The Spectator, Author at The Spectator

Thursday

October 18, 2018

Modern family

From our UK edition

Whether it was intended so or not, the decision by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to choose Australia as the place to announce that they are expecting their first child was a public relations triumph. For years the royal family was criticised for having a tin ear when it came to reading and dealing with the public, but no one could say this now. The tone of the younger royals’ tour to the southern hemisphere has been one of approachability, without compromising the dignity of the positions which Harry and Meghan hold. Their visit also runs counter to the conventional wisdom of some republicans — in Britain as well as Australia — that support for the monarchy is dependent on personal affection for the Queen and that the institution will be doomed upon her death.

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Portrait of the week | 18 October 2018

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Home Brexit was in crisis as the European Council (of heads of state or government) met. Theresa May, the Prime Minister, told the House of Commons that it was time for ‘cool, calm heads to prevail’. These proved in short supply. Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, Penny Mordaunt, Chris Grayling, Liz Truss and Geoffrey Cox openly ate pizza in the office of Andrea Leadsom. The EU rejected Mrs May’s proposal that the UK as a whole could remain under the EU customs union for a definitely limited time after 2020 (when the planned transition period ends). Some hoped for no deal; some hoped for no Brexit. Mary Midgley, the philosopher, died aged 99. Failure of overhead electricity lines led to services from Paddington being cancelled.

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to 2378: Boundary

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LIMES (22), a term for a boundary of the ROMAN EMPIRE (7 30), is a DEFINITION (19) of five items reading clockwise in the perimeter. First prize Geoff Telfer, Shipley, W. Yorks Runners-up R.B.

Thursday

October 11, 2018

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Barometer | 11 October 2018

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Global warnings How much time do we have to save the world from catastrophic climate change? 5 years (according to the WWF, 2007) 5 years (International Energy Agency, 2011) 3 years (Christiana Figueres of the United Nations, 2017) 12 years (IPCC, 2018) Doctor the figures The NHS estimated it had been defrauded of £1.29 billion in 2016-17. By whom? Patients £341m NHS staff £94m Opticians £79m Dentists £126m Chemists £111m GPs £88m Home stretch What percentage of 25-34-year-olds can afford the cheapest local properties with the aid of a mortgage worth 4.

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Letters | 11 October 2018

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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

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‘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

From our UK edition

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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Books and Arts – 11 October 2018

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to 2377: Service book

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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

October 4, 2018

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Letters | 4 October 2018

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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

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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

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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

Portrait of the Week – 27 September 2018

From our UK edition

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’.