to 2320: Crossings Out
From our UK edition
When BRIDGE is added to the unclued Across lights and FORD to the unclued Down lights (including each of the three components in 1 Down), they all become names of British towns.
The Spectator
Thursday
Sunday
Jeremy Corbyn still cannot bear to condemn his fallen idols in Venezuela
From our UK edition
Jeremy Corbyn finally broke his silence on Venezuela this week, but in the manner of a man who has his head buried in a very large bucket of sand. He condemned violence ‘on both sides’, painting the country’s problems as a battle between factions rather than a case of a repressive government snuffing out popular protests. No one would know from the Labour leader’s words that President Maduro’s regime is engaged in what the UN Human Rights Office described this week as a ‘widespread and systematic use of excessive force’. More revealing still was Corbyn’s reply when prodded on the economic and social conditions which led to the protests.
Thursday
Letters | 10 August 2017
From our UK edition
Unbearable wait Sir: Like Jenny McCartney, I too am fed up with flying (‘Civilised air travel? Pigs might fly’, 5 August). However, it’s not for any rudeness on the part of the staff, which I have as yet not encountered. Nor is it the lack of meals. Who needs them? No, it’s the agony of endless queues at the airport, the misery of taking off shoes and putting them back on, with no chairs supplied, and the confiscation of small items overlooked in packing. This is no fault of the air companies, but the rise in terror attacks has made such scrutiny necessary. I have ceased to travel long journeys by plane and try to manage with rail.
Barometer | 10 August 2017
From our UK edition
Out with a whimper Usain Bolt managed only a bronze in his last appearance in the 100 metres at the World Athletics Championships in London. Final appearances often don’t go to plan: — Don Bradman was bowled for a second-ball duck by Eric Hollies in his last Test at the Oval in 1948. Four runs would have given him a career average of 100. — Stanley Matthews bowed out in 1965 in a testimonial between his personal XI and an international XI, which won 6-4. — Pelé appeared for the last time in a Brazil-Yugoslavia friendly on 18 July 1971. The match ended 2-2, with neither of Brazil’s goals scored by Pelé. — However, Martina Navratilova did win her last match — the final of the mixed doubles at the US Open in 2006.
Portrait of the week | 10 August 2017
From our UK edition
Home British negotiators are prepared to pay up to £36 billion to the EU to settle the so-called divorce bill for Brexit, according to the Sunday Telegraph. By voting for Brexit, ‘the old have comprehensively shafted the young’, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Vince Cable, aged 74, wrote in the Mail on Sunday, ‘imposing a world view coloured by nostalgia for an imperial past on a younger generation much more comfortable with modern Europe.’ Lord Neuberger, who will retire as president of the Supreme Court next month, said that the government should ‘express clearly what the judges should do about decisions of the European Court of Justice after Brexit.
Corbyn’s fallen idols
From our UK edition
Jeremy Corbyn finally broke his silence on Venezuela this week, but in the manner of a man who has his head buried in a very large bucket of sand. He condemned violence ‘on both sides’, painting the country’s problems as a battle between factions rather than a case of a repressive government snuffing out popular protests. No one would know from the Labour leader’s words that President Maduro’s regime is engaged in what the UN Human Rights Office described this week as a ‘widespread and systematic use of excessive force’. More revealing still was Corbyn’s reply when prodded on the economic and social conditions which led to the protests.
to 2319: poem III
From our UK edition
The poem was Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’. The words from the poem are LEGS (16), TWO (17A), SANDS (26), NOTHING (37), KING (42), ANTIQUE (5), LAND (9), TRAVELLER (10), MET (23), DESPAIR (32). OZYMANDIAS (in the twelfth row) was to be shaded. First prize P.J.W.
Thursday
Letters | 3 August 2017
From our UK edition
No reason for subsidies Sir: For believers in free enterprise like me, it was hugely disappointing to read that Sir James Dyson, probably its most impressive UK exponent, has become a champion for taxpayer-funded subsidies for the farming industry (‘I like making things’, 29 July). He argues that they are necessary due to the cost of regulations and because other countries have them. In any global market that UK companies operate in, such excuses for subsidies exist. As Dyson has the biggest farm operation in the UK, his leading the call for the continuation of subsidies to match EU levels should probably not be surprising, but it is still not very inspiring. The value of farmland is now two and a half times what it was ten years ago.
Portrait of the week | 3 August 2017
From our UK edition
Home Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, appeared to wrest control of plans for Brexit from cabinet rivals, while Theresa May, the Prime Minister, was in Italy and Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, was in Australia. Mr Hammond foresaw a ‘transitional deal’ ending by June 2022, when the next general election is due. He said it would be ‘some time before we are able to introduce full migration controls between the UK and the European Union’. Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, insisted that the cabinet had not agreed to a three-year transition. Mr Johnson said he was unaware that Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, had announced a year-long inquiry about the costs and benefits of EU migration.
Crunch time
From our UK edition
For anyone considering a career in economic forecasting, the Bank of England’s inflation report for August 2007 ought to be required reading. A graph illustrating its Monetary Policy Committee’s ‘best collective judgment’ of annual economic growth two years ahead is fixed around a central prediction of 2.5 per cent, with extreme boundaries of 0.8 per cent and 4.2 per cent. But after two years, economic growth was running at –5.6 per cent, and the economy had just completed its fifth consecutive quarter of negative growth. The finest minds of Threadneedle Street could not see two years ahead.
to 2318: Groundwork
From our UK edition
SOIL (9) — cryptically indicated by ISLAND IN THE SUN (1A), the title of a SONG (40) recorded by HARRY BELAFONTE (43) — defines each of the other unclued lights. First prize Mrs P. Newbury, Linlithgow, West Lothian Runners-up C.
Thursday
Barometer | 27 July 2017
From our UK edition
But me no butts Boris Johnson, being taught a Maori head-to-head greeting, joked that it might be ‘misinterpreted in a pub in Glasgow’. But did he offend the wrong city? In 2007 the OED appealed for details on the origin of ‘Glasgow kiss’, meaning a headbutt. Then, its earliest known first use was in the Financial Times in 1987, whereas ‘Liverpool kiss’ (meaning the same thing) was traced back to 1944. The appeal pushed back the Glasgow first use, but only by five years to 1982, when the Daily Mirror said: ‘Glasgow has its own way of welcoming people... there is a broken bottle gripped in the first of greeting. Or there’s the Glasgow kiss — a sharp whack on the nose with the forehead.
Letters | 27 July 2017
From our UK edition
Bugs bite back Sir: Matthew Parris is quite right to say that we Leavers would prefer independence in reduced circumstances to affluent federalism (‘Dear Leavebugs, it’s time to admit your mistake’, 22 July). But he is wrong to suggest that our preference is a guilty secret, or that it should be. Many of us despaired at the narrowness of both referendum campaigns, which made no attempt at addressing our ‘spiritual’ concerns about EU membership, or indeed the equally spiritual hopes of the Remainers. Spiritual, moral and cultural questions are at the root of all politics and economics, and any debate which leaves them out is empty.
Portrait of the week | 27 July 2017
From our UK edition
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, invited the media to take a photograph of her beginning a holiday with her husband Philip at Lake Garda before pressing on to Switzerland for some walking. David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, resisted demands by Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament Brexit negotiator, that the European Court of Justice should retain jurisdiction over EU migrants in Britain. BMW said a fully electric Mini is to be built at Cowley in Oxford, with motors made in Germany and shipped over for assembly. The government announced plans to ban new diesel and petrol cars and vans from 2040. The number of people over 90 with a driving licence reached 100,000.
Playing chicken
From our UK edition
Besides being important in themselves, the trade talks between Britain and the United States which began this week are symbolic of the opportunities that should become available as we leave the European Union. For years we have dealt with the US, our biggest single customer, under burdensome tariffs and other regulation — but we had no choice. The EU handled trade policy and it never succeeded in completing a trade deal with any of its major trade partners. Britain, by contrast, has always been more global than Europe in its outlook. The vote for Brexit was, among other things, a vote to raise our sights to more distant horizons. At the time of the referendum, a bilateral trade deal with the US looked unlikely for political reasons.
to 2317:370
From our UK edition
The answer to the subtraction sum in the title is 1947. So all the unclued lights are celebrities who celebrate their 70th birthday this year. The first letter of each clue, read in order, announce Doc’s 70th birthday. First prize Emma Wood, Loscoe, Heanor, Derbyshire Runners-up Tom Richards, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire; George D.
Wednesday
Stop playing chicken with Britain’s free-trade future
From our UK edition
Besides being important in themselves, the trade talks between Britain and the United States which began this week are symbolic of the opportunities that should become available as we leave the European Union. For years we have dealt with the US, our biggest single customer, under burdensome tariffs and other regulation — but we had no choice. The EU handled trade policy and it never succeeded in completing a trade deal with any of its major trade partners. Britain, by contrast, has always been more global than Europe in its outlook. The vote for Brexit was, among other things, a vote to raise our sights to more distant horizons. At the time of the referendum, a bilateral trade deal with the US looked unlikely for political reasons.
Thursday
Barometer | 20 July 2017
From our UK edition
Smash the orange Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said the government’s Brexit plans could ‘fall apart like a chocolate orange’. But the point of a chocolate orange is that it doesn’t fall apart easily at all. Launched by Terry’s of York in 1932, many of its TV adverts have emphasised this theme: 1978 ‘Tap it and unwrap it’ — yokel shown tapping it lightly against tree trunk. 1998 ‘Whack and unwrap’ — man shown thumping it against a wall. 2010 ‘Smash it to pieces, love it to bits’ — several people struggle to break the orange, including a secretary with a phone and man who whacks it on a glass coffee table, breaking the table.
Letters | 20 July 2017
From our UK edition
Yes to Boris Sir: Get Boris (15 July)! Get Boris to be prime minister, in fact. He is the only possible candidate for the Conservatives who has the flair, the experience, the ideas and the sense of humour to rescue the party and the country from its current malaise. That he has opposition there is no doubt — but then so did Winston Churchill when he was recalled by Lloyd George in 1917 to be minister of munitions, and again in 1940 when he became prime minister. To sideline him at this time would be foolish in the extreme and a further example of the party’s ineptitude.
Portrait of the week | 20 July 2017
From our UK edition
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, told MPs before the summer recess: ‘No backbiting, no carping. The choice is me or Jeremy Corbyn. Nobody wants that.’ Her remarks followed a spate of leaks and negative briefings from cabinet ministers. It was said that Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had called public-sector workers ‘overpaid’. He responded by warning cabinet colleagues against leaking, but maintained a 10 per cent pay disparity was a ‘simple fact’.