Barometer

Thursday

The Spectator

How violent are our jails? | 24 October 2019

Big Ben protests An Extinction Rebellion protestor climbed to the top of the Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben, with a bit of help from the scaffolding. Who has achieved this before? — A Greenpeace protestor scaled the tower in 2004 to protest the Iraq war. — A protestor was arrested in May last year as he began an ascent. Police did not disclose what he was protesting about. — Two films have reached a climax with their heroes swinging from the arms of the clock, both successfully preventing the detonation of a bomb. They were Will Hay in My Learned Friend (1943) and Richard Hannay (played by Robert Powell) in The Thirty-Nine Steps (1978).

Thursday

The Spectator

How violent are our jails?

Parliamentary days Could one of parliament’s longest sessions be followed by one of its shortest? — The shortest was between 14 September and 25 October 1948, when Clement Attlee’s government prorogued parliament in order to forestall efforts by the House of Lords to frustrate the Parliament Bill. The ruse was successful and the bill, which limited the ability of the House of Lords to delay legislation, became law the following year. While it lasted six weeks, there were only ten sitting days in that parliament. — This week we may have six days, including the highly unusual Saturday sitting. So, unless parliament is prorogued for a general election before next Friday, this session will have sat as long as that of 1948.

Thursday

The Spectator

A slice of history: how did Britain’s pizza industry begin?

A slice of history Pizza Express is to undergo financial restructuring, leading to fears that it could go under. How did the pizza industry in Britain begin? — The first record of an Italian restaurant was the Italian Eating House off Leicester Square, opened in 1803, though it is not known whether or not it served pizza. — The Olivelli restaurant in Store Street, Bloomsbury, opened in 1934. Early documents found on the premises included a recipe for margherita pizza. — Pizza Express was the first chain of pizza restaurants in Britain, its first branch opening in Wardour Street in 1965. — Pizzaland opened its first branch in 1970. It was bought out and its branches converted to Pizza Hut in 1996.

Thursday

The Spectator

Are childhood vaccination rates dropping?

Who speaks what The Chancellor, Sajid Javid, included a little Punjabi in his speech to the Tory conference. How many people in Britain would have understood him? In the 2011 census the ONS counted 273,000 Punjabi speakers in Britain. The other most common languages, besides English and Welsh, were: Polish 546,000 Urdu 269,000 Bengali 221,000 Gujarati 213,000 Arabic 159,000 French 147,000 Portuguese 133,000 Spanish 120,000   Death by gender The British Heart Foundation claimed women were needlessly dying of heart disease because they were receiving less good treatment than men. How do the causes of death differ between the sexes?

Thursday

The Spectator

How many people have swum the Channel?

Journey’s end Holidaymakers are being flown home after travel company Thomas Cook failed. The idea might have horrified the company’s eponymous founder, whose first excursion was a temperance outing from Leicester to Loughborough on 5 July 1841, on a charter train from the Midland Railway Company. All 500 tickets were swiftly sold. A holiday from Leicester to Liverpool and North Wales followed in 1845, including several nights in temperance hotels and a night-time ascent of Snowdon. Thomas Cook went on to organise trips to the 1851 Great Exhibition for 150,000 from the Midlands. Financial health A Labour activist and parent of a patient accused the Prime Minister on a visit to a London hospital of ‘destroying’ the NHS.

Thursday

The Spectator

How many Britons now vape?

Talking Turkey David Cameron again accused the Leave campaign of ‘lying’ about the prospect of Turkey joining the EU. A reminder of what he himself has said on the subject: — ‘I’m here to make the case for Turkey’s membership. And to fight for it… I will remain your strongest possible advocate for EU membership and for greater influence at the top table of European diplomacy.’ (Speech to Turkish parliament, 2010) — ‘In terms of Turkish membership of the EU, I very much support that. That’s a longstanding position of British foreign policy which I support. We discussed that again in our talks today.

Thursday

The Spectator

Does the outcome of the Ashes dictate who wins a general election?

Party speak Should the next Speaker of the House of Commons be a Labour MP on the basis that John Bercow was a Conservative before taking the chair? There has been a tradition in recent decades that the two main parties alternate in filling the role. But it doesn’t go back far — Michael Martin, Labour MP for Glasgow Springburn, succeeded Betty Boothroyd, also Labour, in 2000, not least because the Conservatives had only 165 MPs at the time and didn’t want to lose one. Between 1928 and 1965 a succession of four Speakers had been Conservative MPs. Between 1835 and 1905, by contrast, the Commons had two Whigs followed by four Liberals. Prior to that, four Conservatives were elevated to the Speaker’s chair between 1789 and 1835.

Thursday

The Spectator

How often has a general election been held on a Monday?

A Monday poll? The government was considering a general election on 14 October — a Monday. This raised eyebrows because general elections have been held on Thursdays since 1935. There are various theories about why — that it gives an incoming PM a weekend to form a new government, that it was market day in many towns, that fewer voters would be drunk than at the weekend, that by Thursday churchgoers would have forgotten the previous Sunday’s sermon at parish communion. But there is no single reason — each PM has been free to decide. — Until 1918, general elections were held over a period of four weeks. Elections were then held on Saturday (1918), Tuesday (1931), Wednesday (1922 and 1924), and Thursday (1923 and 1929).

Thursday

The Spectator

Is Trump’s suggestion to bomb hurricanes really that stupid?

Blowing against the wind President Trump was ridiculed for suggesting that hurricanes could be impeded on their passage across the Atlantic by bombing them. Yet there is nothing new in trying to stop or reduce the power of hurricanes by artificial means. — Between 1962 and 1971 the US government ran an experiment called Project Stormfury to try just that. The idea was to spray the eye of a hurricane with silver iodide crystals in the hope that it would stimulate the development of a second ‘eyewall’ of cloud, in competition with the first, thereby helping to break up the storm. The method was tried on four hurricanes over eight separate days.

Thursday

The Spectator

How did Richard Braine become Dick Braine?

Name calling Richard Braine was appointed leader of Ukip, leading to jokes about the party being led by a ‘Dick Braine’. How did the name Richard come to be shortened? — There was a common practice in medieval England for rhyming slang, with the first letters of many common names being interchanged, hence Robert became ‘Bob’ and Edward ‘Ted’. It is believed the practice may have come about as a result of Anglo-Saxons finding it hard to pronounce Norman names and vice versa. — Dick was established by Shakespeare’s time — the bard referred to ‘every Tom, Dick or Francis’ in Henry IV, Part 1. — For the first few centuries there was nothing rude about ‘Dick’.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 15 August 2019

Girls only Polish village Miejsce Odrzanskie was reported not to have had a single boy born in the past decade, though 12 girls have been born in the same period. However, such an imbalance is far from a freak occurrence:   — Assuming a 50-50 chance of a baby being male or female, the probability of 12 girls born in succession is one in 4,096. Given that there are 10,000 parishes in Poland, you would expect at any one time for there to be two to three whose last dozen births were all female. — There is an equal chance that 12 boys will be born in succession.   Powerless A million British people were reported to have been left without electricity when a gas power station and wind farm both failed.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 8 August 2019

Dams, lives and statistics The town of Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire, was evacuated after heavy rainfall caused the partial collapse of a reservoir slipway. No one has been killed in a dam collapse in Britain since 1925, but the worst incidents up to that date were: — Dale Dyke, Sheffield, 1864. Puddle clay core of dam fractured while the reservoir behind it was being filled for the first time. 244 were killed. —Biberry Dam, Holmfirth, W. Yorkshire, 1852. Dam had settled since construction 17 years earlier. Water overtopped the dam during a storm, causing collapse. 81 died. — Whinhill Dam, Greenock, 1835. Embankment had been undermined by burrowing rats and moles. 31 died. — Dolgarrog, N. Wales, 1925. Leak in upper dam caused its failure.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 1 August 2019

Growing fanbase A photograph of the Queen meeting Boris Johnson revealed that she uses a Dyson electric fan. How many of us own fans? — Sales of electric fans rose from 471,403 in 2008 to 648,829 in 2017, according to Prodcom figures collected by the Office for National Statistics. — The retailer AO.com reported that sales rose six-fold during last week’s heatwave compared with a week earlier. — Fans are popular in Britain because so few homes have air conditioning. A Mintel survey from 2009 revealed that only 0.5% of homes have air conditioning. In the US the figure is 87%. — The use of air conditioners and electric fans currently accounts for 10% of all global electricity consumption, according to the International Energy Agency.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 25 July 2019

Losing confidence The government may soon face a vote of no confidence, the second this year. How often do these votes happen — and succeed? — Since 1945, UK governments have faced votes of no confidence on 23 occasions. Only one of these has been successful — when Jim Callaghan lost by a single vote on 28 March 1979, precipitating the election which brought Margaret Thatcher to power. — There have been 24 successful votes of no confidence in history, 13 of which were in the latter half of the 19th century. — Since 1900 there have been only three — that in 1979, and two in 1924 which brought down Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald respectively.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 18 July 2019

Mars missions When will there be a manned Mars mission? — As early as 1962, Nasa studied the practicalities of a mission to Mars, as part of its Project EMPIRE (Early Manned Planetary-Interplanetary Roundtrip Expeditions). The initial plan was to put a man on Mars by the early 1970s. However, budgetary restraints meant that the programme was limited to a flyby of Venus before being axed. — The prospect of a manned mission to Mars has been revived several times since. However, two years ago Nasa announced that it is unlikely to happen before the 2030s. Counting cups England won the cricket world cup. Which country holds the greatest number of world cups? (‘Championships’ not included.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 11 July 2019

Ode to all sorts Brexit party MPs were likened to Nazis for turning their backs on a recital of ‘Ode to Joy’, the EU’s anthem. Yet Beethoven’s melody itself has one association which liberal-minded folk might find unsavoury — between 1965 and 1979 it served as the national anthem of Ian Smith’s Rhodesia, using the words: ‘Rise, oh voices of Rhodesia,/ God may we Thy bounty share./ Give us strength to face all danger,/ And where challenge is, to dare.’ It was during this period, in 1972, that the Council of Europe adopted the tune as its own anthem. It then became the European Community’s anthem in 1985. Police numbers Boris Johnson promised to spend £1 billion on an extra 20,000 police officers.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 4 July 2019

Model hobbies Asked what he did to relax, Boris Johnson claimed that he liked to make model buses. Some others who share his hobby: — Rod Stewart is a keen railway-modeller who claims to have a set the size of a tennis court at his Beverly Hills home. — Jools Holland, Roger Daltrey and Pete Waterman are all into model railways. — Model buses are a more rarefied taste. But if he isn’t already, Boris could consider joining the Model Bus Federation, which has represented the hobby since 1968. Its national show and AGM will be held in Tewkesbury on Saturday 5 October, just after the Conservative party conference.   Who pays? Boris Johnson wants to raise the threshold for the 40 per cent rate of tax from £50,000 to £80,000. How many people pay tax?

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 27 June 2019

To debate or not to debate Is Boris Johnson wise to shun TV debates? — Prior to the 2015 Labour leadership election, TV debates had not been part of party leadership debates, and have only been part of general elections since 2010. — The first election to feature a TV debate was the 1960 US presidential election, when JFK and Nixon met for four debates. The first, staged by CBS, went out on TV and radio, when radio audiences favoured Nixon and TV audiences favoured Kennedy. Nixon had just left hospital, and had applied a product to cover up his five o’clock shadow. Under the TV lights it began to melt, making it look as if he was dribbling. Six per cent of the electorate said the TV debates had played a role in making up their mind, and Nixon went on to lose by 0.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 20 June 2019

History of hustings Why are hustings called by that name? — The word ‘hustings’ is derived from an old Norse word for ‘house of assembly’. In English it was applied to the court held by the Lord Mayor of London in Guildhall, and also to the wooden platform on which the court was held. It was later applied to the meetings at which election candidates used to be publicly nominated. — The process involved a show of hands which gave candidates an idea of the support they might expect were a poll to be held. Candidates with little visible support would often withdraw, with the result that a candidate would be elected unopposed, rather as some Conservatives have been hoping might happen in the case of Boris Johnson.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 13 June 2019

What’s in a name? If Jeremy Hunt wins the Conservative leadership election both prime minister and leader of the opposition will have the same forename. Has this happened before? — Between 18 July 1992 and 12 May 1994, John Major was PM and John Smith leader of the opposition. — Between 14 February 1963 and 18 October 1963, Harold Macmillan was PM and Harold Wilson leader of the opposition. — Jeremy would become one of only three forenames which have been held by leaders of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal parties. The other two are William (Hague/Adamson/Gladstone) and John (Major/Smith/Russell, 1st Earl of Russell). Life choices Jeremy Hunt said he personally believed that the abortion limit should be reduced to 12 weeks. How many people agree with him?