The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Partygate penalties, Oscars drama and Dairy Milk shrinks

From our UK edition

Home Twenty fixed-penalty fines were issued after the police inquiry into Downing Street parties that broke Covid rules, but the Metropolitan Police refused to say who was fined for which events. Peter Hebblethwaite, the chief executive of P&O Ferries, admitted to a parliamentary committee that the company had broken the law by sacking 800 workers without consulting unions. He said that foreign replacements would earn an average of £5.50 per hour, which is below the British minimum wage. Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, said he’d change the law to stop that. Lord Grade of Yarmouth, a former BBC chairman, was announced as the preferred candidate to be chairman of the media regulator Ofcom.

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2546: Picture book – solution

From our UK edition

NICOLAS POUSSIN painted ET IN ARCADIA EGO and A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME. The latter inspired ANTHONY POWELL, whose novel sequence of the same name introduced the egregious Kenneth WIDMERPOOL.

Thursday

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Fight for the right

Sohrab Ahmari Modern American conservatism is composed of three distinct traditions: libertarian economics, foreign-policy hawkism and social traditionalism. This “fusion” was born of a contingent historical moment, the Cold War, when the Soviet threat forced different social classes and their ideological spokesmen to band together in common cause. There was no eternal principle demanding that these groups tie their destinies together — a fact that became apparent with Donald Trump’s rise, which divided the three camps along various axes of alliance and enmity. Fusionism is dead. Well and truly dead.

conservatism fusionism
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Letters: We’re all still paying for the financial crash

From our UK edition

Don’t blame the banks? Sir: Kate Andrews struggles to disentangle the causes of the developing cost-of-living crisis (‘Cold truth’, 19 March), with the fallout from Brexit, Covid and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine all vying for responsibility. She forgets the financial crash of 2008, when a few irresponsible banks and building societies dragged this country into a financial abyss. The jury is still out on the effect that the Bank of England’s remedy of quantitative easing has since had on inflation and wealth inequality. We are all still paying the price for this disaster, as will be the next couple of generations.

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Portrait of the week: Spring statement, weapons for Ukraine and no more free-range eggs

From our UK edition

Home Britain had provided Ukraine with more than 4,000 Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapons, the Ministry of Defence said. Shell reconsidered its decision to pull out of investing in the large Cambo oil field, 75 miles off the west coast of Shetland. The government was expected to put into special administration Gazprom Marketing & Trading Retail Ltd, with which several councils have contracts to buy gas, though it does not come from Russia. Among those seeking to buy Chelsea Football Club, on sale after the sanctioning of its owner Roman Abramovich, a group called the True Blue Consortium was given support by John Terry.

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Which countries have ditched daylight savings time?

From our UK edition

Time for a change A bill before the US Senate would abolish daylight saving time. Some countries which have previously practised daylight saving but no longer do so: – Algeria (last changed clocks in 1981); Brazil (1932); China (1991); Colombia (1993); Egypt (2015); Falkland Islands (2010); Hong Kong (1979); Iceland (1968); India (1945); Indonesia (1963); Iraq (2007); Pakistan (2009); Peru (1994); Philippines (1990); Russia (2014); South Africa (1944); South Korea (1988). Pumped up The price of unleaded petrol reached an average of 165.37p per litre. How does that compare with spikes in petrol prices in the past?

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The return of fiscal conservatism

From our UK edition

Next month, Rishi Sunak will break a Tory manifesto pledge by increasing National Insurance as the tax burden heads to a 77-year high. By declining to increase departmental spending for inflation – and using the saved money to cut the basic rate of income tax – the Chancellor has started a cautious fightback against Big Government conservatism. Much has changed in the two years since Sunak took over as Chancellor. Back then, inflation appeared dead and buried: long-term forecasts did not envisage it going above 2 per cent. Sajid Javid, Sunak’s predecessor, said he expected rates to be ‘low for long’ – and planned to borrow and spend on that basis. The Tories had quite simply lost their fear of inflation.

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2545: With a twist – solution

From our UK edition

Suggested by 41, the other unclued lights were worms entered backwards in the grid. To comply with the preamble, 6 down needs to be CESTODE (the individual worm) rather than CESTODA (the subclass). First prize Leslie Verth, Newton Mearns, Glasgow Runners-up Roslyn Shapland, Ilkeston, Derbyshire.

Wednesday

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Rishi’s fightback against big government Toryism

From our UK edition

Next month, Rishi Sunak will break a Tory manifesto pledge by increasing National Insurance as the tax burden heads to a 77-year high. By declining to increase departmental spending for inflation – and using the saved money to cut the basic rate of income tax – the Chancellor has started a cautious fightback against Big Government conservatism. Much has changed in the two years since Sunak took over as Chancellor. Back then, inflation appeared dead and buried: long-term forecasts did not envisage it going above 2 per cent. Sajid Javid, Sunak’s predecessor, said he expected rates to be ‘low for long’ – and planned to borrow and spend on that basis. The Tories had quite simply lost their fear of inflation.

Thursday

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The soft censorship of the Online Safety Bill

From our UK edition

The arrest of a reporter who held up a poster during a Russian news broadcast criticising the war in Ukraine reminds us how dictatorships operate. One of Vladimir Putin’s first acts on the home front, after sending his tanks over the Ukrainian border, was to pass a law specifying jail terms of up to 15 years for anyone who dares to disseminate ‘fake news’ – i.e. anything which contradicts his government’s lies – about the Russian war effort. Britain is a very long way from that kind of suppression of speech. If a publication wishes to condemn Boris Johnson for his handling of the Ukraine war, Covid or for anything else, its writers and editors will not be ‘disappeared’. But the stories themselves might be.

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Letters: Ukraine’s perpetual struggle against Russia

From our UK edition

Two Russias? Sir: I have been turning Owen Matthews’s article (‘Putin’s rage’, 5 March) over in my mind since I read it, and I feel compelled to respond. I am married to a Ukrainian, so I have some insight into the relevant history. After the Wall came down, my wife’s uncle Stephan visited us in England. He had spent 20 years in a Soviet gulag because his brother – my father-in-law – had fought against the Russians for a free Ukraine in the 1940s, during what they still call the Great Patriotic War. Unable to imprison him, they took his brother instead.

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Who coined the name ‘Londongrad’?

From our UK edition

Thamesky Prospekt Who first coined the place name ‘Londongrad’? The name was used in a BBC sitcom called Comrade Dad, written by Ian Davidson and Peter Vincent, and first broadcast in 1984. It was set in a Britain of 1999 when the Soviet Union had annexed the country. However, the first use of the term has been traced to an obscure columnist, Senator Soaper, writing for the Montana Standard in 1931. Ridiculing George Bernard Shaw’s fondness for communism, he gave Shaw’s address as ‘Whitehall Courtsky, Londongrad’. Whitehall Court, on the Embankment, has become a favourite of Russian investors. Igor Shuvalov, deputy prime minister of Russia between 2008 and 2018, is believed to own two apartments in the building.

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Portrait of the week: Russian forces move in on Kiev

From our UK edition

Home More than 100,000 people registered interest in giving a place in their homes for Ukrainian refugees under a government scheme, after widespread criticism of bureaucratic obstacles, though refugees would still require a visa. The scheme was the responsibility of Michael Gove, the Levelling Up Secretary; asked if he would take in a refugee, he said: ‘Without going into my personal circumstances, there are a couple of things I need to sort out – but, yes.’ He thought it might be an idea to lodge refugees in oligarchs’ empty properties. Anarchists occupied a house in Belgrave Square belonging to Oleg Deripaska; four were arrested.

Thursday

The Spectator

It’s time to drop the net zero agenda

From our UK edition

For years British energy policy has been an exercise in wishful thinking. We’ve been living in a fantasy world in which Britain can somehow achieve ‘net zero’ by 2050 without paying any serious economic price, and with no one significantly poorer as a result. ‘Not a hair-shirt in sight,’ said the Prime Minister, though most independent assessments said net zero would cost between £36,000 and £50,000 per household. Reality, now, is biting. Reducing emissions is important but security of supply is vital, and Europe has been forced to come to terms with its dependence on Russian oil and gas. The dependence is so entrenched that it is possible Vladimir Putin thought that Europe would rather leave Ukraine undefended than impose sanctions.

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Which European countries are most reliant on Russian gas?

From our UK edition

High commodity Nickel trading was suspended this week after prices rose to over $100,000 per tonne – double its previous peak of $50,000. How do other commodity prices compare with their peaks since the 2008 financial crisis? Previous peak Silver $43 Brent crude $140 Gold $1,853 Aluminium $3,124 Tin $33,015 This week Silver $26 Brent crude $139 Gold $2,050 Aluminium $3,849 Tin $50,025 Short squeeze The extraordinary rise in nickel prices was partly caused by a ‘short squeeze’, where investors try to exploit bets by other traders that prices would decrease.

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Letters: Britain must offer immediate sanctuary to Ukrainians

From our UK edition

Unintended consequences Sir: The West has got it wrong when it comes to putting a stranglehold on Vladimir Putin (‘Putin’s rage’, 5 March). Harsh economic sanctions will ultimately punish millions of ordinary Russians, many of whom are poor and probably against the invasion of Ukraine. If the products Russian workers produce do not sell then those workers become unemployed and forced into poverty. That could quickly turn more Russian citizens against the West, strengthening support for Putin rather than weakening it, thus prolonging the occupation and hostilities. So far, the West hasn’t done a great deal regarding this invasion, other than turn the wheels of Putin’s propaganda machine for him.

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Portrait of the week: Zelensky channels Churchill, Russia blocks BBC and Bercow banned from parliament

From our UK edition

Home President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine addressed a packed House of Commons by video, echoing Winston Churchill by declaring that Ukrainians would fight in the fields and in the streets. He said: ‘Please make sure that our Ukrainian skies are safe.’ Wearing a blue and yellow tie, the Speaker, clearly moved, thanked him. Earlier, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, announced a ban on Russian oil imports in the coming months, but no ban on gas imports. He proposed a six-point plan that included an international humanitarian coalition and maximising economic pressure on Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia. Mr Johnson also said the government would publish a strategy for producing more energy in the UK. Petrol rose above 155p a litre.

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2543: Parts of Speech – solution

From our UK edition

Unclued lights are the many parts each man plays, from the ‘Seven ages’ speech by Jaques (29D) in As You Like It (2:7:139). First prize Andy Binstead, Stroud, Glos Runners-up Susan Hay, Perton, Wolverhampton; S.J.J.

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Schools portraits: a snapshot of four notable schools

From our UK edition

Colville Primary School Based just off Notting Hill’s Portobello Road, Colville Primary School occupies a Victorian Grade II-listed building that was once a laundry. Today, it accommodates pupils up to the age of 11 who are taught under the school’s ‘three key values’: respect, aspiration and perseverance. Colville also says it believes in the British values of democracy, individual liberty and tolerance. The school’s performance has shot up over the past decade: three years ago, it was rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted. Despite its setting in the heart of London, there’s plenty of area for play — the playground facilities are new, and there’s also a large ball court and running track.