The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

How important is coffee to Britain?

Lyrical errors ‘Rule, Britannia!’ begins with the lines: ‘When Britain first, at heaven’s command/Arose from out the azure main.’ — Main is an archaic word for ocean; Edmund Spenser refers to ‘swimming in the maine’ in The Faerie Queene (1590). Azure is perhaps not the best word to describe the colour of the seas around Britain. Nor did Britain in any sense rise from the seas — rather the opposite: it first became an island around 100,000 years ago thanks to glacial floodwaters causing the erosion of the land bridge between Dover and Calais. Caffeine economy Costa announced 1,650 job losses, the latest coffee shop chain to announce a contraction due to a decline in the economy of city centres.

Wednesday

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Case takes over civil service, Zoom profits rocket and Ocado adopts M&S

Home Simon Case, aged 41, the private secretary to the Duke of Cambridge 2018-20, was appointed Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, in succession to Sir Mark Sedwill. A civil servant since 2006, Case had been Permanent Secretary at Downing Street since May. Six days earlier, Jonathan Slater was dismissed as Permanent Secretary at the Department of Education. Piers Corbyn, the elder brother of Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the Labour party, was given a penalty without trial of £10,000 for his part in organising a rally in Trafalgar Square calling for the repeal of the Coronavirus Act, passed in March, which gave the government sweeping powers.

The Spectator

Boris Johnson’s non-existent get back to work campaign

This week was built up by the Prime Minister to be the moment that would mark the return of economic and social life to robust health. But there was no real attempt by his government to urge people to go back to the office. Even Number 10 has admitted there never was a back to work campaign. In London, the number of Tube journeys made at the beginning of the week — as good an indicator of economic vitality as any — was still far below last year’s levels. In spite of repeated assurances that returning to school is safe and necessary for children’s health, a YouGov poll suggested that nearly one in five parents are still considering keeping their offspring at home. Recent figures from Scotland indicate they are doing precisely that.

The Spectator

Letters: The growing cladding crisis

Cladding fear Sir: Emma Byrne’s report on the cladding scandal (‘Ill clad’, 29 August) will have given many of those affected real hope that our plight is acknowledged. I am the first in my family to go to university, so getting on the property ladder was a major achievement. I bought my flat under shared ownership. Three years ago, we were told our building did not have dangerous cladding — only to learn later that this was not the case. My housing association is still unable to tell us how dangerous my home is. But it has warned we may have to pay to have the cladding removed. If the draft Building Safety Bill passes, the cost will be capped at £78,000.

The Spectator

From the archive: With the Benedictines

From 18 October 1946: Their whole aim and object is to exemplify in their lives and corporate activity their sense of participation in the mystical Body of Christ; and they believe that prayer in common and, above all, the maintenance of a spirit of prayerfulness throughout the day brings them nearer to it than the excessive individualism of such Renaissance mystics as St Theresa and St John of the Cross. Consequently, little or no time is allotted to private prayer, the stress being put upon group-loyalty after the pattern of the early Christians. The whole life hangs together as by a gossamer-thread; but to realise it, to feel its full message and intensity, one has, of course, to live it oneself.

The Spectator

Who first committed ‘cultural appropriation’?

Culture clashes The pop star Adele was accused of ‘cultural appropriation’ for adopting a Jamaican hairstyle for the online Notting Hill Carnival. Who first committed this alleged sin? The concept has been traced to a paper presented by Canadian art historian Kenneth Coutts-Smith at a symposium of the International Association of Art Critics in Lisbon in September 1976 — he used the terms ‘cultural colonialism’ and ‘historical appropriation’. His earliest example didn’t involve black cultures, however, but the Medici adopting an ‘idealised view of Roman Republican Virtue’ in the construction of Florence. Bags of rubbish The mandatory charge for plastic bags is to be doubled to 10p and extended to small convenience stores.

Sunday

Friday

The Spectator

Full transcript of President Trump’s RNC 2020 speech

From our US edition

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.Friends, delegates and distinguished guests, please. I stand before you tonight honored by your support, proud of the extraordinary progress we have made together over the last four incredible years and blooming with confidence in the bright future we will build for America over the next four years.We begin this evening — our thoughts are with the wonderful people who have just come through the wrath of hurricane Laura. We are working closely with state and local officials in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi. Sparing no effort to save lives while the hurricane was fierce, one of the strongest to make landfall in 150 years. The casualties and damage were far less than thought possible only 24 hours ago.

trump 2020 speech

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: Why do we need beavers?

It’s not about money Sir: Professor Tombs criticises Alex Massie (Letters, 22 August) for ignoring evidence when the latter claims that economic concerns ‘no longer matter’ in great political decisions. But the evidence from the last Scottish referendum tends to support Massie. At the beginning of the Scottish referendum campaign in 2014, polls showed 26 per cent of Scottish voters favoured independence. The Better Together campaign amassed compelling evidence that independence would be a financial disaster and set about presenting this to the Scottish public in an exercise they christened Project Fear.

The Spectator

Tanking the tanks could be a big mistake

That an abundance of tanks is no guarantee of a happy and secure nation was evident from the Soviet Union’s annual May Day parades through Red Square. A more controversial point is whether Britain can remain a serious military power without any working tanks. The government is reportedly considering, as part of its promised defence review, mothballing the country’s entire fleet of Challenger 2 tanks in order to save money and invest in evolving forms of military technology such as cyber and space warfare. This has raised the ire of some military figures, such as the former chief of the general staff General Lord Dannatt, who this week described the suggestion as ‘very dangerous’ in the face of renewed aggression from Moscow.

The Spectator

The BBC tradition of trying to remove patriotic songs from Last Night

About Last Night It was suggested that the BBC might ‘decolonise’ the Last Night of the Proms by removing ‘Rule, Britannia’ and ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ made its first appearance at the Proms in 1902 (Edward Elgar’s march had been played the previous year without the words). Sir Henry Wood’s ‘Fantasia on British Sea Songs’ followed in 1905. But the Last Night in its modern form began only with the first televised Last Night in 1947. Twenty-two years later began another tradition: the BBC trying to remove patriotic songs from the programme. The move was defeated in 1969 and again in 1990, in the run-up to the Gulf War.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: BBC drops songs, museum drops Sloane, and KFC and John Lewis drop slogans

Home Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, made pupils wear face-coverings in school corridors. It didn’t take long for the UK government to follow suit in England, for secondary pupils in areas of high transmission. The chief medical officers of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales said that the fatality rate for those aged five to 14 infected with coronavirus was 14 per million, lower than for most seasonal flu infections. Sally Collier resigned as chief regulator of Ofqual, which had been caught up in the chaotic assessment of A-level and GCSE candidates. It was ‘vitally important’ for children to go back to school, said Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister.

The Spectator

2469: Breadth solution

The unclued lights were: 12 CORNI, anagram of Corin (As You Like It); 23 MANDIRA, Miranda (The Tempest); 27 LARDOON, Orlando (As You Like It); 38 GRADE, Edgar (King Lear); 1D SIROC, Osric (Hamlet); 8 HAMPERING, Erpingham (Henry V); 21D EUTROPHIC, Petruchio (The Taming of the Shrew); 34 ANGER, Regan (King Lear). Title: anagram of ‘the Bard’. First prize Mrs F.A.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: why do we put up with bats?

Scottish hearts and heads Sir: Alex Massie ignores the evidence when he espouses the assumption that economic concerns no longer matter in great political decisions (‘Scottish horror’, 15 August). Compare, as he does, a future Scottish referendum with the 2016 Brexit vote. Then, around two thirds of the British electorate held ‘Eurosceptic views’ (so Sir John Curtice of Strathclyde University tells us). But the barest majority voted to Leave. The cause is plain: the largest single motive for Remain voters was that ‘the risks of voting to leave the EU looked too great when it came to things like the economy, jobs and prices’. A Eurosceptic two thirds was whittled down by ‘hearts vs heads’ considerations.

The Spectator

2468: noah entry? solution

The puzzle’s number 2468 was printed above the grid, hence ‘The theme is confirmed by the information provided.’ Letters deficient in the wordplay of eighteen clues spell out TWO, FOUR, SIX and EIGHT in rows and columns 2, 4, 6 and 8 respectively. The title, a pun on ‘No Entry’, alluded to animals entering Noah’s Ark 2 by 2, reflecting the increments of 2 in the puzzle number.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: A-level chaos, quarantine confusion and revolution

Home The government seemed to be taken strangely unaware by the frenzy of recrimination that came its way when results were announced from a system put in place as a substitute for A-levels, cancelled in March. Schools had been told to present teachers’ assessments, to which Ofqual applied an algorithm supposed to iron out anomalies. Almost 40 per cent of teachers’ assessments were downgraded, but even so the proportion of A and A* grades was higher than ever. Yet anomalies abounded, and schools that had performed less well in recent years saw bright pupils penalised; black children and those from poor backgrounds were said to be hard hit. While candidates lamented lost places at medical school, the government did nothing.

The Spectator

How scared are we still about Covid?

Pink and twisted Bernard Matthews, which stopped making Turkey Twizzlers in 2005 after criticism about unhealthy school dinners from Jamie Oliver, announced it is reintroducing the product. It will contain up to 70% turkey, compared with 34% originally. — Bernard Matthews came up with the idea of making twisted pieces of turkey, allegedly as an accidental by-product from a machine which stamped out imitation drumsticks from reconstituted turkey meat. — The name ‘Twizzler’ was also used by a Pennsylvania confectionary company, Y&S Candies, from 1929. The product, still sold in the US, is made from corn syrup, flour and sugar, with strawberry flavouring. Covid courage How brave have the British public been feeling over Covid-19 in the past week?

The Spectator

The Democrats’ complacency is Trump’s greatest weapon

There is a great mystery lying behind the 2020 US presidential election: how come a country of 350 million, which leads the world in academia, science and more, is unable to find two more inspiring candidates than Donald Trump and Joe Biden? Where is the voice of hope, or even just a reassuring voice of calmness and competence? Instead, come November, citizens of the most powerful nation on earth will be forced to choose between a narcissist and a man whose claim to his party’s candidature appears to be based on the principle of Buggins’ turn.