The Spectator

Wednesday

The Spectator

Which schools get the most pupils into Oxbridge?

From our UK edition

Oxford and Cambridge have released figures showing how many offers they gave to pupils from schools in the 2023 Ucas application cycle. We have combined the figures in this table. It shows how well state grammars and sixth-form colleges compete with independent schools. Over the years, both universities have increased the proportion of acceptances from state schools: 72 per cent, up from 52 per cent in 2000. Of the 80 schools, 29 are independent, 29 grammar or partially selective, 17 sixth-form colleges and five are comprehensives or academies. (Schools are ranked by offers received, then by offer-to-application ratio. If schools received fewer than three offers from one university, this number has been discounted due to Ucas’s disclosure control.

Blake Morrison

News pages

From our UK edition

i.m. Ian Jack (1945-2022) I feel awkward owning up to it, Ian, but I find I’m skimming the news pages. To bask in the light, listen to music, watch geese fly over and tulips glow doesn’t feel as if I’m selling my soul. Not that I skip the bullet points – bombs falling, democracies failing, the forests going up in smoke – but now the sun comes up at six, with a blackbird calling and the koi luminescent, will you forgive me for sitting outside, on the flagstones, a coffee in hand, my eyes on the plum tree next door with its cumulus of white blossom, or if not forgive – newsman as you are – at least come through the gate to dispute it.

Friday

The Spectator

Trump promises free IVF

Kamala’s first interview as nominee falls flat Vice President Kamala Harris — and CNN — failed to impress in the first sit-down and unscripted interview she has given since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee forty days ago. Harris spoke for just eighteen minutes and opted not to explain how and why her policy positions have changed so drastically in the past four years, instead offering that her “values haven’t changed” and stood by her positive post-debate assessment of President Joe Biden’s cognitive state. Perhaps most confusing was Harris’s insistence that Americans are looking for a “new way forward” and to “bring America into a new decade,” which conveniently left out the fact that she has been in office for at least a third of that decade.

ivf

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: The dark side of chess players

From our UK edition

Spinning a line Sir: Roger Alton is too enthusiastic about the Hundred tournament (Sport, 24 August) – I can’t recall another sport that has so successfully alienated its entire support base. Before the season ends, I encourage Roger to watch his local cricket team and ask for their thoughts about the Hundred. He will find that most are terribly unhappy. While it has attracted a few big names in the men’s, we have no Indian powerhouses and few Australian heavyweights; other franchises round the world are, simply put, outcompeting us. Overseas investment will inevitably increase the number of teams and widen the window of play into most of July, similar to the length of the Indian Premier League.

The Spectator

Is this Rachel Reeves’s idea of a programme for growth?

From our UK edition

It is certainly true that the Labour party has been more than a little devious over the tax rises that are to come. After an election campaign in which it insisted it had no plans – and no need – to increase taxes beyond a few measures such as extending VAT on school fees, mysterious holes started appearing in the public finances as soon as the party achieved office. So acute, apparently, is the lack of funds that Sir Keir Starmer felt the need to warn us this week that October’s Budget will be ‘painful’. It is an old trick, which David Cameron and George Osborne also tried to pull off: making out that the public finances handed over to a new government are in a much worse condition than had previously been believed.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Sir Keir’s tax warning, Russian air attacks and another prisons crisis

From our UK edition

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, speaking in the garden of 10 Downing Street, warned that the Budget in October is ‘going to be painful’, and that ‘things will get worse before they get better’. ‘I didn’t want to means-test the winter fuel payment, but it was a choice we had to make,’ he said. ‘A garden and a building that were once used for lockdown parties are now back in your service.’ Meanwhile, it was discovered, a pass to Downing Street had been given to Lord Alli, the Labour peer and party fundraiser, who gave £10,000 to the Beckenham and Penge constituency party; the seat was won by Liam Conlon, the son of Sue Gray, Sir Keir’s chief of staff.

The Spectator

How hot is too hot to work?

From our UK edition

Gold standard The Paralympics were instigated in 1948 and first held alongside the Olympics in Rome in 1960. But disabled athletes were competing in the Olympics long before that – notably George Eyser, a German who settled in St Louis, USA. That he had lost a leg after being run over by a train and wore a wooden prosthetic did not stop him taking up athletics and gymnastics. When the Olympics came to his city in 1904 he won three golds: in the parallel bars, long horse vault and 25ft rope climb. He won three other medals, on the pommel horse, horizontal bars and in a team event. He also competed in the triathlon, which in those days consisted of a 100m run, the long jump and shot put – but came last. Ship shape How dangerous is it at sea?

Wednesday

The Spectator

Mark Zuckerberg is really sorry for censoring you

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee yesterday that the government pressured his company to censor content during the Covid-19 pandemic and said he regrets following their wishes. The committee described his comments as a “big win for free speech.” Meta produced thousands of documents for the committee’s investigation into alleged government censorship and Zuckerberg wrote the supplemental letter to outline what he had learned during the process. “In 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain Covid-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” he said.

Zuckerberg

Monday

The Spectator

Trump honors fallen soldiers of Abbey Gate

Former president Donald Trump made a surprise appearance at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday to lay a wreath and pay his respects to the thirteen American service members who were killed during a suicide bombing amid the military withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack, which was a tragic source of national embarrassment as America left the twenty-year long war and has been a continuous political thorn in the side of President Joe Biden. While Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both released statements recognizing the fallen service members, Biden is currently at the beach (in fact, he is on vacation all week long) and Harris has no public events on her schedule.

abbey gate

Friday

The Spectator

Kamala wraps up her coronation

Chicago Pour one out for the Beyhive. For the bulk of the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the topic of conversation was: who is the mystery guest? The speculation ran rampant but was mostly focused on the myth of the goddess — Beyoncé herself was going to descend from the sky to affirm the ascendance of Kamala Harris. And then it turned out that the bright shiny mystery box contained... nothing at all. Too bad, so sad. But this itself seems in keeping with the 2024 cycle, where all promises decay into a great big pile of fail.For the delegates and consultants, this was a perfectly fine convention, logistical failures aside — a daily hammering of the impending evil and danger of a second Donald Trump term.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: we have let down white, working-class boys

From our UK edition

The lost boys Sir: The only statement in your powerful leading article (‘Boy trouble’, 17 August) which can be challenged is that ‘the plight of poor white boys is a new burning injustice’. It is certainly not ‘new’. Even 40 years ago when the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) produced policies designed to counter inequality affecting girls, it was obvious that the problem was no less serious for white working-class boys. But the subject was highjacked by those obsessing about girls, with the results described in your article 40 years later. During the hijacking (for which he was not responsible), ILEA’s former leader Sir Ashley Bramall said to me: ‘Perhaps we should also be worried about the boys.

The Spectator

Which European countries are most affected by forest fires?

From our UK edition

Grand tours When was there last a genuine British royal tour of Colombia? While the late Queen never visited the country, the then Prince Charles and Duchess of Cornwall spent several days there in October and November 2014. They visited the Peace and Reconciliation Centre in Bogota, and Charles attended a conference on the ‘Health of the Oceans’. The last working royal to visit was Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, last November, when she attended United Nations events tackling violence against women and girls. Burning question Which European countries are most affected by forest fires? Average percentage of land area burned each year: Portugal 1.02 Greece 0.38 Cyprus 0.3 Croatia 0.24 Italy 0.19 Spain 0.16 Bulgaria, Romania 0.

The Spectator

Labour’s union problem

From our UK edition

Less than two months in, one aspect of Keir Starmer’s government is becoming clear. This administration is closer to the trade unions than any we have had in the past 45 years. It is not just that the government has ceded readily to wage demands from teachers (a 5.5 per cent rise this year), junior doctors (22 per cent over two years) and train drivers (15 per cent over three years) – it has done so without seeking any agreement to changes in working practices. Given the abysmal productivity record of the public sector in recent years, especially since the pandemic, this is a remarkable omission. The government’s failure to represent tax-payers’ interests in these pay awards serves as an invitation for further unreasonable demands.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: prisoners are freed, Ted Baker closes and train drivers announce strikes 

From our UK edition

Home Emergency measures, known as Operation Early Dawn, were brought in to ease prison overcrowding. Defendants would be summoned to a magistrates’ court only when a space in prison was ready for them, the government said, and would be kept in police holding cells or released on bail while they awaited trial. The measures at first affected the north and the Midlands. By the beginning of the week, 472 people had been charged with offences arising from the recent public disorder; 300 had appeared in court in the preceding week. Donna Conniff, aged 40, the mother of six children, was jailed for two years for throwing a brick at police during a disturbance in Hartlepool.

Wednesday

The Spectator

DNC dazzled by the Obamas

Chicago We are back with another dispatch from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which is on its third day following Tuesday night remarks from Senator Bernie Sanders, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Michelle and President Barack Obama.The DNC crowd was thrilled to hear from the Obamas, but the reality of their speeches was much more grim. Michelle, despite being one of the most successful and beloved black women in America, is still peddling the trope that America is a hopelessly racist country.

Monday

The Spectator

Protesters swarm Chicago ahead of DNC

Pro-Palestinian protesters swarmed Chicago in preparation for the Democratic National Convention this week, setting the stage for a clash between the traditionally pro-Israel Democratic establishment and the progressive activist class. On Sunday night, protesters clashed with police and charged both major political parties with “genocide” for sending aid and weapons to Israel amid its war against Hamas. Thousands showed up at Union Park on Monday afternoon, far short of the 30,000-40,000 expected, but still a significant contingent. Signs held by blue-haired, masked protesters in cargo pants referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “killer Kamala” and said that the “slaughter” of Palestinians would be President Joe Biden’s legacy.

Letters
The Spectator

Letters from Spectator readers, September 2024

The cunning of the Democrats’ lawfare Wow! A tour de force of snark! But wonderful for it. My late father-in-law would have said that instead of brushing his teeth in the morning, the author gets a file and sharpens his tongue. As depressing as this article is, it is likely an accurate assessment of what’s going on. Particularly the image of Trump and Biden essentially playing the roles of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the Grumpy Old Men movies. Carry on, America. Down Under, we have our own problems, as well as being affected by yours, same as every other country. — David Gerber Tellingly prescient. The 800-pound gorilla the next generation will be forced to address will be unsustainable entitlement transfer payments.