Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Spectator 16-07-16
The Spectator 16-07-16
DESPERATE TEENAGERS
MARY WAKEFIELD
GUTTED BY GHOSTBUSTERS
CARRY ON,
CORBYN!
ROD LIDDLE
DEBORAH ROSS
STEPHEN BAYLEY
FUTURE
EXPAND
established 1828
Camerons legacy
Lincoln cathedral
vs Machu Picchu, p53
THE WEEK
5
Leading article
BOOKS
26 Mark Amory
Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited,
by Philip Eade; Evelyn Waugh:
Writers and their Work,
by Ann Pasternak Slater
28 Harry Mount
Ancient Worlds: An Epic History of
East and West, by Michael Scott
29 Sarah Ditum
In the Darkroom, by Susan Faludi
Ian Thomson
Cover by Morten Morland. Drawings by Michael Heath, Castro, Phil Disley, RGJ, Kipper Williams, Nick Newman, Paul Wood, Adam Singleton, Geoff Thompson, Grizelda,
K.J. Lamb, Sally Artz, Dredge, Tony Husband, Mike Williams, Carol Stokes, Cluff and Bernie.
www.spectator.co.uk To subscribe to The Spectator for 111 a year, turn to page 24 Editorial and advertising The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP,
Tel: 020 7961 0200, Fax: 020 7681 3773, Email: editor@spectator.co.uk (editorial); letters@spectator.co.uk (for publication); advertising@spectator.co.uk (advertising);
Advertising enquiries: 020 7961 0222 Subscription and delivery queries Spectator Subscriptions Dept., 800 Guillat Avenue,
Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne ME9 8GU; Tel: 01795 592886 Fax: 0870 220 0290; Email: spectator@servicehelpline.co.uk
Newsagent queries Spectator Circulation Dept, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP, Tel: 020 7961 0200, Fax: 020 7681 3773, Email: dstam@spectator.co.uk
Distributor COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 7QX Vol 331; no 9803 The Spectator (1828) Ltd.
ISSN 0038-6952 The Spectator is published weekly by The Spectator (1828) Ltd at 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP
Editor: Fraser Nelson
Georgia OKeeffes
tinted photography, p34
LIFE
ARTS
32 Stephen Bayley The truth about
Duchamps Fountain
LIFE
45 High life Taki
Low life Jeremy Clarke
37 Opera Leonore;
I Capuleti e i Montecchi;
Tamerlano
Richard Bratby
AND FINALLY . . .
42 Notes on Holiday reading
Emily Rhodes
38 Cinema Ghostbusters
Deborah Ross
51 Crossword Columba
52 Status anxiety Toby Young
Battle for Britain Michael Heath
Mary Killen
54 Drink Bruce Anderson
Mind your language
Dot Wordsworth
CONTRIBUTORS
John OSullivan, who
writes about Theresa May on
p. 14, was a speechwriter for
Margaret Thatcher, and is
editor of Quadrant.
Home
heresa May became Prime Minister
and leader of the Conservative party
when Andrea Leadsom withdrew her
candidacy for election by party members.
This came after a front-page report by
the Times based on an interview with Mrs
Leadsom in which she said: I feel being
a mum means you have a very real stake
in the future of our country a tangible
stake. She [Mrs May] possibly has nieces,
nephews, lots of people, but I have children,
who are going to have children. Her
remarks were criticised by some fellow
Conservatives, which Mrs Leadsom found
shattering. Mrs May said gnomically that
Brexit means Brexit. David Cameron,
who had been booed when he watched
tennis in the royal box at Wimbledon,
agreed to tender his resignation to the
Queen after Prime Ministers Questions on
Wednesday. Larry the Downing Street cat
decided to stay at No. 10.
Abroad
black former soldier, Micah Xavier
Johnson, aged 25, shot dead five
policemen and wounded 11 people in
Dallas, Texas, before being killed by a
bomb sent by a police robot during a standoff. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, protests
continued after police killed a black man
Robert Peston
Charles Moore
11
12
voice in cabinet on Home Office and security matters and she fought her corner
when challenged. But she tended not to
weigh in on other matters. Cabinet colleagues have little idea of her views on the
economy, for instance. Her long-serving parliamentary colleagues dont know either.
Which is surprising, since May started her
professional life at the Bank of England and
is better qualified than most to opine on the
economy. The fact that she did not, since it
was not her brief, says much about her.
May is not an ideological politician. She
has little time for labels or grand unifying
theories. She is driven by a sense of duty.
She is often characterised as a cautious politician. But this isnt quite right. It is true
that she likes to approach issues incrementally, but she has been quite bold as Home
Secretary. She has taken on the police, for
instance, in a way that never happened
under Margaret Thatcher.
Mays work on the stop and search
issue sheds intriguing light on her character.
Sources say that she took action after hearing from young black Britons who had to
deal with being stopped by the police on a
regular basis for no good reason. Her ability to understand how that made people
feel shows that, for all the talk of her steely
character, she is empathic. Those close to
the spectator | 16 july 2016 | www.spectator.co.uk
UK. It is vital that our country is in a position to sign as many of these as it can as fast
as possible after leaving the EU. Early deals
would create momentum for more and show
that Britain was intent on being an open,
outward-looking nation. That is one of the
keys to making a success of Brexit.
What will Theresa May do between now
and the next scheduled general election in
2020? Well, there will be Britains exit from
the European Union to negotiate. I understand that May has also told colleagues that
she still regards the last Tory manifesto as
operative, and wants to carry on implementing it. One close ally of hers tells me that we
will see accentuations to the 2015 agenda
rather than wholesale departures from it.
But May appears to understand that the
defeat for the status quo in the EU referendum was about more than Europe, that too
many people feel that the economy doesnt
work for them. The great challenge for postBrexit Britain is to make the country an
attractive place for investment while dealing
with the unacceptable faces of capitalism.
Another thing confirmed by the EU
referendum was the divide between London, which voted heavily to remain, and the
bulk of England which voted to leave. Part
of this Leave vote was motivated by a sense
that their regions were being left behind.
In her victory speech to Tory MPs on Monday, May emphasised the need to help parts
of the UK that felt this way. If this is to be
done, the quality of schooling in these areas
will need to be addressed 28 per cent of
pupils in the north-east are going to schools
that require improvement. In Blackpool and
Doncaster, more than half of all pupils are at
failing schools. That entrenches inequality in
our country.
The Tory party turned to Theresa May
because she was seen as offering stability
and steadiness in a time of great uncertainty. As the drama of the Tory leadership contest intensified, her cool temperament only
became more appealing. But she may well
turn out to be an unexpected radical, ushering in changes to the UK that go far beyond
Brexit.
BAROMETER
Nuggets on May
Some trivia about Theresa May
At 59, she is the oldest new prime
minister since Jim Callaghan, 64, in 1976.
She has the shortest surname of any
prime minister since Andrew Bonar Law,
who held the post for 211 days in 1923.
She is the first childless PM since
Edward Heath
She is one of three recent prime
ministers whose fathers were preachers:
Gordon Brown is the son of a Church of
Scotland minister and Lady Thatchers
father was a Methodist preacher as well as
shopkeeper. In spite of her father being a
Church of England vicar, Theresa May at
one point attended a convent school
Like Lady Thatcher, May suffered a
by-election failure before securing a safe
Conservative seat. While Thatcher failed
to secure the Tory candidacy, however,
Theresa fought the Barking by-election of
1994, but saw the Conservative share of the
vote plunge to 10.4% from 33.9% in 1992.
International operations
It was revealed that 849 overseas residents
were given cataract operations on the NHS
last year. What do health tourists cost the
taxpayer, according to the government?
261m
EEA visitors who fall ill here:
Visitors from outside EEA who fall ill
1.08bn
in Britain:
Expats who return for treatment: 94m
Irregular migrants who fall ill
in Britain:
330m
People who travel to Britain specifically
6080m
for NHS treatment:
Labour classes
Who will vote in Labours leadership
election? A leaked document in January,
when the party had 388,000 members,
suggested that some of them fitted the
following socioeconomic classifications
devised by credit agency Experian:
Labour members
British population
City Prosperity (high status,
11%
substantial salaries)
4%
Family Basics (raising children
4%
on limited budgets)
9%
Isis victory
14
government towards one of support for activist (popular) government. May plainly wants
Britain to move from a free market philosophy that restrains government to one of government activism, economically as well as
socially. She feels that there is not enough
dynamism in a UK economy marked by low
productivity (sorry, George), wants lower
prices and more reliable supply in energy
policy (goodbye to greenery?) and favours
an industrial strategy that will pick winners,
keep a watch on foreign takeovers if they
threaten job losses and create new Treasury
mechanisms to raise more funds for infrastructure investment.
Unfortunately for May, Chamberlain and
governments since him have done all the easy
social reforms, which are now seen to create
their own problems, such as dependency (not
much addressed in Mays remarks). As for
her economic reforms, some seem sensible.
Others, such as appointing consumer and
worker representatives to company boards,
will add to regulation and weaken fiduciary
responsibilities without contributing much to
efficiency, or even fairness. And debt, however cheap, still has to be repaid, which is
harder to do if the money goes into projects
that promise political rewards but no decent
return on capital. That sometimes happens
too. There clings to these ideas some of the
flavour of the Macmillan-Wilson-Heath
years of incomes policy, indicative planning,
participation, etc, which we know from experience doesnt end well.
Chamberlain was famous, too, for seeking
to transform the agglomeration of disparate
British colonies into a coherent military and
trading imperial federation what he came
to call Greater Britain. That isnt what May
has in mind by Brexit must mean Brexit.
But there are various alternatives to Europe
that no one considered while the EU was the
status quo, varying from simple trade deals
with other countries or the Commonwealth
to complex schemes such as James C. Bennetts Canzuk, which adds military co-operation, liberalised migration rules, and other
co-operative measures to free trade with
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and, in time,
Singapore and India. May is going to have to
consider these things if she is to give Brexit
a positive, global, optimistic gloss rather than
making it seem an extended damage limitation exercise. And she has a chance here to
improve on Chamberlain, since his ideas of
imperial federation were killed by the stroke
that disabled him. It might also give her the
central Big Idea that she currently lacks.
None of this will be easy. Her small
retreats from the free market could be dangerous if they grow larger. But she seems a
more interesting politician as a result of her
Birmingham speech than she did before. And
she can take comfort from Chamberlains
reply when asked how he differed from his
great rival, Balfour. Arthur hates difficulties,
he said. I love em.
the spectator | 16 july 2016 | www.spectator.co.uk
As a boy, I picked up
an extra paper round
in Petersfield to save
for flying lessons.
Richard Pillans, Boeing UK Chief Test Pilot
As a boy, I picked up an extra paper round in Petersfield to save for flying lessons. I managed to get my pilots
licence before I could even drive a car. Its freeing to get up in the air and see the world from that perspective.
Even though I left the British military I still feel like Im part of it as a civilian test pilot. The data we gather proves
the Chinooks are safe before the frontline fly them. We feel good about supporting the team overseas.
16
signed off another version of it without telling them. It was an unusual modus operandi, but one that brought May success in a
department known as the graveyard of political ambition.
Crucially, Mays advisers are thinkers,
not just fixers. Nick Timothy, in particular,
has held great sway over her political agenda. He seems to influence what she thinks
to an almost scary extent, according to one
colleague, although other Tories argue that
ROD LIDDLE
Washington, DC
onsidering how heavily its citizens
are armed with pistols, hunting rifles,
shotguns, military semi-automatics,
crossbows and nunchucks, considering how
ethnically diverse and historically divided the
place is, and considering that it is home to a
third of a billion more or less rootless people, it is surprising Americans dont kill each
other more. The United States is well policed,
even if it has been hard to say so lately. In the
space of a couple of days in July, black men
were shot dead by policemen in two separate
incidents in Louisiana and Minnesota. Video
flew round the internet. A protest rally called
in Texas became the site of a sniper attack by
a wild-eyed (but well-trained) black nationalist Iraq War veteran, who killed five policemen and wounded seven others.
The perception that police have an animus against young black men is largely an
illusion. It arises from the way a sociological fact has collided with a historical inheritance. Blacks, who make up 13 per cent of
the US population, commit around a quarter
of its violent crimes, including more than half
its murders. They thus have more (and more
dramatic) encounters with the police than citizens of other races. At the same time, black
Americans claims that their ancestors were
ill treated by the countrys white majority can
neither be gainsaid nor minimised.
Barack Obama and other politicians have
lately encouraged blacks to blame their frequent encounters with police on white prejudice, not black criminality. In the almost
cataleptically detached speeches he made on
his recent visits to Warsaw and Madrid, the
President appeared to recognise that attacking the police is more a political strategy
than a description of reality. He didnt speak
about the stability of the country. He said: If
we paint police officers with a broad brush
then were going to lose allies in the reform
process.
At least a dozen police killings of young
black men have come to national attention
in the past half decade. Few have been openand-shut cases of brutality. Some are horrific
tragedies like the killing of a 12-year-old
boy, Tamir Rice, who was shot in a Cleveland park while wielding a toy gun. Some
are unsolvable like the killing of Trayvon
Martin by the neighbourhood guard George
18
Never again
From Terms of peace, The Spectator,
15 July 1916: As the man in the street
might say, The Allies are not going to
give the Germans a chance to come at us
a second time. Never again! is our motto.
And if this is the object of the war, it will
also be the object of the peace. We shall
not dictate peace terms which will lead to
the destruction of the German people or
any section of them, or to any annexations
of true German provinces; but we shall,
as far as lies in our power, see to it that
such a structure of government as that
presented by militarist Germany is an
impossibility for the future.
A week before the Republican convention in Cleveland, street politics is destabilising electoral politics. The events of early July
have shifted the presidential campaign seismically. There may be a choice this November between public order and the agenda of
Black Lives Matter.
Historically, American voters have preferred the former. An April article in Salon
magazine predicted that Black Lives Matter
would be the Secret Turnout Ally of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. But this
only means that Clinton will have a bigger
challenge getting on the majoritys side. Her
partys route to the White House requires
turning out black voters in high numbers
and taking 90 per cent of their votes. Donald
Trump, meanwhile, has been campaigning for
months as if the coming election will be a referendum on whether the country backs the
cops or not. He has lined up important police
endorsements and laid the predicate for a traditional law-and-order campaign of the sort
Richard Nixon won with in 1968. For a variety
of reasons, a majority of Americans would be
reluctant to see Trump as their president just
now. But under the pressure of violence and
disorder, such reasons can become harder
and harder to recall.
Christopher Caldwell is a senior editor at the
Weekly Standard.
F O L L OW E V E RY T W I S T O F T H E K N I F E
with The Spectator. Subscribe today.
www.spectator.co.uk/subscribe
19
Olympic shames
20
MARY WAKEFIELD
Pilgrimages progress
One of Britains oldest Christian traditions
is reviving in a strange new form
DANIEL HITCHENS
22
JAMES DELINGPOLE
Brexit won the battle. But now weve lost the war
LETTERS
Thinking in miles
Parliaments authority
Sir: I disagree with Toby Youngs claim
(Status Anxiety, 2 July) that the decision
to leave the EU reflects a decline in the
authority of Parliament. On the contrary,
it shows a desire to see the authority of
Parliament restored. There is now so much
legislation imposed on us by the EU over
which our representatives have no control
and, worse still, regulations which are not
even voted on by the EU parliament. It will
A sense of loss
Rubbish finds
Mays mandate
www.spectator.co.uk/ad16
UK/Intnl edition
12 months (52 issues)
UK Print edition
Australian edition
12 months (52 issues)
111
129
Europe
185
195
Australia
199
A$279
New Zealand
199
NZ$349
payable to
Mastercard
Amex
Maestro*
Card number
Expiry date
*Maestro Issue Number/Valid From Date
Signature
Date
Name
Address
Postcode
Country
Email
SHA10A
The Spectator (1828) Limited and Press Holdings Media Group may use your information for
administration, customer services and targeted marketing. In order to full our commitments to
you we will disclose your information to our service providers and agents. We would like to keep
you informed of new Spectator products and services. Please tick here to be contacted by: email
sms phone. We would also like to keep you informed of new products and services by post. Please
tick here if you would rather not be communicated to by us by carefully selected third parties .
BOOKS
A Life Revisited, as the modest, almost nervous, title suggests, mainly concerns Evelyn
Waughs life with comments on but no analysis of his books. There have been at least
three major biographies already, as well as
large volumes of diaries, letters and journalism and many slighter volumes. There is
more to come. Waughs grandson, Alexander, who has defied current trends by writing a fine book on the males of the family,
is editor-in-chief of The Complete Works of
Evelyn Waugh, with the first of 43 volumes
coming out next year. He has also collected an unrivalled archive containing unpublished notes, letters and interviews, and
commissioned this book for the 50th anniversary of his grandfathers death.
All of which presents Philip Eade with
a problem. How much knowledge can he
assume? Should he include the best known
stories and remarks? On the whole he does.
I must admit that I read about the second world war hoping to find his reply to
a general who complained of his having
had a few drinks in the mess: I told him I
could not change the habits of a lifetime
for a whim of his. Also the funniest letter
he ever wrote, concerning the blowing up
of a tree stump near the castle of the Earl
of Glasgow is quoted in full. At the end
Waugh wrote, this is quite true, and Eade
commends Waughs flair for embellishment,
but the present Lord Glasgow confirms that
yes, it did actually happen pretty much like
that.
So this reader, along with many others,
followed a familiar story, nodding at some
bits, uncertain whether other details are
new or had just been forgotten. To know
more turns out to be to forgive more. Yes,
Waugh was a snob but a selective snob, not
a sucker up to grand bores. Yes, he could be
rude and cruel but he could also be kind
26
GETTY IMAGES
Ancient worlds collide: Alexander and Porus at the Battle of Hydaspes, in what is now Punjab, painted by Charles Le Brun, 1673
Worlds apart
Harry Mount
Ancient Worlds: An Epic History of
East and West
by Michael Scott
Hutchinson, 25, pp. 432
Daddy dearest
Sarah Ditum
In the Darkroom
by Susan Faludi
William Collins, 16.99, pp. 432
Making waves
Rose George
GETTY IMAGES
Royal Marine commandos coming ashore on Juno Beach, 9 a.m., 6 June 1944.
The Allies fixed a tidally perfect day to land using a Victorian music machine
After a curtain-twitching cul-de-sac, a Preston shopping precinct, and the Church of the
Latter-Day Saints brought to Lancashire,
Jenn Ashworth ups sticks for the seaside
in her fourth novel. Set in the determinedly genteel resort of Grange-over-Sands, just
across the bay from Morecambe on the
Cumbrian coast, Fell is a disturbing, precisely rendered tale of charisma, misplaced faith
and transgenerational trauma, with a touch
ARTS
ou have to imagine the lines that follow in separate fonts to get the full
sense of the nonsense in Karawane,
one of Hugo Balls verses without words:
jolifanto bambla falli bambla
grossiga mpfa habla horem
giga goramen
APIC/GETTY IMAGES
credited to the Baroness Elsa von FreytagLoringhoven (ne Pltz), the subject of an
unfinished biography by Djuna Barnes.
The baroness was a performance artiste,
a multisexual kleptomaniac and scatologist in whose cheerfully obscene poetry we
find coinages such as Phalluspistol and
Kissambushed.
She called Duchamp MArs which, it
was explained, stood for My arse. In an act
of pure Dada, she accidentally gassed herself in Berlin in 1927, but not before publicly
wearing tomato-soup cans as a bra, presenting herself hither and yon half-naked, shaving her head and lacquering it with red
the spectator | 16 july 2016 | www.spectator.co.uk
enamel and, just days before Marcel created Fountain, sending him the porcelain
pissoir signed with the Mutt nom-de-plume
that was, in fact, her own. Only in the 1950s
Music
Where should this
music be?
Boyd Tonkin
This must rank as the most heartbreaking
example of premature chicken-counting in
musical history. Gotter has made a marvellous free adaptation of Shakespeares The
Tempest, wrote poet Gottfried Brger to
the translator A.W. Schlegel on 31 October
1791. Mozart is composing the piece. Three
days later, brimming with misplaced confidence, the dramatist Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter confirmed that the edifice is all ready to
receive Mozarts heavenly choruses.
By 5 December 1791, Mozart was dead.
Most probably, he never saw Gotters Tempest adaptation, although the musicologist
Alfred Einstein stirred the pot of Mozartian
myth by presuming that the master had set
to work on it during his dying days. So the
second most famous phantom opera drawn
from the plays of Shakespeare evaporated
into fantasy before it had even begun.
As for the best-known unbuilt blueprint,
it has a more tangible history. Over a quarter-century, Verdis long-planned, neverexecuted opera of King Lear went through
two librettists (Salvadore Cammarano and
Antonio Somma), a handful of false starts,
a posse of disappointed opera-house managers (starting with Benjamin Lumley in
London in 1846) and numberless dark
nights of the composers soul. Eventually,
Verdi gave up on the storm-battered king
and instead conquered the scarcely less formidable peaks of Otello and Falstaff. You
might argue that Lears bond with Cordelia,
which obsessed Verdi, also colours the great
music for the jester and his daughter Gilda
in Rigoletto.
These twin might-have-beens, their
heavenly harmonies forever drifting just
out of earshot, epitomise the lure of perfect Shakespearean opera. In this anniversary year, directors and programmers have
rammed their seasons full of musical Shakespeareana. The 2016 Proms alone offer a
dozen Bard-based concerts, from crowdpleasing staples such as Mendelssohns
skittering soundtrack to A Midsummer
Nights Dream to a brace of lesser-spotted
takes on Lear itself: Berliozs concert overture, and Debussys fragments of incidental music.
Meanwhile, opera houses have plucked
assorted rarities from the 300-strong inventory of Shakespearean music-dramas. On
23 July, Glyndebourne will begin its run of
Batrice et Bndict by the Bard-worshipping
Berlioz his version of Much Ado About
Nothing. Weirder obscurities have resurfaced. When the youthful Richard Wagner
watched Das Liebesverbot his surpris34
Exhibitions
Privates on parade
Martin Gayford
Georgia OKeeffe
Tate Modern, until 30 October
JEREMY ANNEAR
M A R I T I M E E D G E , 2 016
oil on canvas
Painting for Annear is a process of discovery through making, a negotiation between the world
that is also a spiritual rite of passage. The act of painting is instinctive, rather than long pondered,
but he approaches his daily stint in the studio in a highly professional manner, focusing his inner
resources on a state of being that is dispassionate, disciplined and truthful.
Andrew Lambirth
2 8 Cor k S t re e t , L o nd o n W1S 3 N G
Te l: +4 4 (0)2 0 7437 55 4 5
i n fo @ m e s su m s .co m
w w w. m e s su m s .co m
and seemingly paper-thin. This was, perhaps, the result of OKeeffes close association with photography and its practitioners.
Her mentor, lover and eventually husband was Alfred Stieglitz, photographer
and leader of the New York avant-garde.
He was the first to exhibit her work, in the
gallery called 291 (from its address on Fifth
Avenue). Subsequently, she was the model
or perhaps performance artist is a more
apt description in a remarkable series
of pictures taken by Stieglitz, among them
extremely sensuous nudes.
These are included in the exhibition, as
are works by two other friends who were
Theatre
My best fiend
Lloyd Evans
Unreachable
Royal Court, until 6 August
Fury
Soho Theatre, until 30 July
Anthony Neilson is an Arts Council favourite known for trivial but impenetrable plays
with off-putting names like The Wonderful World of Dissocia. His latest effort has
another hazard-warning instead of a title.
Unreachable starts with an actress auditioning for a dystopian sci-fi movie set in
a clichd future. She lands the role and
we cut to the film-lot where more clichs
await. Pretentious director Max is furious
because the sun wont stay in one place and
he decides to ditch his digital cameras and
film instead on old-fashioned celluloid. The
shoot is suspended while producers scrabthe spectator | 16 july 2016 | www.spectator.co.uk
Opera
First things first
Richard Bratby
Leonore; I Capuleti e i Montecchi;
Tamerlano
Buxton Festival, in rep until 23 July
Cinema
Girls v. ghosts
Deborah Ross
Ghostbusters
PG, Nationwide
ly.) But this cast dont bring that knowingness, dont establish any chemistry and
while this couldnt recapture, it could have
reinvented, had it been reinventive enough;
had it been remade with some proper, fullon 21st-century smarts and characters that
didnt go about saying, Lets do this! amid
many other similar banalities. Its OK. Its
not a disaster. And it doesnt vindicate the
naysayers. This film fails to fly not because
it stars women, but because thats the only
good idea it had. Gutting.
Television
The prodigy
James Walton
On Tuesday night on Channel 4, a stern male
figure peered over his glasses (as equipped
with one of those cords favoured by the
middle-aged specs-wearer) and offered us
his robust views on how government benefits encourage laziness. Which might not
sound that unusual except that the male
figure in question was 12.
THE HECKLER
Radio
Sounds of the suburbs
Kate Chisholm
In After the Vote, her talk for this weeks special edition of A Point of View (Radio 4) on
the subject of Brexit, the philosopher (and
former Reith lecturer) Onora ONeill suggested that the media have played a large
part in creating our current crisis. All branches of it failed to communicate with the public
an accurate and honest account, she argued.
The BBC, she said, provided coverage but
failed to challenge unfair or dubious claims
by either side, adding that democracy does
not work if such claims are not properly challenged. This for her is the true nature of the
democratic deficit lack of information,
of informed debate, of proper checks. The
public, she argued, were not given credible,
accessible and assessable information on the
big questions we faced before the vote and
are now being confronted with afterwards.
ONeills talk was just one of five this
week, in an attempt to provide each morning a more balanced perspective on what
Brexit means. It came as a relief after such
days of bitterness, bile and misinformation
to hear ONeills measured thoughtfulness.
Elsewhere on Radio 4 there were other
reassuring signs that the country has not yet
quite gone to the dogs. The roses are still
blooming in John Betjemans Metroland,
those districts of outer London served by
the Metropolitan Line and including Chesham, Pinner and Northwood, reported Hugh
Muir in Black Flight and the New Suburbia
(Sunday). Much else, though, is changing. In
Pinner, for instance, the cricket XI is now
mainly made up of black or Asian players,
part of the exodus of people of ethnic origin to the suburbs. The high street has shops
selling spices, yams and plantains. There are
mosques and temples in the vicinity.
Muir wanted to find out why so many
black people were leaving the inner city
behind, and the community they had grown
up in, and what problems they had faced on
moving into the suburbs. Its a surprisingly
upbeat story, and not at all what you might
expect to hear. Most of these migrants from
the city moved out, like their white counterparts, because of gentrification pushing up
house prices in places like Hackney, Leyton,
Brixton and Mile End. It was the only way
to buy a house. But the move outwards was
not such a big change. We are second generation. Those connections to our cultural
background were already diluted.
In Chalfont St Giles, in deepest Buckinghamshire, he met a family whose son now
plays in the village football team. The father
said he never really felt it to be a challenge settling into commuter-belt life. He
had come across some awkward conversations but saw this as an opportunity, not an
issue. There have been tensions elsewhere.
In the suburbs of Leeds, Muir was told that
British-born residents with a typical love of
gardening have been irritated by the incoming Asian families whose view is rather different, often paving over the front garden
to park their cars. But overall the picture he
drew was of a new diversity that is enriching these communities rather than causing
divisions. The church spires of Metroland
might now find themselves in competition
with domes and minarets, but Muir argued
that Betjemans beloved suburbs could be
an example to the rest of the country on how
to manage these new internal migrations.
In The Untold this week, Grace Dents
series delving into the personal stories
behind the privet hedge, we heard from
Phillida and Christopher Purvis, who are trying to raise the money to create their own
Marigold Hotel. If youve not seen the film
(starring Judi Dench and Maggie Smith and
telling a fictional story about a group of
pensioners who go to India to live out their
retirement in a rundown hotel), the Purvises plan is to open a guest-house in the Nilgiri Hills, on the borders of Tamil Nadu and
Kerala, which will provide a rest home for
their ageing and worn-out western friends. In
exchange their guests will offer their professional skills to the local Adivasi people, much
of whose land was taken from them years
ago to create the tea plantations of the Raj.
The Purvises need to persuade their
friends to cough up an initial 10,000 each
in exchange for a months stay in India each
year for ten years. This will give them the
100,000 they need to build the hotel and
set up the training schemes and community
projects that are all part of their big plan.
You could say its a new kind of benevolent colonialism. If enough people believe
in it, it will be sustainable, the couple said.
But theyve yet to raise the money. And, as
they are discovering, its not so easy to work
out how to help the Adivasi. When it was
suggested to the local people that to make
more money from the honey they collected
in the forest they should sell the beeswax
as well, they refused, explaining that they
leave the beeswax behind for the bears
because it stops them attacking us. You cant
argue with that.
the spectator | 16 july 2016 | www.spectator.co.uk
NOTES ON
Holiday reading
By Emily Rhodes
GETTY IMAGES
Cornwall
42
CLASSIFIEDS
Travel & General
CYPRUS
PAPHOS & POLIS. From 350 week.
1 to 6 bedroom villas and cottages,
all with own pool, near sea. Wi-Fi,
heated pools, 2 person discounts.
Tel: 020 8440 6219
www.sundancevillas.co.uk
PAPHOS & POLIS. 2 wheelchair
accessible villas with private pool
and hoist, wet room and more.
Villa Timily and Villa Ampelitis
(heated pool). Tel: 020 8440 6219
www.sundancevillas.co.uk
SPECIALIST HOLIDAYS
EXPERT-LED CULTURAL TOURS.
Peter Sommer Travels: archaeological
tours, food tours and walking tours
in Croatia, Greece, Italy and Turkey.
The specialist for escorted gulet cruises
and gulet charters. Tel: 01600 888220.
www.petersommer.com
ITALY
TRAVEL
FREE SERVICES
43
CLASSIFIEDS
General
BOOKS
INTRODUCTIONS
PLEASE READ
This is a genuine request, so just take a moment to inwardly digest. We are a
looking for men from 50-80 in a single state for whatever reason who would like
to meet our female clients.
NO FEE INVOLVED
GIFTS
STYLE NEVER GOES OUT
OF FASHION
AROMATHERAPY
MASSAGE
RELAX AND DE-STRESS. Fully
qualified female aromatherapist
offers a range of treatments including
massage in her private west London
home. For further details please
call: 07597 485185
LEGAL SERVICES
Classified Rates
020 7961 0145
traceyc@spectator.co.uk
FINE FOODS
COLLECTABLES
ARCHIVES, DOCUMENTS,
albums, autograph letters,
photographs, memorabilia,
old books, postcards, etc.
Will collect.
Tel: 020 8994 2258
INTERIORS
GARDINERS SOLICITORS.
Domestic & Commercial
Conveyancing. Tel: Paul Gardiner,
020 7603 7245. Email:
paulgardiner@gardinerssolicitors.co.uk
SPEECHWRITING
Relax, Ill Write It For You!
Youre due to speak / present at a
wedding / event. Dont worry call Lawrence on 020 8245 8999 or
check www.greatspeechwriting.co.uk
44
PERSIAN RUGS
OLD PERSIAN RUGS. Not a shop,
just a shed, telephone first. Shabby
chic. DESMOND NORTH, East
Peckham, Kent. Tel: 01622 871353.
High life
Taki
Which brings me to the big lie. The problack propagandist Christopher Hitchens
once made fun of Ian Smiths facial scars, scars
acquired when he was shot down while serving
in the RAF against the Luftwaffe. Smith had
left Salisbury and volunteered to fight for kith
and kin. The BBC never mentioned the fact
that Smith volunteered it wouldnt, would
it? and Hitchens made fun of it. Such are
the joys of siding with the politically correct.
Darrell Watt and his brave band of 250
were a fluid and volatile unit that performed
every imaginable fighting role: airborne
shock troops, sniper duty, sabotage, seek
and strike, you name it, Watt performed it.
And managed also to survive. Like the great
man that he is, he is now saving wild life on a
continent that is being plundered for profit.
Hannes Wessels studied and practised law
briefly, then became a professional big-game
hunter for 20 years. He is now a conservationist and lives with his wife and two daughters north of Cape Town in South Africa.
Although I might sound like some ghastly
celebrity phony who declares pride in knowing a scumbag like Russell Brand, I am very
proud to be a friend of Hannes Wessels, and
to praise a work about brave men who we,
the West, betrayed so cruelly. We definitely
wish our disintegration as we continue to
support rapacious, vicious, corrupt and murdering maniacs such as Mugabe and others
of his ilk in Africa, while continuing to paint
civilised white men like Watt and Smith as
the unacceptable past. Shame on us in general and shame on white liberals in particular.
Low life
Jeremy Clarke
LIFE
ing to Dont Let Me Down by the Chainsmokers. And before going out Id taken a
flyer in the garden at home after contesting
a 5050 ball with my six-year-old grandson,
distinctly hearing a crack as my right shoulder hit the deck.
Trev paid the driver and pressed the
doorbell. I was still languishing on the
pavement when the door was opened by
a preternaturally gentle and accepting
young man, who seemed not to mind at all
answering the door at four in the morning
Real life
Melissa Kite
Long life
Alexander Chancellor
LIFE
Wild life
Aidan Hartley
Gilgil, Kenya
At our Gilgil hut in the Rift Valley Ive had
a new flower garden planted to welcome
my wife Claire home from England. Here
at 7,000 feet in Africa, temperate and tropical species grow together: roses and aloes,
pears and bananas. In midwinter, when she
went under the knife, I was back in Kenya,
trucking in gardenias, honeysuckles and
hydrangeas. During springtime in her chemotherapy pod, as the red liquid dripped into
her arm, I was talking with our landscaper
Eileen about marguerites, birds of paradise and camellias. When Claire was pinned
down by radiation earlier this summer, at
our hut the rains were drenching new lilies,
the giant iris, lavender and buddleias. Now at
last shes home.
In some ways Claire prefers Gilgil to the
ranch. Here life is green and more ordered,
like a garden away from the rock fields
and dust devils. Here theres a social life,
whereas on the ranch one senses what it
would be like to live in a Mad Max or zombie movie. Ranch life is for me much better
than Gilgil, but whereas wildness is tolerable
and even enjoyable on the farm, in Gilgil its
a threat and most of all, its a menace to
the new garden.
We used to have chickens in Gilgil, where
mongooses did not kill them. Cowhands did
not steal them. The chickens multiplied until
there were mobs of them. We kept geese
as guard dogs. We had a little flock of fluffy
sheep in a paddock. They thrived here, whereas on the farm they are routinely rustled, or
slaughtered by cheetahs. The problem with
the chickens, sheep and geese was that they all
began eating the new flower garden. I could
see that soon, all of Claires new plants would
be gone and so I sent them all away clucking, honking and bleating to the farm. Peace.
But instead, a new visitor arrived in Gilgil,
our suburban paradise. One morning I found
his vast hoof prints denting my Kikuyu grass
lawn, which Ive done my best to manicure. A
large, old bull buffalo. Then at night the dogs
encountered seven buffaloes in the garden.
Who knows where they came from, but this
herd, made up of cows and calves, vanished
within a day or two. The old bull stayed. What
he likes doing most is horning young saplings, especially juniper trees, possibly because
he likes getting the aromatic oily cedar sap
around his ears to drive off ticks and flies.
Horning thoroughly destroys a young tree.
48
Bridge
Susanna Gross
Ive never had the courage to psyche at
the bridge table, but I grudgingly admire
those who do. Sally Brock and I were well
and truly kippered at the recent European
womens pairs championships when, neither
side vulnerable, I opened 1 holding AK43,
K986, J4, 854. Our innocent-looking young
Dutch opponent found the gutsy overcall
of 1 , holding QJ52, 42, Q1085, Q97. Sally
held 87, AQJ1073, AK, A106 and felt,
quite reasonably, that she had no option but
to pass. So the Dutch woman played in 1
undoubled, five down a great result, given
that we were making 4 plus one.
One of the most famous psychers of all
time was Adam Plum Meredith, the brilliant and eccentric Irish player who won the
world championships in 1955. As one of his
partners said: For Plum, a three-card suit is
not only biddable, it is rebiddable. More, it is
playable. Plum was particularly fond of opening a spade, regardless of his spade holding.
The following rubber bridge hand was typical:
Dealer South
NS: 40 part-score
2
Q8
A9 8 7
AK Q 9 6 4
Q J 10 8 4 3
KJ
2
J 8 75
AK 5
10 9 7 6 4 3
6 5 3
2
N
W
E
S
9 7 6
A5 2
K Q J 10 4
10 3
West
North
East
Pass
Pass
Pass
2
4
pass
pass
pass
pass
South
1
2
6
Im delighted that hes agreed to offer readers two of the fabulous fizzes well be sampling via the good offices of Private Cellar,
one of our esteemed partners.
The Pol Roger Brut Rserve NV, the
aforementioned White Foil, is blended
from 30 or more base wines drawn from
several different vineyards and several dif-
List price
Club price
1
2
239.70
360.00
215.70
342.00
15.00
FREE
Mastercard/Visa no.
Start date
Issue no.
No.
Expiry date
Signature
Sec. code
Prices include VAT and delivery on the
British mainland for orders of two cases
or more. Payment should be made either
by cheque with the order, payable to Private Cellar, or by debit or credit card,
details of which may be telephoned or
emailed. This offer, which is subject to
availability, closes on 27 August 2016.
Telephone
Email*
Safe place to leave your wine
*Only provide your email address if you would like to receive offers or communications by email from The Spectator (1828) Limited, part of the Press Holdings
Group. See Classified pages for Data Protection Act Notice. The Spectator (1828) Limited, part of the Press Holdings Group would like to pass your details on
to other carefully selected organisations in order that they can offer you information, goods and services that may be of interest to you. If you would prefer that
your details are not passed to such organisations, please tick this box .
49
LIFE
Chess
Electric shock
Raymond Keene
To mark the UKs decision to exit from the EU,
I can think of no better example than the triple
match victories of Howard Staunton against
major European rivals, victories which
established him as the de facto champion of the
chess playing world. From 1843 to 1846 Staunton
comprehensively defeated three leading
opponents from France, Germany and Poland,
St Amant, Horwitz and Harrwitz, in the process
overturning the domination of France, which had
previously been upheld by those great luminaries
of the game Philidor and Labourdonnais. As a
prominent Shakespearean scholar himself,
Staunton could justly claim with Faulconbridge in
King John (Act V Scene 7): Come the three
corners of the world in arms, and we shall shock
them. Nought shall make us rue, if England to
itself do rest but true.
As Barry Martin pointed out in the June issue
of Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster Today,
Staunton also capitalised on his status as the
civilised worlds leading master of chess, to
promote the ingenious British commercial
invention of the Electric Telegraph, otherwise
known as Cooke and Wheatstones Marvellous
Messenger. Staunton played the first ever
recorded electronic master game of chess in 1845,
in Portsmouth against a team in London, and as
such can be considered the father of all sports
and games played electronically and on the
internet today.
This week, two Staunton wins against his French
and German rivals.
Competition
Frightfest
Lucy Vickery
Diagram 1
rDWDW4kD
Db1Whp0p
p0WgWhWD
DW0pDWDW
WDW)WDWD
)PHB)NDP
WDWGW)PD
$WDQ$WIW
Diagram 2
WDWDr4kD
Db1WDp0p
p0WgWDWD
DWDWDnDW
WDW)WDWD
)PDW)WDP
RDWGNDPD
DWDQ$WHK
Gambit Declined
WDWDrDWD
Dp0Whk0Q
WDW1WhpD
0WDpDWGW
PDWgW)WD
DWDBDWDP
W)WDRDPI
DWDW$WDW
50
LIFE
rather than going after the all-too-familiar big
names. Freshness is the keynote. Fortunately, there
is a plethora of gifted writers in our community,
some of whom are well established contributors to
e-zines. Erik Pratt, paranormal author whose
work has been described as incredible literally
out of this world, will be reading from his spinechilling novel in progress, Zithlon and the Tombs
of Arcturus. Shudders galore there, but by contrast
Doris Draper, part-time lollipop lady, mourns
her own vanished beauty and the fate of the
planet in exquisite lilting verse. Her moving
chapbook, Bus Pass Tremors, from which she will
read, will be on sale. All this and much more,
under the aegis of Master of Ceremonies and
comic genius George Biggins, whose fabulous
blog, Dogging Day By Day, is legendary.
Basil Ransome-Davies
10.30 a.m. Progeny Portsmouth Sinfonia
introducing the next generation of the much-loved
orchestra, taking on Edgar Varses Intgrales.
Bring any wind instrument. Pets welcome.
11.32 a.m. Swedish death metal band Armageddon
offer their own luminous take on Edith Holdens
Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady. Curated by
Nicholas Parsons.
12.48 p.m. Sir Derek Jacobi reads Daisy Ashfords
haunting The Young Visiters.
1.11 p.m. Conversation: Was skiffle piffle?
Jimmy Page in conversation with himself and
Janet Street-Porter, with washboard interludes by
Lower Britling School Under-14 Daddy-Os.
2.26 p.m. Debate: Rod Liddle, Nigel Farage and
the Countess of Wessex discuss the ethics of
assisted suicide.
3.23 p.m. Contemporary whistling by Whistlers
Mothers.
4.54 p.m. Easy Does It: a tribute by English
National Opera to the late Bert Kaempfert.
6.12 p.m. The Irony Board and the Vacuum
John Cooper Clarke and Pam Ayres join forces to
read homilies to housewifery. (Retiring collection.)
Bill Greenwell
Copwash Flower Festival 6-8 August
The Duchess of Babergh will open the festival at
11 a.m. by lifting the curtain on the Auricula
Theatre. The folk group Kings and Weavers will
then perform a medley of songs celebrating this
flower down the ages.
The well-known artist Godfrey Hall will be
showing his latest paintings of dead leaves. These
lovingly illustrated withered sprigs reveal the
effects of environmental stress on trees and plants.
(All pictures for sale.)
10 a.m. Sunday, John Berg, lay preacher, will give a
sermon on the common weed lolium temulentum.
The Cockle symbolises wickedness invading the
good field of the Church. Let thistles grow up to
me instead of wheat, and thorns instead of barley
(Job 31:40).
The grand finale on Monday afternoon: Where
Have all the Flowers Gone? a panel discussion
about the Dutch and UK horticultural industry in
the light of the Brexit vote.
Sarah Drury
You are invited to submit a poem on a political theme entitled May day. Please email
(where possible) entries of up to 16 lines to
lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 27 July.
the spectator | 16 july 2016 | www.spectator.co.uk
Crossword
2269:
Humiliation
by Columba
Answers to clues in italics are to
be subjected, before entry in the
grid, to the treatment indicated by one unclued light (three
words). Definitions of the
resulting entries are supplied by
the other unclued lights.
Across
1 Details no longer always in
unfinished dance (8)
6 Fellow admitted to
constant trouble with a
caravan (6)
10 Discerning elite had eggs
scrambled (12, hyphened)
13 Devout type in hole
defending revolutionary
position (7)
14 Communist spirit brought
about in hardship (6)
16 Cleese film about lecturer
suffering woe, sick
17 Detective acting with
authority turned and
proceeded (8)
21 Disconcert good sort,
accepting hard line (8,
two words)
23 One following gripping
account not precisely true
(7)
25 Sporting idol, man of the
world
26 Complacently empty
system, hideous
28 Exceptional muscle
breaking part of crust (7)
29 Earl involved in an ace
commemoration (8)
34 Fans complain endlessly
about confusion (8)
35 Ship slang spoken (4)
36 Dry garden almost
separate (6)
38 Loaves not left for
kangaroos (7)
40 Knight, fine, in set of the
same kind (12)
41 Runner absorbed by music
and language (6)
42 Poor batting time for
banter (8)
10
11
12
13
14
17
15
16
18
19
20
21
23
22
24
26
27
25
28
29
30
32
33
35
31
34
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
Down
2 Gain attention before noon
(4)
3 Awls among chisels in store
(6)
5 Trial to be rigged without a
book (8)
6 Force with base on young
leaders lands (7)
7 Legal opinion of cheese
carrying weight (5)
9 Owner wanting millions for
plant (5)
12 Disappear from stormy
scene after hail, going
north (8)
15 Increased abuse about
Homer so out of order
18 Allowing one mate rum
and so on at sea (10)
19 Notice nickel in piece of
mechanism (8)
20 Understand chatter upset
recipients of money (6)
22 Collection of data about
old trade in silk (9)
24 Emperors daughter
tormented a servant (8)
27 Experience in course of
board game (7)
31 Ricks bars last in country
(6)
32 Name tag in light slipper
33 Drama followed by me in
provinces (5)
Name
Address
51
LIFE
Status Anxiety
The truth about
post-truth politics
Toby Young
he departure of Andrea Leadsom from the Conservative
leadership race was a blow to
pundits who claim were living in an
age of post-truth politics. According
to Michael Deacon, the Telegraphs
political sketchwriter, she was an
ideal candidate because she embodied the anti-factual mood of the
country. Facts are negative, he wrote,
parodying the attitude of Leadsoms
knuckle-dragging supporters. Facts
are pessimistic. Facts are unpatriotic.
To be fair to Deacon, whose sketches are often very funny, he noted that
the war on truth is being fought as
energetically on the left as it is on the
right and singled out a group of diehard Corbynistas who believe their
man is the victim of a Zionist conspiracy. But most commentators who
wheel out the phrase post-truth politics are on the left and use it to sum
up their opponents cynical disregard
for the norms of democratic debate.
Indeed, it was coined in 2010 by an
American pundit called David Roberts to describe the success of Republicans in Congress. They dont try to
win support for their policy positions
by making evidence-based arguments
a form of grown-up debate that
only Democrats engage in, apparently. No, they exploit the knee-jerk emotional responses and tribal loyalties of
their followers. If the Democrats are
The more
you know,
the more
likely you are
to have an
ideological
bias, whether
left or right
MICHAEL HEATH
52
Theres
nothing the
rich alone
can buy
that makes
the same
difference
as owning
a car does
LIFE
Drink
From Hegel to Riesling
Bruce Anderson
Over the
decades I have
met two Tories
who were not
monarchists:
bizarre
Gig economy
In the same song where the
brilliant lyricist Ian Dury gave the
world the couplet, I could be a
writer with a growing reputation/
I could be the ticket-man at
Fulham Broadway station, his
narrator speaks of first-night
nerves every one-night stand.
Perhaps we are now more
accustomed to one-night stand
referring to a casual sexual liaison,
but in the less metaphorical sense,
dating from the 19th century and
was later used by Bernard Shaw, it
simply means a one-night musical
engagement, or gig.
Gig is first recorded in 1926,
in Melody Maker. By 1939 it
54