The Spectator

Wednesday

The Spectator

Letters: What to do with the Elgin Marbles

From our UK edition

Sculpting a solution Sir: Noel Malcolm’s article ‘Relief fund’ (22 October) rightly suggests that legislators should consider the issue of the Parthenon sculptures seriously. Yet the article does little in the way of advancing a meaningful solution. What makes The Parthenon Project unique and not just ‘the latest in a sequence’ is that it offers a real, viable way of breaking the impasse on a centuries-old debate. Its proposal of a win-win solution involving the return of the sculptures to Athens and the establishment of a rotating exhibition of Greek artefacts in London is new but already changing minds – including my own.

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The economic storm ahead is losing some of its power

From our UK edition

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, German protesters lined the streets holding placards saying ‘Better a cold shower than Putin’s gas’. Their resolve was soon to be tested: energy costs surged and Berlin’s longstanding policy of relying on Russian gas started to cost the country dear. Germany set itself the hugely ambitious target of having its gas stores 95 per cent full by November, a policy that remained even after Moscow turned off the Nord Stream pipeline. It seemed a near-impossible target. But this target has now been met ahead of schedule. German gas usage is down by about a third after major changes to industry. With the panic over, the price of commercial gas contracts – in Germany and Britain – has now fallen to levels last seen in the spring.

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Portrait of the week: Sunak in No. 10, pasta gets pricier and Russia hits Ukraine’s energy grid

From our UK edition

Home Rishi Sunak, aged 42, became Prime Minister. At the weekend Boris Johnson had flown back from a holiday in the Dominican Republic in response to the resignation of Liz Truss. She said she could not ‘deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative party’. The 1922 Committee devised a hurdle of 100 nominations for any MP to be considered as leader, with secret ballots of MPs and, if two candidates remained, an online vote by party members. It was thought that if Mr Johnson secured 100 votes, the membership would elect him. At 9 p.m. on Sunday, the day before nominations closed, he withdrew from the contest. Next day, a minute before nominations closed, Penny Mordaunt withdrew. So Mr Sunak won.

Tuesday

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Rishi’s reshuffle: the appointments

From our UK edition

Rishi Sunak is Britain's third prime minister this year. On Tuesday, Sunak assembled a new top team with the hope of unifying the fractured party. The cabinet departures included Jacob Rees-Mogg among those heading to the back benches. As for the arrivals, Suella Braverman is back in the role of Home Secretary just under a week after being forced to resign over a security breach. Here are the key developments: Jeremy Hunt has been reappointed as Chancellor. Suella Braverman is back as Home Secretary. Ben Wallace remains Defence Secretary and James Cleverly stays as Foreign Secretary. Dominic Raab is deputy PM and Justice Secretary.  Nadhim Zahawi is party chairman. Grant Shapps becomes Business Secretary.

Wednesday

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Divided they fall: can the Tories save themselves?

From our UK edition

Seldom has support for a government fallen so far, so fast. Polls show that 24 per cent of the public would vote for the Conservatives if there was an election now, vs 52 per cent for Labour: figures that make 1997 look like a good result for the Tories. This is not just a one-off rogue poll, but the sustained average of six. It reflects what Tory MPs hear from voters appalled at the disgraceful shambles of the past few weeks. It won’t be forgotten in a hurry. This magazine gave its verdict on the Liz Truss agenda in August: ‘To attempt reform without a proper plan is to guarantee failure,’ we argued. She lost no time in proving this point. But others are drawing wider and deeper – and rather dangerous – conclusions.

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Has the pandemic made us appreciate nature more?

From our UK edition

Out to grass If Liz Truss is forced out of office (and doesn’t also resign her parliamentary seat as Tony Blair did on resigning as prime minister), there will be three ex-PMs sitting on the backbenches of the Commons. When was the last time this happened? — Between Jim Callaghan’s defeat in the 1979 general election and Harold Wilson’s retirement from the Commons four years later, Callaghan, Wilson and Edward Heath were all still in parliament. As for the number of living ex-PMs, we are already at a modern record, with Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Major.

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Letters: The case for legalising cannabis

From our UK edition

Paying the price Sir: Lionel Shriver’s piece about university standards rang true to me (‘University is supposed to be hard’, 15 October). When I, then working for a distinctly moth-eaten British university, visited a very famous private college in Massachusetts in 1985, I expressed my envy of his luxurious surroundings to a professor of English. His reply was: ‘Don’t envy us. You have something we don’t have. It’s called standards.

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Portrait of the week: Truss says sorry, Hunt reverses mini-Budget and Kanye West buys Parler

From our UK edition

Home Liz Truss said in a BBC interview as Prime Minister that she wanted to ‘say sorry for the mistakes that have been made’. Declaring that she would lead the Conservatives into the next election, she addressed blocs of MPs: the One Nation group one day, the European Research Group the next. She watched Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer whom she had just appointed to replace Kwasi Kwarteng, deliver a statement to the Commons reversing most of the provisions of the ‘fiscal event’ of 23 September. The new Chancellor announced the end of current subsidies for domestic energy bills in April, preferring something that ‘will cost the taxpayer significantly less than planned while ensuring enough support for those in need’.

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2575: Problem XIII – solution

From our UK edition

5 (the number of GOLD RINGS, from ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’: 34/22A) x 103 (the number of the PSALM (7D) BENEDIC ANIMA MEA: 41/30/1D) x 5 (the number of SYMBOLS AT YOUR DOOR, from ‘Green Grow the Rushes,O’: 3/8/38) = 2575 (the number of the PUZZLE (14)). First prize O.F.G. Phillips, Oxford Runners-up Clive West, Old Windsor, Berks; M.D.

Wednesday

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2574: A Chinese – solution

From our UK edition

Each unclued Across light (including the pair at 16/7) is a SWEET and the unclued Down lights can be preceded by SOUR. First prize Steven Lodge, Bridgwater, Somerset Runners-up Diana King, Leeds; A.

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What does Nicola Sturgeon want for Christmas?

From our UK edition

Dying of heat The former government chief scientific adviser Sir David King predicted that the heatwave in mid-July could cause up to 10,000 excess deaths. Was he right? — The ONS says there were 2,227 excess deaths from 10 to 25 July: that is compared with the five-year average (which excludes the Covid year of 2020). This amounted to a 10.4% rise in excess deaths. The ONS recorded 3,271 excess deaths during the five ‘heat periods’ of the summer months (when the mean Central England Temperature exceeds 20˚C). There were nearly twice as many excess deaths among females (2,159) as among men (1,115), a reversal of previous heatwaves. There were 5,017 excess deaths among the over-seventies.

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Letters: red kites are a menace

From our UK edition

Free Kaliningrad Sir: Mark Galeotti was right to identify the exclave of Kaliningrad as a target for a strong western response to any use by Putin of a nuclear weapon against Ukraine (‘Nuclear options’, 8 October). Perhaps it should be offered the chance of secession from Russia, not only to avoid destruction, but to secure a better future than Putin or any successor could offer. It was subject to terrible ethnic cleansing after its conquest in the second world war, which rules out its return to Germany. But it could lose its dismal association with Kalinin. Under its historic name of Königsberg, it could revert to its previous status as a Free City – within the EU and as part of Nato’s territory.

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Portrait of the Week: the gilt market, Larry the Cat and Iranian protests

From our UK edition

Home The Bank of England warned of a ‘material risk’ to financial stability as it stepped in to buy a wider range of gilts. But markets got the jitters again when Andrew Bailey, its governor, announced to pension funds: ‘You’ve got three days left.’ Kwasi Kwarteng, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, would present his ‘fiscal statement’ to parliament on 31 October, Halloween, not 23 November as originally planned. The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank said that under current plans, public spending would need to be cut by £60 billion a year by 2026-27 to put the economy on a safe footing. GDP shrank by 0.3 per cent in August. British Cycling announced an eight-year sponsorship deal with the oil company Shell.

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China’s great leap backward

From our UK edition

This month should have marked the end of Xi Jinping’s time as leader of the Chinese Communist party. The twice-a-decade party congress is being staged in Beijing. It is a grand event at which a new General Secretary is meant to be either nominated (five years in advance) or given power. But Xi has changed all that. He has sidelined all opposition and is now settling down to his 11th year in office – fully intent on ruling for life. The world’s second-largest economy will therefore this weekend be reconfirmed as an outright dictatorship. Ten years ago there was a fatal car crash in Beijing involving a Ferrari driven by the son of Ling Jihua, chief of staff to the then president Hu Jintao.

Wednesday

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Who has the most nuclear weapons?

From our UK edition

Out of office Could Liz Truss end up being Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister? She would have to remain in office until 2 January to outlast George Canning, who was PM from 12 April 1827 until his death on 8 August of that year. Like Truss, Canning had served as foreign secretary, where he was credited with boosting trading opportunities for British merchants. However, he became leader of a divided Tory party, which split between his supporters and those of Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington. Tax returns Some countries by the top rate of income tax: Japan 56% Denmark 55.9% Sweden 52.9% Belgium, Israel 50% Netherlands 49.

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Letters: Why I love Warhammer

From our UK edition

Troubles ahead? Sir: Jenny McCartney’s article ‘Border lines’ (1 October) was a profoundly depressing one. Perhaps there will be a united Ireland within the next 30 years; but will it be a peaceful and happy place? I have my doubts. Might not areas such as overwhelmingly Unionist Antrim, north Down, north Armagh, east Belfast and indeed much of Co. Londonderry become no-go areas for the new Irish governing authorities – rather in the same way as Derry, west Belfast and south Armagh were for the British in the times of the Troubles? Most of the wiser commentators observe that the Good Friday Agreement was only a truce, not a perpetual cessation of hostilities.

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Portrait of the week: Tory party conference, gas supply warning and Denmark’s royals stripped of titles

From our UK edition

Home Liz Truss, the Prime Minister, came up with a message for the Conservative party conference: ‘Whenever there is change, there is disruption… Everyone will benefit from the result.’ Her words followed a decision not to abolish, after all, the 45p rate of tax, paid by people who earn more than £150,000 a year. Backbench Conservative MPs had let it be known they would not vote for it. ‘The difference this makes really is trivial,’ said Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank. But the pound rose and the government was able to borrow a little more cheaply. Kwasi Kwarteng, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told the conference: ‘I know the plan put forward only ten days ago has caused a little turbulence. I get it.

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2573 – solution

From our UK edition

The preamble referred to ten symmetrically placed unclued entries which spell out CURRENT PUZZLE NUMBER HAS PRIME FACTORS: THIRTY-ONE, EIGHTY-THREE. First prize Bill Stewart, Leicester Runners-up D.P. Shenkin, London WC1; C.S.

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Give Liz Truss a chance

From our UK edition

Conservative governments have a habit of self-destructing: they die not in battle with political enemies but as a result of vicious infighting. It’s been less than three years since Boris Johnson’s triumphant 80-seat election victory, which seemed at the time to come close to condemning Labour to oblivion. Yet this week in Birmingham it was the Conservatives who have looked doomed, posing a far greater threat to each other than to Keir Starmer. In her conference speech, Liz Truss laid out a confident and coherent agenda. She is correct about the need to harness the power of free enterprise to kickstart growth, but she failed to prepare the ground for her agenda. Since entering No.