The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 17 January 2013

Equine dining Horsemeat was found in hamburgers sold by Tesco, among others. Why did eating horses become a taboo? — In the 8th century Pope Gregory III instructed St Boniface, missionary to Germany, to forbid the eating of horseflesh to those he converted to Christianity. — There has been no tradition of eating horsemeat in Britain, where ‘I could eat a horse’ is as an expression of desperate hunger. — Horsemeat has a slightly sweet taste, like a cross between beef and venison. — Abattoirs have become the principal means of disposal of unwanted horses in Ireland. They are also subject to seizure by local authorities, which sent 589 horses to slaughter in 2010. Shock the vote We are often told that referendums are not part of the British system.

The Spectator

Grill the Housing Minister: Mark Prisk answers Coffee House readers’ questions

Housing Minister Mark Prisk's brave request for a grilling from Coffee House readers generated a very enthusiastic response. Here are the minister's answers to your questions. House Prices Q: What will the Government be doing to rebalance things back towards private buyers and away from the BTL speculators that have driven the market up to such an extent that private buyers are priced out? (Specifically, get the Treasury to end the tax breaks introduced under Labour that drive this, and level the playing field for ordinary buyers). A: It’s important not to overstate this problem.  In 2011, buy to let accounted for just 12 % of all mortgages.  And of course it’s important to have a ready supply of rented accommodation for people who want or need that flexibility.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Rod Liddle on Moore, Burchill and Featherstone’s lovely bitch fight

In tomorrow's Spectator, Rod Liddle gives his verdict on the social media storm caused by Suzanne Moore and then Julie Burchill. Liddle suggests that until the 'entire bourgeois bien-pensant left' self-immolates, leaving a slight scent of goji berries, bystanders can 'enjoy ourselves watching them tear each other to pieces, mired in their competing victimhoods seething with acquired sensitivity, with inchoate rage and fury, inventing more and more hate crimes with which they might punish people who are not themselves'. He describes Burchill's Observer  as 'easily the best piece the paper has carried in a decade', and then examines the response of the government and the Observer's editor: 'At which point the government got involved. No, it really did.

Saturday

The Spectator

Mali: a Coffee House briefing

David Cameron has today confirmed that UK troops will offer logistical "assistance" to those of France now fighting Islamic insurgents in northern Mali.  The below briefing outlines developments there so far. 1) The Basics ·       Mali is a landlocked West African former colony of France, with a population of 14.5 million, half of whom live below the poverty line. Some 6,000 French citizens live there. The capital is Bamako. ·       In March last year, a military coup toppled the democratically-elected leader, President Touré.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 10 January 2013

The aid argument Sir: ‘The great aid mystery’ (5 January) presents the development sceptics’ case — which in five years in opposition (2005-2010) the Conservative party set out to address head on. Although the huge changes in British development policy over the last two and half years appear to have eluded Messrs Foreman and Shaw, they are real and fundamental and genuinely provide grounds upon which most people on either side of the debate can camp. I learned in two-and-a-half years as Britain’s Development Secretary that both the extremes in this debate have deaf ears. The coalition government has reduced the number of aid recipient countries supported by Britain from 43 to 28.

The Spectator

Troubles ahead

If the Belfast riots were happening in any other city in the United Kingdom, there would be uproar. For almost five weeks there have been violent clashes each night. Live rounds have been fired on city streets, politicians’ houses set ablaze, petrol bombs thrown at police and over 60 officers hurt. David Cameron seems to be doing his best to pretend that nothing is happening. The Prime Minister, like most in Britain, appears to be clinging to the lie that the 1998 Good Friday agreement somehow brought peace to Northern Ireland. There is sadly nothing anachronistic about the loyalist riots and they are only tangentially related to the alleged cause — the number of days in which the Union flag is flown over City Hall.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 10 January 2013

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that, for the ‘coalition government with a full tank of gas, it’s full steam ahead’. He announced a ‘mid-term review’, but an audit that showed which pledges had not been met was held back. ‘We are married, not to each other,’ he said at a joint press conference with Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, ‘So, to me it’s not a marriage, it is, if you like, a Ronseal deal — it does what it says on the tin.’ He promised details in coming weeks on such things as ‘capping the potentially huge cost’ of social care, and extending the HS2 high-speed rail line from Birmingham to the north of England.