Gym 3
From our UK edition
The Spectator
Thursday
Bikes
From our UK edition
Barometer | 16 February 2017
From our UK edition
Special forces Cathedral constables at York Minister got back their powers of arrest, which they had held from the 13th century until the 1930s. They will be allowed to carry batons and handcuffs. Other private police forces: — British Transport Police, which is almost entirely funded by the rail industry, has 3,069 officers with similar powers to those of regular police. — The Civil Nuclear Constabulary, with 1,500 officers, secures nuclear power plants and the transport of nuclear materials around the country. — Cambridge University Proctors, who used their powers of arrest mostly to detain prostitutes and unruly students, gave up policing powers in 1970 and now perform more of a ceremonial role.
Letters | 16 February 2017
From our UK edition
Living room Sir: Sajid Javid is quoted as saying that the biggest constraint on building more houses is the ‘lack of land’ (‘Javid’s home truths’, 11 February). While he is right to call for government intervention, I don’t agree with this view. We may live on a small island in relative terms, but that doesn’t diminish our actual land mass. For argument’s sake, let us say the average house takes up 100 square metres. This means that you could fit 10,000 houses into a single square kilometre. To put that into perspective, the Isle of Wight, with an area of 380 km², has the capacity to accommodate 3,800,000 houses. Obviously, housing estates require much less land.
Labour’s love lost
From our UK edition
Just as it seems that Labour has reached the bottom of the abyss, Jeremy Corbyn and his party somehow manage to find a new low. The latest nationwide poll puts them at 24 per cent, trailing the Tories by 16 points. No wonder Labour MPs look so boot-faced around Parliament, and an increasing number are hunting for jobs elsewhere. If a general election were called now, the Conservatives would win a huge majority. Labour would be further than ever from power, arguably even finished as a major parliamentary force. Polls are not rock-solid indicators of future electoral success or failure, but Labour’s ratings are so abysmal as to suggest a party facing an existential crisis.
Portrait of the week | 16 February 2017
From our UK edition
Home The Queen opened a new National Cyber Security Centre in London. Britain’s contribution to Nato has fallen below the promised 2 per cent to 1.98 per cent of gross domestic product, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, because GDP has grown. The annual rate of inflation measured by the Consumer Prices Index rose to 1.8 per cent in January, from 1.6 in December; by the new index to be used from March, called CPIH, which includes some housing costs, inflation had already reached 2 per cent. Unemployment fell by 7,000. Joe Root, aged 26, was made captain of England. A YouGov poll for the Times put Labour in third place among working-class voters at 20 per cent with Ukip at 23 per cent and the Conservatives at 39.
Books and Arts – 16 February 2017
From our UK edition
War and law
From our UK edition
From ‘The confiscation of enemy property’, The Spectator, 17 February 1917: It is perfectly possible to remove German influences without confiscating German property. This, as far as can be gathered, is the policy which the French have followed, and in their interest as well as in our own we ought also to follow it. The Germans, to give them in this matter the full credit which is due to them, have been very slow to take any steps against British property held in Germany… We do not wish to give them an excuse for fresh crimes. Our business is to punish them as a nation for the crimes they have already committed. In order to effect this object we have to concentrate all our energies upon beating our enemy in the field and on the sea.
Thursday
Letters | 9 February 2017
From our UK edition
No fear Sir: Why does Matthew Parris think I am ‘secretly terrified’ of having voted to leave the EU (‘Brexiteers need ladders to climb down’, 4 February)? Anyone over the age of 50 knew that choosing to vote Leave or Remain was not an easy decision. My own beliefs nudged me just far enough to vote Leave; my partner’s beliefs nudged him just far enough to vote Remain. Mr Parris admits that he can imagine Brexit being a surprising success, and I may have to face the fact that it could be a failure. We are both reasonable people. I was satisfied with the result, but since June I have shut up and kept my head down (I do live in Brighton!).
Barometer | 9 February 2017
From our UK edition
Match of the knights Emails emerged suggesting David Beckham would rather appreciate a knighthood. How many goals do you have to score for England (or what else do you have to do in football) to gain the honour? — Alf Ramsey (knighted 1967): 3 goals for England, won World Cup as manager — Bobby Robson (2002) 4 goals, took England to World Cup semi-finals — Trevor Brooking (2004) 5 goals, was chairman of Sport England — Stanley Matthews (1965) 11 goals — Tom Finney (1998) 30 goals — Bobby Charlton (1994) 49 goals (David Beckham scored 17 goals for England.
Portrait of the Week – 9 February 2017
From our UK edition
Home John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, said he was ‘strongly opposed’ to an address being made during a state visit by President Donald Trump, either in Westminster Hall or the Royal Gallery in the Lords: ‘I feel very strongly that our opposition to racism and sexism and our support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary are hugely important considerations,’ he said. Lord Fowler, the Lord Speaker, told the Lords: ‘I was not consulted,’ and added: ‘I will keep an open mind and consider any request for Mr Trump to address this Parliament.’ Alastair Cook, aged 32, resigned as captain of the England Test cricket team after 59 Test matches; he is England’s highest scorer in Tests, with 11,057 runs.
Trump fever
From our UK edition
Throughout John Bercow’s political career he has felt the need to atone for his student days when he was a member of the Monday Club. The Monday Club’s policy called for an end to Pakistani immigration, voluntary repatriation, and other ideas that would make Donald Trump blanch. Bercow now parades himself as a champion of liberal values and this week declared that he would not invite Trump to address Parliament on account of his ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’. He had welcomed China’s Xi Jinping and Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono, but decided he must draw the line at the President of the United States. In so doing, Bercow has helped demonstrate why Trump won the American presidential election. Through his bombastic language and taunting 3 a.m.
Books and Arts opener – 9 February 2017
From our UK edition
A special relationship
From our UK edition
From ‘The United States and Britain’, The Spectator, 10 February 1917: It would be easy to write down a hundred reasons why unclouded friendship and moral co-operation between the United States and Britain are a benefit to the world, and why an interruption of such relations is a detriment to progress and a disease world-wide in its effects. But when we had written down all those reasons we should not have expressed the instinctive sentiments which go below and beyond them all. To our way of feeling, quarrelling and misunderstanding between the British and American peoples are like a thing contrary to Nature.
Wednesday
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, 1971 – 2017: ‘a broad with a broad mind’
From our UK edition
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, the socialite and reality TV star, has died at the age of 45 from a brain tumour. In the 27 July 1996 issue of The Spectator, she advised people not to believe all that we read about her in the papers: It is agreeable to wake in the morning and find a national newspaper praising one's beauty. It is far less agreeable to discover that this praise has been set in the sour old mould of 'beauty rather than brains'. The Times diary recently printed two stories suggesting — not to put too fine a point on it — that I am stupid. In the first, I had apparently been introduced to a member of the Life Guards and asked him, 'Which beach?' In the second, I had joined a conversation about Sir James Goldsmith's party, saying, 'When is it happening?
Thursday
Letters | 2 February 2017
From our UK edition
Going Dutch Sir: As a Dutch man who lives in Britain, I found it heartening to read two such different but well-considered articles on the state of my home country (‘Orange alert’ and ‘Dutch courage’, 28 January). Douglas Murray is right to attack the Dutch government for its attempts to criminalise opinions it doesn’t like. I take issue, however, with his defence of Geert Wilders, who does indeed resemble Donald Trump in his eagerness to stoke outrage for political gain. His film Fitna, while pretending to be an honest statement about the nature of Islam, was really just an attempt to be so shocking as to provoke the liberal establishment into fierce condemnation, so that he could squawk about free speech. He is a hate-merchant.
Barometer | 2 February 2017
From our UK edition
Trump’s rivals More than 1.7m people signed a petition on Parliament’s website demanding that Donald Trump’s state visit be cancelled, and more than 200,000 one calling for it to go ahead. What are the most and least signed of the 2,500 or so other live petitions? Most signed Repeal new surveillance laws 209,000 Ban firework sales to public 150,000 Set £1,200 maximum price on car insurance for 18- to 25-year-olds 148,000 Least signed Offer discounted counselling to housing professionals 6 Plain bottles for alcoholic drinks 6 Scrap juries 6 Visiting rites Which countries have been awarded the most state visits to Britain?
Victims of hysteria
From our UK edition
This week, 49,000 gay men were granted posthumous pardons. Had Harold Macmillan’s government taken notice of this magazine in 1957 that number would have been far smaller. After the Wolfenden Report, we called for decriminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adults and at the time we stood out among Fleet Street publications in taking this view, earning us the appellation ‘The Bugger’s Bugle’. It would be tempting to think that the pardons, which form part of the Policing and Crime Bill, mark the end of a dark chapter. No longer, we are invited to believe, could good people like Alan Turing — himself pardoned in 2013 — be hounded to their deaths by misplaced and misapplied hysteria.
Portrait of the week | 2 February 2017
From our UK edition
Trump news Theresa May, the Prime Minister, let it be known that she was ‘very happy’ about having extended an invitation from the Queen to Donald Trump to make a state visit to Britain. An online petition calling for its cancellation had attracted more than 1.7 million signatures and a rival petition supporting it also gained enough signatures to warrant a Commons debate, scheduled for 20 February. Mrs May had left Washington in a brief interlude of happy achievement after being the first head of government to meet President Trump formally at the White House.
Books & Arts opener – 2 February 2017
From our UK edition