Features

Thursday

Simon Barnes

On bended knee

Every so often sport bursts its banks, spills from its usual courses and goes flooding incontinently onto the news pages. This year we’ve already had Australian cricketers doing unspeakable things with sand-paper, Gareth Southgate’s World Cup waistcoat and the return of Serena Williams to Wimbledon a few months after an emergency caesarean. And now we have Colin Kaepernick. He is currently an unemployed quarterback of America’s National Football League. He famously — heroically if you like — refused to stand for the pre-game national anthem, in protest against social injustice and police treatment of black people. Many other footballers followed suit.

Liam Halligan

The world the crash made

With September marking a decade since the Lehman Brothers implosion, stand by for a slew of economic retrospectives. Any meaningful analysis, though, needs to get beyond historic balance sheets and plunging share price graphs — however dramatic the data. For the most significant impact of the biggest financial and economic upheaval since the Great Depression has been the growing loss of faith in western liberal capitalism. Politics has been upended by the 2008 crisis — doing much to explain Trump, Corbyn and the broader shift away from centrist parties towards extremes. The demise of Lehmans, a once-impregnable investment bank, exposed a US financial sector riddled with chronic debts and fraud.

Isabel Hardman

Bleak House

It takes seven years to know your way around Parliament. That’s what I was told when I arrived in the Commons press gallery seven years ago, but I am still none the wiser about how to get from the Snake Pit to the North Curtain Corridor, and have only recently discovered the location of the Yellow Submarine. As a building, the Palace of Westminster is a confusing, contradictory rabbit warren of underground corridors, secret briefing rooms at the top of towers and rooms with strange names. The very fabric of the building is dysfunctional, with pieces of masonry falling onto cars, and mice creeping through kitchens.

Thursday

Fredrik Erixon

Sweden ablaze

 Uppsala, Sweden When I dropped off my kids at school early last week, I noticed that -another parent’s car was covered in ash — it had been parked in a garage where arsonists had been at work, attacking scores of vehicles. His Volvo had got away: just. ‘My car can be cleaned,’ the father told me, ‘but how can I explain this to my young kids?’ As Sweden goes to the polls next weekend, its politicians face another conundrum: how do they explain all this to the country? I live in Uppsala, a leafy and prosperous university town north of Stockholm. Around Gothenburg, the attacks have been far more dramatic: in mid-August, 80 torched vehicles made the city’s normally dull boroughs seem more like Aleppo.

Katy Balls

Remainers rally

It may seem odd that a cabal of politicians, celebrities and millionaires can successfully present themselves as a great democratic force and seek to overturn Brexit. But the people behind the People’s Vote have one big advantage: their opponents are in disarray. Vote Leave ceased campaigning after the referendum. Its organisers felt they had accomplished their mission, and the Conservative government could be trusted to execute Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. Boris Johnson now describes that decision as an ‘absolutely fatal’ mistake. As foreign secretary, Johnson admitted to dinner guests earlier this summer that ‘some of us were seduced by high office in government’.

Qanta Ahmed

I’m pro-Boris, loathe jihadis and love Islam. Here’s why

When Muslims make headlines, it’s invariably for the wrong reasons. The fuss over Boris Johnson’s burka joke is a case in point: he was making an argument in defence of Muslims, but was instead condemned for attacking us. Why the confusion? Because of how little our faith is understood. Let’s start with the burka. Islam makes various demands of its followers, but — despite what you might think from the headlines — covering our faces isn’t one of them. Based on the media’s fascination with these strange and oppressive garments, you might wonder why any modern woman would ever choose Islam. So here’s my answer. I’m a London-born doctor, raised in a Muslim family and now working in America.

Rod Liddle

The people vs Brexit

The very best impressionists do not simply mimic the mannerisms, speech patterns and facial expressions of their targets — they also cleverly satirise the beliefs, character and political dispositions of those targets. Most of us would not remember Mike Yarwood with great fondness because he was quite unable to do any of that. It was enough for Mike simply to raise his shoulders and laugh when evoking Ted Heath; there was no depth to the performance, nothing which gnawed away at Heath’s petulance and obstinacy and insecurity. So we should be grateful for Rory Bremner, who has pulled off a superb impression of a smug, simpering, Remainer London luvvie. With great acuity, he ticked all the boxes.

Christian Wolmar

The great British train wreck

A couple of weeks ago I met David Grime and Alan Noble, members of the Lakes Line Rail User Group, over a very good dinner in the Brown Horse pub in Winster in the heart of the Lake District. They had contacted me in despair at the collapse of services on their beloved ten-mile Windermere branch line. This once reliable and well-used service is now a shadow of its former self: characterised by cancellations, rampant overcrowding, bus replacement services and — sometimes — an absence of any trains at all. The trouble started following an inexplicable government decision to take the service away from TransPennine Express and give it to Northern, part of the much larger Arriva Trains. It wasn’t long before services started to deteriorate.

Christopher Howse

The kings of Soho

Christopher Howse has just written a book about Soho. He drank there regularly with Michael Heath, The Spectator’s cartoon editor, in the 1980s. Last week, in the editor’s office, they remembered a vanished world. MICHAEL HEATH: I introduced you to Soho. CHRISTOPHER HOWSE: Well, I don’t know if you’re entirely to blame for that. But you taught me a thing or two. HEATH: There were such things as groupies for cartoonists in those days. There were girls hanging round you in Fleet Street waiting for you to finish the drawings for the following day and then they’d go off with the cartoonists and have meals or go to various clubs. The cartoonists were wealthy, really, because it was cash in hand. You couldn’t get a cartoonist who was stable.

Byron York

The impeachment trap

 Washington, DC No one knows who will prevail, but the 'hang 'em high' crowd seems to have an advantage The Democrats will face a dilemma if they win control of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections. Should they impeach President Trump over the Russia affair? Or should they impeach him over the Stormy Daniels porn-star payoff? Or should they impeach him over something else? There’s no doubt the party’s base of voters is more than ready to stick it to Trump. A recent poll by Axios found that 79 per cent of Democrats believe Congress should begin impeachment proceedings. And that’s now. Imagine how they will feel if they are fired up by victory in November.

Thursday

Paul Wood

Desperate Donald

Donald Trump’s Twitter feed was oddly silent as the news came that his former campaign manager and his former lawyer were going to jail. Perhaps his staff have finally seized control of his phone. Perhaps his lawyers have convinced him that every time he tweets on anything relating to the Russia investigation, he is dancing on a precipice, with special counsel Robert Mueller just waiting to push him off. Whatever the reason, this was the equivalent of Trump entering a stunned, catatonic state, while his world spins out of control around him. The President merely tweeted to note that he was going to a Make America Great Again rally in West Virginia, slipping into a warm bath of affirmation from his most loyal supporters: ‘Thank you West Virginia!

Will Heaven

Jail breaks

You need a strong stomach to be Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, as a letter from Peter Clarke — the current holder of the title — proved this week. HMP Birmingham was in an ‘appalling’ state during his unannounced visit at the start of August. ‘We saw evidence of bodily fluids left unattended, including blood and vomit… next to numerous rat droppings.’ His findings marked a dramatic new low for the prison estate. But they won’t surprise anyone who has recently worked in or visited a bog-standard English jail. When I was appointed speechwriter to Michael Gove at the Ministry of Justice two years ago, I was given a whistle-stop tour of a few of them to get a better idea of my brief.

Jason Mitchell

Maduro’s madness

Imagine if Theresa May suddenly announced that her government was going to devalue the pound by 96 per cent; increase the minimum wage by 6,000 per cent; pay the wage increases for millions of businesses for three months; tie the pound to a mythical cryptocurrency; prepared for petrol rationing; and impose a 0.7 per cent tax on big financial transactions. It would be seen either as an act of lunacy, of a collapsing country — or both. For the long-suffering people of Venezuela, it’s just the latest stage of their country’s grand socialist experiment. President Nicolás Maduro has just issued a new currency, called ‘sovereign bolivars’. The original idea was that the currency would be like the old one, but with three zeros lopped off.

Sinclair McKay

Britain, their Britain

Here’s a bracing lesson from Victorian history that might possibly help to slice some impossible Brexit knots. In the 19th century, there was complete freedom of movement of people from Europe to Britain. And that was all anyone needed. Europhiles might find it difficult to conceive of a time when the folk of continental Europe ached to get to Britain because it was only here that they could find stability, peace, and freedom from oppression. Remainers might find it impossible to imagine that this wholly independent nation — rather than being xenophobic — welcomed the newcomers, and revelled in the cultural riches that they brought. Not just the brilliant music and exhilarating art and exciting restaurants and delicious wine, but even the light entertainment.

Ross Clark

The incest trap

It is hard to think of a code of behaviour which is common to all societies on earth, let alone to most other species too — except, that is, for the avoidance of incest. Even cockroaches have developed a breeding strategy that prevents them mating with their own siblings. And yet as we understand more about the genetic dangers of inbreeding, so the social infrastructure that guards against it is being dismantled. In the 40 years since the birth of Louise Brown, the world’s first test tube baby, births by IVF have become routine — almost 2,500 a year using donated eggs, sperm or both. And yet there is virtually no guard against the children growing up and accidentally breeding with half-brothers and sisters of whose existence they are unaware.

Cosmo Landesman

Identity theft

I got some bad news this week. I discovered that I’m a ‘privileged, white male’. It was my agent who broke it to me. We were talking about the trouble he’s having in finding a publisher for my book — a work of non-fiction — when the following exchange took place. Me: What’s wrong with my book? Agent: There’s nothing wrong with your book. It’s brilliant. It’s moving. It’s funny. Me: OK. So what’s the problem? Agent: You’re the problem. Me: Excuse me? Agent: You’re a middle-aged, privileged white man. You’re out of fashion — and so is your book. Publishers think you’re too male. Too white. Things are difficult for writers like you at the moment.

Thursday

James Ball & Andrew Greenway

The rise of the bluffocracy

Any time we see a politician fail, or an idiotic policy collapse as it passes through parliament — which these days seems like a regular occurrence — we are left with a familiar feeling. That this screw-up is the result of a chancer at work. Someone who has, at the very best, a shallow understanding of the country they’re trying to govern. Someone who knew how to come up with a headline-grabbing idea, and how to make it sound convincing and radical — but didn’t ever have the faintest idea how to implement it.

Ahsan Akbar

The heart of the master | 16 August 2018

When I went to see V.S. Naipaul in hospital last week he was feeling marginally better. His wife Nadira had arranged for a violinist to play some Mozart to him, helping him relax. She did not allow too many visitors. This was not the first time he had been in hospital. His health had been deteriorating for the past 12 months and the family had been receiving — as always — a flurry of invitations from literary festivals and heads of state. All had to be declined. In his hospital room we discussed his coming 86th birthday and I suggested that we celebrate with champagne at the Ritz. He smiled and proposed we go to ‘the other place’. He had a better time at the Lanesborough and preferred to head there instead.

Jennifer Williams

A grave omission

On Valentine’s Day, a homeless man was found dead in the pedestrian subway near the Houses of Parliament. This week, Communities Secretary James Brokenshire published the government’s response, its much-delayed £100 million ‘rough sleeping strategy’, which includes the eye-catching initiative to eradicate all rough sleeping by 2027. Charities and Labour were unimpressed, quickly working out that the promised funding was not new money but appeared to have been reallocated from other budgets. But what caught my eye was a vague plan to ‘work with’ local councils to carry out reviews into the deaths of homeless people.   It is hard to tackle a problem which at present is not even being monitored.

Ned Donovan

The patron prince

It’s like any traditional bazaar. Cushions litter the floor and crowds gather around displays of Chinese pottery and Persian rugs. Tea cups stand ready to celebrate a hard-bartered purchase. Except no tea will be poured: this market happens to be in the middle of a stateroom in Buckingham Palace and is the centrepiece of the Prince of Wales’s new exhibition showcasing his favourite pieces of art and craftsmanship. The show is titled ‘Prince and Patron’, and it is packed to the brim with objects he loves. It also offers a glimpse of what the eventual reign of King Charles III may look like. There has been court gossip that the Prince will choose another name to reign with rather than be identified with the two previous monarchs called Charles.