The Spectator

Thursday

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Letters | 11 October 2018

Bathroom politics Sir: James Kirkup’s article (‘The march of trans rights’, 6 October) discussed many of the complexities created by the issue, and rightly so. It also briefly mentioned the ‘bathroom battles’ in the United States. Such episodes illustrate the practical problems with legislating against such societal developments — new laws often do not solve but escalate the issue. In North Carolina in 2016, legislation was introduced to prevent transgender individuals from using particular bathrooms. The policing of this law presented practical issues. It would be impossible to guard every gender-specific public bathroom in the state. Either it would require a significant increase in police numbers, or be up to the business to enact the law.

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Director’s cut | 11 October 2018

‘The role of government is not to pick favourites and subsidise them or protect them.’ So says the government’s industrial strategy, published last year — a document which was supposed to distinguish between a free-market approach and the interventionism favoured by Jeremy Corbyn. Yet in one industry, at least, the government is doing exactly what it says it should not: it is showering firms with subsidies in the hope of generating growth. This week the British Film Institute (BFI) published a report making grand claims for the government’s ‘tax reliefs’ for the film industry.

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Portrait of the week | 11 October 2018

Home EU officials were suspiciously cheerful over the prospects of Brexit negotiations running up to the next summit on 18 October. ‘I think there is a chance to have an accord by the end of the year,’ said Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, did a little dance in humorous emulation of Theresa May’s dance moves the week before at the Conservative party conference. British ministers invented the concept of the ‘hybrid backstop’ for Northern Ireland, involving some more checks and an extension of the United Kingdom’s membership of the customs union.

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to 2377: Service book

The twelve unclued lights can be arranged into the sequence yielding phrases from ‘First’ to ‘Twelfth’. First 21, Second 24, Third 4A, Fourth 37, Fifth 30, Sixth 15A, Seventh 3, Eighth 9, 19 Ninth, Tenth 34D, Eleventh 25, 29 Twelfth. ‘Second’ in the solutions at 8D and 17D indicates the sequence.

Thursday

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Letters | 4 October 2018

What would Smith say? Sir: Adam Smith’s writings were so definitive that it is said one can find the kernel of every modern branch of economics within them. But Jesse Norman is surely wrong to imply Smith would see merit in Trump’s tariffs (‘Politics trumps trade’, 29 September). Not only did Smith, as Norman points out, regard import taxes as ‘unnecessary’ and ‘absurd’, but he also derided the ‘man of system [who] seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chessboard’. Smith knew humans behave in ways unpredictable to the government planner.

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Britain after Brexit

Over the next few weeks, we can expect breathless reporting about the Brexit deal and its dynamics: the state of phytosanitary checks in the Irish Sea and the desirability of chlorinated chicken. But the real question about Brexit is about what type of country we become, once the process is complete and sovereignty has been retrieved from Brussels. And it’s a question to which the Conservative government is finally beginning to provide an answer. Theresa May’s concluding speech to her conference was one of the best she has given as leader. She spoke about what Michael Howard called the British dream: that children and grandchildren of immigrants and refugees can, in this country, rise to the cabinet.

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Portrait of the week | 4 October 2018

Home Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary, played a well-nourished Banquo’s Ghost at the Conservative party conference, where Theresa May, the Prime Minister, declared that Britain after Brexit would be ‘full of promise’. She had insisted that the Chequers proposals for Brexit were the only ones possible. Mr Johnson called them ‘deranged’. Mrs May felt obliged to tell Andrew Marr on television: ‘I do believe in Brexit.’ Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, mocked Mr Johnson’s way of speaking: ‘Boris sits there,’ he told the Mail on Sunday, ‘and at the end of it he says, “Yeah but, er, there must be a way, I mean, if you just, if you, erm, come on, we can do it, Phil, we can do it.

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to 2376: Somewhere XI

On 15 September, Costa Rica, bordered by PANAMA (31) and NICARAGUA (5), and whose capital is SAN JOSÉ (40/10), celebrated its INDEPENDENCE (43) from SPAIN (35). Its main exports are BANANAS (36) and COFFEE (19D) and, unusually, it has no STANDING ARMY (1). CR (in the twelfth column) was to be shaded.   First prize Revd Anne Kiggell, Headington, Oxford Runners-up Frank Anstis, Truro, Cornwall; D.G.

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The decisive moment

From ‘News of the week’, 5 October 1918: The Western Front is now aflame from the sea to Verdun. This week has seen the hardest fighting of the war. Marshal Foch has launched not one offensive but a whole series, in one sector after another, so that now the battle is joined along a front of over two hundred miles. The enemy is thus hotly engaged at almost every point, and can no longer weaken one part of his line to strengthen another, since a breach at any place would be disastrous. The decisive moment has come.

Tuesday

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Conservative party conference, day three: The Spectator guide | 2 October 2018

All eyes will be on Boris Johnson when he addresses the Tory fringes this afternoon. Expect the former foreign secretary to offer plenty of advice for the Prime Minister as she prepares for her keynote speech tomorrow. And on the main stage, Sajid Javid is the pick of the speakers: Conference listings: 10.00 – 12.30 Symphony Hall A STRONGER, FAIRER UNITED KINGDOM Secretary of State for Scotland Secretary of State for Wales Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Minister for the Cabinet Office Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Secretary of State for the Home DepartmentSession to include contributions from Party members 14.00 – 16.

Monday

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Conservative party conference, day two: The Spectator guide | 1 October 2018

Brexit secretary Dominic Raab and the Chancellor Philip Hammond are the big draws on day two of the Conservative conference, but there is plenty of action on the fringes too. Here are the highlights to watch out for: Conference listings: 10.00 – 12.30 Symphony Hall AN ECONOMY THAT WORKS FOR EVERYONE Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Secretary of State for Transport Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Chancellor of the ExchequerSession to include contributions from Party members 14.00 – 16.

Sunday

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Conservative party conference, day one: The Spectator guide | 30 September 2018

The Conservatives return to Birmingham and Theresa May has defied some predictions by even making it this far. But can she keep the show on the road? Or will the Tory party conference be as big a disaster as last year's gathering? Here are the highlights to keep an eye out for today: Conference listings: 10.00 – 12.00 Hall 1, ICC Birmingham MEETING OF THE NATIONAL CONSERVATIVE CONVENTION 14.00 – 14.45 Symphony Hall WELCOME TO CONFERENCE Chairman of the Conservative Party Mayor of the West Midlands 14.45 – 16.30 Symphony Hall GLOBAL BRITAIN Secretary of State for International Trade Secretary of State for International Development Secretary of State for Defence Secretary of State for Foreign Commonwealth Affairs 16.30 – 17.

Thursday

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Letters | 27 September 2018

Neutral technology Sir: Jenny McCartney’s ‘wake-up call’ (22 September) reminded me of a 19th-century Scientific American piece I discovered describing a dangerous new trend ‘which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body’. The fad? Chess. I grew up bingeing on video games and cable TV. I heard similar concerns to Jenny’s from my parents, who were scolded for listening to The Beatles. Before them, books were seen as promoting sedentary behaviour. New technologies are neutral — they reflect both the light and dark sides of human nature.

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Barometer | 27 September 2018

Beastly crimes Police in Croydon stopped investigating a series of cat killings after concluding that foxes were likely to blame. Other crimes which turned out to be the work of animals: — In 2016 a crow named Canuck swooped down and took a knife which Vancouver police had been guarding as evidence. A year later Canuck attacked a postman. — In 2008, a vandal was suspected of repeatedly fusing the lights at an aquarium in Coburg, Germany, putting many creatures at risk. In fact it was an octopus called Otto who found he could extinguish the light on his tank by squirting water at it. — Novelist Michael Peterson served eight years in jail for murdering his wife in North Carolina in 2001.

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Portrait of the Week – 27 September 2018

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, held a special cabinet to retrieve something from the wreckage of the Brexit policy she had imposed at Chequers this summer. Mrs May had shown surprise at a summit in Salzburg four days earlier when the EU rejected her proposals. ‘The suggested framework for economic cooperation will not work,’ said Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council. He then posted a picture on Instagram of himself and Mrs May with a cakestand and the caption: ‘A piece of cake, perhaps? Sorry, no cherries.’ Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, said that this was ‘insulting the British people’.

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Left in charge

The worst of Britain’s post-war mistakes, ideas we thought long dead, are once more in the air. Yet again there are plans for ‘workers on boards’ (the govern-ment, of course decides who’s a worker), and for mandatory price caps, based on the delusion that government can make things cheaper by diktat. Intelligent people are once more agreed that British employers should pay the highest minimum wage in the developed world — a policy estimated to condemn tens of thousands to unemployment. The tax burden is at a 30-year high, yet many assume we should make that burden still heavier — as if the country can be taxed to prosperity. The Labour party has been pontificating along these lines in Liverpool all week, but these are in fact Tory ideas.

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Allenby’s triumph

From ‘The Eastern successes’, 28 September 1918: The glorious news from Palestine and Macedonia has exceeded all expectations. The annihilating victory of Sir Edmund Allenby in Palestine, and the rapid advance of the Allies against the apparently demoralised Bulgarian Army, will help very powerfully towards weakening the unity and breaking the heart of our enemies. Though it would be impossible to praise too highly these splendid achievements, it is necessary to judge them in their proper relation to the strategy of the whole war...