Street
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Oils
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Box 2
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Eurotunnel
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Rally 2
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Loft
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Nudist
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Beach 4
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Bedtime 3
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Island 8
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Cafe 2
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Letters | 6 August 2015
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Exploiting our charity Sir: Melissa Kite (‘Asking too much’, 1 August) is spot on about charity fundraising. This has changed charitable sentiment into an exploitable business asset. The consequences are bad for both givers — who are likely to become more cynical as time goes on and therefore less charitable — and the charities themselves, which will suffer in the long term from reluctance by donors to continue to give.
Portrait of the week | 6 August 2015
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Home Tom Hayes, aged 35, a former City trader who rigged the Libor rates daily for nearly four years while working in Tokyo for UBS, then Citigroup, from 2006 until 2010, was jailed by Southwark Crown Court for 14 years for conspiracy to defraud. The government sold a 5.4 per cent stake in Royal Bank of Scotland, for 330p a share, against the 500p or so that it paid six or seven years ago to save the banking group; the government now owns 73 per cent of RBS. Monitor, the regulator for health services in England, sent out letters ‘challenging the plans of the 46 foundation trusts with the biggest deficits’. Kids Company, the charity founded by Camila Batmanghelidjh, appeared likely to close.
Barometer | 6 August 2015
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Rogue traders Former UBS trader Tom Hayes was jailed for 14 years for rigging the Libor market. How long could you go down for financial misconduct? 19 months (plus a £100,000 fine) in the case of Julian Rifat, former trader at Moore Capital, convicted of insider trading in March this year. 7 years in the case of rogue trader Kweku Adoboli, convicted of fraud in 2012 after trading at UBS without taking out parallel hedged positions. 7 years for Alex Hope, who conned £5.5 million out of 100 investors via an unauthorised collective investment scheme. 13 years in the case of Nicholas Levene, convicted in 2012 after running an illegal £32 million Ponzi scheme.
Ted talk
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There was a grim inevitability that the name Edward Heath would one day be trawled up in connection with allegations of sexual abuse of children. As one of our few unmarried prime ministers, Heath always attracted speculation about his sexuality. The public image of a private man wedded to his career, content to spend his spare time playing music and sailing, has long given way to a presumption that he must have been a repressed homosexual. Because of our national obsession with paedophilia, this in turn has all too easily morphed into the suspicion that he had a sexual interest in underage boys. Anyone who tells the police that they were sexually assaulted as a child should be taken seriously, whatever the social and professional status of the alleged abuser.
The Spectator at war: End-of-year report
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From 'The End of the First Year', The Spectator, 7 August 1915: What of the future? Shall we be able to make as good a show in the second year of the war as we have in the first? We believe we shall make a far better show. The willingness to make sacrifices in order that we may win the war is far greater than it was a year ago, because the need for such sacrifices is far better understood. Next, though our preparation is not as great or as successful as it ought to be, it is infinitely more advanced than it was a year ago. We have not only a far stronger and bigger fleet than we had, but we have some three million more men under arms or in training than we had a year ago.
One year on
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From ‘The End of the First Year’, The Spectator, 7 August 1915: Terrible as have been the sufferings caused by the war—the agonies of the body for those who have fought and fallen wounded, and the agonies of the mind for those who have seen husbands, fathers, and sons go to their deaths or return maimed or ruined in health—the present writer cannot feel that sense of overmastering horror which the war seems to have inspired in certain minds. Some have been carried away so far by such thoughts that they tell us they wish their eyes had been closed for ever before the national tragedy began. The present writer can take up no such attitude as regards the war.
Wednesday
The Spectator at war: Should the Church say sorry?
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From ‘Apology’, The Spectator, 7 August 1915: Does any public body ever apologize to the world? Such a concerted effort has never, we think, been made through any authorized mouthpiece. The effect of such an experiment might be colossal. Suppose, if the supposition be not too absurd, that a Pope should apologize in the name of the larger half of Christendom for all the more glaring lapses of the Roman Church—for all the great persecutions, for all the great mistakes. Such action is not unthinkable, No Church has ever claimed to be infallible except in dogma and theoretic morality. The present Pontiff in his recent refusal to condemn the atrocities of the German troops has pointedly emphasized his own practical fallibility.
Tuesday
Robert Conquest: ‘There is something particularly unpleasant about those who, living in a political democracy, comfortably condone terror elsewhere’
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Robert Conquest, the historian of Soviet Russia who has died aged 98, was also The Spectator's literary editor between 1962 and 1963. The following essay was published in the magazine on 4 May 1961, in response to a letter published in the Times about the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The round robin on behalf of some supposedly Leftist cause is a well-established little nuisance which we should all have got used to by this time. The letter sent by Mr.
Come work for us: The Spectator is looking for an assistant production editor
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The Spectator is looking for an assistant production editor, to help us produce our magazine and supplements. The job will be three days a week, ideally Tuesday to Thursday, and initially on a six-month contract. What kind of person are we looking for? You are a careful, rapid and sensitive text sub capable of hitting tight deadlines with grace, and comfortable creating elegant layouts from template in Indesign. Your proofreading is reliable and judicious. Your headlines are both witty and to the point; you also know to rethink them so that they fly on the web and via social media. You can keep complex publishing projects running smoothly to timetable, chasing politely but firmly where necessary; you're happy taking the responsibility for bringing them home.