The four anagrams were 1A TROUNCES (defined by 7 BEATS), 12 COUNTERS (27 PARRIES), 21 CONSTRUE (10 INTERPRET) and 25 RECOUNTS (13 RELATES) First prize Lisa Bramley, Shaldon, Devon Runners-up Nick Huntley, Darlington; Lewis Osborne, Newton Mearns, Glasgow.
The children of Gaza are enduring horrendous suffering. The control of aid has been restricted. Innocent lives have been set at nothing. Ruthlessness well beyond the terms of realpolitik has put hundreds of thousands at risk. The people responsible deserve global condemnation. But instead it seems they are to be rewarded. It is Hamas which is responsible for the suffering in Gaza. The terrorist organisation has, for years, used its thugs to control international development assistance to enrich its leaders and subdue the population. Its murderous – indeed, genocidal – intent was made manifest on 7 October 2023 when it unleashed an assault on innocent Israelis which resulted in the biggest single loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.
Home Six people were arrested during a protest by 1,000 outside the Bell hotel in Epping, Essex, which houses asylum seekers; an asylum seeker had earlier been charged with sexual assaults in the town. The Conservative leader of the council said: ‘It’s a powder keg now.’ The number of migrants arriving in England in small boats in the seven days to 21 July was 1,030. The Lionesses, the England women’s football team, decided not to take the knee before winning their semi-final Euro game, after a player, Jess Carter, had been inundated with racist abuse on social media during the tournament.
Supreme idea Sir: My colleague Fergus Butler-Gallie is right about the deficiencies of the Church of England’s system for filling the See of Canterbury (‘Canterbury fail’, 12 July). May I make a modest proposal? Place untrammelled power of appointment in the hands of the sovereign. If there be no providence in Anglican polity we should become Catholics or dissenters. But if we think God is still working his purpose out through the Church by law established, we should have the courage of that conviction. Qualms about monarchs shaping the Church? It was Cyrus who brought the people of Israel back to Judea. We probably would not have the Nicene Creed without Constantine’s muscular intervention. And it cuts both ways: remember who puts the crown on the King’s head.
The unclued lights are the names of the principal members of the Spectator crossword compiling team since its inception in July 1981. 7 Across reveals JAC and DOC, while Mass appears in the red squares. The yellow squares can be arranged to spell La Jerazana.
Grand unions The BMA – or British Medical Association – called a five-day strike of junior doctors (which it now calls resident doctors). Some other grandly named trade unions: — Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (or Aslef) — Confederation of British Surgery — First Division Association (senior civil servants) — Royal College of Nursing — Royal College of Midwives — Society of Authors — Society of Radiographers Heat up Are heatwaves becoming more commonplace across Britain? Average number of days per year in which each county experiences a temperature in excess of 32°C (90°F): 1931-1960 0.17 1961-1990 0.25 1991-2020 0.40 2015-2024 0.
The United Kingdom’s immigration system is broken. Tens of thousands have entered the country who should not, and the bureaucracy which processes asylum cases is a creaking wreck. Those who do deserve a safe welcome are left in legal limbo for months, if not years. And yet the Home Office, which is responsible for this chaos, is not even the department in government with the most inefficient and unaccountable bureaucracy. That hard-fought distinction belongs to the Ministry of Defence, which combines profligacy in procurement with an inability to give armed forces families homes that meet even the most basic standards of decency.
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, agreed with President Emmanuel Macron of France that Britain could return perhaps 50 asylum seekers a week to France and accept in their place the same number of applicants through a regulated system. To celebrate, 573 people arrived that day in England in small boats, bringing the total for the week ending 14 July to 1,387. Moygashel Bonfire Committee in Co. Tyrone defended the placing of an effigy of a small boat with 12 migrants on a bonfire to usher in 12 July. Britain had, it was revealed, offered asylum to thousands of Afghan soldiers and their families caught by the accidental publication of their application for asylum in 2022; their resettlement was kept secret by a government super-injunction.
Watch Spectator editor Michael Gove, political editor Tim Shipman and assistant editor Isabel Hardman as they discussed where the Tories go from here, in a livestream exclusively for Spectator subscribers. The strange death of Tory England has been predicted before. But never has the ‘natural party of government’ faced a greater challenge to its survival. The Conservatives are facing attacks on all fronts from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK. Kemi Badenoch’s six-month anniversary as leader was marked by the loss of nearly 700 councillors – and testing elections await her next year in Scotland and Wales. She has promised change with her long-awaited policy commissions, ahead of a make-or-break party conference in October. But can she turn it around?
From our US edition
Daddy DoGE Despite Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s continued public fallout, DoGE is still slashing away at the federal workforce. From a peak of 3,015,000 employees on federal payroll in January, job cuts per month are as follows: February 13,000 March 11,000 April 13,000 May 25,000 June 7,000 Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics See ya later, alligator Would migrants at Florida’s “alligator Alcatraz” detention center be eaten by the surrounding wildlife if they managed to escape? “I guess that’s the concept,” said Trump. But which species would do the snacking? There are around 1.25 million American alligators in Florida which are native to the state.
NHS origins Sir: Your leading article ‘Wes or bust’ (5 July) credited Labour with founding the NHS. In fact, the NHS was founded during the second world war by the Labour, Liberal and Conservative coalition. The speech with the famous line ‘free at the point of use’ was in fact made by Winston Churchill. He made it because he was PM and it was his job. For Labour to claim to be the initiator is somewhat disingenuous. Edward Hirst Aston, Sheffield All aboard Sir: Michael Gove is quite right (‘Tracks of my tears’, 5 July): the retirement of the royal train is sad news for those of us who like trains and their history. Rather than the royal family viewing it as a liability, might it not still be a useful national asset?
Bertrand RUSSELL, whose surname is hidden in the final column, said, ‘There’s a BIBLE on that shelf there. But I keep it next to VOLTAIRE – POISON and ANTIDOTE.’ The other four unclued lights are two synonyms each of ‘poison’ (VENOM, TOXIN) and ‘antidote’ (MITHRIDATE, SERUM).
Home Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had given a theme to the week by sitting weeping behind Sir Keir Starmer during Prime Minister’s Questions. She later said: ‘It was a personal issue.’ Sir Keir said: ‘She will be Chancellor for a very long time to come.’ No. 10 said she and the Prime Minister were ‘in lockstep’. The government found itself short of the £5 billion it had meant to save in the welfare bill, thwarted by its own MPs. The Office for Budget Responsibility said that, with rising debt, ‘The UK’s fiscal position is increasingly vulnerable’. Asked whether she would rule out tax rises in the autumn, the Chancellor said: ‘I’m not going to, because it would be irresponsible for a Chancellor to do that.
Norman Tebbit, who died this week aged 94, was a self-made man who shouldered his way to the top of a party of old Etonians. He was, to many, the leather-clad bovver boy of Spitting Image, ordering the unemployed to get ‘on yer bike’. He was a devoted husband who stepped back from politics to care for his wife, Margaret, after they were pulled from the wreckage of Brighton’s Grand Hotel. And he was an unrepentant right-winger, who was unflinching about where his party had gone wrong, and unforgiving to the monsters who had put his wife in a wheelchair. This Middlesex grammar school boy turned airline pilot, turned cabinet minister, changed the country he loved for the better.
Only I was allowed to sit on the Golden Bidet of Lerici. Lord Byron sat on it as well as Percy Bysshe and Mary. D.H. Lawrence swung by and perched there like a demigod – as well as Frieda von Richthofen. Virginia Woolf sat on it in 1933 knocking out a beautiful sentence – Max Beerbohm banging at the door. Henry James dropped his drawers to sit on that glittering throne, his buttocks pale and tragic. I bestraddle the cosmic rocket. Five, four, three, two, one...
Movers and shakers Sir: As a parish priest of 35 years, I read Francis Pike’s account of his supernatural experiences (‘Happy mediums’, 28 June) with little surprise. Over the years, I have been approached by parishioners troubled by poltergeists, apparitions, unexplained odours, ‘friendly’ spirits and, in one case, cutlery and glasses flying off tables. In every instance, my approach has been the same. Accompanied by another person, I visit the home and enquire whether the household has been involved in any occult practices – Ouija boards, tarot cards, consulting mediums and the like. Almost invariably, the answer is yes. I then encourage repentance from such practices and a turning to Christ as Lord.
Twelve unclued entries can be paired to make six portmanteau words: CHILLAX (CHILL + RELAX), MOTEL (MOTOR + HOTEL), DRAMEDY (DRAMA + COMEDY), BLOG (WEB + LOG), FRENEMY (FRIEND + ENEMY) and COSPLAY (COSTUME + PLAY).
Labour swept to power on a pledge to ‘save the NHS’. As shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting said he would go ‘further than New Labour ever did’ to clear the health service’s backlog and, to achieve this, he claimed old taboos would be torn up, including the use of the private sector to improve services. Failure to clear the backlog now will be hugely politically consequential for this government. Partly because of how important the NHS is to the voting public, but more so because of the emotional resonance the service and its ‘free-at-the-point-of-use’ model has for Labour, both its MPs and its supporters. If the party that founded the NHS cannot save it, who can? That is why the NHS has been mostly immune to Rachel Reeves’s new austerity.
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, in the face of a rebellion by 120 backbenchers over the welfare bill, undertook to limit to new claimants restrictions on personal independence payments (Pip). Modelling by the Department for Work and Pensions predicted that 150,000 people might be pushed into ‘relative poverty’ by the revised welfare cuts, compared with 250,000 before. Still fearing defeat, the government made more last-minute concessions, postponing changes to Pip rules until after a review by Sir Stephen Timms, the disability minister. The government then won the second reading by 335 to 260, with 49 Labour MPs voting against. It was not clear that the eviscerated bill would reduce spending.
Watch Sarah Vine, author of How Not to Be a Political Wife, Michael Gove, Rachel Johnson, author of Rake’s Progress and Hugo Swire, as they discuss the losses and laughter involved in being married to politics. This live recording is exclusive to Spectator subscribers.
