The Spectator

Wednesday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: More mortgage pain, 999 goes down and a race to kill rats

From our UK edition

Home Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, encouraged banks to enter a voluntary agreement for stretched mortgagors to pay only the interest on their loans for six months, after the Bank of England raised interest rates to a 15-year high of 5 per cent. HSBC, with employees continuing to work from home, is to move its world headquarters from its 45-storey tower in Canary Wharf by 2027. Boots is to close 300 of its 2,200 chemists’ shops in the coming year. To cut its debts, Cineworld, the world’s second-largest cinema chain (also owning Picturehouse cinemas in Britain), is to apply for administration. The government said it would cost £169,000 to send a migrant to Rwanda, compared with £106,000 to keep one in Britain.

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2608: Support – solution

From our UK edition

Reading the title as ‘backup’, unclued answers VOLTE-FACE, RETREAT, SPIN, TURN, COUNTER, BACKTRACK, WITHDRAWAL, ROTATE, RETIREMENT and RECOIL had to be entered in reverse. First prize Wyn Lewis, CarmarthenRunners-up Rhiannon Hales, Ilfracombe, Devon; J.E.

The Spectator

Beating inflation: which products are getting cheaper?

From our UK edition

On the warpath Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted coup saw his mercenary army, Wagner, advance three-quarters of the 596 miles from Rostov to Moscow. How far did other coup leaders have to travel? Distance in miles 49 BC, Julius Caesar: Rubicon river to Rome 152 1799, Napoleon: Paris to Saint-Cloud 7 1815, Napoleon: Elba to Paris 564 1922, Mussolini: Naples to Rome 117 1936, Franco: Gran Canaria to Seville 851 1973, Pinochet: Valparaiso to Santiago 63 Commencing the Tour The 120th-anniversary Tour de France departs Bilbao on Saturday when 176 riders will compete for the yellow jersey. It’s the second time the race has started in Spain, having set off from San Sebastián in 1992.

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Letters: In defence of teachers

From our UK edition

Teacher trouble Sir: Rod Liddle (‘The trouble with teachers’, 24 June) is quite correct in what he says about the state of our schools. He also offers a glimmer of hope that at least the children in question exhibit common sense. But he is quite wrong about teachers being dim – mostly they are not. Teachers want to be able to pass on their knowledge to their pupils in a style that suits them and their students best. Why do some appear dim-witted? The answer is simple: fear. Fear of parents and fear of managers. Most parents are great and a joy to work with, but a minority – about 5 per cent – make teachers’ lives hell. It’s no coincidence that my most popular teacher training course is ‘Dealing with Difficult Parents’.

Saturday

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Prigozhin turns back, halting ‘coup’ attempt

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, has tonight halted his march on Moscow, in return for assurances from the Kremlin on his men’s safety. Alexander Lukashenko, Belarusian president, brokered the agreement. Prigozhin has just released the following statement on Telegram: We marched out on June 23 on the Justice March. In one day, we got within 200 kilometers of Moscow. During this time we did not spill a single drop of blood of our fighters. Now comes the moment when blood may be spilled. Therefore, understanding the responsibility that Russian blood will be spilled on one side, we are turning our columns around and retreating in the opposite direction to the field camps.

prigozhin

Wednesday

The Spectator

2607: Streetwise – solution

From our UK edition

The unclued lights are characters in Coronation STREET. The three forenames are (27, 34, 46), along with one surname (1A), four full names (18, 19, 42, 44) and two pairs (1B/7 and 3/5). First prize B.J.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Boris locked out, mortgage misery and Titanic submarine search

From our UK edition

Home Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, was ritually buried by the House of Commons voting by 354 to seven to approve the Privileges Committee report that found he had lied to parliament about observing coronavirus regulations. He would have been suspended for 90 days had he not left parliament; as it was, his pass to enter the Houses of Parliament was withdrawn. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, having remembered an important long-standing engagement, was among 225 MPs who were absent or abstained. David Warburton, an MP who sat as a Conservative until last year, said he was leaving the House. In the King’s birthday honours, Sir John Bell, Ian McEwan and Dame Anna Wintour were appointed Companion of Honour.

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Why Europe’s shift to the right may cost the Tories

From our UK edition

On her recent visit to Washington, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves presented herself as the perfect candidate to be the next chancellor in the modern mould: an environmentalist, interventionist and protectionist similar to Joe Biden and Olaf Scholz. Reeves champions what she calls ‘securonomics’, a sister of Bidenomonics with an environmental twist. But the trouble with Reeves’s approach is that just as she makes plain her direction, much of Europe is heading the other way. Take Finland. Until recently the country was led by Sanna Marin who, with New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, became the face of the international centre-left.

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Has anyone had so little time to enjoy an honour as Martin Amis?

From our UK edition

Shortest knight Martin Amis was knighted the day before he died last month. Has anyone else had so little time to enjoy an honour? Wilfred Stamp, 2nd Baron Stamp, officially holds the record as the shortest-serving peer. He died with his father, Josiah, the 1st Baron Stamp, when their home in Beckenham, Kent was bombed in April 1941. Because no one could be sure in which order father and son had died the law decreed that Wilfred has survived a split second longer than his father. It meant that he would forever be remembered as Lord Stamp – but forced his family to pay death duty twice. By the by Has this parliament had an unusual number of by-elections?

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Letters: The horse that brings hope for the future

From our UK edition

Conservative approaches Sir: Matthew Parris (‘My idea of a true Conservative’, 17 June) makes a reasonable case for small c conservatism, but he’s wrong about Brexit and he’s wrong about Trussonomics being clearly unconservative.  ‘Brexit come what may’ was the natural small-c reaction to the creation and evolution of an undemocratic EU superstate which (and we must take them at their word) was set upon ‘ever closer union’, the logical end state being a federal Europe and severe limitation of self-determination. No conservative would instinctively prefer foreign governance, even if it appeared at the outset to be benign.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Britain must not import America’s abortion culture war

From our UK edition

British politicians tend to avoid the issue of abortion. The subject divides America bitterly, yet Britain has opted for consensus. Now and again, however, a debate about abortion flares up – as it did this week after a number of pressure groups reacted with anger to the jailing of a mother of three who induced an abortion when eight months pregnant, using pills posted to her by the NHS. She pleaded guilty under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 and will spend a year in jail.  That, according to Clare Murphy, of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, is an outrage. She described Britain’s abortion law as ‘archaic’ and called for the end of criminal sanctions.

The Spectator

Britain must not import America’s abortion culture war

From our UK edition

British politicians tend to avoid the issue of abortion. The subject divides America bitterly, yet Britain has opted for consensus. Now and again, however, a debate about abortion flares up – as it did this week after a number of pressure groups reacted with anger to the jailing of a mother of three who induced an abortion when eight months pregnant, using pills posted to her by the NHS. She pleaded guilty under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 and will spend a year in jail. That, according to Clare Murphy, of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, is an outrage. She described Britain’s abortion law as ‘archaic’ and called for the end of criminal sanctions.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Boris resigns, Trump is arrested and Ukraine’s counter-offensive begins

From our UK edition

Home Boris Johnson (having had sight of the report by the Commons Privileges Committee on his conduct concerning Covid regulations) called it a ‘kangaroo court’ and left parliament immediately; to be disqualified as an MP he was appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham. His majority at Uxbridge and South Ruislip, where there will now be a by-election, was 7,210. ‘Most members of the Committee – especially the chair – had already expressed deeply prejudicial remarks about my guilt before they had even seen the evidence,’ he said, adding: ‘I am not alone in thinking that there is a witch hunt under way, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result.

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Letters: Rod is wrong about J.K. Rowling

From our UK edition

The sound of silence Sir: Charles Moore is right to draw attention to the deafening silence in the press about the present state of South Africa (Notes, 10 June). Not only has the country descended into frightening levels of violence, but the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2021 placed it last of all countries tested, in both reading and comprehension. How long will the ANC ruling elite remain an untouchable holy cow for our press? It is South Africans who suffer most from this implicit censorship. Margaret Vane By email Not cheap, not cheerful Sir: Emily Rhodes notes that ‘books have never been more beautiful’ (‘Cooking the books’, 10 June). While this may be true of their covers, it is certainly not true of what’s between them.

The Spectator

How many members of the House of Lords are there?

From our UK edition

No platformed What effect have strikes had on rail travel? – In the first quarter of this year, some 389m journeys were made on the rail network, up on 2022 but only 88% of the number of journeys made in the same period in 2019, before the pandemic – Ticket revenue was £2.2bn, 70% of the same period in 2019 – LNER (111% of 2019 levels), East Midlands (101%), Hull Trains (122%) and Grand Central (111%) all managed to increase passenger numbers on 2019; all other franchises saw a decline – Passenger numbers fell the most on the Transpennine service (60%), which was recently relieved of its franchise Source: Office of Rail and Road  Crowded house Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list was published, minus several expected peers.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Don’t stifle AI

From our UK edition

In his meeting with Joe Biden this week, Rishi Sunak proposed a research centre and regulatory body for artificial intelligence in Britain. This raises a dilemma for governments worldwide: how can humans reap the benefits of AI without creating an uncontrollable, possibly existential threat? The technological leaps in recent months have captured the public imagination, but as we are all now aware, an AI clever enough to cure cancer and create clean energy will also be so smart that it could inflict huge damage. In Brussels, Washington and London, the mood has swung from complacency to panic. Leaders who once cheered on the technology now fear it, and increasingly call for regulation.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Prince Harry heads to court, Waitrose says sorry and Rishi goes to Washington

From our UK edition

Home The government was acquiring two barges to house 1,000 migrants in addition to one at Portland for 500. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said that small-boat crossings of the Channel were down 20 per cent, and ‘our plan is starting to work’. A group of asylum-seekers, transferred to a Comfort Inn in Pimlico and told they would have to share four to a room, refused to enter and stayed on the pavement. The scandal-hit CBI said that 93 per cent of the 371 members who voted backed its plans to reform; the British Chambers of Commerce launched a rival group called the Business Council.

The Spectator

Who sat on the first TV sofa?

From our UK edition

Sofa so good Phillip Schofield has said that his career on the TV sofa is over. Who first sat on one?  – BBC Breakfast, first broadcast on 17 January 1983, famously featured a red leather sofa which presenter Frank Bough told his audience was the ideal way to present a news programme. But the history of the TV sofa goes back a lot further. The Tonight Show, first broadcast on NBC in 1954, featured one from 1964 onwards – a surviving clip from that year shows presenter Johnny Carson standing in front of a blue cloth-upholstered sofa. Death and taxes How much does inheritance tax raise, and how many people pay it? – In 2021/22 the tax raised £6.1bn. This is double what it raised a decade earlier.