The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 7 September 2017

From our UK edition

Home On being asked if she meant to lead the Conservatives into the next election, due in 2022, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said: ‘Yes. I’m in this for the long term.’ Echoing Peter Mandelson’s remark in 2001, she said: ‘I’m not a quitter.’ Research by Conservative Home found that 52 per cent of Conservative party members wanted her gone before 2022. A memo from Lynton Crosby sent in April, before Mrs May called an early election, turned up in the Mail on Sunday: ‘Clearly a lot of risk involved with holding an early election, and there is a real need to nail down the “why” for doing so now.’ The Duchess of Cambridge announced that she was expecting her third child.

The Spectator

to 2323: alphabetical jigsaw

From our UK edition

A Ambition, A Aorist, B Battledore, C Caret, C Cashed, C Coact, C Coalman, C Cuttoes, D Dioxan, D Disaccharides, D Drop, E Eerie, F Ferrer, G Goering, G Guitars, H Heteros, I Ileum, I Impanel, I Impecuniosity, I Interrupts, J Jinn, K Kraits, L Lanolin, M Melanesian, M Minim, M Morphemes, N Neurons, N Nonets, O Optics, P Pots, Q Quince, R Reassessments, R Re-echo, S Seville, S Standing stone, S Sustained, T Toe the line, U U-boat, U Undines, V Vivisect, W Wilted, X Xema, Y Yammer, Z Zenith.   First prize Andrew Vernalls, Thame, Oxon Runners-up Andreas Fabian, Dunsden, South Oxon; and A.

The Spectator

School portraits | 7 September 2017

From our UK edition

  Walhampton School  The ethos at this prep school on the edge of Hampshire’s New Forest is very much one of living life to the full; history lessons involve re-enactments of the Battle of Hastings on horseback or the Battle of Trafalgar on a lake. Every year pupils go to ‘camp’ for a week at the end of the summer term; activities include day trips to RNLI stations, visits to local historical sites and a week on the Isle of Mull. Horse riding is also part of the curriculum, with a stable-full of ponies available for lessons. Walhampton describes itself as encompassing the ‘Swallows and Amazons spirit’, and aside from its fantastic location, it’s easy to see why.

The Spectator

School report | 7 September 2017

From our UK edition

New drive to promote ‘British values’ in schools The recently appointed Ofsted chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, has vowed to press ahead with the ‘active promotion of fundamental British values’ in schools. Speaking to an audience at Wellington College, Ms Spielman said that the terror attacks in London and Manchester had brought into ‘stark relief’ the scale of the threat posed by extremism in Britain. It was essential that the country’s children were equipped with the ‘knowledge and resilience’ required to confront the violent rhetoric peddled by those who ‘put hatred in their hearts and poison in their minds’, she said.

Saturday

The Spectator

Britain’s Brexit team must call Barnier’s bluff

From our UK edition

There is a growing perception that Britain is floundering in its EU negotiations, with a professional team from Brussels running rings around our bumbling amateurs. It is an idea that is being put about by the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, who this week appealed for Britain to begin ‘negotiating seriously’. As he has found out, the strange dynamic of British public debate at present means that EU spin is repeated uncritically by those hostile to Brexit. It can seem, at times, as if we are in the grip of hysteria normally seen during the final days of an election campaign. This is not to say that the British side has been faultless. The government has struggled to articulate the clear case for Brexit that we heard during the Leave campaign.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 31 August 2017

From our UK edition

Campus censoriousness Sir: I am so grateful to Madeleine Kearns for having the courage to speak out about her experiences at university when others, including myself, remain silent (‘Unsafe spaces’, 26 August) . I have done the reverse of Madeleine in that I, a young American woman, moved from New York City to the UK for graduate school. One of the main factors in this decision to continue my education here is because I feel I have more academic and intellectual freedom. The idea of a balanced argument at my undergraduate university was ‘neoliberal’ versus ‘radically liberal’. We spoke of the importance of diversity, but political diversity was never considered.

The Spectator

Barometer | 31 August 2017

From our UK edition

Ethnic ethics Actor Ed Skrein withdrew from a cartoon film after protests that he had the wrong ethnic background to play a Japanese-American. Some famous performances which, on the same principle, could be regarded as unacceptable: — Laurence Olivier blacked up to play the lead role in the 1965 film of Othello. — Andrew Sachs, son of a German Jew, played Manuel the Spanish waiter in Fawlty Towers in 1975 and 1979. — Eddie Redmayne, who is not disabled, played Stephen Hawking in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything. — Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is of Puerto Rican descent, played founding father Alexander Hamilton in the Broadway musical Hamilton, which he also wrote.

The Spectator

Call Barnier’s bluff

From our UK edition

There is a growing perception that Britain is floundering in its EU negotiations, with a professional team from Brussels running rings around our bumbling amateurs. It is an idea that is being put about by the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, who this week appealed for Britain to begin ‘negotiating seriously’. As he has found out, the strange dynamic of British public debate at present means that EU spin is repeated uncritically by those hostile to Brexit. It can seem, at times, as if we are in the grip of hysteria normally seen during the final days of an election campaign. This is not to say that the British side has been faultless. The government has struggled to articulate the clear case for Brexit that we heard during the Leave campaign.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 31 August 2017

From our UK edition

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, announced a change in Labour’s policy by saying that he wanted Britain to stay in the single market and customs union during a transition period after Brexit, which could be ‘as short as possible but as long as necessary’. The French government denied that senior French diplomats had said they wanted to see Brexit talks make progress by proceeding to questions of trade. ‘We need you to take positions on all separation issues,’ said Michel Barnier, the European Union’s chief negotiator. British sources denounced M. Barnier’s ‘inconsistent, ill- judged and ill-considered comments’.

The Spectator

to 2322: In memoriam

From our UK edition

The event was THE GLORIOUS TWELFTH (1D/29) (12 August, opening day of the grouse-shooting season). Remaining unclued lights bring to mind ‘grouse’: LAGOPUS LAGOPUS SCOTICUS (43/19: scientific name); RUGOSE and ROGUES (11 and 3: anagrams); GRIPE and BLEAT (39 and 25: synonyms).

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 24 August 2017

From our UK edition

In defence of General Lee Sir: In your leader ‘America’s identity crisis’ (19 August) you state that ‘When General Lee emerged as a leader of that rebellion [the secession of the Southern states], we said that he had no cause that stood up to scrutiny.’ The irony is that Lee did not disagree with that view. Unlike Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders, he was opposed to secession and believed that the Union should be kept intact. Nor was he an enthusiast for slavery. A slave owner by proxy, he appears to have loathed the experience. In 1856 he wrote to his wife saying that ‘In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country.

The Spectator

Hard lessons

From our UK edition

George Tomlinson, the post-war education secretary, declared that politicians should leave exams to the teachers because ‘the minister knows nowt about curriculum’. Today, however, the curriculum seems to be in a state of permanent revolution. The new GCSEs, for example, are marked on a nine-point scale: a grade of 7 or above indicates what used to be an ‘A’. For every five students who hit the 7 threshold, only one will get 9, the top mark. How employers are meant to understand this is another question. The GCSE overhaul is the latest of a series of reforms, started by Michael Gove seven years ago, which are intended to ‘restore confidence’ after years of grade inflation. During the Labour years, ministers denied that exams were getting easier.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 24 August 2017

From our UK edition

Home Big Ben ceased sounding for a planned period of four years, thanks to a decision by the Speaker and two Commons committees. The silence was attributed to the need to protect the hearing of workmen restoring the Elizabeth Tower, though experts on the bell and on previous restorations saw no reason for it. A game of hunt-the-issue was begun when Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham, was obliged to resign as shadow minister for women and equalities after writing a piece for the Sun that began: ‘Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls.

The Spectator

to 2321: Cleaner

From our UK edition

The key word is DENTIFRICE (38), which can be divided into DENT defining 11, 21, 33; IF 13, 20, 27; and RICE 4A, 12, 18.   First prize Trevor Speak, Dursley, Glos Runners-up Victoria Estcourt, King’s Somborne, Hants; J.S.

Saturday

The Spectator

Donald Trump and America’s identity crisis

From our UK edition

Long before student activists started talking about pulling down statues of Cecil Rhodes, a cultural war was being waged in America over monuments honouring General Robert E. Lee and other leaders of the Confederacy. In 2001 there was a petition to remove some of these statues from the University of Texas on the grounds that their presence might ‘lead people to believe that the university is tolerant of the Confederate ideology regarding slavery’. The arguments that started on campus then branched out beyond it. To some, the statues were a symbol of Southern heritage and pride. To others, they were a monument to racism. In recent years this argument has intensified, gathering a momentum that few of America’s political leaders fully understood.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 17 August 2017

From our UK edition

The education gap Sir: It is disappointing that Toby Young (‘Parents, not schools, are key to the knowledge gap’, 5 August) conforms to the ‘Close the gap’ mentality that obsesses Ofsted and leftish thinking in state schools. Young deplores ‘the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged 16-year-olds in England’. I prefer to get away from the tendentious terms ‘disadvantaged’ and ‘non-disadvantaged’ pupils and stick to the idea of high- and low-attaining pupils. Left-inclined schools have various ways of closing this gap in attainment. One is to impose limits on how abler pupils can be challenged.

The Spectator

Barometer | 17 August 2017

From our UK edition

Big bong theory Big Ben, otherwise known as the Great Bell, is due to fall silent on Monday for renovations to be carried out on the Palace of Westminster’s Elizabeth Tower, in which it is housed. Why is it called Big Ben? —According to one version, Sir Benjamin Hall, who oversaw the installation of the bell in 1859, also happened to be nicknamed Big Ben. He made a long and rambling speech on what the bell should be called, whereupon another MP interjected: ‘Why not call it Big Ben and be done with it?’ The comment is not, however, recorded in Hansard. Inside left Pressure groups representing the left-handed held an international left-handedness day. How does the percentage of reported left-handedness vary? Netherlands 13.2 UK 12.2 New York State 12.