The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

School report

From our UK edition

Teaching maths the Asian way English primary schools have received funding of £41 million to embrace the ‘Asian style’ of teaching maths. The method, used in Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong — all of which are at the top of Pisa’s study into the school performance of 15-year-olds — is more visual than the ‘normal’ British style of maths teaching, and focuses on children being taught in a mixed-ability group, rather than being divided into streams. The funding, announced in July, will allow 700 teachers to be trained in the Asian method, in addition to the 140 who have already completed their training.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 1 September 2016

From our UK edition

Behind the cover-up Some facts about Burkinis: — The Burkini was invented by Ahedi Zanetti, a Lebanese-born Australian businesswoman, in 2004 after watching her niece trying to play netball in a hijab. — Muslim lifeguards started wearing them on Sydney beaches in 2007. — According to Zanetti, 40% of her customers are non-Muslim. — Two years ago, several swimming pools in Morocco were reported to have banned them for hygiene reasons. Drowning by numbers Five men drowned at Camber Sands in Sussex after being trapped playing football on a sandbank. Where did the 311 people who drowned in Britain last year die?

The Spectator

Letters | 1 September 2016

From our UK edition

Against Boris Sir: In discussing my attitude to Boris (‘The Boris-bashers should be ashamed’, 27 August), Mary Wakefield is too kind — to Boris. She claims that I am agin him because he has no plan and no philosophy. Not so: my criticisms are nearer those of the Oxford contemporaries whom she cites and who described Boris as a ‘sociopath’. He is a charismatic narcissist in a long tradition stretching back to Alcibiades. Such characters have no moral, intellectual or political integrity, but have a sublime confidence in their ability to charm themselves out of every embarrassment. Mary goes on to claim that David Cameron had no plan either, and surrounded himself with ‘yes men’. David was once asked about his overall objective.

The Spectator

A rotten windfall

From our UK edition

It’s strange that, even now, the Brexit vote is routinely referred to as an expression of anger or frustration — as if the most easily baffled half of the population had voted in response to forces they could not understand. In fact, the result of the 23 June referendum seems to look wiser with every week that has passed. Of course, leaving has its risks. But 52 per cent of voters judged that a greater one lay in staying in a European Union that is changing all the time — and invariably for the worse.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 1 September 2016

From our UK edition

Home Britain rejected a call by Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France who hopes to return to power next year, ‘for the opening of a centre in England to process asylum requests for all those who are in Calais’. More than 9,000 migrants camp at the so-called Jungle near Calais; it was Mr Sarkozy who in 2003 helped implement the bilateral treaty that allowed Britain to place border officials on the French side of the Channel. Southern Rail reinstated 119 of the 341 daily services it cut in July. Katrina Percy resigned as the chief executive of the Southern Health NHS Trust following criticism that the deaths of people with mental illness or deficiencies had not been examined properly.

The Spectator

Churchill’s privilege

From our UK edition

From ‘Mr Churchill’s misfire’, The Spectator, 2 September 1916: There is nothing that democracy so much hates as unfair privilege, and Mr Churchill has enjoyed and has utilised an unfair privilege in getting himself in and out of the Army at his arbitrary will… The public now fully understands that his influence on our political life is almost wholly bad because it is wholly dissociated from any motive except that of personal advancement. He would, indeed, now be powerless either for good or for evil, were it not for the fact — or what appears to be the fact — that he still retains useful friends within the Cabinet who afford to him privileges which are denied to the ordinary man.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 25 August 2016

From our UK edition

Golden age problems Sir: Johan Norberg’s ‘Our golden age’ (20 August) is absolutely right — we do live in a golden age; antibiotics still work, we have less starvation, the world is open for trade, with all its benefits. But there is a fly in the ointment: human overpopulation. Global warming (if you believe in it), degradation of the environment, extinction of species, all are consequences of it. It is a result, in fact, of our success. The only country to have grasped the nettle — China — is now having second thoughts. Perhaps wind and solar power can provide for our needs when we are 70 million in these islands; but what when we are 80 million, 90, 100? And for the rest of the world? W.G.

The Spectator

Barometer | 25 August 2016

From our UK edition

Golden years How many Olympic events would Team GB have to win before we could earn back the gold reserves sold by Gordon Brown? — Olympic gold medals are in fact gold-plated silver and contain only 6g of gold. Between 1999 and 2002 Gordon Brown sold off 395 tons of gold — enough to mint 64.7m medals. Assuming the number of golds on offer at the summer Olympics remains 812, as at Rio, that would mean winning every event at 79,679 Olympiads, taking us to the games of ad 320736. — It would be a different story if, as last happened in 1912, the medals were solid gold. With 500g of gold in each medal, we could achieve the feat by ad 5848.

The Spectator

Better together

From our UK edition

This time two years ago, the United Kingdom stood on the brink of dissolution. The referendum on Scottish independence hung in the balance and momentum was with the nationalists. The optimism and energy of Alex Salmond’s campaign stood in admirable contrast to the shrill hysteria of Project Fear, the name given to a unionist campaign that churned out ever-less-credible warnings about what would happen after separation. The union was saved, but 45 per cent of Scots had voted to leave it. So the referendum had not closed the question, but left it wide open. At the time, the North Sea oil sector was still in fairly good health. In the SNP’s economic manifesto for independence, it gave estimates of up to £7.9 billion a year for oil revenues.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 25 August 2016

From our UK edition

Home Virgin Trains released videos showing that there were seats available when Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour party, was filmed sitting on the floor of a railway carriage saying: ‘This is a problem that many passengers face every day, commuters and long-distance travellers. Today this train is completely ram-packed.’ He then continued his journey in a seat. The RMT union called two more days of strikes for guards on Southern. Sir Antony Jay, the co-writer of the series Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, died, aged 86. British competitors returned from the Olympic Games in Rio with 67 medals, of which 27 were gold, beating their performance in the London games of 2012 and coming second in the medal table between the United States and China.

The Spectator

Just not cricket | 25 August 2016

From our UK edition

From ‘The bed-rock of war’, The Spectator, 26 August 1916: As a rule in war the bowling has a great advantage over the batting, but it happens that the newest fashion in combat has given a great temporary advantage to the defence. To break a trench line which rests like that of the Germans on the sea and on a neutral country is a task demanding almost superhuman efforts, and yet it must be attempted and accomplished unless we wish the war to drag on for another three years, drag on until attrition has done its dire work, and done it, alas, on us and our allies almost as much as on our enemies.

Wednesday

The Spectator

An independent Scotland would now be bankrupt

From our UK edition

This time two years ago, the United Kingdom stood on the brink of dissolution. The referendum on Scottish independence hung in the balance and momentum was with the nationalists. The optimism and energy of Alex Salmond’s campaign stood in admirable contrast to the shrill hysteria of Project Fear, the name given to a unionist campaign that churned out ever-less-credible warnings about what would happen after separation. The union was saved, but 45 per cent of Scots had voted to leave it. So the referendum had not closed the question, but left it wide open. At the time, the North Sea oil sector was still in fairly good health. In the SNP’s economic manifesto for independence, it gave estimates of up to £7.9 billion a year for oil revenues.

Friday

The Spectator

It’s time to defend Brexit

From our UK edition

One of the many incorrect predictions about this year’s referendum was that those who voted for Brexit would soon regret it. The theory was that these deluded souls only intended to lodge a protest vote, and would be overcome with buyers’ remorse as Britain fell headlong into a deep recession. Two months after the referendum, there is precious little regret. Polls suggest that just 5 per cent of those who backed Brexit wish they hadn’t; the same is true for those who voted Remain. However, the Remainers have moved quickly and effectively into post-campaign mode and have found a new vocabulary. Their new enemy is ‘hard Brexit’. They seize on every piece of bad economic news while rubbishing renegotiation prospects.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 18 August 2016

From our UK edition

Losing game Sir: Matt Ridley is completely right (‘Don’t grouse about grouse’, 13 August). I am lucky enough to live at Blakeney in north Norfolk with a clear view to Blakeney Point. But since the RSPB, Chris Packham and the National Trust got their hands on Blakeney, things have changed dramatically. I walk every day on and around the marshes and the Blakeney Freshes. This morning — a brilliant, calm day — I strolled for an hour and apart from a couple of warblers, crows and several black-backed gulls, that was it. When my wife and I came to Blakeney 35 years ago it was markedly different. From our room we would see dozens of lapwings, curlews, warblers, curlews, avocets and waders of all types. Not now.

The Spectator

Defending Brexit

From our UK edition

One of the many incorrect predictions about this year’s referendum was that those who voted for Brexit would soon regret it. The theory was that these deluded souls only intended to lodge a protest vote, and would be overcome with buyers’ remorse as Britain fell headlong into a deep recession. Two months after the referendum, there is precious little regret. Polls suggest that just 5 per cent of those who backed Brexit wish they hadn’t; the same is true for those who voted Remain. However, the Remainers have moved quickly and effectively into post-campaign mode and have found a new vocabulary. Their new enemy is ‘hard Brexit’. They seize on every piece of bad economic news while rubbishing renegotiation prospects.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 18 August 2016

From our UK edition

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, who was supposed to be on a walking holiday in Switzerland, wrote to Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, saying that she wanted to strengthen Britain’s trading relationship with China despite uncertainty over the construction of the nuclear power station at Hinkley Point. During her absence and that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer from Britain, Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, was the ‘senior minister on duty’, Downing Street conceded. Regulated rail fares in England and Wales and regulated peak-time fares in Scotland will rise by 1.9 per cent in January, that being the annual rate of inflation in July, as measured by the Retail Prices Index (up from 1.6 per cent the month before).

The Spectator

Barometer | 18 August 2016

From our UK edition

Four-letter surveys A judge at Chelmsford Crown Court who was sworn at by a man she was sentencing to jail swore back at him from the bench. How common is swearing? — A study in 1980 by Timothy Jay of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts analysed 11,609 words of everyday conversation and found 70 taboo words — a rate of 0.7%. — A similar study in Britain in 2006 suggested that between 0.3% and 0.5% of words we utter are swearing, and a 2007 US study suggested a rate of between 0.5% and 0.7%. According to the latter, Americans utter between 15,000 and 16,000 words a day, 80–90 of them taboo.

The Spectator

Iron birds

From our UK edition

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 19 August 1916: The Parliamentary Air Committee having recently inhaled much ozone at giddy heights, during their visits to a R.F.C. park, have breathed some of it forth in a brilliant idea. They propose that the present clumsy and ugly system of designating aircraft by numbers and letters should be replaced by the names of birds. The machines would be grouped in classes, and each class would have a distinctive name. The names of seabirds would be given to seaplanes and the names of land birds to Army aeroplanes.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 11 August 2016

From our UK edition

The hate is real Sir: It is clearly an exaggeration to call Britain a bigoted country (‘We are not a hateful nation’, 6 August), but downplaying the recent wave of xenophobic and racist incidents across the UK as ‘somebody shouting something nasty on a bus’ is equally wrong. Verbal abuse in itself is worthy of condemnation, yet the character of recorded harassment is actually much more serious. In the past few weeks, Poles in this country were shocked by vulgar graffiti (West London; Hertfordshire; Portsmouth) and hurtful leaflets (Cambridgeshire) urging them to ‘go home’ in most offensive ways possible, while a family in Plymouth fell victim to an arson attack.

The Spectator

Barometer | 11 August 2016

From our UK edition

The end of an emperor — 82-year-old Emperor Akihito of Japan has announced that he wants to abdicate, partly, he said, because he doesn’t want Japan to come to a standstill in the event of him falling ill, as with previous emperors. — When Emperor Hirohito was diagnosed with duodenal cancer in 1987, the news was not reported; nor, it is said, was the emperor told. But within a year it became clear that he was seriously ill, because he had to cancel appearances. TV reporters camped outside the palace; weddings and autumn festivals were cancelled. When Hirohito died on 7 January 1989, aged 87, there were 48 days of mourning, though people seem to have grown weary by the funeral in February: only 200,000 turned up for the procession, when police expected 800,000.