the eighth amendment of the constitution, which gives equal rights to women and the unborn. The only constituency to vote against the repeal was Donegal, a county of Ulster not belonging to Northern Ireland.

The Spectator

to 2358: Poem IV

From our UK edition

The poem was ‘Composed upon WESTMINSTER (1A) Bridge’ by William WORDSWORTH (1D). The words are ASLEEP (20), DOMES (36), EARTH (37), SHIPS (7D), GLITTERING (19) and ANYTHING (24).   First prize P.G.

The Spectator

Inverted Tsarism

From our UK edition

From ‘News of the week’, 1 June 1918: Bolshevism is the negation of democratic government. There is no pretence on the part of M. Lenin and M. Trotsky that they wish the will of the people to prevail. What they say is that the proletariat must rule, and must crush both capitalism and the bourgeoisie. They are opposed to the existence of everybody who does not agree with them… Even the Russian peasants in the mass are not Bolshevik by conviction. Bolshevism, now that its principles are thoroughly understood, turns out to be nothing but an autocracy ‘by the proletariat’ — and not even by the proletariat, but by that part of the proletariat which believes in Bolshevism.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 24 May 2018

From our UK edition

Desperation in Gaza Sir: I must respond to Rod Liddle’s opinion on Gaza (‘Why this deluded affection for the Palestinians?’, 19 May). I was in Shifa hospital for two quiet Fridays during the initial protests. Eighty-five per cent of bullet wounds were around the knee; the result of accurate sniper targeting. The first casualty I saw was a prepubertal boy with a bullet through the head; the first operation, a prepubertal boy with smashed bones and artery from a high velocity bullet that resulted in amputation. These were children. Their elder brothers have never left Gaza, and half are unemployed, living with contaminated water and with electricity for only six hours a day.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 24 May 2018

From our UK edition

Home Marks & Spencer announced plans to close 100 of its 1,035 shops by 2022, hoping to move a third of its sales online; the costs of the plans brought its annual profits down by almost two-thirds, to £66.8 million. Govia Thameslink Railway, which runs Great Northern, Thameslink and Southern, cancelled 160 trains, 7 per cent of the total, the day after it changed all its timetables. Northern trains were also affected. Chris Grayling, the Transport Secretary, announced that, as expected, his department would run the East Coast Main Line until 2020, after the franchise holders, Stagecoach and Virgin, pulled out of their agreement.

The Spectator

Carney’s errors

From our UK edition

Soon after he became his party’s leader, David Cameron spoke dismissively of Conservatives who ‘bang on about Europe’. He had a point. The subject has a peculiar ability to turn intelligent people into crashing bores who obsess over Europe to the exclusion of all else. Often, the subject warps good judgment. Since the referendum, this phenomenon has become much worse. Take the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney. Twice this week, he has claimed that households are £900 worse off as a result of the referendum. Why? Because his officials had overestimated salary growth, and he sees the Brexit vote as an explanation for their error. This is odd. Given that the Bank has been getting its forecasts wrong for years, why blame Brexit?

The Spectator

to 2357: Half a Drum

From our UK edition

Unclued lights were five fictional TOMs and their authors: JONES (14A) and FIELDING (8D), SAWYER (16A) and TWAIN (35A), BROWN (41A) and HUGHES (15D), KITTEN (20D) and POTTER (30D), and BOMBADIL (23D) and TOLKIEN (12A).   First prize Chris Edwards, Pudsey, Leeds Runners-up Daniel Angel, Twickenham, Middlesex; S.L.

The Spectator

Brothers-in-arms

From our UK edition

From ‘The new crusade’, 25 May 1918: It is curious to think how great must soon have been the spiritual gulf between the new generation in Great Britain and the United States if the latter had remained in prosperous isolation. In five years we should have ceased to understand each other’s jokes, in ten we should scarcely have spoken the same language. But now the tide is setting just as mightily towards a complete and perfect sympathy. A whole generation of Americans will have been our brothers-in-arms… The possibilities of the new brotherhood are almost boundless.

Tuesday

The Spectator

Ruth Davidson: Tories are too dour and joyless

From our UK edition

This is an edited transcript of Ruth Davidson's speech at last night's launch of Onward, a new liberal Conservative think tank: Sometimes the Tories just look a bit dour. You know, we look a bit joyless. Fair? A bit authoritarian sometimes. We don't get to win if we start hectoring the people that we need to vote for us. We don't get to just say 'Please stand on the right' like every tube message out there. We've got to learn to be a bit more joyful and that's something that I think that we have tried to learn in Scotland. Trust me, when I started out in the Tory party in Scotland in Glasgow in 2009, if you weren't a blind optimist, the Scottish Conservatives really weren't for you!

Saturday

The Spectator

What do Gammons really think of gammon-gate?

From our UK edition

Controversy raged this week over whether calling an angry, white, right-wing man a ‘gammon’ is racist. The insult is first recorded in Charles Dickens’s novel Nicholas Nickleby in 1838. But what of people really called Gammon? — There are about 2,500 Britons with that surname, which originated in Cornwall. Their politics are not all right-wing: in the 2017 Cornwall county council elections a Jacquie Gammon stood for the Lib Dems. — In the US, two Gammons are recorded as delegates at National Conventions: Lemuel Gammon representing Colorado for the Democrats in 1916 and Gussie Gammon representing North Carolina for the Republicans in 2008. — Not all Gammons are white: 7.3 per cent of those in the US are African-American and 2.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 17 May 2018

From our UK edition

Iran’s hated regime Sir: I disagree with the analysis of Christopher de Bellaigue (‘Trump’s folly’, 12 May). The Iranians I know, well aware of the hardship caused by sanctions, nevertheless welcome them as a demonstration of international condemnation of the Tehran regime. The idea that the Iranian people would rally round the mullahs in the face of disapproval by the West is wrong. My Iranian friends plead for our moral support in their efforts to overthrow their hated regime, which is impoverishing their country by its military adventurism abroad and has robbed many families of loved ones through imprisonment and executions.

The Spectator

Barometer | 17 May 2018

From our UK edition

Gammon vs gammon Controversy raged over whether calling an angry, white, right-wing man a ‘gammon’ is racist. The insult is first recorded in Charles Dickens’s novel Nicholas Nickleby in 1838.   But what of people really called Gammon? — There are about 2,500 Britons with that surname, which originated in Cornwall. Their politics are not all right-wing: in the 2017 Cornwall county council elections a Jacquie Gammon stood for the Lib Dems. — In the US, two Gammons are recorded as delegates at National Conventions: Lemuel Gammon representing Colorado for the Democrats in 1916 and Gussie Gammon representing North Carolina for the Republicans in 2008. — Not all Gammons are white: 7.3 per cent of those in the US are African-American and 2.

The Spectator

Power and the press

From our UK edition

That the House of Lords has survived as an unelected chamber is largely down to the Salisbury Convention, which holds that peers do not vote down government bills on matters which appeared in the governing party’s election manifesto. It is a doctrine under attack as never before, partly as a result of the Lords’ votes against the government’s Brexit plans but also as a result of the Upper House’s battle of attrition against the government on press standards. It is bizarre to see an issue of such little importance to the public taking up so much parliamentary time. For generations, freedom of the press was regarded as an essential British liberty — the sort that people entered parliament to defend.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 17 May 2018

From our UK edition

Home Wages rose quicker than inflation in the first quarter of 2018, at an annual rate of 2.9 per cent, against 2.7 per cent rate for inflation. Unemployment fell to 1.42 million — at 4.2 per cent the lowest level since 1975. BT said it would cut 13,000 jobs over three years, about 12 per cent of its workforce, to save £1.5 billion. Network Rail surveyed 10 million trees by drone to see how many it might cut down. Plans were approved for a Silvertown road tunnel linking the Royal Docks north of the Thames with the Greenwich peninsula south of the river. Meghan Markle’s father, a bankrupt living in Mexico, felt unwell on the eve of her wedding to Prince Harry. The government said it would publish a white paper on Brexit before the EU summit next month.