The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

How hot is too hot to work?

From our UK edition

Gold standard The Paralympics were instigated in 1948 and first held alongside the Olympics in Rome in 1960. But disabled athletes were competing in the Olympics long before that – notably George Eyser, a German who settled in St Louis, USA. That he had lost a leg after being run over by a train and wore a wooden prosthetic did not stop him taking up athletics and gymnastics. When the Olympics came to his city in 1904 he won three golds: in the parallel bars, long horse vault and 25ft rope climb. He won three other medals, on the pommel horse, horizontal bars and in a team event. He also competed in the triathlon, which in those days consisted of a 100m run, the long jump and shot put – but came last. Ship shape How dangerous is it at sea?

Wednesday

The Spectator

Mark Zuckerberg is really sorry for censoring you

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee yesterday that the government pressured his company to censor content during the Covid-19 pandemic and said he regrets following their wishes. The committee described his comments as a “big win for free speech.” Meta produced thousands of documents for the committee’s investigation into alleged government censorship and Zuckerberg wrote the supplemental letter to outline what he had learned during the process. “In 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain Covid-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” he said.

Zuckerberg

Monday

The Spectator

Trump honors fallen soldiers of Abbey Gate

Former president Donald Trump made a surprise appearance at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday to lay a wreath and pay his respects to the thirteen American service members who were killed during a suicide bombing amid the military withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack, which was a tragic source of national embarrassment as America left the twenty-year long war and has been a continuous political thorn in the side of President Joe Biden. While Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both released statements recognizing the fallen service members, Biden is currently at the beach (in fact, he is on vacation all week long) and Harris has no public events on her schedule.

abbey gate

Friday

The Spectator

Kamala wraps up her coronation

Chicago Pour one out for the Beyhive. For the bulk of the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the topic of conversation was: who is the mystery guest? The speculation ran rampant but was mostly focused on the myth of the goddess — Beyoncé herself was going to descend from the sky to affirm the ascendance of Kamala Harris. And then it turned out that the bright shiny mystery box contained... nothing at all. Too bad, so sad. But this itself seems in keeping with the 2024 cycle, where all promises decay into a great big pile of fail.For the delegates and consultants, this was a perfectly fine convention, logistical failures aside — a daily hammering of the impending evil and danger of a second Donald Trump term.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: we have let down white, working-class boys

From our UK edition

The lost boys Sir: The only statement in your powerful leading article (‘Boy trouble’, 17 August) which can be challenged is that ‘the plight of poor white boys is a new burning injustice’. It is certainly not ‘new’. Even 40 years ago when the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) produced policies designed to counter inequality affecting girls, it was obvious that the problem was no less serious for white working-class boys. But the subject was highjacked by those obsessing about girls, with the results described in your article 40 years later. During the hijacking (for which he was not responsible), ILEA’s former leader Sir Ashley Bramall said to me: ‘Perhaps we should also be worried about the boys.

The Spectator

Which European countries are most affected by forest fires?

From our UK edition

Grand tours When was there last a genuine British royal tour of Colombia? While the late Queen never visited the country, the then Prince Charles and Duchess of Cornwall spent several days there in October and November 2014. They visited the Peace and Reconciliation Centre in Bogota, and Charles attended a conference on the ‘Health of the Oceans’. The last working royal to visit was Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, last November, when she attended United Nations events tackling violence against women and girls. Burning question Which European countries are most affected by forest fires? Average percentage of land area burned each year: Portugal 1.02 Greece 0.38 Cyprus 0.3 Croatia 0.24 Italy 0.19 Spain 0.16 Bulgaria, Romania 0.

The Spectator

Labour’s union problem

From our UK edition

Less than two months in, one aspect of Keir Starmer’s government is becoming clear. This administration is closer to the trade unions than any we have had in the past 45 years. It is not just that the government has ceded readily to wage demands from teachers (a 5.5 per cent rise this year), junior doctors (22 per cent over two years) and train drivers (15 per cent over three years) – it has done so without seeking any agreement to changes in working practices. Given the abysmal productivity record of the public sector in recent years, especially since the pandemic, this is a remarkable omission. The government’s failure to represent tax-payers’ interests in these pay awards serves as an invitation for further unreasonable demands.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: prisoners are freed, Ted Baker closes and train drivers announce strikes 

From our UK edition

Home Emergency measures, known as Operation Early Dawn, were brought in to ease prison overcrowding. Defendants would be summoned to a magistrates’ court only when a space in prison was ready for them, the government said, and would be kept in police holding cells or released on bail while they awaited trial. The measures at first affected the north and the Midlands. By the beginning of the week, 472 people had been charged with offences arising from the recent public disorder; 300 had appeared in court in the preceding week. Donna Conniff, aged 40, the mother of six children, was jailed for two years for throwing a brick at police during a disturbance in Hartlepool.

Wednesday

The Spectator

DNC dazzled by the Obamas

Chicago We are back with another dispatch from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which is on its third day following Tuesday night remarks from Senator Bernie Sanders, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Michelle and President Barack Obama.The DNC crowd was thrilled to hear from the Obamas, but the reality of their speeches was much more grim. Michelle, despite being one of the most successful and beloved black women in America, is still peddling the trope that America is a hopelessly racist country.

Monday

The Spectator

Protesters swarm Chicago ahead of DNC

Pro-Palestinian protesters swarmed Chicago in preparation for the Democratic National Convention this week, setting the stage for a clash between the traditionally pro-Israel Democratic establishment and the progressive activist class. On Sunday night, protesters clashed with police and charged both major political parties with “genocide” for sending aid and weapons to Israel amid its war against Hamas. Thousands showed up at Union Park on Monday afternoon, far short of the 30,000-40,000 expected, but still a significant contingent. Signs held by blue-haired, masked protesters in cargo pants referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “killer Kamala” and said that the “slaughter” of Palestinians would be President Joe Biden’s legacy.

Letters
The Spectator

Letters from Spectator readers, September 2024

The cunning of the Democrats’ lawfare Wow! A tour de force of snark! But wonderful for it. My late father-in-law would have said that instead of brushing his teeth in the morning, the author gets a file and sharpens his tongue. As depressing as this article is, it is likely an accurate assessment of what’s going on. Particularly the image of Trump and Biden essentially playing the roles of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the Grumpy Old Men movies. Carry on, America. Down Under, we have our own problems, as well as being affected by yours, same as every other country. — David Gerber Tellingly prescient. The 800-pound gorilla the next generation will be forced to address will be unsustainable entitlement transfer payments.

Culture
The Spectator

This month in culture: September 2024

Slow Horses, season 4 Apple TV+, September 4 Apple TV+’s adaptations of Mick Herron’s excellent espionage novels, led by Gary Oldman on magnificent form as the belching, flatulent, brilliant Jackson Lamb, have quietly become the streaming service’s MVP, and their strong showing in this year’s Emmy nominations has reinforced the company’s continued faith in the unmissable series. This fourth installment, based on Herron’s novel Spook Street, guest stars the ever-excellent Hugo Weaving as a mysterious interloper with a close personal connection to Jack Lowden’s bratty Bond-in-training River Cartwright. Expect the usual mixture of big laughs, shocking twists and high-octane action scenes.

Friday

The Spectator

Kamala unleashes radical economic agenda

The long wait for Vice President Kamala Harris’s policy platform is over... well, at least on the economic front. Harris released her economic plan on Friday after weeks of running at the top of the ticket for the Democratic Party. The rollout, however, was less than stellar, as Harris proposed a mix of Soviet-style price controls with more popular policies pilfered from former president Donald Trump’s speeches and policy platforms.Harris said in the past week that she would end taxes on tips for service workers, which Trump promised back in June to do. The plan also runs counter to policies the Biden-Harris administration implemented that empowered the IRS to go after serviceworkers’ tips. Today, reports said Harris also intended to increase the child tax credit to $6,000.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: Britain doesn’t have a ‘two-tier’ policing problem

From our UK edition

Less is more Sir: While I wholeheartedly agree with Toby Young’s observation that ‘more censorship would make things worse, not better’ (No sacred cows, 10 August), I’m confused by his remedy – ‘more and better speech’. First, how does one decide what better even means, without it becoming a form of censorship? Second, and perhaps more worryingly, it feels like something Stalin might appreciate. ‘Quantity has a quality of its own,’ he once said. In their different ways, both incessant social media and weekly magazines rather disprove that.

The Spectator

How do Britons get their news?

From our UK edition

SS-GB The car company Jaguar said it won’t make any new cars for a year as it re-invents itself as an electric-only car company. For a long time the automatic choice of stockbrokers in the ‘gin and Jag belt’, the company had beginnings that were less luxurious. It was founded in 1922 as the Swallow Sidecar Company to make sidecars for motorbikes. It produced its first car, a two-seat open tourer, in 1935, by which time the company was known as SS Cars. Remarkably, it retained this name almost entirely throughout the second world war until, to escape associations with the Nazis, it was renamed Jaguar – a brand name it had previously used on sidecars. Info wars Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson wants children to be taught how to spot misinformation online.

The Spectator

2664: First name terms – solution

From our UK edition

The unclued lights can be sorted into four trios of forenames in a reducing anagram chain: MONICA, NAOMI, MONA (4,31): DECLAN, LANCE, NEAL (12,24,36): SINEAD, DIANE, ENID (33,15,34) and ALISON, SONIA, SIAN (42,13). First prize E.C.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: riot justice, Olympic success and Ukraine’s Russian advance

From our UK edition

Home Riots subsided after 7 August, a night when many were expected but only empty streets or demonstrations against riots eventuated. By 12 August there had been 975 arrests and 546 charges in 36 of the 43 police force areas in England and Wales. Rioters could be released from jail after serving 40 per cent of their sentence, as part of the early release scheme to ease prison overcrowding, Downing Street said. Ricky Jones, a councillor for Dartford, now suspended from the Labour party, was remanded in custody after being charged with encouraging violent disorder in Walthamstow.

The Spectator

What today’s A-level results reveal about boys

From our UK edition

In her first speech as Chancellor, Rachel Reeves made much of being the first woman to hold that position. ‘To every young woman and girl,’ she said, ‘let today show that there should be no ceilings on your ambitions.’ Britain has already had three female prime ministers, two female foreign secretaries and six female home secretaries – so what makes Reeves think that girls and young women have low ambitions? This week’s A-level results and accompanying university offers will show that it’s the boys she should be more worried about. For every 100 girls who secure a university place this week, about 75 boys will do the same For every 100 girls who secure a university place this week, about 75 boys will do the same. Why should that be?