2652: A and M – solution
From our UK edition
The unclued Across lights are makes of AUSTIN (in yellow) cars and the unclued Down lights are MORRIS (in red) cars, hence A and M in the title.
The Spectator
Thursday
Portrait of the Week: Infected blood apologies, falling inflation and XL bully attacks
From our UK edition
Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said: ‘I want to make a wholehearted and unequivocal apology’ for a ‘decades-long moral failure at the heart of our national life’, as described in the report by Sir Brian Langstaff from the Infected Blood Inquiry, which found that successive governments and the NHS had let patients catch HIV and hepatitis. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, apologised too. So far more than 3,000 have died, of the 30,000 infected with HIV or hepatitis C from blood products or transfusions between 1970 and the early 1990s. Interim compensation of £210,000 will be paid to some within 90 days. BT postponed until January 2027 a deadline for forcing customers to switch from copper-based landlines to internet-based services.
A summer election is suicide for the Tories
From our UK edition
As soon as Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons that ‘there is going to be a general election in the second half of this year’, nervous Tory MPs spotted a problem: that could mean 4 July, which the Prime Minister has now announced will be the election date. Calling an early election is an admission of defeat – and that, on everything from public finances to public services, the worst is yet to come With every opinion poll pointing to a Labour landslide, it’s unclear what Sunak is trying to gain – unless he has given up hope of victory altogether. Calling an early election is an admission of defeat and signals that, on everything from public finances to public services, the worst is yet to come. Of course, holding the line until November would have been tricky.
Wednesday
Will Trump be a convicted felon?
Former president Donald Trump’s defense team chose to rest in the so-called “hush-money” trial in Manhattan on Tuesday, moving the case forward to closing arguments next week and then jury deliberations. Trump did not end up testifying in his own defense, which he had suggested earlier in the trial he might do. Instead, the defense called only one significant witness: Robert Costello, an attorney and former advisor to Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani. Costello testified that Cohen told him previously that he had nothing incriminating to offer prosecutors about Trump and that he told him “numerous times” Trump did not know anything about payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
At Home with Emily Brontë
From our UK edition
Ironing is her favourite task. The rhythm and the steam transport her to an outer state more vivid than a dream – a place of creased and crumpled hills, a wet and heavy land through which a burning body moves, directed by her hand. Each stroke a stride, the rugged earth dissolves into a plain whence she can touch the brooding clouds and taste the coming rain. This wide expanse, this untrod moor she spreads out fresh each day and, godlike, when she’s done with it she folds the world away.
Monday
Biden’s rough weekend
President Joe Biden had a rough weekend, committing at least three major gaffes during his public engagements. The president usually spends his weekend at one of his homes in Wilmington or Rehoboth Beach to get a respite from working at the White House. His recent appearances were a reminder as to why.Biden was the featured speaker at the commencement ceremony for historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta. But his speech was panned by critics who accused him of being divisive and treating the graduates as if they are victims because of their race. He also claimed his White House was filled with Morehouse graduates, telling the crowd, “I got more Morehouse men in the White House telling me what to do than I know what to do! You all think I’m kidding, don’t you?
Friday
Mayorkas’s daughter is on ‘national security threat’ TikTok
After offering explanations for why TikTok presents a danger to US security, Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted Friday that his college-aged daughter uses the controversial app.At a “signature event” held by the Economic Club at the capital’s Marriott Marquis Hotel, the club’s president, David Rubenstein, sat for a lengthy conversation with the secretary. On immigration, Rubenstein pressed him, asking about asylum policy, increasing encounters and whether having a physical barrier would have helped curb illegal crossings. This reporter asked Mayorkas if the administration was preparing for any policy changes given they recently hired two new senior-level officials.
Thursday
2651: Visionary – solution
From our UK edition
The Turner works were RAIN STEAM AND SPEED (5,44) and THE SLAVE SHIP (35), the Ruskin works MODERN PAINTERS (16,9) and UNTO THIS LAST (18) First prize Geran Jones, Bromley Runners-up Nigel Finlay, Thames Ditton, Surrey; Michael Debenham, Shrewsbury.
Letters: how to get the uni protestors out
From our UK edition
Soft left Sir: I read with a certain wry amusement in Yascha Mounk’s piece that ‘activists’ occupying Columbia were demanding the university administrators should supply them with food and water (‘Preach first’, 11 May). How times have changed. In winter 1976 I was the president of the student body at Edinburgh University. A group of ultra-left activists occupied a building of the social science faculty. The administration sent two members of staff to speak to me in the hope that I might be able to dislodge them. I explained very patiently to them that given my own unashamed Conservatism, there was unlikely to be any meeting of minds on this matter.
When was the last genuine royal tour of Nigeria?
From our UK edition
Royal welcomes The Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited Nigeria last week. When was the last genuine royal tour of that country? – The late Queen made a 20-day visit in 1956, four years before Nigeria’s independence. She went for three days in 2003 when she opened the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.– The then Prince Charles visited in 2018, when he joined a Peacebuilding and Interfaith Engagement, laid a wreath at the Commonwealth War Graves memorial in Abuja and attended a talk on poultry-rearing. Faith in politics A Liberal Democrat candidate in Sutton and Cheam has been deselected allegedly because of his Christian faith. How do religious groups tend to vote?
Portrait of the Week: Natalie Elphicke defects, wages rise and Switzerland takes Eurovision
From our UK edition
Home The parliamentary Labour party shook itself uneasily after Natalie Elphicke, the MP for Dover, crossed the floor of the Commons and joined it, because she found the Conservatives too left wing. Monty Panesar, the former England cricketer, left George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain a week after being announced as a parliamentary candidate. Some Liberal Democrat party members complained to the Equality and Human Rights Commission about the deselection as a candidate for Sutton and Cheam of David Campanale, an Anglican. The Commons voted by 170 to 169 for MPs arrested for serious sexual or violent offences to be banned from attending parliament. The government bruited plans to stop sex education for under-nines and restrict teaching about gender.
Britain should embrace the AI revolution
From our UK edition
Rishi Sunak’s big speech this week was easily lampooned. Having accused Keir Starmer of ‘doomsterism’, the Prime Minister warned that Britain’s most dangerous years lay ahead, and talked of the threat from ‘colluding authoritarian states’. Less attention was paid to the part of his speech about artificial intelligence, which was in fact genuinely optimistic. As well as bringing greater freedom, choice and opportunity, AI could double productivity ‘in the next decade’, he said.
Wednesday
Biden and Trump say ‘YES’ to debates
After months of speculation — will they, won’t they? — President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump have officially agreed to a set of two presidential debates. In a rather surprising move, Biden released a statement indicating he would not participate in the fall debates sanctioned by the Commission on Presidential Debates (a wholly partisan sham organization, by the way, as my colleague Ben Domenech points out here). Instead, Biden laid out his own set of conditions to his opponent: there will be no audience, no RFK Jr., only CNN, ABC, CBS or Telemundo may host, and microphones must be muted when a candidate’s time expires.
Letters from Spectator readers, June 2024
The rise of reverse gaslighting Sir — To an otherwise excellent article, I have a small correction. In 1860, the Southern states did not keep Lincoln off the ballot. Unlike today, where voting ballots are printed by the states, in 1860, voters were not presented with official ballots at polling stations that allowed them to check off which candidate they were voting for. Instead, a nineteenth-century ballot or “political ticket” was a slip of paper, provided by each party, listing their candidates for whatever offices were up for election. This allowed voters to easily “vote the ticket” for their party without having to know the names of every candidate and office.
This month in culture: June 2024
The Fall Guy In theaters now Ryan Gosling’s career is rather bizarre if you think about it, from drippy romcom protagonist in The Notebook to brooding car noir hero in Drive to laughable failure in The Nice Guys to musical star in La La Land and Barbie. Now he takes a stab at renewing his hardass ways in The Fall Guy, an adaptation of Lee Majors’s 1980s series which pairs him with Emily Blunt and is, in a way, an homage to the careers of “stars who do their own stunts” even if Gosling does not do so himself. There’s even a stunt show planned for Universal Studios’ Hollywood theme park based on the movie, prior to its release.
Monday
Cohen in court
Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen finally took the stand Monday in the so-called “hush-money” trial against his old boss in Manhattan. Cohen’s testimony has been much hyped by Trump’s critics, as the legal claim is that Trump improperly claimed payments made by Cohen to adult film star Stormy Daniels as legal expenses instead of campaign expenses. Cohen testified that his former client signed off on everything that he did, indicating that Trump directed him to pay off Daniels and suggesting that he would have known that they shouldn’t be marked down as a legal expense or retainer in the company books.
Saturday
Why won’t phone companies stop kids using social media?
From our UK edition
When it comes to social media, parents find it difficult enough to keep up with their offspring’s online world. What hope, then, do governments and regulators have of keeping up with digital technology? This week, Ofcom has announced a new code of practice which aims to use powers granted under the Online Safety Act in order to ‘tame aggressive algorithms’. Such a move seems well-meaning, but official bodies will always be several steps behind the latest online trends. The onerous-sounding new rules will probably end up restricting the online freedom of less savvy adults more than of children.
Friday
Does RFK know what he believes on abortion?
Independent presidential candidate and former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted this week that he supports “full-term” abortions. In a sit-down interview with former ESPN reporter Sage Steele, RFK said that while he doesn’t think women should abort their children in the eighth month of pregnancy or beyond, he wouldn’t prohibit them from doing so. “Even if it’s full-term,” he said, later adding, “I think we have to leave it to the women rather than the state.” RFK’s position is extreme, no matter how you slice it. The majority of Americans believe there should be some restrictions on abortions; only 37 percent believe abortion should be legal in the second trimester and just 22 percent say it should be legal in the third trimester.
Thursday
How violent are prisons?
From our UK edition
Name calling Springwatch presenter Gillian Burke says she finds it ‘jarring’ to call animals by their English names, preferring Swahili. Some popular Swahili translations: – Elephant: tembo/ndovu – Giraffe: twiga – Lion: simba – Hyena: fisi – Hippopotamus: hippopotamus – I’m fed up of paying for a TV licence: Nimechoka kulipa leseni ya TV Full Marx A Labour politician named Karl Peter Marx Wardlow was elected as a councillor in Stockport. The fondness for left-wing parents to name their children after their political heroes is most obvious in Keir Starmer – his first name is also shared with Keir Mather, who won the Selby and Ainsty by-election for Labour last year.
Letters: the Tory party has gone mad
From our UK edition
Right is wrong Sir: Katy Balls’s article ‘Survival Plan’ (4 May) starts from a false premise. The problem is not Rishi Sunak, but the current Conservative party’s underlying ethos. With Brexit, the lunatics took over the asylum. The ‘Get Brexit Done’ single-issue election resulted in a Conservative party, cabinet and parliamentary majority sharing populist right-wing views and convinced that the country supported them in all their beliefs. Although Brexit has clearly failed and Boris Johnson has been disposed of, many of the underlying convictions associated with the Brexit philosophy remain. The obvious demonstration of this was the disastrous election of Liz Truss as leader despite the common sense warnings of Sunak at the time.