The Spectator

Wednesday

The Spectator

How often does spring bring a cold snap?

Out of service  Conservative MPs criticise the proposed appointment of Sue Gray as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. It is not unknown, however, for civil servants to switch to political careers, including two prime ministers of recent times.  – Edward Heath began his career in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, having come joint top in the civil service entrance exams in his year.  – Jim Callaghan did not intend a career as a civil servant, but on joining the Royal Navy during the second world war he was found to have tuberculosis, and for a while was seconded to work at the Admiralty in Whitehall, where his duties included writing a guide to the Japanese for the benefit of British servicemen who might come into contact with them. He later saw active service.

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Letters: Putin isn’t winning

Friends like these... Sir: I much admire Peter Frankopan as a historian but his article ‘Is Putin winning?’ (4 March) is misleading and plain wrong. He argues that the vote at the UN on Ukraine on 23 February demonstrated that Russia’s strategy is winning new friends in Africa, Central and South America, and Asia; friends who are refusing to vote with the US and the West, and are supporting Russia. An inspection of the actual figures at the UN vote shows this claim to be foolish: 24 African states condemned Putin’s Russia. Only two, Eritrea and Mali, supported Putin. In South and Central America, 16 states condemned Putin. Only Nicaragua supported him. In Asia, 31 states condemned Russia. Only North Korea and Syria supported Putin.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Matt Hancock and the anatomy of a scandal

Last summer, Rishi Sunak told this magazine about what happened inside government during lockdown. The policy, he said, had been pursued with little consideration of the drawbacks. To even discuss the impact of lockdown – to acknowledge the damage being done to schools or NHS waiting lists – was seen as treachery. At the time, Sunak’s testimony was said to be an exaggerated ploy at the end of a bruising Tory leadership campaign. This week, documents have emerged that prove that government lockdown discussions were even worse than Sunak said. The health secretary created a record of the modus operandi of a government in crisis Seldom do journalists come into possession of such rich material as the texts that are now in the hands of the Daily Telegraph.

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Portrait of the week: Sunak’s Brexit deal, Hancock’s WhatsApp messages and a cucumber crisis

Home The Northern Ireland Protocol was modified by something called the Windsor Framework, agreed between Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, and Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission. He said that Stormont would be able to apply a brake to new EU goods rules; the brake would allow the UK government to apply a veto. Goods from Britain for Northern Ireland would travel through a ‘green lane’ with fewer checks, and those that might move on into the EU through a ‘red lane’. The ban on importing British chilled sausages and seed potatoes would end. After announcing the agreement, Mrs von der Leyen was granted an audience with the King at Windsor Castle. Mr Sunak visited Northern Ireland.

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Which countries produce the most vegetables?

Striking out An England vs Wales rugby match was nearly called off after Welsh players threatened to go on strike over the terms of their new contracts. Although rare, industrial action is certainly not unheard of in the sporting arena. – In June last year the Canadian men’s football team went on strike demanding they share at least three quarters of World Cup prize money, rather than the 40 per cent they were being offered. A friendly against Panama was called off. – In August 2020, shortly after the BLM protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd, US basketball, soccer and baseball teams went on strike in protest at the shooting of another black man by police in Wisconsin.

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Letters: Should Christians in politics leave their faith at the door? 

Beyond belief Sir: Tim Farron (‘Church and state’, 25 February) repeats many of the common errors made by those of faith. He starts by equating secularists with atheists, yet they are quite distinct. To be an atheist is simply not to believe in the existence of a God. That’s it. You can be an atheist and almost anything; communist, fascist, socialist, liberal, conservative. A secularist believes in the separation of church and state, as many people of faith do as well as atheists. This separation is enshrined in the secular US Constitution, in one of the more religious countries in the West. Secularism is actually the only possible guarantor of religious freedom, something Farron says he’s in favour of.

Wednesday

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The SNP’s purity test

It seems as if Kate Forbes is about to achieve the remarkable distinction of losing an election as a result of a policy which she has not advanced and has no intention of enacting. It wasn’t she who raised the issue of gay marriage this week, but those who interviewed her after she announced her intention to stand in the Scottish National party leadership contest. Would she disavow the views of her church on sex, marriage and abortion? She would not. Her supporters peeled away. In succumbing to cancel culture, the SNP has weakened itself, perhaps fatally Just like the old Test Act, where Scots in public life had to swear they held no Catholic beliefs, a new test is emerging for would-be party leaders.

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Portrait of the week: Protocol palaver, a tomato shortage and trains that don’t fit tunnels

Home Britain spent £5.4 billion less than it received in taxes in January, despite support for private customers’ energy bills. Public borrowing so far this financial year is £30.6 billion less than predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility. The Royal College of Nursing called off next week’s 48-hour strike in England to restart talks with the government. The government recommended offering public sector workers such as judges, policemen, teachers, doctors, nurses and dentists in England and Wales pay rises of 3.5 per cent; the recommendations will be considered by independent pay review bodies. Supermarkets saw a dearth of tomatoes, attributed to bad weather in Morocco and Spain.

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2590: Have a go – solution

The seven unclued lights are BIRDs (36) minus one letter: (S)WAN (14), (G)ROUSE (18), P(H)EASANT (22), TE(A)L (40), S(W)ALLOW (7), R(O)OSTER (29) and S(K)IMMER (30). GOSHAWK (in the 9th column) was to be shaded. Title: cf. BI(R)D.

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What else has had the Roald Dahl treatment?

That’s another story Roald Dahl’s books have been edited to make them less offensive, with references to ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ people removed. Other children’s media that has been revised: – The Noddy books originally featured golliwogs, which were removed in 2009. – Six Dr Seuss books were withdrawn from sale in 2021, one for featuring a Chinese man with chopsticks for eyes, another for depicting African characters in grass skirts. – Dumbo was taught to fly by crows with exaggerated southern US accents. One was originally called Jim but has been renamed Dandy, and a content warning added.  – Peter Pan refers to ‘redskins’, also now with a content warning. Turning profits How has the profitability of UK firms changed in the past decade?

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Letters: Sturgeon’s delusion

Delusion of Sturgeon Sir: Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation speech was the longest and most delusional in living memory (‘After Sturgeon’, 18 February). There were reportedly more than 150 ‘me’, ‘my’ and ‘I’s spoken, as she congratulated herself at length, despite the government’s deplorable record since the SNP came to power. She referred to Scotland just 11 times. That tells the electorate where her government’s priorities have been all this time. Their focus was never us Scots; it was how to separate from the rest of the UK. If she wasn’t going to persuade the majority to vote ‘yes’ then, like her predecessor, she would be so irritating and divisive that she hoped Westminster would want to see the back of us and grant Scotland another referendum.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Sturgeon resigns, inflation falls and a crown for Camilla

Home Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, announced her resignation. Jeremy Corbyn will not be a Labour candidate at the next general election, Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader said. A boy and girl, both aged 15, were charged with the murder of Brianna Ghey, a 16-year-old transgender girl, at Culcheth, Cheshire. A revision of the Northern Ireland Protocol was predicted, under which goods from Britain destined only for Northern Ireland would not face physical customs checks; but bananas would face a tariff lest they be smuggled into the Republic. Six members of a gang, Michael Malik Ahmed, Roshan Clark, Kaijuan Henry, Zakariah Yusuf, Jessy Ouma and Joseph Opoku, who wielded knives and machetes to steal watches in Clapham and Chelsea, were convicted of robbery.

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Sturgeon, Sunak and the state of the Union

Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation as First Minister of Scotland comes at a critical moment for the Union, since the question of Scottish independence has inevitably been tied to the ongoing dilemmas over Brexit. It seems that, over the next week or two, the UK and the EU will announce a potential agreement over the revision of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Goods travelling from mainland Britain for consumption in Northern Ireland will no longer be subject to automatic checks; a trusted trader scheme will allow most shipments to be waved through. In return, it appears that the UK government has dropped its opposition to the role of the European Court of Justice as the ultimate arbiter in disputes involving trade between Britain and the island of Ireland.

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When did football first get referees?

For reference The Referees’ Association complained at the level of abuse against officials in amateur football games. Referees go back further than you might think: the first reference to one was in 1842 – meaning someone to whom gentlemanly players might turn if they could not sort out disputes between themselves. The role acquired an extra notoriety in 1874, when referees were first allowed to send players off.   Who works from home? Between September 2022 and January 2023, 16% of workers reported working from home only, 28% reported hybrid working, 10% said they could work from home but chose to go to work, and 46% said they travelled to work because they could not work from home. But there are big differences across the workforce.

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Letters: Save our independent schools

Schools out Sir: Toby Young is absolutely spot-on in his assessment of the impact of Labour’s plans to put VAT on independent schools (‘Class conflict’, 11 February). Not only will it cost the government money, but it will destroy a sector that is one of the UK’s great success stories. The naive and childish perception on the left is that all independent schools are, like Eton or Harrow, backed by wealthy parents with very deep pockets. The reality is very different. A significant number of independent schools are really struggling, and several have closed recently. Many schools operate on the margins of profitability or run at a loss. The majority of parents in the sector struggle to find the fees, and an extra 20 per cent will make it unaffordable for most.

Wednesday

The Spectator

What Turkey needs

This week’s earthquake in Turkey and northern Syria is a reminder that in spite of civilisation’s advance and human ingenuity, there are natural disasters we can do little to prevent or to protect ourselves from. Though the death toll from floods, drought and storms has fallen dramatically over the past century, the toll from tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanos has remained the same. We have little defence against shifting tectonic plates. Poorly conceived aid projects can perpetuate rather than tackle poverty After an earthquake, what matters is the speed at which aid arrives. Every minute counts in the effort to find people buried under the debris, to distribute food and to rebuild infrastructure.

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Portrait of the week: Rishi reshuffles, Truss talks and a trigger warning for Shakespeare’s Globe

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, rearranged the deck chairs. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was broken up, and Grant Shapps, the Business Secretary, was put in charge of a new department: Energy Security and Net Zero. Kemi Badenoch, the Trade Secretary, added business to her portfolio, as the new Secretary of State for Business and Trade. Michelle Donelan, the Culture Secretary, became Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport had its ‘Digital’ lopped off and was put under Lucy Frazer. The new Conservative party chairman is Greg Hands, reckoned a safe pair.