The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

How violent are our jails?

From our UK edition

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.

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Letters: Shoots should be about quality, not quantity

From our UK edition

Bad sport Sir: At last a respected member of the shooting community has popped his head above the parapet. Patrick Galbraith has had the courage to express the view that many of us from the ‘bygone sporting era’ hold, but have either been too afraid of the commercial consequences, or too idle, to go public (‘Dangerous game’, 12 October). The shooting fraternity has done an awful job of educating newcomers about what constitutes a great day out. It has allowed quantity to prevail over quality. It has failed to ensure that appreciation of the ‘craic’ and the environment are an essential element of the experience. Like all activities, when you do it to excess, you draw unwelcome attention.

The Spectator

The vindication of Boris Johnson’s Brexit strategy

From our UK edition

The Brexit deal agreed with the EU is a spectacular vindication of the Prime Minister’s approach: to go back to Brussels with the genuine prospect that Britain would leave with no deal on 31 October. The EU started off by saying it would never reopen the withdrawal agreement, but with a no-deal Brexit back in prospect, compromise — and thus a deal — has been possible. And yes, parliament has said it would force the Prime Minister to ask for an extension of EU membership; but No. 10 said it would find a way to not do so. It seems that this was enough to focus minds in Brussels. Boris Johnson's deal is the opposite to that struck by Theresa May in that the more you look at it, the better it seems.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Brexit uncertainty, Turkey in Syria and a Chinese threat

From our UK edition

Home Brexit teetered from uncertainty to uncertainty. Parliament had been summoned to sit on Saturday 19 October to debate what Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, had brought back from a European Union summit. He had held talks before the week began with Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach of Ireland, at Thornton Manor in the Wirral, from which optimistic noises emerged. Margaret Atwood, 79, from Ottawa, and Bernardine Evaristo, 60, from Eltham, shared the Booker Prize. The Queen wore the George IV diadem at the State Opening of Parliament instead of the heavy Imperial State Crown.

The Spectator

A paradise of postcards

From our UK edition

From The Spectator, 15 July 1922:   It is true that things so small as postcards cannot give one the splendour and glory of a great statue or a great canvas; but, all the same, their smallness is one of their virtues. A man fond of such things, riding across the Syrian Desert, on the camel tracks in the Sudan, or in Mesopotamia, or making some journey in West or East Africa, in Rhodesia, or on the North-West Frontier of India, or wherever there are wastes to pass and duties to be done, might easily thrust two or three of these little packets into his pocket or his saddle-bags.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: Remainers lost – and Richard Dawkins needs to accept that

From our UK edition

Deny Remainers oxygen Sir: Your correspondent Richard Dawkins seems to have a very tenuous grasp of logic for an academic (Diary, 5 October). He excoriates a referendum on the grounds that in the run-up the voters may have been misled. There is one choice between two alternatives, and the supporters of each outcome will do their best to persuade. Both may be less than truthful. Yet he adores a general election with five or six candidates hawking their conflicting and unfulfillable manifestos — all of them those pillars of veracity, politicians. Let us be frank. Since the shock result of 2016 we have listened to the whines of the EU fanatics for more than three years until they have become extremely boring. Please do not lend your valuable pages to giving them yet more oxygen.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Brexit approaches, Extinction Rebellion protests and Donald Trump tweets

From our UK edition

Home After a telephone conversation between Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, a Downing Street spokesman said she had made clear that a withdrawal agreement with the EU was ‘overwhelmingly unlikely’; Mrs Merkel had insisted on Northern Ireland staying in the Customs Union, which the Democratic Unionist party called ‘beyond crazy’. Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, tweeted that Mr Johnson was playing a ‘stupid blame game’.There was great excitement over a message sent to James Forsyth of The Spectator, generally thought to have come from Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s chief adviser.

The Spectator

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

From our UK edition

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.

The Spectator

The last Brexit heave

From our UK edition

The past few months have been characterised by high drama which, for all the excitement, has resolved nothing. We are back in a familiar cycle: posturing, bluster and a last-minute burst of Brexit talks. It's possible that Boris Johnson will emerge with a deal and declare triumph by 31 October: he has always regarded this as possible, even likely, no matter how high the odds are stacked against it. But it's just as likely that this will all end in failure. If Britain does end up leaving the EU without a deal, the moment when such an outcome became inevitable will be traced back to Tuesday’s telephone call between Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel. In that call, according to No.

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to 2426: Her love

From our UK edition

The unclued lights relate to SUPERMAN (6D), his alter ego CLARK KENT (26A), nickname (the) MAN OF STEEL (8), planet KRYPTON (27), city METROPOLIS (18), employer (the) DAILY PLANET (35/16) and arch-enemy LEX LUTHOR (22). The title, as well as giving wordplay for HERO, suggests LOIS LANE, who appears hidden in row 4.   First prize Ian Skillen, Cambuslang, Glasgow Runners-up  Frank Anstis, Truro, Cornwall; Mrs R.J.C.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: We need judges with practical experience

From our UK edition

Judges of experience Sir: In the midst of the furore about the Supreme Court judgment, many people are now questioning how the senior judiciary are appointed (‘Imbalance of power’, 28 September). Lady Hale is undoubtedly extremely clever. But perhaps that is at the heart of the problem. It is well established that the ranks of academia are now predominantly left-wing in their political views and this has unfortunately permeated down to the teaching profession in schools. I am a retired barrister who specialised in employment law, working in companies which were highly unionised. During my career I gained immeasurable practical experience, but as time went on I realised I was drifting further and further apart from lawyers in pure academic fields.

The Spectator

Are childhood vaccination rates dropping?

From our UK edition

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?

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Tory conference, John Lewis cuts jobs and Duchess of Sussex sues

From our UK edition

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, presented the EU with a proposed withdrawal agreement. It entailed Northern Ireland remaining for a large part in the EU single market, along with Ireland, until January 2025, with the European Court retaining jurisdiction during that time. After that, the Northern Ireland Assembly would be able to choose whether to remain in the single market. In the meantime, there would be a border with Great Britain in the Irish Sea and, with none of the United Kingdom in the customs union, another, invisible border with Ireland, with checks made away from the border on goods in transit. Dominic Cummings said: ‘If they reject our offer, that’s it.’ Eighteen Scottish pine martens were released in the Forest of Dean.

The Spectator

The Conservatives have become the true workers’ party

From our UK edition

The party conference season has showcased two very different visions of Britain. Jeremy Corbyn speaks of the country as one giant Victorian-style workhouse. We are living in zero-hours Britain, apparently — a land where workers subsist on starvation wages and cannot even rely on those. So this is why Labour proposes a great upheaval, mass nationalisation, the confiscation of private property and — as of last month — the abolition of private schools. Corbyn would plunge Britain into a socialist experiment more radical than any seen since the 1970s — but the abject failure of the free enterprise system, he says, demands no less.