Camilla Swift

This piece is from the new issue of Spectator Money, out on Thursday 19 May. The magazine will come free with your next copy of The Spectator, and will also be available to read online at spectator.com/money. The Conservative party’s Black and White Ball is a lavish, billionaire-laden affair. Tickets can cost up to £1,500, with guests who shell out the full £15,000 for a group of ten rewarded with the presence of a cabinet minister on their table. But even if that sounds a bit steep, selling tickets isn’t the main objective.

The RSPCA over the last decade has – many would say – lost its way, bogged down in a mess of private prosecutions against honest members of the public instead of focusing on real animal welfare issues. But could the charity be about to do a U-turn? In an interview with the Telegraph their new chief executive, Jeremy Cooper, has admitted that the charity has become too political in recent years, accepting that they have ‘made mistakes in the past’, including over the badger cull and in its prosecution of hunts, and says it is ‘very unlikely’ that the charity will bring any private prosecutions against hunts in future. If the RSPCA do change their tune, it can't be anything but a good thing.

Election results day a good day to bury bad news -- who'd have thought it? Fortunately for people living in rural areas, the bad news wasn't buried as well as the government might have hoped: it turns out the Conservatives have changed their tune a little on their plans to roll out decent levels of broadband across the country by the end of this parliament. 95% of homes will receive superfast broadband by he end of this year. But around a million homes -- mainly in rural areas -- will not be receiving superfast broadband, and for those who have poor broadband service, its 'Universal Service Obligation' will require homes and businesses in the 5 per cent of areas that don't yet have fast broadband to request the service.

Last Saturday, on 2 April, 9-year-old Bonnie Armitage was killed by a kick from a horse. This tragic accident could have happened anywhere – at the yard, at a pony club camp, on a fun ride – but as it happened, it was at the closing meet of the Cotswold Hunt.  This last aspect of the accident is what so many people seem to have a problem with: people are now using her death as an excuse to reignite the hunting debate. Many of the comments – on numerous newspaper websites and on social media – are utterly vile, and don’t bear reading, let alone repeating.

Pol Roger have a long history of sponsoring exciting, and sometimes somewhat eccentric events – from real tennis to horse racing. But the company are also staunch supporters of country sports, so it makes perfect sense for the champagne house to turn their hand to three-day eventing. This year they have decided to sponsor Burghley Horse Trials, as well as the Festival of British Eventing at Gatcombe, and they very sensibly chose to celebrate their sponsorship of these events in the Officer’s Mess of the Household Cavalry’s home in Hyde Park Barracks. Eventing might be a new sport for Pol’s portfolio, but they have two ambassadors who are perfectly placed to teach them the tricks of the trade.

The RSPCA have been in a fair pickle for a while now. It had been without a CEO for two years – after their last one, Gavin Grant, stepped down citing health reasons – until two weeks ago when they announced that Jeremy Cooper, (formerly chief executive of the charity’s ethical food label) would be taking on the role. This comes after reports at the end of last year that three candidates had pulled out, apparently due to concerns over finances, and the fact anyone in the job would be accountable to the charity’s council. Two trustees have also stepped down since September over concerns about the governance of the charity.

As Nigel Farndale wrote in this magazine in February, leaving the EU would have a dramatic effect on British farmers and the agricultural industry. When it comes to British agriculture, the EU very much sets the rules – with regards to both regulations and funding – so a vote for Brexit would mean change, in a big way.   But what makes the EU debate even more interesting when it comes to farming is that the farming minister – George Eustice – has placed himself firmly in the ‘out’ camp. Eustice, after all, was once a Ukip candidate in the European Parliament Elections, and was Campaign Director for the No to the Euro campaign – so perhaps it was unsurprising that he would join the campaign to leave the EU as well.

Anders Behring Breivik – the Norwegian extremist who killed 77 people in 2011 – has for the last few days been involved in a human rights trial in his prison in the south of Norway. Many would argue that, for a person in jail, he has a fairly cushy life – particularly given his crime. He is allowed to play video games, read newspapers and have access to a computer, and also has access to three cells, as well as an outside area. He has also been allowed to take university courses at the country’s main university, the University of Oslo, and took part in the prison’s Christmas gingerbread-baking competition. He is not, however, allowed to communicate with other prisoners, and his letters are all monitored and censored. So what more does he want?

Is political correctness a good thing or a bad thing? As Simon Barnes writes in this week's magazine, he used to think that people should be free to use whatever words they wanted to, in pursuit of truth and meaning. But having a son with Down’s syndrome has changed his mind. Now, he has seen the benefits that political correctness bring to society. On this week's podcast, he and Isabel Hardman discuss whether being PC is a good thing with Tom Slater, Deputy Editor of Spiked. Yesterday's Budget held a few surprises – but not that many. What it did do, as James Forsyth argues in his column this week, was bring the political focus back to the UK again.

On my first night in Christchurch, I woke at 3.32 a.m. to what felt like an explosion. My bed was rocking, and a few things fell off the shelves. After my initial panic, I realised what it was: an earthquake, of course. The next question: what to do? Being an earthquake virgin, I had no idea if this was a big ’un or a small one — so I stayed put. I would listen to what was going on outside, I decided, and if people seemed to be panicking or moving, I’d join them. Fortunately the shaking soon subsided, so I resorted to Google. It was true. On Sunday 28 March, there had been a ‘rather strong’ 4.27 magnitude earthquake just outside town. Welcome to New Zealand. Given where I was, I should have worked out more quickly what was going on.

I’ll willingly admit that the moors of south-west England are not my natural territory. Mention the word ‘Dartmoor’ and my immediate thoughts are of scruffy, sturdy ponies and a giant bog. But then I boarded a train to Exeter to spend two days crossing said bog on horseback, and my whole perception changed. Yes, there were bogs (at one point my horse descended almost entirely into one — quite unnerving for those following behind) and plenty of wild ponies. But we also found standing stones that predate Stonehenge by a thousand years, spectacular granite tors breaking out of grassy hilltops, an unmarked (and allegedly haunted) grave and — most importantly — an ice-cream man mid-afternoon on Sunday, just when we were starting to flag.

How much do you love your dog? Do you secretly wish, as he or she grows older, that you could have another just the same? I’ll bet that tens of thousands of Brits feel this way — and soon their dreams could come true. When most of us last thought about it, cloning was an off-putting and futuristic prospect. Dolly the sheep was the poster girl, and things didn’t turn out too well for her. But times change, science creeps on, and last year a Brit called Rebecca Smith had her beloved dachshund, Winnie, cloned in South Korea. The going rate for Mini-Winnie would have been £60,000, but Rebecca won a competition and so — except for the obligation to appear in a TV documentary about the process — Mini came for free.

Much has been written in these pages – both by Robin Oakley and myself – about the lack of female jockeys in racing. But every single time the topic is raised, the same argument pops up: that women simply can't compete with men because they ‘aren’t strong enough’. But yesterday Michelle Payne proved them all wrong, by becoming the first ever woman to win the Melbourne Cup. What was her message to those who think female jockeys aren’t good enough? ‘Everyone else can get stuffed, because they think women aren’t strong enough, but we just beat the world.’ ‘It’s a very male-dominated sport and people think we are not strong enough and all of the rest of it ... you know what?