The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

The spying game | 8 March 2018

From our UK edition

The apparent chemical attack on a former Russian double-agent and his daughter in an English cathedral city could be straight from a cold war thriller. Unfortunately, though, the case is not going to be solved in 500 pages — nor will it be solved by July, when the Foreign Secretary has threatened to withdraw a British delegation of dignitaries, if not the English team, from the opening ceremony of the World Cup. It was inevitable, as soon as Sergei Skripal was taken acutely ill on a bench in Salisbury, that fingers would point at Vladimir Putin. He did, after all, pass a law to give the FSB, the successor organisation to the KGB, powers to execute enemies of the Russian state on foreign soil.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 8 March 2018

From our UK edition

Home Sergei Skripal, aged 66, and his daughter Yulia were found in a state of collapse on a bench outside a shopping centre in Salisbury. Mr Skripal, a retired Russian military intelligence officer, was jailed by Russia in 2006 on charges of giving secrets to MI6; he was deported in a swap of spies in 2010. Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, said that the incident had ‘echoes of the death of Alexander Litvinenko’. Public Health England threatened food manufacturers and supermarkets with new laws unless they reduced the calories in portions of crisps, pizzas and pies.

The Spectator

to 2346: the name of the game

From our UK edition

The unclued entries are all names for pontoon; extra words in 27, 31, 33, 34 and 36 needed the letters S, G, O, U, R to become WHIST, BRIDGE, SOLO, AUCTION, CONTRACT. Auction, auction bridge, bridge, bridge whist, contract, contract bridge, solo, solo whist and whist are all card-games listed in Chambers. PONTOON is a BRIDGE.   First prize Rhiannon Hales, Ilfracombe, Devon Runners-up John Renwick, Ramsgate, Kent; R.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Vladimir Putin is innocent until proven guilty in the Russian spy case

From our UK edition

The apparent chemical attack on a former Russian double-agent and his daughter in an English cathedral city could be straight from a cold war thriller. Unfortunately, though, the case is not going to be solved in 500 pages — nor will it be solved by June, when the Foreign Secretary has threatened to withdraw a British delegation of dignitaries, if not the English team, from the opening ceremony of the World Cup. It was inevitable, as soon as Sergei Skripal was taken acutely ill on a bench in Salisbury, that fingers would point at Vladimir Putin. He did, after all, pass a law to give the FSB, the successor organisation to the KGB, powers to execute enemies of the Russian state on foreign soil.

Friday

The Spectator

Theresa May’s Brexit speech: full text

From our UK edition

I am grateful to the Lord Mayor and all his team at the Mansion House for hosting us this afternoon. And in the midst of the bad weather, I would just like to take a moment before I begin my speech today to thank everyone in our country who is going the extra mile to help people at this time. I think of our emergency services and armed forces working to keep people safe; our NHS staff, care workers, and all those keeping our public services going; and the many volunteers who are giving their time to help those in need. Your contribution is a special part of who we are as a country – and it is all the more appreciated at a moment like this. FIVE TESTS Now I am here today to set out my vision for the future economic partnership between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 1 March 2018

From our UK edition

Corbyn and the zeitgeist Sir: Your leading article is right about university tuition fees and the fruitlessness of Tory half-measures, name-calling and then unedifying policy-swapping (‘Corbyn’s useful idiots’, 24 February). But I believe the writing is on the wall for the wider involvement of ‘free markets’ in the public sector. We have seen growing public support for taking the railways and water companies back into public ownership as people justifiably ask what is in it for them under the current system. In the NHS, as Max Pemberton makes clear (‘Wasting away’, 24 February), the internal market has been a wasteful disaster. We were told that costs would be driven down as standards went up. All too often the reverse has been the case.

The Spectator

Barometer | 1 March 2018

From our UK edition

Ageing rockers The Rolling Stones announced their first live shows for five years. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards (both 74), Charlie Watts (76) and Ronnie Wood (70) are not alone rocking on into their eighth decades. Other septuagenarians you can hear live in 2018: — Elton John (70) unveiled a farewell tour. Paul Simon (76) says that four concerts in the US this year will be his last. — Bob Dylan (76) announced 15 European concerts. — Rod Stewart (73) has six live shows booked for Las Vegas. — The Who’s surviving members Roger Daltrey (73) and Pete Townshend (72) will be playing 18 dates in 2018, quite possibly belting out Townshend’s famous line: ‘Hope I die before I get old.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 1 March 2018

From our UK edition

Home Crisis loomed over Brexit negotiations as Theresa May, the Prime Minister, travelled to the north-east to explain ‘this Government’s vision of what our future economic partnership with the European Union should look like’. Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, had announced that its Brexit policy was now ‘to negotiate a new comprehensive UK-EU customs union’ that would still (somehow) ‘ensure the UK has a say in future trade deals’. Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s Brexit spokesman, had said earlier that the party would back an amendment to the Government’s delayed Trade Bill hatched by the Conservative Remainer Anna Soubry, to keep Britain in a customs union.

The Spectator

Back off, Barnier

From our UK edition

There’s an unwritten law governing Boris Johnson in Westminster: every-thing he says or does is a gaffe, or can be portrayed as one. Yet actually Johnson has an uncanny knack for conjuring similes which sum up the political situation precisely. So it was for his much-ridiculed remark, in response to a question about the Irish border, that there are no border posts between London boroughs even though they have different business rates and policies on various other things. His phrasing was careless but the point stands: it is nonsense to claim that different regimes must mean border patrols. There are significant tax and excise differences on either side of the Northern Irish border, but they’re managed without any need for checkpoints.

The Spectator

to 2345: Counterclaim

From our UK edition

The puzzle’s NUMERICAL DESIGNATION (3 41) is preceded by 7A and followed by 7D 12 33 37 to form the first two lines of a NURSERY RHYME (4): ‘One, two, three, four, five/ Once I caught a fish alive’. Thematically caught fish, in entries at 1D, 5, 19, 26, 31, 32 and 34, are lant, rigg, maid, ide, ahi, ai and carp.   First prize Michael Pigden, Barnet, Hertfordshire Runners-up C.

The Spectator

Triumph of the spirit

From our UK edition

From ‘A moral test’, 2 March 1918: The nation, in spite of all the silly talk about our war aims not having been stated, is more united now as to the minimum principles for which we have to fight than at any moment during the war. In spite, again, of most of the talk about revolution, the mind and spirit of the working men are sound… Whatever suffering there may be, it cannot last indefinitely. Right will certainly triumph, and when that glorious day comes we shall recognise that what was grievous to endure is sweet to remember.

Wednesday

The Spectator

How the West got China wrong

From our UK edition

This week, Xi Jinping is close to achieving what Bill Clinton tried and failed to do: to remove the restriction on an individual serving more than two terms as leader of his country. It will mean that Xi is able to remain in charge of China beyond 2023, when his second five-year term will expire, and to become the longest-serving leader since Mao Zedong. Already, the Chinese constitution is being rewritten to incorporate his personal thoughts so a personality cult, too, is being created. For anyone who remembers the hell of the Cultural Revolution, it’s quite a step. Yet it’s one that’s being greeted with a yawn in the West.

Monday

The Spectator

Full text: Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit speech | 26 February 2018

From our UK edition

It’s great to be speaking here in Coventry, which has long been at the core of Britain’s industrial heartland and is now set to be our next city of culture. Next month, the government will embark on the second and most crucial phase of negotiations to leave the European Union to set the terms of Britain’s relationship with the EU for the long-term. We are now 20 months on from the referendum that voted to leave and a year on from the triggering of Article 50. But the country is still in the dark about what this divided Conservative government actually wants out of Brexit. They can’t agree amongst themselves about what their priorities are or what future they want for Britain after Brexit. They’ve got no shortage of soundbites and slogans of course.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 22 February 2018

From our UK edition

How to save charities Sir: The sexual abuse scandal is merely one aspect of the morally compromised status of large charities such as Oxfam (‘The dark side of charity’, 17 February). Oxfam receives a large part of its income from the government, which necessarily makes it a delivery agency for the state. It spends a proportion of its income on political campaigns, often critical of the same government from which it gets money and on whose behalf it acts. The self-serving hypocrisy of biting the hand that feeds it seems not to bother its senior management. Oxfam and others also rely on many small donations, often from people of modest means. Others work — for free — in their shops.

The Spectator

Corbyn’s useful idiots

From our UK edition

The news that Jeremy Corbyn met a Czechoslovakian agent three times during the 1980s, when the Cold War was still very much in progress, has come as a shock to some. But it should not come as a surprise. What we have discovered so far fits entirely with everything we know about Corbyn’s character and his sympathies. He does not appear to have sold secrets, or even to be interested in anything venal. To judge by Czech sources, he was unaware that the man he was meeting was an agent attempting to recruit him. This was at a time when British diplomats were trained to work on the assumption that everyone they met from behind the Iron Curtain was a spy: Corbyn seems to have been blithely unaware of what he was walking into. But that is the Labour leader all over.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 22 February 2018

From our UK edition

Home Someone called Jan Sarkocy said that, as a Czech Security Service agent in London under the name Jan Dymic, he met Jeremy Corbyn several times in 1986 and 1987 and gave him money; Mr Corbyn called his account false and warned newspapers that reported such allegations ‘change is coming’. Henry Bolton, 54, was removed as leader of Ukip at a special meeting, and then returned to his girlfriend, 25, whose text messages about black people had caused him trouble. Theresa May, the Prime Minister, launched a year-long review of higher education, but ruled out abolishing tuition fees, which Labour promised to do.

The Spectator

Barometer | 22 February 2018

From our UK edition

The great indoors How to get the Winter Olympics experience without leaving England: — The Snow Centre, Hemel Hempstead: ‘London’s closest indoor real snow slope.’ A 160-metre slope with alpine restaurant. — SnowDome, Tamworth: ‘The original and ultimate snow, ice and leisure experience.’ Includes Santa’s Winter Wonderland. — Chill Factore, Stretford: A 180-metre slope with button lift and seasonal moguls. Parents go free in Mini Moose Land. Crowded house The government is considering early release for prisoners to cut overcrowding. How many people do we incarcerate compared with other countries? — The UK’s imprisonment rate is 143 per 100,000, putting us 109th out of 222 nations.

The Spectator

to 2344: I’m away

From our UK edition

The unclued lights can be preceded by or followed by the unclued word DOCTOR, which explains why I (Doc) am away in the title of the puzzle.   First prize Pam Dunn, Sevenoaks, Kent Runners-up Tim Hanks, Douglas, Isle of Man; R.C.