The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: how to pardon the postmasters en masse

Delaying justice Sir: Charles Moore argued (Notes, 13 January) that sub-postmasters in the Post Office/Horizon scandal should not be pardoned ‘en masse’, but rather that each case should be treated individually. He gives two reasons: the possible future risks associated with precedent and because each claim, being different, merits separate consideration. Theoretically, he may well be correct, but this would inevitably add many more wasted years to the endlessly protracted legal process. It would serve only to delay further the justice and the compensation to which the victims are entitled. The only real beneficiaries would, of course, be the lawyers.

The Spectator

Is the Iowa caucus really so important?

State of play Iowa became the first US state to pick its election candidates in 1972. How many times since then has the small Midwestern state predicted the eventual winner? – On nine out of 13 occasions, Iowa has chosen the Democratic candidate who went on to win the nomination. However, in three of those years, the winner was the sitting president, with an obvious advantage. – In the first two contests ‘uncommitted’ received more votes. The year when the nationwide primaries least followed the example set by Iowa was 1992 when Tom Harkin won 76% of the vote and the eventual winner, Bill Clinton, just 3%. – As for Republicans, the Iowan result has predicted the outcome in four out of nine contested elections.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: air strikes, train strikes and missile strikes

Home Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, the Foreign Secretary, said that the ‘red lights on the global dashboard are very much flashing’. He was speaking after Britain joined American air strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen. The Houthis, backed by Iran and allied with Hamas in Gaza, had been attacking merchant ships in the Red Sea. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, told the Commons it was ‘a necessary and a proportionate response to a direct threat to UK vessels’. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, supported Britain’s action, but said that future military interventions – especially sustained ones – should be brought before parliament.

The Spectator

Britain should watch America – and learn from its mistakes

For many people, Donald Trump’s victory in Iowa this week will seem incomprehensible. Not only did he win – he did so by a margin that no other Republican has achieved since the state became the first to choose its candidates. This is quite a feat from a man facing almost 100 criminal charges, who was also twice impeached – the second time for encouraging his supporters to riot on Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021. It now seems inevitable that Americans will be offered the same unappealing choice of leader in November as they had in 2020, but with an even older Joe Biden doing battle with an even more rumbustious Donald Trump. On current polling it looks as if Trump could win.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Trump pushes GOP consolidation post-Iowa

From our US edition

It’s 2016 all over again, following a frozen Iowa caucus where Donald Trump told Republicans to get on the Trump Train... before it’s too late.Trump’s top two rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, are both staying in the race, whereas Vivek Ramaswamy, who spent much of his campaign running as Trump’s understudy, dropped out and endorsed Trump.It’s hard to think of a better outcome for the former president; Alex Titus, an advisor to Trump’s former super PAC, called Iowa “a massive victory for Donald Trump,” and added that “the only ones surprised by the results are in the consultant class.” Trump narrowly eclipsed the 50 percent threshold many viewed as critical to serving as a strong showing; Haley and DeSantis virtually tied for second at around 20 percent each.

donald trump

Friday

The Spectator

The Army has a white man problem

From our US edition

The US Army has been facing a recruitment crisis for some time now — and new data shines a light on the demographic that seems particularly uninterested in serving: white people.A Military.com report reveals:A total of 44,042 new Army recruits were categorized by the service as white in 2018, but that number has fallen consistently each year to a low of 25,070 in 2023, with a 6 percent dip from 2022 to 2023 being the most significant drop. No other demographic group has seen such a precipitous decline, though there have been ups and downs from year to year.Black recruitment also fell during this period, while Hispanic recruitment jumped from 17 percent to 24 percent.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: crime really does pay

Walking through treacle Sir: Rory Sutherland suggests that poor productivity can be correlated with the explosion of roles designed to support those ‘who do actual, useful work’ but, in practice, only act as anchors buried in the deepest mud, impeding progress (The Wiki Man, 6 January). Winston Churchill, frustrated at the length of the administrative tail of his armies in the North African campaign compared with the modest proportion of those actually fighting, defined them as ‘useless mouths’. The NHS offers an excellent example of this principle: the number of frontline clinical staff over several decades has increased but has been overwhelmed by those innon-essential posts.

The Spectator

How many criminal convictions are overturned? 

Power play The former energy minister Chris Skidmore resigned in protest at a bill to issue more licences for oil and gas extraction in the North Sea. What are other countries doing? – US oil production hit a record 13.3m barrels a day last month, up from 10.8m five years ago. – Qatar is investing $150 billion toincrease oil production by 50% to 5m barrels per day by 2027. – Brazil plans to increase oil production from 3.1m barrels per day in 2022 to5.4m barrels per day by 2029. – Canada increased oil production by 375,000 barrels per day between 2021 and last year. Judgment call The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has called the Post Office scandal the ‘most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history’.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Post Office scandal, Tube strikes off and dog meat banned

Home Although it had long been known that between 1999 and 2015 more than 700 sub-postmasters were convicted of false accounting, theft and fraud (based on the faulty Horizon computer accounting system software), the government suddenly proposed to do something about it because of a public outcry following an ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office. The Metropolitan Police was investigating the Post Office over fraud possibly arising from money being ‘recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions’. Paula Vennells, who held high office in the Post Office from 2007 to 2019, said she was handing back her CBE ‘with immediate effect’, although it is the King’s role to annul it; more than a million people had signed a petition calling for its revocation.

The Spectator

The Online Safety Act is already stifling free speech

Joey Barton, the footballer turned manager, may be a controversial figure, but is it really the business of the sports minister, Stuart Andrew, to threaten to silence him on Twitter and Facebook? Andrew this week described Barton’s derisive remarks about female football commentators as ‘dangerous comments that open the floodgates for abuse’. He called upon Ofcom to take action under the new Online Safety Act. The notion of free speech – including the freedom to be offensive – seems increasingly alien to ministerial minds. The Online Safety Act only came into law in October, and politicians already think it’s up to them to regulate who says what online. For 300 years, newspapers vigorously fought off any attempt by the state to suppress freedom of expression.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Lloyd Austin’s hospital scandal keeps getting worse

From our US edition

White House officials confirmed Tuesday that defense secretary Lloyd Austin kept his prostate cancer diagnosis to himself for a month before informing the White House, adding further scrutiny to Austin’s recent failure to inform Biden or the National Security Council that he was in the ICU for several days. Austin, who oversees a department tasked with deterring conflict, received his diagnosis in December, according to a statement from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center officials.

Monday

The Spectator

Inside the GOP’s border battle

From our US edition

Stop us if you’ve heard this before: a Republican speaker of the House is facing ire from the Freedom Caucus that is mad about a deal he’s cutting with Democrats, who run almost the entire government.2024 picked up right where 2023 left off, with the narrow GOP House majority stuck between a Freedom Caucus-shaped rock and a hard place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. With at least a partial government shutdown looming, Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposed budget deal strikes many as almost exactly what former speaker Kevin McCarthy’s intra-party foes used as their alleged final straw against him. The Freedom Caucus, which went from loving Johnson to comparing him to John Boehner in slightly over a month, called Johnson’s $1.

Friday

The Spectator

Soft-on-crime DC Council member facing recall effort

From our US edition

DC Council member Charles Allen is facing a recall effort from fed-up citizens as carjackings in the nation’s capital nearly doubled last year while violent crime rose by 39 percent. Murders hit their highest level in two decades in 2023.  The campaign to recall Allen is being led by Jennifer Squires, a former federal government worker who says she voted for Allen previously but found herself troubled by the councilman’s attempts at so-called criminal justice reform. Allen was behind the attempts to revise DC’s criminal code last year. His changes would have eliminated nearly all mandatory minimums and lowered some mandatory maximums, including for carjackings.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Biden’s Breakfast Club problem

From our US edition

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have lost the support of Charlemagne Tha God, host of the culturally influential hip-hip radio show The Breakfast Club. Charlamagne, who endorsed the Democratic ticket in 2020, told Politico that he has no plans to repeat his mistake in 2024.  “I’ve learned my lesson from doing that. Once they got in the White House, [Harris] … kind of disappeared,” Charlamagne said. “‘Damn, you told us to vote for [them].’ Do you know how many people say that to me all the time?” Why does it matter? The Breakfast Club boasts 8 million listeners a month and Charlamagne is a well-respected voice in the black community, particularly among young, progressive listeners. Charlamagne’s defection feels like a long time coming.

The Spectator

It’s junior doctors – not underfunding – pushing the NHS to the brink

Yet again we start the year with news that the NHS is facing the worst crisis since its inception. This has a real impact. People who think the health service is in crisis will be less inclined to use it. As we saw over lockdown, this leads to fewer treatable conditions being diagnosed, more ‘excess deaths’ from various causes and a greater healthcare burden for the longer term. It’s a calamity that only worsens. The NHS is forever on the point of disintegration and collapse. Or, in the words of the British Medical Association, the system is under ‘intolerable and unsustainable’ pressure. Why, then, do so many members of the BMA seem to be determined to make matters worse?

The Spectator

What was banned this week?

For the love of dog XL Bully dogs were banned in England from this week, although there is an exemption for animals which are neutered, registered, insured and kept on leads and muzzled in public. Some other things that have been banned this week: – Parking on the pavement in Edinburgh. – Importing disposable vapes in Australia. – Selling new homes with gas boilers in the Australian state of Victoria. – Displaying toys in Californian shops under male and female sections. A gender neutral section must now be included. – English councils trying to charge for disposing of waste from DIY projects. – Withdrawals in dollars from banks in Iraq. – Imports of Russian diamonds to G7 countries.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: backlog bluster, New Year honours and tornados in Manchester

Home James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, said that all 92,000 ‘legacy’ applications for asylum (made before 28 June 2022) had been processed, but 4,500 were reclassified as ‘complex’ and 17,000 were withdrawn. Of 112,138 applications subject to an initial decision in 2023, 67 per cent were granted. The number of migrants to cross the Channel in small boats came to 29,437 in 2023, 36 per cent fewer than the 45,774 in 2022. Flooding in a tunnel under the Thames led to cancellation for a day of all Eurostar trains across the Channel. Doctors below the rank of consultant began a six-day strike. A surge in scabies was reported amid a shortage of the lotion used to treat it.

The Spectator

Letters: the genius of Morten Morland

Beyond good and evil Sir: In your Christmas issue, both James Macmillan (Composer’s Notebook) and Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, in his interview with Andrew Roberts, refer to the ‘war between good and evil’, as if most of us experience life on Earth as a continuous struggle of this kind. But many issues cannot be polarised so simplistically, and our understanding of religion and psychology has moved on. Who is to decide which people are good and which evil? Some fundamentalist Christians regard the Dalai Lama as evil. In international relations, it is surely dangerous to use this kind of language: while the actions of Hamas are undoubtedly evil, I doubt if it is helpful to revive the rhetoric of G.W. Bush and ‘the axis of evil’.