The Spectator

Wednesday

The Spectator

Britain’s asylum crisis

From our UK edition

Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai, 21, an Afghan convicted this week of murdering a man in Bournemouth last year, had previously murdered two men in Serbia. He had also been caught drug-dealing in Italy. He had been allowed to stay in the UK despite doubts about his claim to be 14 years old (he was then 18) and was placed with a foster carer and enrolled in a secondary school. When his foster carer caught him carrying a knife, a social worker was sent to his home to give him a talk about the dangers of knives.  The case of Abdulrahimzai shows just how easy it is to outwit our authorities. It tells the world that Britain no longer has the will to guard its borders and that encourages more dangerous criminals to take advantage of the system.

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Portrait of the week: Taxing times for the Tories, tanks for Ukraine and a giant Antarctic iceberg

From our UK edition

Home Nadhim Zahawi, minister without portfolio and chairman of the Conservative party, was asked to explain how a penalty formed part of a £5 million tax payment he had made. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, asked Sir Laurie Magnus, his newly appointed ethics adviser, to examine whether Mr Zahawi had broken the code of conduct on ministerial behaviour. The appointment of Richard Sharp as chairman of the BBC was under review by William Shawcross, the Commissioner of Public Appointments, after it became known that in 2020, before his appointment, he had contacted Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, about an offer of a loan of £800,000 by Sam Blyth, an old friend of Mr Sharp’s, to Boris Johnson, then PM. The government borrowed £27.

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How did ‘mummies’ get their name?

From our UK edition

Preserve us The British Museum said it would stop referring to ‘mummies’ and call them ‘mummified persons’ instead, out of respect to their dignity. How did they come to be called mummies in the first place? – The term has been traced back to 1615, and derived from the Latin Mumia, and the Arabic Mumiya, referring either to an embalmed body or the bituminous substance in which they were embalmed. The terms ‘mummified’ and ‘mummification’ did not come into use until the 19th century. Spent Has the Conservative government cut health and social care funding? NHS and social care funding in England at 2022/23 prices: 2008/09   £121.5 bn 09/10   £129.7 bn10/11   £130.2 bn11/12   £130.9 bn12/13   £131.

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Letters: Scotland’s gender law doesn’t add up

From our UK edition

Scottish muddle Sir: The Scottish Sentencing Council guidelines, introduced last year, affirm research as showing that young people, defined in the guidelines as those up to 25 years of age, ‘are not fully developed and may not have attained full maturity’ (‘Gender wars’, 21 January). As a result they are seen as less able to exercise good judgment; are more vulnerable to external influences; may be less able to assess the implications of their decisions; and may take more risks. However, Scottish people nine years younger than that, faced with the complex experience of perceiving their bodily habitus to be at odds with their sense of their gender, are judged fully ready to make permanent, legally binding, life-altering decisions independent of any external advice or assessment.

Wednesday

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Letters: Harry, Charles and the way to reconciliation 

From our UK edition

Back to work Sir: I read with interest Martin Vander Weyer’s clarion call to ‘Mr and Mrs Early-Retired Spectator Reader’ to return to work (Any other business, 14 January). The successful realisation of this aim is likely to require both a nudge from government, possibly through the tax system, and employers to show greater creativity. This pressing economic need will not be met if ‘grey returners’ are treated to the same expectations and orthodoxy as thrusting 35-year-olds. What is required, as Martin rightly notes, is flexibility. Flexible hours, flexible work practices and a flexible attitude to those who, having ‘seen and done it’ several times over, are confident in challenging, and demonstrating candour in, the workplace.

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The Boris delusion

From our UK edition

Loyalty, it used to be said, was the secret weapon of the Conservative party. That hasn’t been true for some time. Back in 2006, the then MP for Henley wrote of the Tory party having succumbed to ‘Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing’. Boris Johnson later had to apologise to Papua New Guinea for the insensitivity of that observation. But he wasn’t wrong about the new Tory tendency to kill the chief, as he discovered so painfully last year. Still, until recently a new party leader could expect a year or two of relative stability, when enemies would stay their spears and doubters would do their best to lend support. No longer. Rishi Sunak has been Conservative leader and Prime Minister for just three months.

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Portrait of the week: Sunak vs Sturgeon, Nepal plane crash and Mexico bans smoking on beaches

From our UK edition

Home The government prevented the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, passed by the Scottish parliament, from proceeding to royal assent, under Section 35 of the Scotland Act, because of its ‘serious adverse impact’ on the operation of the Equality Act 2010. It was blocked by a statutory instrument laid before parliament by the Scottish Secretary, Alister Jack. The Scottish National party leader in the Commons, Stephen Flynn, called opponents to the bill ‘rabid gammon’. Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, sought judicial review. Rishi Sunak, the British Prime Minister, had visited Scotland a few days before to help some Sea Scouts toast marshmallows and to have dinner with Ms Sturgeon.

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How many people are injured by dogs?

From our UK edition

Duke out Will the Duke and Duchess of Sussex be invited to Charles III’s coronation? The royal family faced a similarly tricky decision over the Duke of Windsor, the former Edward VIII, at Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. Documents released by the National Archives in 2007 reveal that the matter was handled by the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, who contacted the Duke in November 1952 and ‘advised’ him not to attend, adding that the Prime Minister would tell the press that ‘it would not be consistent with usage for coronation to be attended by any former ruler’. That such advice was necessary suggests that the Duke might have been sent a invitation as a formality. Whether he was or not, he did not attend.

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Christmas crossword solution | Birthday Boy

From our UK edition

Two unclued lights are a title (three words) and its creator (two words). Remaining unclued lights are four names and eight titles (either singly or paired, including two each of two, three and four words and one of five words), each name being associated with two of the titles. The theme word connecting them all must be highlighted in the grid. Further prizes of Eliot’s Book of Bookish Lists by Henry Eliot (Penguin) go to the following. The first four winners each also win a bottle of champagne. The solution is on p35. The winners First prize Susanna Heywood-Lonsdale, Inverness Runners-up John Tyson, Gloucester; Rebecca Bull, Cardiff; Rob Hardcastle, Harrogate Further runners-up Felicity Fairbairn, Tisbury, Wiltshire; O.F.G.

Thursday

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Remembering Paul Johnson, 1928–2023

From our UK edition

Paul Johnson, the author, journalist and historian, has died at the age of 94. He wrote more than 40 books, edited the New Statesman from 1965 to 1970, and wrote a column for The Spectator from 1981 to 2009. Below are some extracts from his Spectator columns, all of which are available on our archive. On the 20th century ‘Only six weeks to go before the end of the century: time to draw up a list of its political success stories. My criterion is the simple utilitarian one of Jeremy Bentham: who did most to promote the greatest possible happiness of the largest possible number?

Wednesday

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Why Britain’s space industry should be celebrated

From our UK edition

The attempted launch of a rocket via a Boeing 747 from Spaceport Cornwall – the first such attempt in Europe – was not a giant leap so much as a giant plunge. While the plane took off and landed successfully, the rocket released from beneath its wing at 35,000 feet crashed and burned, taking with it the nine satellites it was supposed to launch into orbit. There is a lesson for the government in what happened at Spaceport Cornwall this week It is easy to imagine Vladimir Putin chortling at the news that Britain has failed to do something the USSR managed 66 years ago. Satellite launches have become routine, with 14,000 put into space since the Soviet Union’s first Sputnik in 1957.

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Portrait of the week: Harry’s confessions, house prices fall and Cornish space launch fails

From our UK edition

Home Government ministers held short meetings with trade union representatives as strikes continued by ambulance drivers, teachers, bus drivers and driving test examiners. A bill was introduced to require some workers to provide a minimum level of service during strikes in the NHS, education, fire and rescue, border security, nuclear decommissioning and public transport. Evri, the courier formerly known as Hermes, said ‘Our service has not been as good as we would have liked’ as parcels were reported delayed or undelivered. James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, and Maros Sefcovic, a vice-president of the European Commission, held ‘cordial and constructive’ talks on Northern Ireland trade.

The Spectator

2585: Happy anniversary – solution

From our UK edition

Puzzle 2585 appeared on 10 December 2022, an anniversary of HUMAN RIGHTS DAY (at 1 Across) whose letters can be used to make the ten symmetrically placed unclued entries. The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10-12-48.

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Who was the monarchy’s original wicked stepmother?

From our UK edition

Wicked stepmothers Prince Harry said that he was worried Camilla would become his ‘wicked stepmother’. But she would have to be rotten indeed to match the English monarchy’s original wicked stepmother, Aelfthryth, who married King Edgar in 965. Upon Edgar’s death the succession should have passed to his elder son, Edward, but Aelfthryth had other ideas, wanting her own son, Aethelred – King Edgar’s younger son – to take the throne. She invited Edward to meet at Corfe Castle, Dorset, where, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, she sent out her servants to stab the boy – then aged about 16 – to death. As a result, it was Aethelred who became king, with Aelfthryth becoming regent until he reached adulthood. Crime time Why are people in prison?

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Letters: What Benedict XVI did for Catholicism

From our UK edition

Oxford’s Big Brother Sir: Your Oxfordshire council correspondent (Letters, 7 January), who refers to himself as the corporate director of environment and place, refutes Rod Liddle’s description of councillors as ‘dictators’ and his criticism of the way Oxford will be divided into zones to reduce traffic. Bill Cotton’s letter put me in mind of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The sectors, the checkpoints, the control of access, the difficulties in just trying to go about your business, the paperwork. Ah, the paperwork! Cotton’s letter mentions residents’ applications for permits – at cost – to drive through the ‘filters’ for 100 days or 25 times a year for county visitors. How will people keep track of these?

Thursday

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Wanted: a research producer

From our UK edition

The Spectator is the world’s oldest magazine. More people than ever are reading us, online and in print, and they’re listening and watching our broadcast output too. Our podcasts now get downloaded more than two million times each month, and Spectator TV often gets more than a million views a month. We are looking to hire a research producer, working in our broadcast team. Our team of four set up Spectator TV and produce podcasts on everything from politics to books and food, and we have big ambitions for the future. We need someone to provide research, deliver briefings, write entertaining questions and scripts, and support the team with editing it all. You must understand what The Spectator, in print, online and in broadcast, is all about.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Harry’s losing game

From our UK edition

Four months into his reign, King Charles has seen his fair share of drama: two prime ministers and a wave of public attacks from his second son. ‘I would like to get my father back,’ says the Duke of Sussex, in part of a television interview to promote Spare, his book, which is released next week. The book is, of course, not exactly a sincere appeal for familial unity. It is yet another broadside against Harry’s family, the House of Windsor. The main revelation is a story about how an argument with his brother once escalated into a fight: one in which he says his necklace was ripped. The public are by now familiar with Prince Harry’s story: the royal family’s ‘never complain, never explain’ motto is a deception, he says, as he explains his complaints.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: A&E crisis, Alps snow shortage and walrus cancels fireworks

From our UK edition

Home The Royal College of Emergency Medicine said some A&E departments were in a ‘complete state of crisis’. Railway workers belonging to the RMT union and Aslef began five days of strikes. Rail fares will rise by 5.9 per cent from March after the government decided to cap them; usually they go up a percentage point more than the July inflation figure, which in 2022 was 12.3 per cent. More than a million households with prepayment meters did not redeem their monthly energy support vouchers during the cold spell in December; postal strikes and difficulty of contacting suppliers were blamed. In December, the Bank of England had raised UK interest rates to their highest level for 14 years, to 3.5 per cent from 3 per cent.

The Spectator

2584: Song XI – solution

From our UK edition

‘MANY A TEAR HAS TO FALL’ (10/30) is the first line of It’s All in the Game whose tune, originally called ‘MELODY IN A MAJOR’ (1D), was composed by Charles G. Dawes, a future NOBEL LAUREATE (40D/2) and was often played by FRITZ KREISLER (30/6). TALLEST (34): It’s ALL in the game (TEST). DAWES (diagonally from row 4) was to be shaded.

The Spectator

How often do you see a walrus in Britain?

From our UK edition

Tusk force A new year firework display in Scarborough was cancelled for fear of disturbing a walrus which was resting on the seafront. How unusual is it to see a walrus in Britain? – There have been 27 recorded sightings in UK waters in the past 130 years, the most recent in Seahouses Harbour, Northumberland, in November 2021. – In the same year a walrus continued even further south, visiting northern Spain before returning to the Arctic. – There have been 11 sightings in Irish waters over the past century. A 125-stone walrus was responsible for sinking several anchored boats in Irish harbours in 2021. Top of the crops A Radio 4 programme, Rethink, repeated claims that crop yields could fall by 30 per cent by 2050 as a result of climate change.