The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: back to the backstop, PC Harper’s death and the wrong kind of lightning

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, wrote to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, saying: ‘The backstop cannot form part of an agreed withdrawal agreement. That is a fact that we must both acknowledge.’ Mr Tusk said that those who opposed the Irish backstop ‘in fact support re-establishing a border. Even if they do not admit it’. Mr Johnson, after an hour of failing to agree with Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach, on the telephone, prepared for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France. An atmosphere of plotting hung over prospects of an election on a date close to 31 October, when the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union.

The Spectator

To get a deal Boris needs to show (or fake) some humility

There were many Brexiteers who were urging Boris Johnson to travel to Washington before he went anywhere else, to underline that Britain’s most important relationship is with the United States. And if the EU felt nervous seeing the UK cosy up to America, so much the better. But the Prime Minister’s first visit was to Berlin, and then to Paris, to see if a Brexit deal can be negotiated and the needless disruption of a no-deal exit avoided. It seems, at present, a rather long shot. Theresa May famously said little in one-to-one meetings with European leaders. Boris Johnson can be a lot more forthright, and should speak with candour about his own lack of room for manoeuvre.

The Spectator

to 2419: Figures in place

The unclued lights are English place names which include a number in their spelling. These words appeared as figures in the grid — eg BRENTWOOD appears as BREN2OD in the grid. Ruyton XI Towns needed no change!   First prize Peter Gregson, Amersham, Bucks Runners-up J. Smith, Beeston, Norfolk; L.

Thursday

The Spectator

Where’s Boris?

Before Boris Johnson became Prime Minister there was widespread expectation that his government would be chaotic. It was thought that he would be good at articulating the broad sweep of government policy, but that his administration would quickly sink into turmoil. In the event, the opposite has happened. Three weeks on, the government appears to be running with almost military precision. Preparations for no-deal Brexit seem to be well under control, to the alarm of Philip Hammond, who had thought the task impossible. Yet the Prime Minister himself seems to have gone underground. He is not on holiday — his government is working all hours. But he has not been as big a feature of it as many expected.

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.

The Spectator

Letters | 15 August 2019

God Sir: In his defence of Christianity (‘Losing our religion’, 10 August), Greg Sheridan writes as if Christianity and religion are interchangeable terms. His claim that the vast majority of people who have ever lived have believed in God may be true, but most of them were or are not Christians. And when he mentions that Christianity is the most persecuted religion, he fails to observe that much of this persecution is from adherents of other religions. As a non-believer, I look at the harm done by followers of different religions fighting each other — and at the years of sexual and emotional abuse of children by religious orders. I cannot feel that all this is outweighed by the few virtues claimed by Mr Sheridan.

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 15 August 2019

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, proposed an extra 10,000 prison places and the expansion of stop-and-search powers. PC Stuart Outten, 28, was cut in the head with a machete after he stopped a van in Leyton, east London, in the early hours; Muhammed Rodwan, 56, of Luton, was charged with attempted murder. While trying to make an arrest, PC Gareth Phillips, 42, was run over in Moseley, Birmingham, by someone driving his own car; Mubashar Hussain, 29, was charged with attempted murder. The RAF is to allow recruits to wear beards. John Bercow, the Speaker, said that he thought parliament could stop Britain leaving the EU without an agreement.

The Spectator

to 2418: Sweet

Unclued lights are all sweet wines. WESTERNISED, an anagram of DESSERT WINE, was to be highlighted. &nbsp First prize Erin Barrack, Beeston, Nottinghamshire Runners-up Jane F.

Wednesday

The Spectator

The Spectator, the oldest magazine in the world, to launch US edition

The Spectator, which has published weekly out of London since 1828, will launch a US edition this fall. Spectator USA has had a successful digital-only presence in America since the spring of 2018. It will publish its first monthly US print edition on October 1, only 191 years after the launch of the London edition. ‘Better late than never,’ says Andrew Neil, Chairman of The Spectator worldwide. ‘With our unparalleled success in the UK and our happy experience in Australia, we’ve decided it’s time to bring our unique brand of magazine journalism to the US. Like its mothership back in London, The Spectator’s US edition will be no dour, dull, run-of-the-mill political magazine.

The Spectator

Full text: Boris Johnson’s ‘People’s PMQs’ debut

Good afternoon. I'm speaking to you live from my desk in Downing Street for the first-ever People's Question Time, People's PMQs, and at the moment I'm afraid MPs are all still off on holiday. But I can take questions unpasteurised, unmediated from you via this machine. So I'm going to go straight away to Luther in Cheshire. And Luther says, 'I'd like to know how you intend to leave the EU on the 31st of October with no movement from the EU on their terms and still so much opposition in Parliament.' Luther, you've asked the crucial question and there's a terrible kind of collaboration, as it were, going on between people who think they can block Brexit in parliament and our European friends.

Tuesday

The Spectator

A US trade deal is good news for Britain

Now that America is offering a trade deal – or as John Bolton says, a series of mini deals – can the Brexiteers handle it? And ought the internationalist Remainers to welcome it? The topic tends to send leading figures from both sides into a spin, raising questions as to how prepared they are for what might follow.  Many of those who are keenest to assert the importance of free trade with the EU tend to retreat in fright whenever the prospect of a trade deal with the US is raised. Exit the single market, they tell us, and Britain will face a shrinking economy, along with shortages of food and medicine.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 8 August 2019

We don’t cut God Sir: The Revd Dr Peter Mullen suggests (Letters, 3 August) that Boris Johnson told him my BBC Great Lives programme had cut from our broadcast treatment of Samuel Johnson an extended discussion of Christianity’s role in Dr Johnson’s life. Boris J championed Samuel J for our programme, and your correspondent has been persuaded that Mr J argued at length the centrality of religion to the great lexicographer. I am fascinated by religion. My producers would not relegate a person’s faith where it was claimed as central to their greatness.

The Spectator

Trading places | 8 August 2019

Comments by the former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers this week, claiming that Britain will come off poorly in negotiations for a trade deal with the US, should not be surprising. He has previously declared that Britain’s vote for Brexit was ‘the worst self-inflicted policy wound that a country has done since the second world war’ so he would not want to be proved wrong by Britain doing well out of leaving the EU. But the reaction to his intervention has emphasised a peculiarity in attitudes towards free trade, from both Brexiteers and Remainers. Many of those who are keenest to assert the importance of free trade with the EU tend to retreat in fright whenever the prospect of a trade deal with the US is raised.

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 8 August 2019

Home If the government lost a confidence motion when parliament sits again in September, it could call an election for after 31 October, by which time Britain would have left the European Union, according to a briefing attributed to Dominic Cummings, the special adviser to Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister. Opposition MPs plotted to prevent this. Diplomats from the other 27 EU member states were told by EU officials that the United Kingdom wanted to avoid a no-deal Brexit by their agreeing to substantial changes to the draft withdrawal agreement; the officials told them that there was no basis for ‘meaningful discussions’ with Britain. Michael Gove said he was ‘deeply saddened’ by the EU stance.

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.

The Spectator

to 2417: Six nations

The unclued lights are LAND OF (25A): MILK AND HONEY (11A), CAKES (12A), HOPE AND GLORY (39A), ENCHANTMENT (7D), MY FATHERS (9D) and BEULAH (29D).   First prize Adam Hughes, Liverpool Runners-up Richard Stone, Barton under Needwood, Staffordshire; J.P.