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Letters | 14 February 2013
Militant humanists Sir: Thank God for Douglas Murray (‘Call off the faith wars’, 9 February). It is possible that I have been counting myself an atheist for longer than Richard Dawkins — if only because I am almost a decade older than he is. It is only fairly recently, though, that I began subscribing to the Humanist Association, of which Professor Dawkins has long been vice-president. I confess that I joined largely in the hope that membership might one day reduce the likelihood of some well-intentioned priest spouting mumbo-jumbo over my coffin. Having signed up, I was faintly shocked by the ferocity of the humanist movement. I recognise, for example, that faith schools are intrinsically unfair, but I would be disinclined to deny parents their choice.
Barometer | 14 February 2013
Takes all sports The government is to introduce a new strategy for sport in schools. To what educational ends can sport be used? — ‘Using Sport to Tackle Youth Crime’ US qualification for the over-14s — ‘Maths Through Sport — boost your pupils’ maths levels through physical activity and sport’. Active Learning Programme — ‘Using sport for drug-use prevention’ Paper by United Nations’ Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention — ‘Women Win spotlights the harmful traditional practice of female genital mutilation (cutting) and how the strategy of using sport can play a powerful role in shifting cultural practices’.
Bonfire of the Establishment
In September 1955 The Spectator’s political commentator, Henry Fairlie, coined a term to describe the way in which Britain works which has been used ever since. The ‘Establishment’, he said, was the real mechanism through which power was exercised in this country. The elites of the business, political and media worlds wielded power via a ‘matrix of official and social relations’, which varied from the banks to the director-general of the BBC to ‘divinities’ such as Violet Bonham Carter (Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury). The social and economic upheavals of the following decades only caused this Establishment to regenerate. But it has never faced an existential threat — until now. The Establishment is in chaos.
Portrait of the Week – 14 February 2013
Home Findus frozen beef lasagne was found to be 100 per cent horsemeat, and Tesco frozen ‘Everyday Value’ spaghetti bolognese 60 per cent horse. French suppliers blamed a Romanian abattoir. Waitrose withdrew frozen beef meatballs in which pork was thought to be present. Owen Paterson, the environment secretary, told the food industry to publish soon the results of their own testing of meat products. He then flew to Brussels for talks. Police raided a slaughterhouse in West Yorkshire that the Food Standards Agency believed had supplied horse carcasses to a meat company at Aberystwyth.
