The Spectator

Wednesday

The Spectator

NatWest’s attack on Nigel Farage was a political hitjob

The Coutts scandal can be traced back to the day, two years ago, when the bank proudly announced that it had achieved ‘B Corp’ status. B Corp is a little-known non-profit which operates a scheme a bit like Stonewall’s Diversity Champions Programme. Companies that sign up and jump through the necessary hoops will receive a certificate declaring that they’re ethical and inclusive. Business and politics should be kept separate, yet woke capitalism wants to fuse them together B Corp’s website declares: ‘Certified B Corporations are leaders in the global movement for an inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy.’ It adds that its scheme seeks to measure ‘a company’s entire social and environmental impact’.

Paul Deaton

Edinburgh Marathon, What I Remember

(after Tracey Herd) most, is not the goal, the finish-line, but the start, (do any of us know where we are heading), the assortment of people, the runners I mean, stretching, going for last minute pees, doing their weird warm-up routines, and the straggle of loved ones congregating in Holyrood Park. I barely remember the first five miles down Edinburgh’s deep streets, I remember hitting the coast, the exposure at Portobello beach, the surprise of space, the sudden release of the sea’s shore.

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week: NatWest, fires in Greece and Twitter’s new look 

Home Dame Alison Rose resigned as the chief executive of the NatWest group, which owns Coutts bank. She had been the source of a BBC report that Nigel Farage’s account at Coutts had been closed because it no longer met the bank’s financial requirements. Dame Alison also apologised to Mr Farage for ‘deeply inappropriate’ comments in a Coutts dossier on him which showed his account had been closed because of his political views. Her resignation came only after No. 10 had expressed ‘significant concerns’ about her remaining as the board wanted. The volume of goods sold by Unilever fell by 2.5 per cent in the first half of the year, but sales measured by price grew by 9.4 per cent. A fire destroyed more than 40 businesses on an industrial estate at Baldock, Herts.

The Spectator

Is 2023 a bad year for forest fires in Europe?

Boss pay Julia Hoggett, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, complained that FTSE 100 bosses aren’t paid enough, and suggested that the gap between UK bosses and US bosses needs to be closed if the London market is to prosper. How much are FTSE 100 bosses paid? – The median earnings in 2021 for a FTSE 100 boss was £3.41m and the mean £4.26m. Three were paid less than £1m, 57 between £1m and £4m, 35 between £4m and £10m and three more than £10m. Two changed jobs during the year and so aren’t included in the figures – But the best-paid FTSE chief executive wasn’t even in the FTSE 100. That was Frederic Vecchioli, CEO of FTSE 250 company Safestore, who earned £17.06m. The next best-paying companies were: Endeavour Mining (FTSE100) £16.

The Spectator

Letters: Labour’s shameful defence of Ulez 

Unfair Ulez Sir: I hope Ross Clark’s article (‘Highway robbery’, 22 July) will open people’s eyes to the unfair disadvantage Sadiq Khan has been imposing on those on lower and middle incomes in London. As a jobbing gardener who relies on the use of a van, I had just paid off the lease, with the intention of keeping the vehicle until I retired, when I became a victim of the first expansion of the Ulez zone in 2021. I live 200 metres within the boundary: driving that 200 metres in and out to go to work costs me £12.50 a day. Ulez is a regressive tax that falls particularly hard on the elderly and disabled, as there is no exemption for Blue Badge holders (Labour GLA members voted down a proposed amendment by the Conservative group to allow an exemption).

Wednesday

The Spectator

Coutts must be held to account over Nigel Farage

When Nigel Farage said Coutts had closed his bank account and claimed political victimisation, many thought he was making it up. The BBC reported that Farage didn’t have enough of a cash balance to sustain an account in the King’s bank and many who oppose his politics suspected this was a TV talk-show host being provocative. But this week he produced a document that proved it was precisely as he claimed. The bank had decided that Farage’s views were ‘at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation’, so he was out. So what we have here is discrimination masked as ‘inclusivity’, bigotry dressed up as tolerance. The board of Coutts may well have been appalled by the Ukip project but the party got more than 3.5 million votes in the 2015 general election.

The Spectator

Coutts must be held to account over Nigel Farage

When Nigel Farage said Coutts had closed his bank account and claimed political victimisation, many thought he was making it up. The BBC reported that Farage didn’t have enough of a cash balance to sustain an account in the King’s bank and many who oppose his politics suspected this was a TV talk-show host being provocative. But this week he produced a document that proved it was precisely as he claimed. The bank had decided that Farage’s views were ‘at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation’, so he was out. So what we have here is discrimination masked as ‘inclusivity’, bigotry dressed up as tolerance. The board of Coutts may well have been appalled by the Ukip project but the party got more than 3.5 million votes in the 2015 general election.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: By-elections, dangerous dolphins and Djokovic’s £6,000 smashed racquet

Home Ben Wallace said he would cease to be the Defence Secretary at the next cabinet reshuffle and would not stand again for parliament. The Conservatives endured three by-elections – at Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Selby and Ainsty and Somerton and Frome. The left-wing mayor of North of Tyne, Jamie Driscoll, resigned from the Labour party after a rival was selected to stand for the newly created mayoralty of the North East. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said he would not reverse the Conservative limit on claiming child tax credit or universal credit for more than two children. On universities, Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said: ‘Our young people are being ripped off. They’re being saddled with tens of thousands of pounds of debt from bad degrees.

The Spectator

Where have the world’s highest temperatures been recorded?

Swing when you’re winning What are the biggest UK by-election swings? — The 1983 Bermondsey by-election saw a 11,756 Labour majority turned into a 9,319 majority for the Liberal party – a result widely attributed to the Labour candidate, Peter Tatchell, coming out as gay during the campaign. The Labour party under Michael Foot was also extremely unpopular – and had its then biggest defeat in a general election four months later. — The Clacton by-election of 2014 saw a 12,068 Conservative majority overturned into a Ukip majority of 12,404, with the Conservative share of the vote falling from 53% to 25%. However, it was unusual in that the Ukip candidate, Douglas Carswell, had been the sitting Conservative MP.

Kate Bingham

Changing in the changing rooms on International Women’s Day

It’s trying to snow but the window’s open wide. My teacher has her hair in a towel and everyone’s a blur because she’s lost a contact lens. Hello Kate! How are you? Class was cancelled so she’s had a nice long shower and now a friend comes in saying Someone asked today have I thought about botox? I said ‘What’s wrong with looking my age? I wear my soul on my face’, but she made me think, you know? Surely there must be an easier way to tie shoelaces. Pole Dance 2 are waiting on the stairs againas I go down to the treadmill.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: BBC presenter scandal, EasyJet cancellations and a baby boy for Boris

Home The government pondered whether to accept pay-review bodies’ recommendations on rises in public sector salaries. ‘Delivering sound money is our number one focus,’ Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in his Mansion House speech. ‘That means taking responsible decisions on public finances, including public sector pay.’ Regular pay in the March to May period was 7.3 per cent higher than a year earlier, although it rose less than inflation. Unemployment rose from 3.8 per cent to 4 per cent; vacancies fell by 85,000 to 1,034,000. The average two-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 6.7 per cent. Jeremy Hunt confirmed that he was refused a bank account with Monzo last year on the grounds that he was a ‘politically exposed person’.

The Spectator

Rishi Sunak is right about illegal migration

The Illegal Migration Bill is having a distorting effect on the Tory party. It has put Theresa May and Iain Duncan Smith together on the side of liberal opinion – and Ken Clarke on the side of the Prime Minister. This week, May and Duncan Smith sought to stop the government from overturning a Lords amendment which would prevent the deportation of those claiming to be victims of people-trafficking. Rishi Sunak thinks that loopholes in the law have been exploited by people-traffickers. May and Duncan Smith disagree. It fell to Clarke, a fierce critic of the government since Brexit, to challenge the plan’s opponents to come up with a better way of addressing the illegal migration problem.

The Spectator

Who lifted the ban on trans women taking part in Miss Universe?

Mx Universe A transgender woman was named ‘Miss Netherlands’, and will now compete in the Miss Universe contest. British TV viewers might be surprised to learn there are still such things as beauty pageants, given they disappeared from the main TV channels in the 1980s. They might be even more surprised to learn who was responsible for lifting the ban on transgender women taking part in Miss Universe. – The decision was made in 2012 by Donald Trump, who then owned the franchise for the competition, after a Canadian trans woman, Jenna Talackova, had been banned from taking part and her cause had been taken up by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

The Spectator

Letters: How to reform the NHS

How to reform the NHS Sir: During the pandemic I and millions of others went out every week and clapped for the NHS (‘National health disservice’, 8 July). But if you’ve experienced it lately, it’s a dystopian nightmare. Appointments regularly cancelled, paperwork missing, 1950s administration. It appears the only thing being managed at the NHS is its decline. A working group of trusted business leaders should consider ‘best practice’ at excellent private and public hospitals in the UK and across Europe, and implement reform of the service immediately. The Tories don’t have the bottle or anyone with the talent to get this under way. All the reform talk is coming from Labour, and at the election this will cost the Tories dear.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Teachers strike, French riot and dire news for Diet Coke

Home The Financial Conduct Authority questioned banks about savings rates lagging behind the rising cost of mortgages. Andrew Griffith, the City Minister, was also asked by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to look into cases of bank customers who reported their accounts being closed because of their opinions on such things as LGBTQ+ policies. Petrol retailers were blamed by Harriett Baldwin, the chair of the Treasury Select Committee, for not passing on the benefit of a 5p cut in fuel duty. A group of 25 MPs, calling themselves the New Conservatives, published a plan to cut net migration from 606,000, last year’s figure, to 226,000, the figure for 2019. In June, 3,824 people crossed the Channel in small boats, the highest figure so far for the month.

The Spectator

Biden shouldn’t turn his back on Britain

You can tell a lot about a president’s politics by his foreign visits. Joe Biden’s decision to skip King Charles’s coronation in favour of a fly-by visit to Belfast and three days in the Republic of Ireland gave an indication of his priorities. Biden presents himself at home as an Irish-American with a charmingly unserious hostility towards Britain: ‘The BBC?’ he told a reporter after his election victory in 2020. ‘I’m Irish!’ But it’s not all lighthearted. As President, Biden’s reflexive anti-Britishness seems to have coloured his foreign policy. He’s shown a striking reluctance to reciprocate Rishi Sunak’s attempts to refresh Britain’s credentials as America’s great ally. Part of this may be down to Biden’s own fuzziness.

The Spectator

2609: Hard work – solution

The literary scholar F.S. Boas used the term Problem Plays (9D) to refer to a group of Shakespearean plays which seem to contain both comic and tragic elements: Measure for Measure (12/36), All’s Well That Ends Well (39/1) and Troilus and Cressida (21/22). First prize J.