The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 7 December 2017

From our UK edition

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, was thrown into a political crisis, along with the negotiations for Brexit, during a protracted lunch in Brussels with Jean- Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission. At first, smiles and Mr Juncker’s special cheerful tie had suggested that Britain had paid enough and said enough to be allowed at an EU summit on 14 December to enter into trade talks. But the Democratic Unionist Party, which lends the Conservatives a parliamentary majority, had got wind of a phrase in a text already agreed between Dublin and the EU proposing ‘continued regulatory alignment’ on both sides of the Irish border.

The Spectator

Barometer | 7 December 2017

From our UK edition

Border skirmishes What did the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic used to look like? — In 1923 a Common Travel Area between the UK and what was then the Irish Free State established free movement. Passport checks began in the second world war and ended in 1952, though some customs checks continued. The first attempt to control the border came in 1970, when 51 back roads were closed with spikes. But people kept stealing the spikes. Thereafter, there was no official barrier on most of the 200 cross-border roads but patrols were in place and people were expected to cross at 20 crossing points. These were removed after the Good Friday agreement in 1998.   Leftovers The East of England Co-op is to trial selling some food past its sell-by date more cheaply.

The Spectator

to 2336: IRRELEVANT

From our UK edition

The action that results in 6, 10, 29D and 30 is HAIR-RAISING (7, defined by 5). RAISING A HARE (39) results in 13.   First prize Norma Jacobs, Linton, Wetherby, W. Yorks Runners-up Mrs E.

The Spectator

We need to bridge Britain’s productivity gap

From our UK edition

The UK has a big productivity problem. Our slowdown since the financial crisis has been more severe than in other developed nations. We rank third-last among the G7 — ahead of only Canada and Japan — and we’re falling further behind our competitors: France, Germany and the USA. This matters, because increased productivity is the key to improving living standards. Without it, businesses underperform, we fall behind competitors and, ultimately, our ability to increase pay, invest in public services and improve living standards is limited. Government sets the agenda for productivity in areas like skills, infrastructure and research and development.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Could investing in website names make you an internet millionaire?

From our UK edition

With the savings of the nation languishing around 1%, it’s no surprise that UK consumers are turning to increasingly creative ways to make their money work that little bit harder. Even with the arrival of a plethora of savings-focused banks such as RCI Bank, the savings horizon remains bleak for those yearning for the good old days of a 5% savings rate with FSCS protection. This backdrop has helped to fuel the rise of more consumer-friendly and increasingly mainstream financial investment opportunities. This includes everything from investing in property, via firms like LendInvest, and Kuflink, investing in corporate bonds via firms like WiseAlpha, or even investing in personal loans via peer lending firms like Zopa and RateSetter.

The Spectator

Ignore the motorheads telling us that we all need new cars

From our UK edition

The motorheads are at it again. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the UK auto manufacturers lobby group, lobbed another rusty torque wrench at the government this morning, announcing that UK new car registrations are down 11.2 per cent year-on-year. The decline is led by a collapse of nearly a third in sales of diesel-engined cars. Inevitably, some blamed the fall on ‘uncertainty caused by Brexit'. The SMMT itself doesn’t take this tack: instead it points the finger at ‘months of confusion and speculation about the government’s air quality plans and its policies towards diesel cars’. Its suggested remedy is no surprise: ‘fleet renewal is the fastest way to improve air quality’, it says.

Tuesday

Friday

The Spectator

The one issue economists and politicians agree on: Britain’s productivity problem

From our UK edition

‘Productivity’ is one of those ‘economicky words’ (as Philip Hammond described them in the budget last week) that economists and politicians get excited about but leaves many people cold. Yet since last week’s downgraded forecasts from the Office of Budget Responsibility, it is a word we keep hearing in the news. And rightly so. As Tom Danker from the Productivity Leadership Group told a Spectator event in the City on Thursday, ‘productivity is about prosperity’. The wisdom of economists and politicians isn’t always held in high regard these days. And little wonder. Ten years on, we’re still suffering the effects of the financial crisis that most of them didn’t see coming.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 30 November 2017

From our UK edition

Proven lawyers Sir: Andrew Watts says that for ‘lawyers in politics, the elimination of risk becomes the highest aim of government. It is not, and should not be’ (Legal challenge, 25 November). Well, up to a point. The last two British prime ministers who were lawyers were Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, both barristers. Mrs Thatcher’s despatch of the task force to the south Atlantic in 1982 was fraught with risk, as were other defining steps of her time in office. Blair’s premiership will largely be remembered for the invasion of Iraq, a move that could not be described as one from which all risk had been eliminated.

The Spectator

Barometer | 30 November 2017

From our UK edition

Pit stopped After complaints from the Durham Miners’ Association, a rugby club at Durham University cancelled a pub crawl in which members were to dress as coal miners or ministers from Mrs Thatcher’s government. — Attitudes towards the 1984-85 miners’ strike were not always so censorious. In 2001, the conceptual artist Jeremy Deller staged a re-enactment of the Battle of Orgreave, involving 800 re-enactment enthusiasts as well as 200 miners who had been there on the day. Staged at Orgreave itself, it was filmed and shown on Channel 4 with few complaints. Ups and downs Which industries saw the biggest rises and falls in real-terms productivity (i.e., greater than inflation) since 2007? CPI inflation over the period was 25.9 per cent.

The Spectator

A price worth paying

From our UK edition

There will be howls of outrage in some quarters if it is confirmed that the government has offered the EU a ‘divorce’ bill of up to £50 billion (over several years). Some on the leave side of the debate insist that the bill should be zero. They ask: does the EU not owe us some money for our share of all the bridges we have helped build in Spain and railway lines in Poland? But it was never realistic to think we could leave the EU and maintain good relations with the bloc without paying a penny — even if a House of Lords report did seem to suggest that this would be legally possible. We are in the process of creating a new relationship with the EU, not ending it altogether.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 30 November 2017

From our UK edition

Home The engagement was announced of Prince Henry of Wales, aged 33, and the Los Angeles-born Meghan Markle, an actress aged 36. They are to marry at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in May. Ms Markle scotched rumours that she might be a Catholic, declaring herself a Protestant preparing to be baptised into the Church of England and receive Confirmation before the wedding. Though Ms Markle is divorced, she has been allowed to marry in a church service. The couple told the broadcaster Mishal Husain in a televised interview that they were attempting to cook a chicken one day last month when the prince went down on one knee to propose. During the interview, Prince Harry said: ‘The corgis took to you straight away.

The Spectator

Never alone

From our UK edition

From ‘Comrades of the great war’, The Spectator, 1 December 1917: Eventually all will be over, even the shouting; and some five million heroes will become to the general eye merely plain men with their living to earn… The real force, we are convinced, that will carry the ex-sailor and ex-soldier with ease and content back to civil life is possessed by the men themselves, in that bond of comradeship which, even more than discipline and esprit de corps, has brought them through ordeals endured only, endurable only, because no man was in that pit alone; which has prompted glorious deeds by land and sea, because each dared not for himself only but for all.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Even at £50 billion, the ‘divorce’ bill from the EU is a price well worth paying

From our UK edition

There will be howls of outrage in some quarters if it is confirmed that the government has offered the EU a ‘divorce’ bill of £50 billion or so. Some on the leave side of the debate have insisted that the bill should be zero. They ask: does the EU not owe us some money for our share of all the bridges we have helped build in Spain and railway lines in Poland. But it was never realistic to think that we could leave the EU and maintain good relations with the bloc without paying a penny – even if a House of Lords report did seem to suggest that that would be legally possible. We are in the process of  creating a new relationship with the EU, not ending it altogether.

Tuesday

The Spectator

Royal engagements: A Spectator history, 1839 – 2010

From our UK edition

A Royal engagement is dominating the headlines once again. Here is how The Spectator has marked royal engagements over the years, from Prince Albert's 1839 proposal to Queen Victoria, through to Prince Charles popping the question to Diana in 1981: 30 November 1839: Queen VictoriaNow that it is certain the Queen has done with declining and is going to conjugate, Speculation, like a tasked schoolboy, is once more turned down to discover the potential, the imperative, the conditional, and all the other moods of the political future... All things are possible through marriage; and Prince Albert’s present sigh conjugal putting every affair, as has been said, in the potential, may cause even the welfare of an entire nation to be translated in some unforeseen manner.

Saturday

The Spectator

Cancer diagnosis – the shortfall and the opportunity

From our UK edition

THE PROBLEM The number of Britons aged 75 and over is projected to rise by 89.3% by mid-2039. In 2014, their number stood at 5.2 million; the estimate for 2039 is currently 9.9 million. Britons aged 50-74 account for more than half (53%) of new cancer cases and the elderly (75 and above) for more than a third (36%). THE COST OF LATE DIAGNOSIS Early-stage cancer treatment is significantly less expensive than treating the disease at an advanced stage. STAGE 1 CANCER (The cancer is relatively small and contained within the organ it started in.) Colon: £3,373Rectal: £4,449Ovarian: £5,328Lung: £7,952 STAGE 4 CANCER (The cancer has spread from where it started to another body organ.

The Spectator

Hope in Zimbabwe

From our UK edition

With Robert Mugabe’s departure goes one of the caricatures of late 20th-century Africa: the tinpot dictator who brutalises his opponents, impoverishes his people yet manages to extract enough wealth from a decaying economy for a fleet of Rolls-Royces and a private jet to speed him off to private medical appointments in Singapore. But his long-overdue resignation should not be allowed to detract from what is going on elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Zimbabwe, which did not stand out for its rottenness in the early years of Mugabe’s rule, now finds itself surrounded by either functioning democracies or fairly benign regimes with some element of democracy. Aside from Zimbabwe, African economies have grown consistently this century, averaging 5.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 23 November 2017

From our UK edition

The medium is the message Sir: In his piece about the tech-savvy Labour party, Robert Peston writes: ‘A party’s values and messages matter. But in today’s digital Babel, they are probably less important than how the message is presented and to whom it is communicated’ (‘Corbyn 2.0’, 18 November). Some of your readers may remember the late Marshall McLuhan who in the 1960s coined the phrase ‘The medium is the message.’ I’ve always thought this to have been prescient for its time and it has become ever more pertinent. It is an enormous downside to the digital age that the means of transmitting data is more important than its content.