Books and Arts – 21 September 2017
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The Spectator
Thursday
to 2325: Hard task
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The theme was PIGS. First prize J. E. Green, St Albans, Hertfordshire Runners-up Michael Moran, Penrith, Cumbria; John M.
Tuesday
Vince Cable’s conference speech, full text
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It is with a real sense of pride that I stand before you as leader of the Liberal Democrats. First of all, I’d like to put on record my thanks to my predecessor, Tim Farron. He hands over a Party, which is larger, stronger and more diverse than the one he inherited. He stood up for refugees whose plight the government had shamefully ignored. He established our very clear identity as the only real, undiluted pro-European party. We are all hugely indebted to him. It’s good, today, to be amongst friends. So please forgive me if I start by addressing people who are not yet our friends, but whom we might persuade. People who say they don’t know what we stand for, or that we are irrelevant.
Thursday
Letters | 14 September 2017
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Fat responsibility Sir: Prue Leith is right to note that the state picks up the bill for our national obesity problem (‘Our big fat problem’, 9 September). But the kind of large and expensive scheme she proposes only deepens the mindset that the government is responsible for our choices. Manufacturers should be forced to display hard-hitting facts about obesity on the labels of the unhealthiest food, in the vein of cigarette packets. This would leave people in no doubt about the consequences to their health, while avoiding extra cost to the state or punitive taxes which also hit those who exercise moderation.
Barometer | 14 September 2017
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Selfie-worth The animal rights charity Peta dropped a case claiming that a macaque which took its own photo was entitled to the royalties, rather than the camera owner (but only after the photographer agreed to donate a quarter of the royalties to animal charities). — The idea of animal property rights was advanced by Australian philosopher John Hadley in the Journal of Social Philosophy in 2005. He suggested animals be granted rights over territories and human guardians appointed to represent them in court. — There are issues still to be reconciled, however: what of non-territorial animals, and those which dispute each other’s territories? Would cats be expected to resolve differences in court rather than yowling at each other?
Red Tories
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Jeremy Corbyn has never been very keen on parliamentary democracy. He may be changing his mind now. The British electoral system has allowed him to strip the Conservatives of their majority, an extraordinary result that not even he had thought possible. As a reward, he can watch the government squirm as well as shape its policy. All he needs to do is threaten a vote which Theresa May thinks she might lose, and she buckles — as we are now witnessing. For some time, the Prime Minister had stood firm on the public sector pay cap, arguing that when you factor in generous pensions, the average government worker is still paid 10 per cent more than their private sector counterpart.
Portrait of the week | 14 September 2017
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Home The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill was given a second reading by 326 votes to 290, with seven Labour MPs rebelling against the whip. Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, said it would be quite all right for Britain to stay in the European Union after all, with agreed adjustments to the free movement of people. Jeremy Corbyn, the current Labour leader, said that it was ‘open for discussion’ whether Britain remained in the EU single market, though Labour’s policy is for Britain to stay in the single market after March 2019 for a temporary period. Sir Peter Hall, the founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company and a former director of the National Theatre, died aged 86.
2324: In the frame | 14 September 2017
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11, 42 and perimeter entries are titles of COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILMS. First prize B. Midgley, Ettington, Stratford-upon-Avon Runners-up Arabella Grandage, Bradenham, Bucks; D.G.
Sunday
Religion is on the decline – yet our society is underpinned by faith
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For Church of England vicars who worry less about what they will preach on Sunday than whether there will be any parishioners to listen to them, the latest findings of the British Social Attitudes Survey will make grim reading. For years the number of people professing religious belief in Britain has hovered around the 50 per cent mark. Now it seems to have dived decisively, plunging from 52 per cent to 47 per cent in just a year. According to a survey we are no longer a Christian country, but then neither — for all the squeals over sharia law — are we becoming much of a Muslim country, or indeed any other religion. Just 6 per cent of us profess a faith other than Christianity, down from 8 per cent last year. Our established national church is declining fastest of all.
Thursday
Letters | 7 September 2017
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The future of Lord’s Sir: Roger Alton (Sport, 2 September) has hit the spot and no doubt touched a nerve or two at the MCC. The club thinks it has been fair to all members in giving them a say in the future development of Lord’s, but it has sent out in an email to members a video which presents only the case for the committee’s preferred masterplan. Every respected speaker on that video, including my former captains Mike Brearley and Mike Gatting, are ‘pro’ the masterplan. Although some objections to it are raised, not one speaker is featured to endorse the aesthetic and financial benefits of the alternative Rifkind-Morley plan — which would have a completely different effect on the Nursery End of the ground.
Barometer | 7 September 2017
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More or less a million One in 79 Britons is now a millionaire thanks to property price rises. The word is first recorded in 1821, when £1 million was worth £100 million now. More modern-day values of millionaire: £24 million: 1956, when Cole Porter’s song ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’. featured in the film High Society. £20 million: 1962, when the Glaswegian song ‘Ma Maw’s a Millionaire’ was recorded. £7.8 million: 1975, when Dr Hook released their song ‘The Millionaire’. £1.7 million: 1998, when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? began on British television. Bigger bangs A North Korean nuclear test was estimated as the equivalent of 50,000 tonnes of TNT. How does that compare historically?
Keeping faith | 7 September 2017
From our UK edition
For Church of England vicars who worry less about what they will preach on Sunday than whether there will be any parishioners to listen to them, the latest findings of the British Social Attitudes Survey will make grim reading. For years the number of people professing religious belief in Britain has hovered around the 50 per cent mark. Now it seems to have dived decisively, plunging from 52 per cent to 47 per cent in just a year. According to a survey we are no longer a Christian country, but then neither — for all the squeals over sharia law — are we becoming much of a Muslim country, or indeed any other religion. Just 6 per cent of us profess a faith other than Christianity, down from 8 per cent last year. Our established national church is declining fastest of all.
Portrait of the week | 7 September 2017
From our UK edition
Home On being asked if she meant to lead the Conservatives into the next election, due in 2022, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said: ‘Yes. I’m in this for the long term.’ Echoing Peter Mandelson’s remark in 2001, she said: ‘I’m not a quitter.’ Research by Conservative Home found that 52 per cent of Conservative party members wanted her gone before 2022. A memo from Lynton Crosby sent in April, before Mrs May called an early election, turned up in the Mail on Sunday: ‘Clearly a lot of risk involved with holding an early election, and there is a real need to nail down the “why” for doing so now.’ The Duchess of Cambridge announced that she was expecting her third child.
Books and Arts – 7 September 2017
From our UK edition
to 2323: alphabetical jigsaw
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A Ambition, A Aorist, B Battledore, C Caret, C Cashed, C Coact, C Coalman, C Cuttoes, D Dioxan, D Disaccharides, D Drop, E Eerie, F Ferrer, G Goering, G Guitars, H Heteros, I Ileum, I Impanel, I Impecuniosity, I Interrupts, J Jinn, K Kraits, L Lanolin, M Melanesian, M Minim, M Morphemes, N Neurons, N Nonets, O Optics, P Pots, Q Quince, R Reassessments, R Re-echo, S Seville, S Standing stone, S Sustained, T Toe the line, U U-boat, U Undines, V Vivisect, W Wilted, X Xema, Y Yammer, Z Zenith. First prize Andrew Vernalls, Thame, Oxon Runners-up Andreas Fabian, Dunsden, South Oxon; and A.
School portraits | 7 September 2017
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Walhampton School The ethos at this prep school on the edge of Hampshire’s New Forest is very much one of living life to the full; history lessons involve re-enactments of the Battle of Hastings on horseback or the Battle of Trafalgar on a lake. Every year pupils go to ‘camp’ for a week at the end of the summer term; activities include day trips to RNLI stations, visits to local historical sites and a week on the Isle of Mull. Horse riding is also part of the curriculum, with a stable-full of ponies available for lessons. Walhampton describes itself as encompassing the ‘Swallows and Amazons spirit’, and aside from its fantastic location, it’s easy to see why.
School report | 7 September 2017
From our UK edition
New drive to promote ‘British values’ in schools The recently appointed Ofsted chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, has vowed to press ahead with the ‘active promotion of fundamental British values’ in schools. Speaking to an audience at Wellington College, Ms Spielman said that the terror attacks in London and Manchester had brought into ‘stark relief’ the scale of the threat posed by extremism in Britain. It was essential that the country’s children were equipped with the ‘knowledge and resilience’ required to confront the violent rhetoric peddled by those who ‘put hatred in their hearts and poison in their minds’, she said.
Saturday
Britain’s Brexit team must call Barnier’s bluff
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There is a growing perception that Britain is floundering in its EU negotiations, with a professional team from Brussels running rings around our bumbling amateurs. It is an idea that is being put about by the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, who this week appealed for Britain to begin ‘negotiating seriously’. As he has found out, the strange dynamic of British public debate at present means that EU spin is repeated uncritically by those hostile to Brexit. It can seem, at times, as if we are in the grip of hysteria normally seen during the final days of an election campaign. This is not to say that the British side has been faultless. The government has struggled to articulate the clear case for Brexit that we heard during the Leave campaign.
Thursday
Letters | 31 August 2017
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Campus censoriousness Sir: I am so grateful to Madeleine Kearns for having the courage to speak out about her experiences at university when others, including myself, remain silent (‘Unsafe spaces’, 26 August) . I have done the reverse of Madeleine in that I, a young American woman, moved from New York City to the UK for graduate school. One of the main factors in this decision to continue my education here is because I feel I have more academic and intellectual freedom. The idea of a balanced argument at my undergraduate university was ‘neoliberal’ versus ‘radically liberal’. We spoke of the importance of diversity, but political diversity was never considered.
Barometer | 31 August 2017
From our UK edition
Ethnic ethics Actor Ed Skrein withdrew from a cartoon film after protests that he had the wrong ethnic background to play a Japanese-American. Some famous performances which, on the same principle, could be regarded as unacceptable: — Laurence Olivier blacked up to play the lead role in the 1965 film of Othello. — Andrew Sachs, son of a German Jew, played Manuel the Spanish waiter in Fawlty Towers in 1975 and 1979. — Eddie Redmayne, who is not disabled, played Stephen Hawking in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything. — Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is of Puerto Rican descent, played founding father Alexander Hamilton in the Broadway musical Hamilton, which he also wrote.