2681: ‘I see wets…’ – solution
From our UK edition
The unclued lights are all types of sweet. The title indicated SWEETIES, an anagram of ‘I SEE WETS’.
The Spectator
Thursday
A Spectator Christmas poll: Who is the most overrated painter?
From our UK edition
Jonathan Meades This is a crowded field. A few years ago, I was delighted when Tracey Emin walked out of an address I was giving at the Royal Academy. But she’s no painter. The crown, then, has to go to Lucian Freud who was, unquestionably, a painter but a really bad one. Early on in his career were a few works which owed their being to the neue sachlichkeit (although he denied it). Soon however the primacy of ‘the mark’ asserted itself – splodgy, messy, coarse, smeared, oafish, impasted and increasingly auto-plagiaristic. It’s all very well attempting to reduce your models and daughters (often the same) to bulky chunks from an abattoir, but it would help were the self-promoting genius to study butchery first.
In defence of faith
From our UK edition
For what should we give thanks this Christmas? The faith that sustains millions through life’s challenges and inspires countless acts of compassion every day? The hope that our world may be redeemed by love? The charity that makes us think of the voiceless and the vulnerable who need our love and protection? Faith, hope and charity are virtues at the heart of Christian belief. They are not exclusive to Christianity, of course, but the place of religion in our national life has underpinned the moral reasoning which has upheld our civilisation. The idea that atheists are privyto some higher level of neutrality doesn’t stand up to scrutiny The principle of the equal worth of every individual is at the heart of Christian belief.
Portrait of the year: Subpostmasters scandal, Rishi in the rain and Syrian rebels topple regime
From our UK edition
January After an ITV drama, the government suddenly proposed to do something about the unjust prosecution of sub-postmasters. Junior doctors went on strike. There was a surge in scabies. The King went to hospital and was later found to have cancer. The Princess of Wales was in hospital with what turned out to be cancer. Five migrants died boarding a boat for England off Wimereux. In Beirut, Israel killed the deputy head of Hamas. Israel said that it expected war in Gaza to continue throughout the year. The United States, with token British support, struck sites in Yemen to deter Houthi attacks on shipping. Russia mounted the biggest missile bombardment of its war against Ukraine. China’s population fell by 2.08 million to 1.41 billion.
The lesser-known anniversaries of 2025
From our UK edition
Root cause As in every year since 1947, a spruce tree given by the people of Oslo adorns Trafalgar Square. Yet the tradition actually began in 1942 in the middle of the second world war when a Norwegian commando and resistance fighter, Mons Urangsvag, conducted a raid on the island of Hisoy, off Bergen. He felled and brought back two trees to Britain, one of which was given to the Norwegian king in exile and the other erected in Trafalgar Square. The adventure was said to have been inspired by Ian Fleming during a dinner at the Savoy. Year we go 2025 will be the 50th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher becoming leader of the Tory party and the 200th anniversary of public railways, following the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
Wednesday
Has the election made Republicans love the government?
As Americans, we aren’t exactly famous for our love of the government. But how is the reelection of Donald Trump affecting our attitudes?In what they are touting as the first such poll released since the presidential election, GW’s Graduation School of Political Management and Schoen Cooperman Research are revealing “shocking findings about the state of Americans’ trust in the government and media” — namely, that nearly 40 percent of the public says they trust the government less going forward.
Tuesday
IPSO judgement on spectator.co.uk with regard to Editor’s Code Section 12.1
From our UK edition
Juno Dawson complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that spectator.co.uk breached Clause 12 (Discrimination) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “The sad truth about ‘saint’ Nicola Sturgeon”, published on 21 May 2024. The complaint was upheld, and IPSO required spectator.co.uk to publish this adjudication to remedy the breach of the Code. The article under complaint was a comment piece about Nicola Sturgeon and focused largely on her stance on transgender rights in Scotland. It reported that Nicola Sturgeon “was interviewed by writer Juno Dawson, a man who claims to be a woman, and so the conversation naturally turned to gender”.
Monday
Joe Biden and the art of quiet quitting
President Joe Biden still has forty-two days left in office, but rather than go out in a blaze of glory, he appears to be embracing the “quiet quitting” craze so popular with younger generations, in which employees “continue to put in the minimum amount of effort to keep their jobs, but don’t go the extra mile for their employer.” President-elect Donald Trump, meanwhile, is giving an early Christmas present to the 77,289,122 people who voted for him by overshadowing the current commander-in-chief on the international stage. As Israeli paratroopers deploy to Syria and the Russia-Ukraine war rages on, it’s Trump who is wearing the pants in the on behalf of the US overseas.
Friday
Time is running out for TikTok
TikTok’s days may be numbered in America after all. Following a presidential campaign in which both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris promoted themselves heavily on the platform, despite bipartisan national security concerns over its ownership’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party, a federal appeals court today ruled that the app must break ties with the Beijing-based ByteDance within a few weeks or be banned in the United States.Until the decision, everything was looking up for TikTok. Trump trounced Harris on the platform, and his campaign and top surrogates were active all over the popular social media app.
Thursday
Letters: In defence of Radio 3
From our UK edition
Vote of no confidence Sir: Rod Liddle is too harsh on those calling for another general election (‘I hope you didn’t sign that petition’, 30 November). You do not have to be a Trumpian denialist to believe the result in July raised serious concerns. Labour received just 33.7 per cent of the votes cast, yet won 411 of the 650 seats in the Commons. Labour’s total votes amounted to 23,622 per MP elected. The figure for Reform UK was 823,522. First past the post in individual constituencies works well with two major parties. But when support is significantly more divided, it is not fit for purpose. The petition was surely born out of signatories’ frustration that their votes were not fairly reflected in the new membership of the legislature.
Which are our most popular museums?
From our UK edition
Volt-face Luton’s Vauxhall plant is to close, partly because of the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate which obliges manufacturers to sell increasing proportions of electric vehicles. Remarkably, the history of the electric car can be traced back half a century earlier than the combustion engine. There are several possible claims as to who built the first road-going electric-powered vehicle, but one is a Scottish inventor, Robert Davidson, who produced one in the 1830s, about the same time as Thomas Davenport in Vermont. By the end of the 19th century electric cars were competing with petrol cars, but died out for the reasons the industry is struggling today: it was hard to recharge them and they couldn’t travel far on a charge.
Labour’s confidence tricks
From our UK edition
There is nothing new, nor necessarily fatal, about making a poor start in government. Margaret Thatcher had a torrid first couple of years in office, set back by galloping inflation and mass unemployment, before she found her direction. Those who assume that Keir Starmer is doomed to be a one-term prime minister thanks to his plunging popularity are speaking too soon. The resignation of Louise Haigh over a historic fraud conviction will swiftly pass. The mini-scandal of freebies accepted by government ministers, which kept Fleet Street occupied over the summer, has already been largely forgotten.
Portrait of the week: Labour’s ‘plan for change’, falling productivity and 20,000 wolves in the EU
From our UK edition
Home The Labour government announced a ‘Plan for Change’ that it refused to call a reset. Sir Chris Wormald was named Cabinet Secretary. In his Guildhall speech at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said that ‘the idea that we must choose between our allies, that somehow we’re with either America or Europe, is plain wrong’. He said ‘we must continue to back Ukraine’ against Vladimir Putin as something ‘deeply in our self-interest’. With the arrival of another 122 people on 1 December, more than 20,000 had crossed the Channel in small boats since Labour entered office.
2680: Two of a kind – solution
From our UK edition
The two works are THE OLD WIVES’ TALE (1A/8) by ARNOLD (34) Bennett, born in HANLEY(25), and TALKING HEADS (27/36) by ALAN (35) Bennett, born in ARMLEY (17). BENNETT, in the fourth row starting at 16, had to be shaded.
Wednesday
How Democrats are responding to Trump deportations
As President-elect Donald Trump charts plans to carry out mass deportations of illegal aliens, Democrats across the country are deciding whether or not they want to cooperate with the effort. Trump and his border czar, former acting ICE director Tom Homan, are reportedly mapping out a sophisticated operation that would include assistance from local and state law enforcement, ICE agents and potentially the National Guard and other military assets to identify and remove people who are in the country illegally, which number in the tens of millions. The wrench comes in with the local and state part of the equation; will Democratic officials order their law enforcement officers to stand down?
Tuesday
Joe Biden breaks his promise and pardons Hunter
President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, sparing him ahead of sentencing for felony tax and gun crimes. The ne’er-do-well was potentially facing years of jail time after pleading guilty to nine federal tax charges and getting convicted of three felony gun offenses. “Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” Biden said in a statement released Sunday night. He also alleged that the judicial process had been tainted by politics and was worried that investigations and prosecutions against his son would continue after his presidency.
Thursday
Letters: Labour’s attack on farmers
From our UK edition
Losing the plot Sir: Your leading article ‘Blight on the land’ (23 November) is right to call out the hypocrisy and vindictiveness of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Agricultural Property Relief cuts. Sadly, this is just one part of the Labour government’s multi-pronged attack on farmers, in sharp contrast to the promises they made before the general election. The 7 per cent rise in the minimum wage and the 9 per cent jump in employers’ national insurance contributions will hit all businesses, but given the 56 per cent slump in farm incomes over the past 12 months, farming is one of the sectors least able to cover such increases. The government also makes much play of the fact it is putting £5 billion into the agricultural budget over the next two years.
Labour’s little helper: the CBI is failing British business
From our UK edition
What is the Confederation of British Industry for? Indeed, who is it for? The soi-disant voice of British business held its conference this week. As one might expect, the organisation’s chief executive, Rain Newton-Smith, lamented the tax increases levied on employers in the Budget. She issued a plea to the Chancellor for the CBI to be more closely involved in the design of fiscal events in the future. She was joined by the organisation’s chair in chiding Labour for treating the private sector as a cash cow. But these criticisms were pianissimo compared with the chorus of praise the group has been orchestrating for Labour. The CBI welcomed the Labour manifesto during the general election for its mission to deliver sustainable growth.
Portrait of the week: Storm Bert, Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire and Putin gives cockatoos to North Korea
From our UK edition
Home A white paper outlined measures to counter economic inactivity (which had risen by September to 41.2 per cent among those aged 16 to 24): everyone aged 18 to 21 would be offered an apprenticeship, training, education or help to find a job; Jobcentres would be rebranded as the National Jobs and Careers Service. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: ‘What I haven’t heard are many alternatives’ to the tax rises imposed by October’s Budget; she was speaking to the Confederation of British Industry. A petition on the parliament website, accusing Labour of breaking promises and calling for a general election, gathered more than 2.
2679: Choc-a-block – solution
From our UK edition
The unclued lights are brands of CHOCOLATE. First prize T.
