The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 25 June 2015

From our UK edition

Free trade with Africa Sir: Nicholas Farrell suggests that a naval blockade is the only solution to Italy’s immigration crisis (‘The invasion of Italy’, 20 June). Examining the causes of the situation might identify other measures. Since the European Union effectively closed its borders to trade with Africa to protect European farmers from lower food prices, the agricultural economies of most African countries have been in decline. Of course there is another reason for Africa’s decline. About 60 years ago, the Europeans found it convenient to convince themselves that in Africa self-government was better than good government. It followed that aid would be a convenient substitute for the risks or inconveniences of free trade.

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Barometer | 25 June 2015

From our UK edition

The spirit of 1945 No one would have been more surprised at the sight of 100,000 people marching in London under the banner ‘End Austerity Now’ and demanding ‘Tories Out’ than Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade and briefly Chancellor of the Exchequer in Attlee’s government. — Hard though it might be to remember now, but austerity was once a proud Labour policy. The rationale of the policy, devised by Cripps, was that by suppressing private consumption, resources could be spent instead on boosting exports. — Any anti-austerity march in 1947 would have been led by the Conservatives, whose slogans of the time included ‘Starve with Strachey’ and ‘Shiver with Shinwell’.

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Portrait of the week | 25 June 2015

From our UK edition

Home Tens of thousands took part in a demonstration in London against austerity, and thousands more in other cities. Russell Brand was heckled for being too right-wing: ‘Fuck off back to Miliband,’ protestors in Parliament Square cried. David Cameron, the Prime Minister, explaining his thinking on further benefit cuts: ‘There is what I would call a merry-go-round: people working on the minimum wage having that money taxed by the government and then the government giving them that money back — and more — in welfare.’ The government sold more shares in the Lloyds Banking Group, bringing its ownership to less than 17 per cent.

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Laying down the law

From our UK edition

A great test of political leadership is how well you deal with vested interests on your own side. In his first speech as Lord Chancellor this week, Michael Gove has shown himself willing to tackle a profession which has long been comfortable with Conservative governments and whose reform, as a consequence, is long overdue. A legal system designed from scratch would not resemble what we have now. The only thing wrong with Michael Gove’s observation that Britain has a ‘two-nation’ justice system is that he should really have said three nations. Like the central London property market, the courts have become the preserve of the very rich and the very poor. The middle is excluded. The rich can afford to revel in the pantomime.

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The Spectator at war: Good sons and noble mothers

From our UK edition

From 'Humours of War Relief in the East End’, The Spectator, 26 June 1915: There may be often in the minds of the mothers and wives a little confusion as to what their menkind are actually doing at the war, but they frequently give a dashing and graphic description of what they imagine it to be, such as "Quelling them Turks," or "following up the Indians and Russians," while another said her son was "driving a motor in the mountainous parts of Paris." Anyhow, they make a better shot than the Hampshire farm yokel, who said he "’eard 'ow as our Bill is in the Sewage Canal, because o' them turkeys.

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The Russians are coming

From our UK edition

From ‘The Inexpugnability of Russia’, The Spectator, 26 June 1915: At this moment, after nearly a year’s fighting, Russia is only just beginning to be mistress of her resources in men and munitions. The hardy soldiers of her Far Eastern provinces are in many cases only just beginning to be got ready for the firing line. But though Russia is slow ‘she gets there just the same’. Her hundred and seventy millions of population have not yet really begun to make their presence felt in Poland, though we may be sure that they will do so before many months have passed. The giant limbs are stirring, even though the giant is not yet properly awake.