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Reparations row: why Britain should NOT pay up | Quite right!

Writers

Spectator Life

An intelligent mix of culture, food, style and property, plus where to go and what to see.

Leave Laura Kuenssberg alone

From Spectator Life

I'll never forget seeing a fellow in Las Vegas - a veritable man-mountain - wearing a T-shirt which bore the legend 'NO FAT CHICKS'. I thought at first that it might be a joke, but when other men gave him a high-five, he glowed with porky pleasure. Not a ‘Yeah, ironic, right?’ or a cupping of his manly breasts to be seen. Though extreme, it was just the ultimate and logical version of one of the last double standards: ugly men judging female pulchritude in a way ugly women never rate male good looks - or the lack of such. It was recently exemplified by the ‘DAVID BLUNKETT!’ response beloved by social media wags in the wake of Laura Kuenssberg’s recent teasing (preceding her forthcoming memoir) that a politician had once perhaps proffered an unwanted threesome.

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Magazine

This week's magazine

Sod the state

The race to go private

Sod the state: the middle-class race to go private

Postwar Britain can be defined by a bargain made with its middle class: pay for public services but benefit from them too. Private education has always been the choice of a very small minority; private healthcare was reserved for the wealthiest and those whose employers paid for it. Middle England was content to send their children to the same schools as everyone else and use the same GPs, hospitals and dentists. This is no longer true. State spending continues to grow, yet large parts of the population now pay privately to supplement what their taxes have already provided.

Sod the state: the middle-class race to go private

Postwar Britain can be defined by a bargain made with its middle class: pay for public services but benefit from them too. Private education has always been the choice of a very small minority; private healthcare was reserved for the wealthiest and those whose employers paid for it. Middle England was content to send their children to the same schools as everyone else and use the same GPs, hospitals and dentists. This is no longer true. State spending continues to grow, yet large parts of the population now pay privately to supplement what their taxes have already provided.

Culture

The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.

In praise of Piedmontese wines

From the magazine

Authors hate it when reviewers refer to their book as a ‘weighty tome’ as it implies that the contents are going to be about as much fun as Deuteronomy. So I should make it clear that while Tim Hayward’s The Cocktail Hour (Quadrille, £20) is extremely weighty, that’s because the production values are off the scale. The monks at Lindisfarne could scarcely have put more effort into illuminating their work. And while the paper is heavy, Hayward’s writing is as refreshing as a perfectly made dry martini. There are hundreds of cocktail books out there, but none combine Hayward’s erudition, obsession and sense of humour. He is at once deadly serious and very, very funny. It’s the best book on the subject since Bernard DeVoto’s 1948 book The Hour.

Podcasts

Cartoons

Grizelda

‘‘I see you have three years’ experience filling in job applications.’’

Cartoon

KJ Lamb

‘‘We’re not the weird sisters any more – we’re the neurodivergent sisters.’’

Cartoon

Tanya Gold

Rolls-Royce's connection to the spirit world

From Spectator Life