The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 12 October 2017

Let’s talk about guns Sir: I was surprised that the cover stories on the recent shootings in Las Vegas (‘Say nothing’, 7 October) did not address the issue of gun control. The point surely is that if weapons are readily available, and not universally disapproved of, sooner or later someone will use them. There doesn’t have to be a specific motive, religious or otherwise, and often there is no point in looking for one. There is no question that for some people, using guns and explosives gives a thrill which they probably do not find elsewhere — and the more powerful and rapid-firing the weapon, the greater the thrill.

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Portrait of the week | 12 October 2017

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, when asked by Iain Dale in an interview on LBC: ‘If there was a Brexit vote now, would you vote Brexit?’ repeatedly refused to say. Earlier, briefing the House of Commons on Brexit, she said that the country must prepare for ‘every eventuality’. The government published two papers on trade and customs arrangements that envisaged ways by which Britain could thrive as an ‘independent trading nation’ even if no trade deal were reached with Brussels. Mrs May admitted that during a transitional period, the European Court of Justice would retain jurisdiction.

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The new tycoons

The giants of the internet have long said that they are not publishers but mere platforms — or couriers — of the new information age. Companies such as Google and Facebook insist that they’re the digital equivalent of the vans, newsagents and paperboys who distribute what other people publish. So they ought not to be held responsible for it. In the early years of the internet, their argument made sense. Most news and comment came from newspapers and magazines (like this one). But then social media arrived and restraint vanished. Military-grade email encryption has emerged as standard, giving security to those who don’t want their email hacked, but also cover to criminal networks.

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Solution to 2328: Second coming

The suggested title is Brideshead Revisited, HEEDS/RABID (6A/42) being an anagram of BRIDESHEAD. The six characters, all members of the Flyte family, are ALEXANDER (Lord Marchmain) (21D), TERESA (Lady Marchmain) (37), and their children, BRIDEY (17), SEBASTIAN (8), JULIA (33) and CORDELIA (19). FLYTE (diagonally from the eighth row) was to be shaded.   First prize Daisy Jestico, London SE23 Runners-up Mrs J. Sohn, Gorleston-on-Sea, Norfolk; E.

Thursday

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Letters | 5 October 2017

What do the Tories offer? Sir: I have been hoping that someone more eloquent than me would respond to your contributors’ rants about Jeremy Corbyn, but as they have not, I thought I’d chip in (‘Corbyn’s big chance’, 30 September). As someone who is reasonably financially secure, the Tories would probably consider me a shoo-in voter. But what do they offer? Tax cuts, while paying for them by cutting services and benefits to those less fortunate, and in effect, pulling up the ladder behind me. ‘Capitalism’ to many in this country is really only a description of how Thatcher sold, or destroyed, the country’s wealth-creation industries, and a few years later the government of the day gave the proceeds to the banks as a bailout.

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Barometer | 5 October 2017

Bunny beginnings Hugh Hefner, creator of Playboy, died. How did he get the idea for bunny girls? — Hefner said he had been inspired by Bunny’s Tavern, a bar in Urbana, Illinois, named after its owner Bernard ‘Bunny’ Fitzsimmons, who opened it in 1936. — A closer match for Hefner’s clubs was the Gaslight Club opened in Chicago in 1953, where customers were served by ‘gaslight girls’ dressed in corsets and fishnets. — Originally, Hefner proposed dressing up his hostesses as baby dolls, then toyed with the idea of ‘stag girls’ wearing antlers, to match the name he wanted to give Playboy magazine, Stag Party. He had to drop that name when Stag magazine (men’s adventure stories) threatened to sue.

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Portrait of the Week – 5 October 2017

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, told her audience at the Conservative party conference that she wanted to continue, like them, to ‘do our duty by Britain’. She said the government planned to make it easier for local authorities to build council houses. On the eve of the conference, Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, in an interview with the Sun sketched out four ‘red lines’ that he said should apply to Brexit. These included a transition period that must not last ‘a second more’ than two years. His stipulations went beyond anything agreed by the government, but Mrs May sidestepped questions about whether he was ‘unsackable’.

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Tory blues

Theresa May’s conference speech — interrupted by coughing fits and with part of the set falling apart behind her — served as an unfortunate metaphor for her premiership and party. She is carrying on and in doing so, she demonstrates her resilience, but also her frailty. The horrified faces of cabinet members watching as her voice dried up on stage seemed to sum up their wider concerns about whether their party is in a fit state to see off Labour, so recently dismissed by them as a joke. Now, they are left wondering if their party is falling apart. The Prime Minister spoke about taking the fight to Jeremy Corbyn, but her announcements suggest that she is suing for peace — accepting his argument, and seeking to copy some of his solutions.

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to 2327: Exhibition

Five unclued lights (1D, 14, 21, 24 and 41) are titles of paintings by EDWARD HOPPER (5 39).   First prize J.P. Carrington, Denchworth, Oxfordshire Runners-up Jenny Mitchell, Croscombe, Somerset; F.A.

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Always a dull moment

From ‘Perfect peace’ by Christopher Hollis, 21 October 1960: In Mr Terence Rattigan’s The Final Test, an English spectator of the match is asked by an impatient American: ‘Is anything going to happen?’ ‘Good Lord, I hope not,’ replies the Englishman. He must, I fancy, have been in professional life an organiser of a Conservative Party conference. For a Conservative Party conference is intended to be, and is, the dullest thing that ever happens.

Wednesday

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The Conservative party’s existential crisis

Theresa May’s conference speech — interrupted by coughing fits and with part of the set falling apart behind her — served as an unfortunate metaphor for her premiership and party. She is carrying on and in doing so, she demonstrates her resilience and sense of duty but also her frailty. The horrified faces of cabinet members watching as her voice dried up on stage seemed to sum up their wider concerns about whether their party is in a fit state to see off Labour, a party they so recently dismissed as a joke. Now, they are left wondering if their party is falling apart. https://twitter.

Tuesday

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Liam Fox’s Conservative conference speech, full text

OK. It’s time for some optimism. It doesn’t seem like a year since we last met together in Birmingham. When we did so, my Department had been in existence for little over two months. We had the challenge, but more importantly the wonderful opportunity, to build a new department designed for the trade challenges of the 21st century. It has been a huge honour to be at the centre of such a historic project and to work alongside some of the most talented and energetic people in our country. In a short time, we have achieved so much. We have attracted the brightest and best talent from across Whitehall, the private sector and abroad in order to make sure that we have the skills we need to help British business succeed.

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David Lidington’s Conservative conference speech, full text

“Yesterday morning, as Lord Chancellor, I joined our country’s senior judges and lawyers in Westminster Abbey to mark the opening of the new legal year. Then we processed together across Parliament Square to Westminster Hall – the heart of our democracy. It was a great occasion, a celebration of the long history and ancient traditions of our legal system. But at heart, what was being honoured was not wigs and robes, nor ritual and protocol, but the living constitutional principles which that ceremony affirmed. The rule of law and the independence of the judiciary underpin our democracy and lie at the heart of our way of life. They are the very cornerstone of our freedoms. No individual, no organization, no government is above the law.

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Jeremy Hunt’s Conservative conference speech, full text

“We have a great team at the Department of Health so let me start by thanking them: the wise Philip Dunne, the savvy Steve Brine, the smart James O’Shaughnessy, the street-smart Jackie Doyle-Price and our perfect PPS’s Jo Churchill and James Cartlidge. Sometimes something happens that reminds you how lucky we are to have an NHS. That happened right here in Manchester in May. When that bomb went off at the Arena, we saw paramedics running into danger, doctors racing to work in the middle of the night, nurses putting their arms round families who couldn’t even recognise the disfigured bodies of their loved ones. One doctor was actually on the scene picking up his own daughter when the bomb went off.

Sunday

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Ruth Davidson’s Conservative party conference speech, full text

It’s great to be here in Manchester. Or as I call it, the Southern powerhouse. I want to talk to you about the general election. In fact, I want to talk to you about two of them. The first one - two years ago.  And for us in Scotland, the same old story. Knocking our pans in. Hitting countless doors, delivering thousands of leaflets, too many conversations to count, another pair of boots ruined.  And at the end of it all? We started with one MP. We ended with one MP.  We’d survived the SNP tsunami, but were no further forward than when we began.…we were still outgunned by those sodding pandas.  But, two years later, we had a second election – this June. Back on the stump.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 28 September 2017

Fight and fight again Sir: In her Florence speech, Theresa May yet again declared that: ‘No deal is better than a bad deal.’ Yet in his piece ‘Brexit Wars’ (23 September), James Forsyth claims that minimal planning is being made for a ‘no deal’ under WTO rules. If true, this is insulting to the electorate as it means that the Prime Minister is being neither serious nor truthful. It is inexcusable for our civil service not to prepare for an event that is a clear possibility when it would be catastrophic if we had no plan. Couldn’t the 80 MPs in the Tory Research Group start preparing for a WTO deal? They could liaise with Eurosceptic groups plus friendly economists and other experts, to produce a viable exit plan.