The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Books of the Year | 16 November 2017

From our UK edition

Daniel Swift I spent too much of this (and last) year reading anaemic updatings of Shakespeare plays: pale novels which borrowed plots and missed points and, oddly, always misunderstood the minor characters. After these, Preti Taneja’s We That Are Young (Galley Beggar Press, £9.99) came as a relief and a surprise. Her novel is big, beautiful, and most of all bold: a rewriting of King Lear, transplanted to modern day Delhi, which is both a dazzlingly original reading of the play and a full novel in its own right. A masterpiece, and by a long way my book of the year. Graham Robb Mike Lankford’s genial and sassy biography Becoming Leonardo: An Exploded View of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci (Melville House, £19.25) has none of the stuffiness of that exhausting genre.

Saturday

The Spectator

Does Theresa May’s zombie government even want to survive?

From our UK edition

Dealing with a hung parliament was never going to be easy, but no one quite foresaw the decay which now seems to have set in to Theresa May’s government. The best that can be said for the Prime Minister is that the past week’s events have weakened her rivals within the Conservative party. No one is talking up Priti Patel as a potential rival any more and a challenge from Boris Johnson is now highly unlikely, following his loose words about a British woman incarcerated in Iran — which the Iranian regime may use as a pretext to increase her sentence. Like John Major, the Prime Minister benefits from the feuding in the Cabinet and is kept in place by the fear that a leadership challenge would see the party rip itself apart.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 9 November 2017

From our UK edition

Rules for romance Sir: Lara Prendergast describes a floundering generation desperate for reliable love but with no real idea how to find it (‘Sexual reformation’, 4 November). Our culture has forgotten the basic principles of forming successful relationships. My daughters apply three simple guidelines on choosing boyfriends wisely. One, does he fight for you? Men’s commitment is linked to willingness to sacrifice. He needs to show that he will put himself out for you. Two, is he marriageable? I’m not saying marry straight away. But he needs to have characteristics such as kindness and generosity. And three, can he make decisions? Commit to things and stick at them? Does he decide, rather than slide?

The Spectator

Barometer | 9 November 2017

From our UK edition

Pennies from haven Last week’s huge leak of the ‘Paradise Papers’ has put the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man in the spotlight. But the original tax haven was actually New Jersey, not Jersey. — New Jersey was struggling financially in the 1880s until governor Leon Abbett liberalised the state’s incorporation laws. This persuaded many companies to set up there rather than in New York, where they were doing business. — In return, New Jersey charged a franchise tax. It has since lost its status as a tax haven, but it was copied by neighbouring Delaware, which still hosts the corporate HQs of many US companies. Shooting stars With 3.65 gun deaths per 100,000 population in 2016, how does the United States compare internationally?

The Spectator

Stop the rot

From our UK edition

Dealing with a hung parliament was never going to be easy, but no one quite foresaw the decay which now seems to have set in to Theresa May’s government. The best that can be said for the Prime Minister is that the past week’s events have weakened her rivals within the Conservative party. No one is talking up Priti Patel as a potential rival any more and a challenge from Boris Johnson is now highly unlikely, following his loose words about a British woman incarcerated in Iran — which the Iranian regime may use as a pretext to increase her sentence. Like John Major, the Prime Minister benefits from the feuding in the Cabinet and is kept in place by the fear that a leadership challenge would see the party rip itself apart.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 9 November 2017

From our UK edition

Home An air of crisis hung over the government. Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, was told to fly back immediately from Africa after a series of secret meetings with Israeli political figures was revealed. Sir Michael Fallon had already gone as Defence Secretary, to be replaced by someone called Gavin Williamson, an MP since 2010 and Chief Whip since last year. Sir Michael’s departure followed a complaint that Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the House, was said to have made to the Prime Minister about a remark some years ago — when she had said she had cold hands, he said: ‘I know where you can put them to warm them up.

The Spectator

Books of the Year | 9 November 2017

From our UK edition

A.N. Wilson Elmet by Fiona Mozley (John Murray, £10.99). It is difficult to convey the full horror of this spellbinding first novel. The young author, a medievalist, presumably knows the no less violent Njál’s Saga. Elmet, though set in the modern age, concerns timeless protagonists who have contrived to live outside the normal modern settings. Dad is an ex-prisoner, who earns his living as a prize-fighter — at illegally organised, very bloody bare-knuckle fights. Somehow he and his children manage to build a house on land belonging to a sinister figure called Mr Price, without any bureaucrats from the local planning office materialising to ask what he is up to. Price wants his revenge, and when his own son meets a bloody end, he exacts it.

Saturday

The Spectator

Gordon Brown’s memoirs show he is good at blowing his own trumpet – but nothing else

From our UK edition

Gordon Brown has pitched his memoirs as the honest confessions of a decent man. He failed to win the one general election he fought, he asserts, due to a personality that was unsuited to an age of Twitter and emotional displays. His is the Walter Mondale response to failure — the former US vice president said of his defeat in the 1984 presidential election: ‘I think you know I’ve never really warmed up to television, and in fairness to television, it’s never really warmed up to me.’ Admitting to poor media skills is not genuine self-examination on the part of Brown, more an attempt to shift the blame for his failures on to something he considers trivial.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 2 November 2017

From our UK edition

Equality of outcome Sir: Rod Liddle exposes some deep flaws in the way children are prepared to play their part in adulthood (‘The kids aren’t all right’, 28 October). But one in particular merits further analysis. He is right to say that teachers’ imperative is to raise the D grade students at GCSE to a C, as a school is judged on the number of A-C grade passes it secures. So all the best teachers and all the extra resources are focused on the D grade children. An A grade student who could, with a bit of help, achieve an A* and thus begin their journey to Cambridge is ignored, and if he or she achieves only a B, that is a tick in the box; a success.

The Spectator

Barometer | 2 November 2017

From our UK edition

Lynx on the loose — A Eurasian lynx escaped from a zoo in Wales, pre-empting plans to introduce six of the animals to Kielder Forest in Northumberland. The animal was once native to Britain, becoming extinct around the year 700, earlier than the wolf (possibly 1290) or the brown bear (around year 1000). — However, in continental Europe and near-Asia, numbers have been growing since a low of 700 between 1930 and 1950. There are now believed to be 50,000, spread from Uzbekistan in the east to Germany in the west. Of the smaller Iberian lynx, restricted to Spain and Portugal, numbers fell to 100 in 2002 but now stand at about 400. Collaring white collars Gordon Brown said more bankers should have been jailed for actions related to the banking crisis.

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 2 November 2017

From our UK edition

Home A great ferment of accusations of sexual impropriety was made against people in Parliament and out of it. Bex Bailey, a Labour party worker, said she was raped, not by an MP, at a party event in 2011 and a senior Labour official discouraged her from reporting it. Jared O’Mara MP had the Labour whip withdrawn while claims were investigated that he had called a woman he met ‘an ugly bitch’. Tulip Siddiq, a Labour MP, said that cases of sexual misconduct cases at Westminster could run into hundreds. Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, was even driven to apologise publicly for putting his hand on the knee of Julia Hartley-Brewer during dinner 15 years ago, although she said that she had not been ‘remotely upset or distressed’.

The Spectator

The Brown delusion

From our UK edition

Gordon Brown has pitched his memoirs as the honest confessions of a decent man. He failed to win the one general election he fought, he asserts, due to a personality that was unsuited to an age of Twitter and emotional displays. His is the Walter Mondale response to failure — the former US vice president said of his defeat in the 1984 presidential election: ‘I think you know I’ve never really warmed up to television, and in fairness to television, it’s never really warmed up to me.’ Admitting to poor media skills is not genuine self-examination on the part of Brown, more an attempt to shift the blame for his failures on to something he considers trivial.

The Spectator

to 2331: Anagrams

From our UK edition

The suggested words were ESTER (1), REEST (20), TERSE (24), TREES (43), TERES (6D), RESET (9), TEERS (23), STERE (30) and STEER (36). EERST (in the ninth row) was to be shaded. First prize John Newell, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey Runners-up S.C.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 26 October 2017

From our UK edition

Meeting halfway Sir: If our Brexit negotiator David Davis has not read Robert Tombs’s wonderful article ‘Lost in translation’ (21 October) on how different the French and the British can be when it comes to the negotiating table, he really should, as it splendidly exemplifies how useful history can be. The trouble is, of course, that politicians are often too busy to read history, or that historians get round to writing something useful too late to exert practical influence. In this instance, however, there is still time: manufactured deadlines can be adjusted, and (given adequate cross-cultural empathy) accommodations can be reached. Brian Harrison Oxford The law in France Sir: Robert Tombs highlights the differences between the UK and France brilliantly.

The Spectator

Barometer | 26 October 2017

From our UK edition

Littler Hitlers Cabinet secretary Damian Green appealed to commentators to halt the ‘ridiculous rise of routine comparisons to Hitler’. A small selection of examples in the past week: — Chants of ‘Go home, Nazis’ met a white supremacist rally in Florida, where at least one attendee was in a swastika T-shirt. — Ex-US vice president Joe Biden asked universities to respect free speech, saying ‘don’t give the Trumps of this world the ability to compare you with Nazis’. — An ultra-orthodox Jew protesting against military service called Israeli police ‘Nazis’. — Ex-National Front and BNP campaigner Kevin Wilshaw said he had ‘completely wasted’ his past life as a ‘Nazi’.

The Spectator

Identity issues

From our UK edition

It was always going to be difficult for Theresa May’s government to secure a legacy beyond Brexit. With the negotiations running into difficulty, it becomes all the harder. Ministers must avoid, however, resorting to well-meant gestures which open the government to ridicule. Take, for instance, the revelation that Britain has insisted on the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights making reference to pregnant transgendered people — although it now denies that it objected to the term ‘pregnant women’. The purpose of the relevant clause is deeply serious — to dissuade malignant regimes from subjecting pregnant women to the death penalty.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 26 October 2017

From our UK edition

Home  Of perhaps 400 Britons returned from the former territory of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, those who ‘do not justify prosecution’ should be reintegrated, Max Hill, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, told the BBC. Rory Stewart MP, asked about foreigners fighting for the Islamic State in Syria, said that ‘the only way of dealing with them will be, in almost every case, to kill them’. Jared O’Mara MP resigned from the Commons equalities committee after attention was directed to remarks he made online in 2004, such as that Michelle McManus had only won Pop Idol ‘because she was fat’.