Society

Thursday

Nigel Biggar

Reparations: the tyranny of imaginary guilt, with Nigel Biggar & Katie Lam

19 min listen

The past few years have seen growing calls for countries in the global west to pay reparations to former colonies for their role in the transatlantic slave trade. The debate over reparations was already part of the so-called ‘culture wars’, but became louder following the Black Lives Matter movement, as many groups sought to re-examine their histories. Calls for reparations have been embraced by the Church of England which set up a £100 million fund, with the aim of raising £1 billion, to pay reparations for the role the Church played in the slave trade. But do the arguments in favour of reparations really stand up? Conservative peer Nigel Biggar,

Rupert Hawksley

Save our charity shops!

If, like me, your tailor of choice is the British Heart Foundation or Save the Children, it is beginning to feel like the end of days. Old people are still dying, their wardrobes still being emptied into bin bags – but we vultures are being starved of their corduroy carrion. Charity shops are in crisis. Scope has shut more than 50 stores this year already. Two more – in Beverley and Fleet – are closing this week. Taunton, Portsmouth, Skipton and Bangor are all completely Scopeless. The Charity Retail Association (CRA) is gloomy, explaining that the British Heart Foundation, Barnardo’s, Oxfam and Cancer Research UK – the big four –

Matthew Parris

Hard-won gay rights will be easily lost

In the Palace of Westminster a fortnight ago, I spoke at a reception celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Tory gay rights movement now called LGBT+ Conservatives. And last weekend I read a book to be published on 9 October. It turns out that its author and I are saying the same thing. Professor Ronan McCrea has chosen the title The End of the Gay Rights Revolution: How Hubris and Overreach Threaten Gay Freedom. My speech bore no such title, but here’s more or less what I said. I began by recalling, for a young audience, the dismal beginnings of what was to prove a cultural revolution. ‘I will never

The Spectator

Letters: French universities still offer a proper education

Unhappy Union Sir: John Power is correct about George Abaraonye, the president-elect of the Oxford Union (‘Violent opposition’, 20 September). Abaraonye appears to advocate that most extreme form of censorship: the bullet. As such, he poses an existential threat to the Oxford Union, which for 250 years has been a beacon of free speech for the world. Invited speakers are dropping out. Donors to the much-needed building repairs appeal are snapping shut their chequebooks. Freshmen with a belief in free speech and open debate will not join. If Abaraonye cared about the institution, he would resign. Evidently, he cares not one jot. He seems to want its destruction. For this reason,

Damian Thompson

The Antichrist is back

The monster known as the Antichrist has been stalking Christians for nearly 2,000 years. Mostly it has fed the nightmares of frightened peasants or credulous fundamentalists. But now it has emerged from the most secular place on Earth, Silicon Valley, and its prophet is a billionaire venture capitalist married to a man. The origins of the Antichrist legend lie in the Book of Revelation, in which the nations submit to a Beast whose name is concealed by the number 666. He forces everyone to receive a mysterious ‘mark on their right hands or foreheads’ without which they cannot buy or sell anything. This triggers the return of Jesus at the

Henry Jeffreys

Hell is a wine list

Wine lists give me the fear. I can still recall the prickle of adrenaline when my father handed me the leather-bound menu when I was in my early twenties because I had started working for a wine merchant after university. Should I play it safe or take a punt on something unusual that some people might hate? Perhaps it would be safest to pick the second cheapest. Their drinking pleasure was in my hands. Argh, the pressure. You’d think that after 15 years of writing professionally about wine this anxiety would have faded. It actually gets worse. The more I know, the more indecisive I become. Is the wine a

The Spectator

How long does it take to build a runway?

Flight path How long does it take to build a runway? — 33 years (at least) in the case of Heathrow’s third runway, first consulted on by Gordon Brown’s government in 2007, but which is not expected to be open until 2040 at the earliest. — 17 years in the case of Gatwick’s second operational runway, which involves the current emergency runway being moved 40ft to the north. Proposed in 2013 by Gatwick airport and approved by the government this week, it could be in service by 2030. — 90 days in the case of Tegel airport, Berlin, work on which started 5 August 1948, during the Berlin Airlift. It

Douglas Murray

First they came for the Jews…

It was moving to watch Keir Starmer announce this week, from a corridor in Downing Street, that his government has decided to recognise a state of Palestine. Starmer took this bold action at the same time as his French, Canadian and Australian counterparts. But as with Emmanuel Macron, Mark Carney and someone called Anthony Albanese, he seemed to be labouring under a number of misunderstandings. The first was that it makes any difference. Starmer and his counterparts overseas appear to be under the misapprehension that the creation of states still lies in their hands. I had thought that the present generation of leftists looked down on imperialist western powers making

Peter Jones

What would the Romans have made of Trump’s state visit?

The Roman historian Tacitus commented that the visit of an Armenian king to Rome to clinch a deal in ad 66 demonstrated ‘that the king did not understand how we Romans value real power, but disdain its vanities’. What about Donald Trump’s recent visit, then? The imperial powers of Rome and of Parthia (modern Iran) were cagily cautious of each other, and both sides wished to control Armenia, which separated the two. The Parthian king put Tiridates on the throne of Armenia to maintain local control, while Rome determined its foreign policy. When Tiridates and his retinue arrived in Puteoli, Rome gave him a daily allowance of 800,000 sesterces, and

Stephen J. Shaw

Could a ‘futurehood’ revolution save Britain?

As the collapse of birthrates accelerates across the developed world, even our language is struggling to keep up. Over nine years of demographic research, I’ve resorted to coining my own vocabulary just to describe what’s unfolding. ‘Birthgap’, for the widening gulf between generations – too few young to support too many old. ‘Yesterlands’, for once-thriving communities now quietly hollowing out. ‘Retronomics’, for the slow yet continuous un-ravelling that follows demographic decline, as nations are forced to retrofit their economies to fit their shrunken societies. Lately, I’ve been searching for another missing word – this time, to capture the invisible sense that a society still believes in its own tomorrow. The

Mary Wakefield

Crime and no punishment in Khan’s London

Those of us trapped in Mayor Sadiq Khan’s low traffic neighbourhood scheme are now obedient, resigned. We expect a car journey of under a mile to take 40 minutes. We don’t hope for anything more. On Sunday, around five o’clock, my son and I stuck fast in Dalston Lane, but as we settled down to wait in a mist of carbon monoxide, there was a commotion up ahead. Down the wrong side of the road, horn blaring, lights flashing, came a Mercedes G-wagon, matt black with that handy snorkel up the side, the favourite ride of north London’s gangsters. It was interesting how calm everyone was about it, how unsurprised.

Toby Young

The hypocrisy of the limousine liberals

You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at all the Hollywood celebrities rending their garments about Donald Trump’s attacks on free speech. In an ‘open letter’, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro, among others, took the administration to task for browbeating ABC into pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show from the air after he falsely claimed that Charlie Kirk’s murderer was associated with the ‘MAGA gang’. ‘In an attempt to silence its critics, our government has resorted to threatening the livelihoods of journalists, talk-show hosts, artists, creatives and entertainers across the board,’ they wrote. ‘This runs counter to the values our nation was built upon,

Laura Freeman

What will love and literature become in the age of the Ring doorbell?

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Well, according to the app it was the Evri man at 10.27, the Yodel man at 11.17, the post lady at 13.44 and the nursery-run mum with double buggy at 15.22. What romance, what mystery in the age of the Ring doorbell? Every coming and going, every missed parcel and key fumble is filmed, timestamped and sent to my husband’s phone with a notification. We resisted Ring for two years. Two years of a broken doorbell and delivery drivers hammering on the door. Over the summer we caved and now the house is monitored night and day. ‘Must make it difficult,’ I mused to Andy as

Roger Alton

There’s nothing quite like the Ryder Cup

It’s never been easy to warm to golfers, an overpaid, self-obsessed bunch who rarely fail to ask for more. And it’s even harder to warm to American golfers, who have now insisted on picking up half a million or so for playing for their country in the Ryder Cup. Nice, eh? And this weekend’s Ryder Cup, at the savagely hard Bethpage Black course on Long Island, could, in Donald Trump’s hyped-up MAGA-land, go over the top as it did in Brookline in 1999. On that occasion beered-up US fans (and players) behaved outrageously, swarming over greens, heckling Europe’s players and generally being obnoxious. Well, with a bit of luck this

Catriona Olding

I took on a hornet – and won

Provence Midnight. In preparation for a 5 a.m. rise I’d been asleep for two sweltering hours under the ceiling fan when the phone rang. It was a video call. Without glasses I don’t see well but recognised the caller as Jacob, a man I’d met in June when I’d been invited to a fancy villa near the coast for the night with old pals who were visiting friends of theirs. Jacob and I got on well. In the heated pool, having only just met, we sang: ‘Heaven… I’m in heaven…’ At dinner I admired his string of huge black Tahitian pearls and he told me about his exotic social life

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How do I find out if my handsome bathroom salesman is single?

Q. A decade ago I commissioned a handmade velvet opera coat from a fabulous local designer. She was then struggling (although is now highly sought after) so I sent quite a few customers her way. She made for each of them a bespoke coat, like mine, but each had its own individual distinctive lining. I was vaguely aware I hadn’t seen my coat for a while but this week, at a fundraiser, I saw it being worn. I rushed across to my neighbour and said words to the effect of: ‘Oh thank goodness you’ve got my coat. Now I remember I left it at your house when we came to

Tanya Gold

A Mayfair brasserie for people who work, or at least pretend to: 74 Duke reviewed

There is an immaculate brasserie called 74 Duke at 74 Duke Street, Mayfair: this is postcode etymology. Duke Street runs from Selfridges to what used to be the American embassy in Grosvenor Square but is now (I assume) a paranoid hotel: the Chancery Rosewood, which has kept the monstrous eagle on the roof. If Duke Street was ever interesting – I like to imagine Mrs Dalloway having a panic attack in the road – it isn’t now. It sells the eternal detritus of the British rich – watches, capes, meat – who I suspect are into crypto these days. It is all a feint anyway: fake London for fake people,

Melissa Kite

The curse of room three

The singer sped past me out of the gate, sending me flying as I tried to say goodbye. We’ve been through some ordeals this summer, but we’ve never had a B&B guest so unhappy that they’ve tried to run me over. We had been hosting performers for a music festival and by the time this singer arrived, we had welcomed quite a few celebrities with no problems. The first to stay with us was a TV star who had driven down from Dublin and insisted we come with him to his gig that night to have pizza in the bar with him before he went on stage. No good ever

Robin Oakley

Where was everyone at Newbury?

The West Wing scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin had it about right when he said that so long as you keep one foot in the real world while the other foot is in a fairy tale, ‘then that fairy tale is going to seem kind of attainable’. For the first one minute, 12 seconds of the Group Two Dubai Duty Free Mill Reef stakes in a pelting rainstorm last Saturday, I was a believer in fairy tales. It was the next 2.41 seconds which took me and most of the Newbury crowd back to the real world as Words of Truth, trained for the Godolphin empire by Charlie Appleby and ridden by