The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

From the archive: the nature of Japan

From our UK edition

From ‘The rule of taste’, Anthony Thwaite, 6 March 1959: The society of aristocrats, connoisseurs, wise men and heroes which was the Japan of Yeats’s imagination did exist. It was capable of moments which combine, in the true spirit of Zen, extraordinary aesthetic perception with what looks like plain flippancy. This is revealed, for example, in the anecdote which Sir George [Sansom] tells about the Emperor Shirakawa, who had summoned a stricken old campaigner to the Palace to tell the story of his campaigns. ‘The old soldier began, “Once when Yoshiiye had left the Defence Headquarters for the fortress at Akita, a light snow was falling and the men…” at which point His Majesty broke in and said: “Stop there!

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Fishing friction, Greta’s singalong and terror in Tokyo

From our UK edition

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, told delegates to the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow: ‘It’s one minute to midnight on that doomsday clock and we need to act now.’ He left the conference the next day. British companies would have to publish plans on reaching net zero by 2050. India said it would reach net zero by 2070. Greta Thunberg, aged 18, stood in Govan Festival Park leading a chorus of ‘You can shove your climate crisis up your arse’ to the tune of ‘Ye cannae shove yer grannie aff a bus’.

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The flaw in Britain’s net-zero plan

From our UK edition

The COP26 summit is unlikely to be an outright flop. There has been no shortage of drama, with speakers seeming to compete with each other to see who could use the most histrionic language. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, went so far as to compare the attending leaders to Nazi appeasers. He later apologised. Some progress, albeit small, is being made. A hundred countries have been persuaded, some on the promise of sweeteners worth £14 billion, to sign a pledge to end deforestation by 2030. Brazil, the most important of all, is among them. India has agreed, for the first time, to set itself a date for achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions — although its target, 2070, is two decades beyond what the United Nations would have liked.

Wednesday

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Where is the climate plan B?

From our UK edition

The COP26 summit is unlikely to be an outright flop. There has been no shortage of drama, with speakers seeming to compete with each other to see who could use the most histrionic language. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, went so far as to compare the attending leaders to Nazi appeasers. He later apologised.  Some progress, albeit small, is being made. A hundred countries have been persuaded, some on the promise of sweeteners worth £14 billion, to sign a pledge to end deforestation by 2030. Brazil, the most important of all, is among them. India has agreed, for the first time, to set itself a date for achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions — although its target, 2070, is two decades beyond what the United Nations would have liked.

Thursday

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Letters: The contentious issues of religious conversion

From our UK edition

Hard to reconcile Sir: Although not an Anglican, I appreciate Michael Nazir-Ali’s dilemma (‘A change of mind and heart’, 23 October) and know many Anglicans whose loyalty to the C of E is being severely tested. But insofar as his theology is classically Protestant and evangelical, it is difficult to see how the former bishop can reconcile it with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the sacraments, the office of the Pope, the role of Mary, purgatory and justification, to name but a few contentious issues. He speaks of how ‘what Anglicanism in its classical form has held most dear is being fulfilled in the progression of the Ordinariate’.

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Portrait of the week: Queen stays home, Boris rubbishes recycling and pay freeze thaws

From our UK edition

Home The Queen will not attend the COP26 meeting in Glasgow next week; she had resumed light duties after having spent a night in hospital for ‘preliminary medical checks’. The Queen would address COP26 by means of a recorded video. ‘The recycling thing is a red herring,’ Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, told a press conference attended by schoolchildren. ‘You can only recycle plastic a couple of times, really. What you’ve got to do is stop the production of plastic.’ The protestors calling themselves Insulate Britain blocked main roads into London and approaches to the M25. Amazon Web Services was awarded a contract to provide a high-security cloud system for GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.

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Rishi Sunak’s change of direction

From our UK edition

The Conservative party has always sold itself to voters as the party of low taxation, but it has now pushed taxes higher than any post-war Labour government dared. High spending was the tool the Prime Minister reached for at every turn in the pandemic, leaving Britain with one of the biggest post-Covid bills in Europe. His recovery plan was to part-nationalise care homes, taxing the working poor to protect the assets of the wealthy. Taxes are now heading to a 70-year high. Not Conservatism, it seems, but its inversion. Rishi Sunak’s Budget this week marks a potential turning point in this narrative.

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What’s more expensive – petrol or fizzy drinks?

From our UK edition

Filming fatalities The actor Alec Baldwin accidentally shot a cinematographer on set when mistakenly given a gun loaded with real bullets. Others who have died on set: — Martha Mansfield was resting in her car during the filming of a romance set in the US civil war in 1923 when someone flung a match which set her dress alight. — John Jordan fell out of a plane while filming Catch-22 in 1969. — Vic Morrow was decapitated by a low-flying helicopter while filming Twilight Zone: the Movie in 1982. — Jon-Erik Hexum shot himself while fooling around with a gun on the set of the CBS series Cover Up in 1984. — Roy Kinnear succumbed to injuries after he fell from a horse during the filming of The Return of the Three Musketeers in 1988.

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2527: The main dilemma – solution

From our UK edition

The question posed by the song is 11A/ 22A/37A. Suggested by 37A, other unclued lights were anagrams of words meaning sailor: 17A – rating; 26A – mariner; 39A – shipmate; 10D – sea dog; 27D – lascar.

Wednesday

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Rishi Sunak’s surprise tax cut

From our UK edition

The Conservative party has always sold itself to voters as the party of low taxation, but it has now pushed taxes higher than any post-war Labour government dared. High spending was the tool the Prime Minister reached for at every turn in the pandemic, leaving Britain with one of the biggest post-Covid bills in Europe. His recovery plan was to part-nationalise care homes, taxing the working poor to protect the assets of the wealthy. Taxes are now heading to a 70-year high. Not Conservatism, it seems, but its inversion. Rishi Sunak’s Budget this week marks a potential turning point in this narrative.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: How to feed the world

From our UK edition

Doom and gloom Sir: The depressing article by Tom Woodman (‘You must be kidding’, 16 October) confirms my growing fears about the damage being wrought by the promoters of apocalyptic climate change, which has become a dangerous cult with alarming echoes of millenarian doom which has stretched through many previous centuries. While sensible care for the environment is a good thing, the descriptions of a frightening future of the imminent end of the world through drought, flood and fire now imbues every aspect of education and politics. Constantly bombarding young people with the news that the end of the world is nigh has led many of them into completely unnecessary visions of death and disaster.

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The government’s net zero strategy doesn’t add up

From our UK edition

The commitment to reach ‘net zero’ emissions by 2050 is the most expensive government proposal in modern history. Yet it was rushed through parliament with minimal debate or scrutiny, thanks to a last-minute pledge by Theresa May in 2019, weeks before she left office. She had no credible plan, just a lofty ambition without costings. It has taken the government two-and-a-half years to come up with a proposal — and it is not convincing. The Net Zero Strategy document published this week opens with the Prime Minister’s trademark optimism. ‘We can build back greener, without so much as a hair shirt in sight,’ he writes.

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2526: Everybody out! – solution

From our UK edition

The unclued lights are preceded by ALL (with the title suggesting that ALL is to be omitted). The paired lights are 6/19 and 9/30. First prize Guy Taylor, London EC1 Runners-up Tony Alers-Hankey, London W4; Arabella Woodrow, Riddlesden, W.

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What are the Queen’s favourite tipples?

From our UK edition

Drinks at the palace The Queen was reported to have given up regular drinking. What do we know about her drinking habits (or what she likes to offer her guests) to judge by the royal warrants she has issued? — These drinks firms currently hold warrants: Bacardi Martini; Berry Bros and Rudd; Britvic soft drinks; Bollinger; G.H. Mumm et Cie; Krug; Lanson Père et Fils; Laurent-Perrier; Moet & Chandon; Veuve Cliquot; James White drinks (tomato juice); Laphroaig distillery. Testing, testing From 24 October, travellers to Britain will no longer be required to present a negative PCR test for Covid, but will be able to use lateral flow tests. Will this mean extra cases of the disease getting into Britain?

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Portrait of the week: David Amess’s death, net-zero plans and contraceptives for hippos

From our UK edition

Home Sir David Amess, aged 69, the Conservative MP for Southend West, was stabbed to death while taking a constituency surgery at Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. Police stopped a priest reaching him to administer the last rites. They arrested Ali Harbi Ali, 25, a British man of Somali heritage, who was detained under the Terrorism Act. The Queen agreed that Southend should be granted the status of a city, which Sir David had long campaigned for. Dennis Hutchings, 80, a former soldier on trial in Belfast for the attempted murder of John Pat Cunningham, 27, in 1974, died after catching Covid. In the seven days up to the beginning of this week, 830 people had died with coronavirus, bringing the total of deaths (within 28 days of testing positive) to 138,527.

Friday

The Spectator

Boris Johnson leads tributes to Sir David Amess

From our UK edition

Sir David Amess has died at the age of 69 after being attacked with a knife at a constituency surgery meeting. He spent 38 years in the House of Commons, serving first for the constituency of Basildon between 1983 and 1997 and subsequently for the Southend West seat. Tributes have been pouring in for him ever since. Below is a round-up of some of the messages posted by fellow MPs, politicians and long-time friends of Sir David. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister: 'The reason people are so shocked and sad is above all he was one of the kindest, nicest, most gentle people in politics. He also had an outstanding record of passing laws to help the most vulnerable.' David Cameron, former Prime Minister: 'This is the most devastating, horrific and tragic news.

Thursday

The Spectator

In praise of Irn Bru

From our UK edition

Gasbags Sir: Seb Kennedy tells us that, like Covid, our looming energy crisis came from China (‘Power grab’, 9 October). Its roots are nearer home. The capitulation of successive governments to doom-mongers such as Insulate Britain and the catastrophists who are due to fly to Glasgow in a few weeks for COP26 is just as much to blame. Britain has sufficient shale gas reserves to last hundreds of years, yet in the face of a few illegal demonstrations, the government abandoned the opportunity to secure gas supplies for generations to come. It caved in to those who opposed planning permission for shale mines in Lancashire and elsewhere. The naivety of aspiring to net zero without a realistic and costed transition plan is now hitting home.

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Portrait of the week: power failures, toy shortages and Boris’s Marbella mountain villa

From our UK edition

Home In an extraordinary wrangle between government departments, the Treasury accused Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, of ‘making things up’ by saying he had held talks with the Treasury about helping companies badly hit by soaring energy prices. With the price of wholesale gas having risen fourfold in a year, businesses expected to close factories. To stir the pot of government discord, some demanded that Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, should ‘knock heads together’, though he was on holiday in the mountains above Marbella at a villa belonging to Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park. There were signs that prime-ministerial favour rested upon Mr Kwarteng.