The Spectator

Friday

The Spectator

The Spectator at war: Left behind

From our UK edition

The Spectator, 29 August 1914: THE loafers in London look more pitiable than ever. The best have enlisted, and the rest are drinking to their good fortune and safe return. In the poorer streets a kind of holiday atmosphere prevails, and a sort of excitement which is in a measure pleasurable fills the air. The children rush out of school eager to go on playing at soldiers. The smallest boys tie tin cans about their persons and beat them with hoop-sticks as they march. In the byways of poor neighbourhoods London is still the London of thirty years ago. There is not much traffic. It is still possible to walk in the road if the street happens to be unusually full of people, and the children swarm in apparently greater number than where the traffic drives them to take cover indoors.

Thursday

The Spectator

Six rivals for the name Isis

From our UK edition

Not in their name The BBC decided to start calling the Islamic terror group Isis by the acronym IS instead. Some organisations who are retaining the name: — Isis Equity Partners London-based private equity group — The Isis Student magazine at Oxford University — Isis day spa and hair salon in Oxford (not to mention hair salons in Birmingham, Ascot, Sunningdale and Writtle) — HMP Isis Young Offenders’ Institution in Thamesmead — Isis Motors Secondhand car dealership in Hayes, Middlesex — Spirit of Isis Ethically sourced crystal shop in Bedford Fighting faiths It was claimed that more British Muslims are fighting for jihadist forces than have joined HM Forces. What is the declared religion of British servicemen? Christian 86% No religion 12.

The Spectator

Spectator letters: Indian soldiers, wigs, PR and 1984

From our UK edition

We do remember them Sir: I applaud Tazi Husain’s defence of the role played by Baroness Warsi at Westminster Abbey during the first world war and his own role in driving forward the Tempsford Memorial Trust (Letters, 23 August). But he is mistaken in believing that soldiers of the Indian army (and other Imperial forces) are not commemorated. The whole point of war memorials in the UK is to remember and honour the fallen of the town, village or institution that they came from, in that place. Few if any UK residents who fell in 1914–18 would have originated from the subcontinent. The proper place for such memorials would be their home towns in India (I use the word in its imperial, not current, context).

The Spectator

Who will be held to account for the horror in Rotherham?

From our UK edition

If Rotherham council were a family, its children would have been removed by social services long ago, and Ma and Pa Rotherham would be safely behind bars. Professor Alexis Jay’s report, which was published this week, reveals depravity on an industrial scale in the South Yorkshire town. At least 1,400 children, Prof. Jay estimates, were subjected to sexual exploitation between 1997 and 2013. Many were raped multiple times by members of gangs whose activities either were or should have been known about. Children were trafficked around the country to be abused. Those who put up resistance were beaten. And when they complained they were treated with contempt by the people who were employed to protect them.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 28 August 2014

From our UK edition

Home Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said that Britons who went to Syria or Iraq to fight could be stripped of their citizenship, if they had dual nationality or were naturalised. Her words came during a search for the identity of the British man in a video of the beheading of the American journalist James Foley. David Cameron had returned to London from his holiday in Cornwall to confer with security officials, but decided against recalling Parliament. In revenge the Daily Mail carried photographs of him in a wetsuit, which gave him a phocine look. Lord Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff, suggested Britain should deal with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, but Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, said: ‘That would poison what we are trying to achieve.