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A killing in Kenya Aidan Hartley and Charles Moore The art of mourning Cressida Connolly

11 march 2017 [ 4.25 www.spectator.co.uk [ est. 1828

The plot YOUR PART


IN THE GENE
REVOLUTION
MARY WAKEFIELD

SPIES,

against LIES AND


POISON
ROGER
STONE

the Pope
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Ambition deficit
P
olitical prejudices are incredibly hard a lack of ambition. We now are presented er society as well. Tory policies have ended
to shift, even when they are demon- with a betrayal of a manifesto pledge and up milking the rich in a way Labour has
strably untrue. In the minds of many, relatively small measures, here and there, to never managed another triumph of what
Labour will always be the party for public fix various problems. If Mr Hammond does should be known as progressive conserva-
services and for looking after the low-paid, have any ideas with what his party could do tism. Even the Tories seem to treat this as a
usually by raising taxes. Tories are seen as while the opposition is imploding, then we dirty secret. These policies pushed inequality
crueller but more efficient the sort of have seen precious little evidence of it. down to a 30-year low to date, no govern-
party you call in to clean up a mess, cut He boasted during his speech about the ment member has made this point.
taxes or defend the realm. Not the party that Tories being the party of the NHS, as if this There has been another marked trend
would care much about the worse-off. were the Tories appeal to Labour voters. over the past few years, starting when Gordon
In fact, it was Labour that kept the top It makes sense to try to appeal to moder- Brown was chancellor. Successive budgets
rate of tax at 40 per cent and the Tories ate Labour voters at a time when they are have seen tax policy swing towards favour-
who allowed national debt to balloon and being abandoned by their party, but there ing investment income over earned income.
troop numbers to fall. And as of this week, it must be a better way to do so. He could have It was Brown who began hiking up National
was the Tories who raised taxes. pointed out that conventional Conserva- Insurance contributions in an effort to raise
Philip Hammonds first Budget was sup- more revenue while sticking in strict terms,
posed to have been conducted under the If Mr Hammond does have any at least to his pledge not to increase the
pledge, issued no fewer than four times in radical ideas, then we have seen rate of income tax. It meant that people in
the 2015 Conservative manifesto, that they precious little evidence of them work paid more while those living off their
would not raise taxes. Instead, we will ease investments were unaffected.
the burden of taxation, the Tories promised tism lower taxes and bold welfare reform Hammond has now continued that raid
and people believed them. has worked extraordinarily well. on the working population by increas-
But Mr Hammond has instead decided So far, the Tory reforms have meant that ing National Insurance contributions for
to splurge on infrastructure, and proposes to it is the income of the lowest-paid which has the self-employed. Meanwhile, investment
increase the tax burden to its highest level risen the most, while the top earners have allowances have been generously increased.
for 30 years. The self-employed have been seen the biggest losses. The various warn- The amount which can annually be saved
told that their National Insurance tax rate ings about austerity that it would hit the in an Individual Savings Account has gone
will rise by 2p in the pound. These are tax poorest hardest were wrong for a simple from 15,240 to 20,000. In time, this will
rises that will hurt everyone. reason: welfare reform led more people into hugely boost the tax-free income available
For a while now, MPs have been wonder- work, which improved their lot considerably. to be enjoyed by the retired. So taxes for
ing what Mr Hammond and Theresa May All this was missed by critics who were workers will rise, while taxes on the asset
would do with the historic political opportu- fixated on Osbornes reduction of the top rich (whose lot has already been greatly
nity that lies before them. The Labour party rate of income tax from 50 per cent to 45 per helped by quantitative easing) will fall. This
is in disarray; never have the Conservatives cent. This change actually saw the share of makes a nonsense of government slogans to
been able to be more confident of winning tax from the best-paid rise. As Philip Ham- make work pay.
the next general election. This is a time when mond said in his Budget statement, the top Getting Brexit right was always going to
the Tories could, if they chose, set the terms 1 per cent now pay 27 per cent of all income be the top priority of Theresa Mays gov-
of debate. Given that nothing in politics ever tax collected. This is because his predecessor ernment, but she also has an unprecedented
stands still, this moment of opportunity may cut, rather than raised, taxes. opportunity to enact the kind of reforms
not last for long. Where the Tories did summon the cour- that Tories are supposed to be all for. From
Mr Hammond has now delivered two age to apply Conservative principles, the what we have seen so far, it looks as if this
Budget statements, both distinguished by result was not just more prosperity but a fair- opportunity is being squandered.
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 5
Too much in your diary?, p20 The joy of bookshops, p9

Miracles for the home, p48

THE WEEK BOOKS & ARTS


5 Leading article 12 The Popes war BOOKS
8 Portrait of the Week How Francis is dividing 32 Frances Wilson Jane Welsh Carlyle
the Catholic church and Her Victorian World,
9 Diary A bookshop tour of Britain Damian Thompson by Kathy Chamberlain
Joanna Trollope
13 A.K.S. Shaw Cuckold: a poem 34 Peter Carty The Raqqa Diaries,
10 Politics The Philip Hammond show by Samer
James Forsyth 14 Poison, spies and lies
Lunch with Roger Stone Steven Poole Void,
11 The Spectators Notes Tristan Paul Wood by James Owen Weatherall
Voorspuy, Lords reform and zoos 36 Cressida Connolly
Charles Moore 16 Dumbing down the house
Sacrilege at the National Trust Grief Works, by Julia Samuel
16 From the archive Harry Mount 37 Clare Mulley
America confronts Germany Lonely Courage, by Rick Stroud
18 How to make drugs boring
17 Rod Liddle What I did for Fighting cannabis the Canadian way 39 D.J. Taylor Fathers, by Sam Miller
International Womens Day Danny Kruger Sam Byers Lincoln in the Bardo,
18 Ancient and modern 20 Calendar clash by George Saunders
Enemies of the people The misery of an overfilled diary Paul Deaton Starlings: a poem
20 Barometer Storms, diesel, Jenny Coad 40 Andrew Lycett The Islamic
self-employment and elections 22 Sydney notebook Enlightenment,
23 Mary Wakefield The forgotten man at my barbecue by Christopher de Bellaigue
The Crispr revolution Tom Switzer
24 James Delingpole Green scams
26 Letters Scotland, private schools,
sheep-worrying and Wetherspoons
28 Any other business
New European giants
Martin Vander Weyer

Cover by Morten Morland. Drawings by Michael Heath, Castro, Phil Disley, Grizelda, Adam Singleton, RGJ, Bernie, Geoff Thompson, K.J. Lamb, Paul Wood,
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Editor: Fraser Nelson

6 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk


Feminism and
Emma Watsons breasts, p17

When the American dream went pop, p42

LIFE
ARTS LIFE Will we really want to design our
42 Stephen Bayley 55 High life Taki young? Do we want children much
Art and the American dream Low life Jeremy Clarke
brighter than, say, ourselves?
44 Opera Pellas and Mlisande; 56 Real life Melissa Kite Mary Wakefield, p23
The Yeomen of the Guard 57 Wild life Aidan Hartley
Richard Bratby Bridge Susanna Gross When the best track on the
Television James Walton
album is called Dull, you know
46 Theatre Hamlet; Ugly Lies the Bone AND FINALLY . . . youve got a dog on your hands
Lloyd Evans 52 Notes on Rod Liddle, p50
47 Cinema Elle The Suffolk-Essex border
Deborah Ross Mark Mason
If youve wondered why so many
48 Michael Bartholomew-Briggs 58 Chess Raymond Keene of the worlds packaged goods
Adagio: a poem Competition Lucy Vickery
brands have their origins in the
Exhibitions Madonnas and 59 Crossword Columba
Miracles: the Holy Home in
American Midwest of the late 19th
Renaissance Italy 60 Status anxiety Toby Young century, this is your answer
Martin Gayford Battle for Britain Michael Heath Rory Sutherland, p61
50 The Listener 61 The Wiki Man Rory Sutherland
Sleaford Mods: English Tapas Your problems solved
Rod Liddle Mary Killen
Radio Kate Chisholm 62 Drink Bruce Anderson
Mind your language
Dot Wordsworth

CONTRIBUTORS
Joanna Trollope is the Danny Kruger, who Frances Wilsons books Steven Poole has written D.J. Taylors most recent
author of more than 20 novels, writes about drugs on p. 18, is include biographies of Thomas books about video games books are The Prose Factory:
including The Choir, which a former chief leader writer de Quincey (Guilty Thing) (Trigger Happy), dishonesty Literary Life in Britain since
became a BBC television of the Daily Telegraph, and and Dorothy Wordsworth; she (Unspeak) and the history of 1918 and The New Book of
series. Her diary is on p. 9. was a special adviser to David considers Jane Welsh Carlyle new ideas (Rethink). On p. 34, Snobs. He reviews a portrait of
Cameron. on p. 32. he contemplates nothingness. the literary editor Karl Miller
on p. 39.

the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 7


Home attention to new T-levels for technical
education and funding for 110 new free
the very sacred election process. James
Clapper, Mr Obamas director of national

T he Lords passed two amendments to


the European Union (Notification
of Withdrawal) Bill, voting by 358 to 256
schools. GP triage at A&E departments
would get 100 million this winter.
intelligence, said: I can deny it. WikiLeaks
claimed that the CIA spied on people from
inside television sets. Police in the Spanish
to guarantee the residence rights after
Brexit of EU nationals living in Britain,
then by 366 to 268 to give Parliament a
E lections in Northern Ireland left the
Democratic Unionists with 28 seats and
Sinn Fein with 27, the SDLP with 12 and
province of Leon arrested a Romanian
man in connection with the sudden
simultaneous disappearance of 160 people
meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal. the Ulster Unionists with ten. The DUP, after lunch in a restaurant in Ponferrada,
Lord Heseltine was sacked as an adviser by falling below 30 seats, lost its power leaving an unpaid bill of 9,000.
to the government for voting for the latter over the petition of concern mechanism
amendment. Jeremy Corbyn published
details of his tax return, which showed
a total income of 114,342 but proved
that has in the past acted like a veto.
There were fears that same-sex marriage
legislation might now be introduced.
N orth Korea prevented all Malaysians
(thought to number 11) from
leaving the country and Malaysia angrily
puzzling because, according to the Labour PSA, the owner of Peugeot and Citron, reciprocated against the 1,000 or so North
party, the 27,192 received for his first agreed to buy GMs European operations Koreans there. This followed a postmortem
seven months as leader of the opposition for 1.9 billion, including the Vauxhall finding that Kim Jong-nam, the half-
was included under pension and benefits factories at Ellesmere Port and Luton that brother of North Koreas ruler, had been
income. Professor Stephen Hawking, employ 4,500 people. Aberdeen Asset killed by the VX nerve agent at Kuala
the well-known physicist, said, I regard Management and Standard Life agreed Lumpur airport. North Korea launched
Corbyn as a disaster, adding, I think he a merger that would create a fund manager four ballistic missiles, three of which fell
should step down for the sake of the party. overseeing assets worth 660 billion. The into a Japanese area of sea. China cut its
Transport for London set about building singer George Michael died aged 53 on growth target to 6.5 per cent and increased
400 houses in Greenwich in the hope of Christmas day of natural causes, from heart its military spending by 7 per cent.
making more than 1 billion. The annual and liver disease, a coroner found. Arsenal Melbourne introduced lights in the shape
rate of house-price inflation fell to 5.1 per lost at home 5-1 to Bayern Munich in a of women in skirts at pedestrian crossings,
cent, against 10 per cent a year earlier. Champions League game. to promote gender equality.

P hilip Hammond, the Chancellor of


the Exchequer, presented the Budget
Abroad T housands of civilians streamed out
of Mosul as Iraqi forces took the
in possession of higher than expected
tax receipts. The Office for Budget
Responsibilitys forecast of growth this
P resident Trump issued a new executive
order banning the entry of all refugees
for 120 days and halting for 90 days entry
main government offices there, while
the Islamic State retained control of the
old city. Jordan hanged ten convicted
year, he said, had been revised from 1.4 to to America for people from six Muslim- terrorists and five others found guilty of
2 per cent. He said the Budget provided majority countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, sexual crimes. Tristan Voorspuy, a former
a strong, stable platform for Brexit. Sudan, Syria and Yemen but excepting British army officer, was shot dead on his
National Insurance would go up for the Iraq, which had been included in an order ranch in drought-afflicted Laikipia, Kenya,
self-employed. There was some business- made in January and ruled unlawful in the by pastoral herders. Peru recalled its
rate relief for enterprises (specifically 90 courts. Earlier, Mr Trump had tweeted a ambassador to Venezuela after Venezuelas
per cent of pubs) hit by rises and 2 billion message saying: How low has President foreign minister called Perus president
over three years for social care. He drew Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during a coward and a dog. CSH
8 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
Joanna Trollope

O h dear. Usually writers who


contribute to these diaries start with
something like, To Paris. To launch my
for the streets to swoop up and down, and
the Tyne with its seven bridges, and the
lovely people. I have a view of the Sage
novel at Shakespeare and Company. and the Baltic across the river from my
Well, I went instead to Penarth, which hotel window its a world-class view
is a charming seaside suburb of Cardiff, by any standard. The Sage, especially
and got a right royal welcome. I told the at night, is a building of architectural
customers of Griffin Books (and Book- wonder.
ish in Crickhowell and Cover to Cover
in Mumbles) that I forbade them to
buy books from Amazon. If they didnt
support their independent bookshops, me as strangely old-fashioned to identify
T he ward of Ouseburn in Newcastle
was a wasteland of industrial
dereliction a decade ago. Now, thanks to
they would lose them. And bookshops women only by their romantic lives. I think the Ouseburn Trust (here we go again
are vital for community health. Think that would make a good essay title, followed a community-driven enterprise) in
what Daunts did for Marylebone High by the instruction Discuss. partnership with the local authority, it has
Street; started its transformation from a become Newcastles energetic cultural
non-street to a destination street, no less.
I realised, sitting in the train between
Durham and Newcastle, that you get a
heartland. I do a reading event (for the
Forum Bookshop in Corbridge) in the

S peaking of Daunts, do you realise


that their business rates are about
to double? Baroness Rebuck has asked
spectacular view of the Angel of the North
on the horizon: it isnt just from the A1. I
am so happy to be back in Newcastle, even
Biscuit Factory on Stoddart Street, a vast
and varied showcase for arts, crafts and
design, which is humming with people,
in the House of Lords that independent in the rain, which is falling in sheets. Its a then walk back down to the river through
bookshops be given special community terrific city and so beautiful all those hills the shining dark streets. Wonderful.
status as far as business rates are
concerned. With literacy levels at the
shameful level that they are in this A nd now for the North Pennines,
beloved of W.H. Auden, who was

Weather
country Im banging another drum obsessed with the lead mines of the area
here, as a trustee of the National Literacy as a boy. It is spectacular country and only

Risk?
Trust we need every scrap of assistance 11 miles from Consett, which I can never
for reading to be put back on the cool think of without remembering the closure
agenda. of the steelworks there in 1980, which cost
nearly 4,000 jobs. I know it wasnt some

G oodness, Wales is gorgeous to


look at. The landscape is sublime.
I woke in Abergavenny to snow on the
kind of political vendetta, and that the
Ruhr Valley and Ohio were part of the
same global industrial decline, but that
Black Mountains, interspersed with weather change kind of academic overview doesnt mean
emerald green valleys all that rain anything to the abruptly unemployed.
is not for nothing. The natural beauty No doubt my feelings about Consett
only heightens a troubling question. and similar closures may account for
Wales voted for Brexit, but every road, my response to regeneration wherever I
university and waterfront improvement
The independent platform find it relief as well as admiration.
scheme and they are everywhere is which helps companies access
EU-funded. Excuse me? What were all
those warmly welcoming people I met
Index-Based Weather L ast stop Hexham, right on Hadrians
Wall, which Auden called, rather
thinking of exactly? Risk Protection grandly, the Roman Wall. Im staying
in Blanchland, which is ridiculously

T hen Pershore, where I have


never been before, and where I
was interviewed by Linda Smith, the
Free access to thousands of quality weather
data sets worldwide.
ancient and pretty, and where the key to
get into the church is a foot long. There
are walkers everywhere, an amiable
Free wizard to simplify the design of weather
impressive Director of International protection contracts.
gathering of Hairy Bikers in the village
Trade for Hereford and Worcester, in the car park, and the post office sells Kendal
Free access to multiple protection sellers for
community theatre (community again mint cake and ginger jam, made locally.
price comparison.
of course). This was appropriate as Christopher Isherwood wrote of Auden
my new novel, City of Friends, is about that his romantic travel wish was always
women and work. I cant actually think of www.weatherXchange.com towards the north. Not the only one.
another novel about work at the moment, +44 (0) 1582 280 130
which is odd when you think what a huge City of Friends by Joanna Trollope is
factor it is in most modern lives. It strikes Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority
published by Mantle.

the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 9


POLITICS|JAMES FORSYTH

A Budget to keep Brexit off the rocks

C
hancellors often enjoy a Budget for a phenomenon that will create a new set are not a bad idea. But too often in the past,
the chance it gives them to show of workers particularly sensitive to tax rates technical education in Britain has ended up
off. They enjoy wrong-footing their and therefore keener on a smaller state being dumbed down. David Willetts, the for-
opponents with a dramatic and unexpected as a boon to the Tories but as a threat to the mer Tory minister, used to say that because
announcement right at the end of their tax base. His increase in National Insurance of the people Tory ministers encountered
speech the much-anticipated rabbit rates for the self-employed was an econom- they were very aware of threats to the
pulled from the hat. ic decision, not a political one. It wont be hedge-fund industry, but nowhere near as
But Philip Hammond is not a political popular with many Tory members. But it aware of problems for manufacturers. Much
showman. He must be the only Chancellor sounds as if this blow will be softened by the same goes for technical education.
in living memory to have played down his state-funded maternity and paternity leave This Budget was a reminder of how
first Budget, telling colleagues with big ideas for the self-employed. much Brexit dominates our politics, and
to come back to him this autumn. Unsurprisingly for someone who studied will continue to do so. Hammond is a fiscal
This lack of showmanship should not be PPE at university, Hammonds great interest conservative, but without Brexit one doubts
mistaken for an absence of serious intent. is in productivity. It doesnt require a Nobel that the rest of the government would have
He is unique among recent chancellors for prize in economics to work out that produc- accepted so easily the Treasurys insistence
two reasons: he has no ambition to move tivity growth is the biggest weakness of the that better-than-expected tax receipts must
one door along to No. 10 Downing Street, British economy, and Hammond believes be set aside for any trouble ahead. He might
and he can be confident of a long stint in the have chosen to strike a far more upbeat
job. Indeed, he is pretty much unsackable Hammond remains convinced that public tone about Brexit in recent months.
and his opening joke about getting fired sug- uncertainty will take its toll on But the Cabinet knows that he remains pri-
gested that he thinks as much. As Theresa vately convinced that uncertainty will take
May attempts to navigate her way through economic growth at some point its toll on economic growth at some point.
Brexit, her Chancellor plays an important Inside No. 10, they argue that Brexit and
role in reassuring the City, the markets and there are two keys to increasing it: infra- the Conservatives economic agenda com-
Tory Remainers that all will be done sensi- structure and skills. Having concentrated on plement each other that they are two
bly. If he walked out, saying it was impos- infrastructure in the autumn statement, he sides of the same coin. The steps needed to
sible to do Brexit well, the pound would turned his attention to skills in this Budget. improve productivity are, for instance, ben-
have more than a bad day on the foreign The question now is whether these reforms efits in their own right and will be part of
exchange market. will be more successful than previous efforts. getting Britain and its workforce match-fit
Gordon Browns tenure at the Treasury T-levels, the new technical qualifications, for Brexit. But in the short term, the key
was defined by his desire to move next question is whether the economy can stay
door. Every Budget was an attempt to show as resilient throughout the Article 50 pro-
Labour MPs that he could do the top job cess as it has done in recent months.
better than the then incumbent. The key to In the medium term, the issue is whether
understanding his speeches was to look for Britain can take advantage of the opportu-
the sleight of hand that let him magic that nities that Brexit offers. After all, leaving the
rabbit from the hat. The apogee of this came European Union is simply the removal of a
in his final Budget. I have never heard the constraint rather than a guarantee of suc-
House of Commons cheer louder than when cess. So the nation has to seize its chance to
Brown announced he was cutting the basic make this the best place to build a technol-
rate of tax by 2p. But this decision contained ogy company or carry out medical research.
the seeds of his destruction, paid for as it was That will require a shift in mindset it
by the abolition of the 10p rate of tax. will no longer be enough to be one of the
George Osbornes aim was slightly dif- best places in Europe to do these things.
ferent. He was constantly trying to reshape Britain will have to accept that it is now
the economy in ways that would tilt Britain competing at a global, not regional, level.
to the right, making it an easier place for Broadband speeds, for instance, should not
Conservatives to win elections. His were the be measured against France and Germany
Budgets of a political strategist who knew but South Korea and Japan.
which way he wanted to move. Everything Hammonds first Budget wont make
from his decision to introduce pension free- waves. It was worthy but not radical. His
doms to cuts in corporation tax was designed autumn Budget, which he has always said
with one overall aim in mind. will be the main event of this year, will need
Hammond does have a vision for the to be a more ambitious affair.
British economy. But it is a markedly less
political one than his predecessors. Tellingly, SPECTATOR.CO.UK/EVENINGBLEND
he doesnt see the rise in self-employment Now were behind him lets push him over. The only daily politics email you really need.
10 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
Charles Moore

A fter he left the Blues and Royals in


1981, the young Tristan Voorspuy
drove a motorbike from London to Cape
T he Electoral Reform Society
(ERS) is a slightly sinister body.
Behind the banner of fairness, it is
Town. Thus began his love of Africa. doctrinaire. I recently received its
He also learnt to fly, and arranged to press release: Hereditary by-election:
travel alone to Kenya from England in worlds most elitist election described
a single-engine aeroplane, using only as ludicrous by campaigners.
a schoolboy atlas. Luckily, his brother The society purports to be upset by
Morvern, a professional pilot, heard of the system in which the remaining
this plan and prevented it. But Tristan hereditary peers in the House of Lords
reached Kenya by other means, and elect a new member if one of the sitting
became a Kenyan citizen. For 30 years, ones of their party dies. Just now, the
he was a leading conservationist there was wonderful only because Tristan knew Conservatives have such a by-election.
and set up and ran the accurately named how to get us out just in time. I have an Evelyn Waugh once famously remarked,
firm Offbeat Safaris, which allows guests excellent photograph of him shouting our after surgeons had cut out a growth from
to ride among the great beasts of Africa. retreat as 20 elephants loom behind him. Randolph Churchill and pronounced
Recently, armed hordes and their cattle On a different holiday, at which I was not it benign, that it was typical of modern
invaded the land on Sosian, the Kenyan present, he led his party through a defile science to find the one bit of Randolph
ranch he jointly owned, and whose land and surprised a gathering of hippo, which, that was benign and remove it. Similarly,
and wildlife he had rescued after the for human beings, are the least amiable the ERS condemns the one bit of the
environmental degradation they had of African mammals. Because of the House of Lords (otherwise ever more
suffered from overgrazing in the 1990s. narrowness, the passage back was difficult. stuffed with placemen) which is in any
In an email he sent last month, before Tristan naturally stayed until everyone else sense elected. In fact, there is a way
the Sosian invasion, Tristan warned of was safe, but in the melee his horse reared of getting rid of these by-elections,
the effects on wildlife he had seen in and threw him. He lay on the ground, though one the ERS might not like.
recent attacks on other estates. He said rolling himself in the recommended ball A knowledgeable MP points out to me
that the invaders were reviving the status for 20 minutes while hippos pushed him that if Theresa May wants to flood the
rituals of the Pokot tribe, which involve around and took a few chunks out of his Lords in order to get enough votes for
the killing and mutilation of elephant, back. Then they got bored and left. He was Brexit, there is no need to create fresh
giraffe etc. Last weekend, they burnt out both skilful and lucky to have survived. titles. Much simpler to reinstate the full
the house of one of Tristans business 800-plus hereditaries who, though they
partners. He got on his little white stallion
Loita and rode off alone to investigate.
The horse was found injured. Tristan was
I could not have enjoyed the Mara
more, so it was natural to want to
return. But conversation with Tristan
have lost their automatic right to sit and
vote, remain peers.

later found dead. He had been shot. made me wonder. I sensed that, because
of population pressure and bad politics, I have never been to the South Lakes
Safari Zoo, which has just lost its

I t would be wrong to call such a


shocking death fitting, but its drama
did reflect Tristans life and character.
everything was getting more adverse.
Nothing could break Tristans spirit, but he
was encountering ever worse headwinds.
licence. In media reports, it sounds
unpleasant. But two points are worth
bearing in mind. The first is that it is
Whether illicitly growing cannabis in So I thought I should content myself with under attack by fanatical opponents
his parents garden as a teenager, riding my one visit, in case later ones seemed who want to close all zoos, so their
in the Grand Military at Sandown, or sad, and to treasure every memory of it. I criticisms should be treated with caution.
out in the bush, he was always bold may have given above the impression that The second is the amazing gullibility
never bolder than when trying to defend Tristan was a typical gung-ho Englishman. of my trade when it comes to statistics.
the land, fauna and flora of Africa. His He was not only that. It was attractive, for Every report repeated that, over the
attitude to everything, including riding, example, that when we were just about past four years, 500 animals have died
was forward-going, confronting danger to begin a wild gallop, he would stop to in the zoo, as if this were shocking. To
rather than avoiding it. A few years back, note an obscure wild flower and tell us know whether it is, one needs to be told
I went on one of his safaris. Tristan was about it. And it was a delight in camp, at how many and what sort of animals were
our guide. The risky bits were the best. evening, to hear him recite poetry by heart in the zoo, and what sort of death rate
It was wonderful, for example, to ride The Foxs Prophecy was a favourite. is normal. Without such information,
very close to a family of elephants and He could be rude and angry; he was it is like saying that 500 people died in
watch their peaceful grazing, and then, always funny; he was kind and interested X hospital in the past four years and
when the senior mother had decided we and, in matters of nature, learned. All this then pulling a long face of disapproval,
had got too near, to see her flap her ears was because he was passionate, filled with when in fact that rate of expiry might be
and lead the charge against us. But it the fatal love of Africa. the lowest ever.

the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 11


The plot against the Pope
It is no secret in Rome that several cardinals want Francis to step down
DAMIAN THOMPSON

O
n the first Saturday in February, Parolin rests on the latters administrative
the people of Rome awoke to find skills: unlike the current Pope, he is not given
the city covered in peculiar posters to wildly impulsive decisions which he then
depicting a scowling Pope Francis. Under- reverses without bothering to tell anyone.
neath were written the words: But even if a group of cardinals are
Ah, Francis, you have intervened in Con- determined to elevate Parolin, what chance
gregations, removed priests, decapitated the do they have of succeeding? Its true that
Order of Malta and the Franciscans of the when Pope Benedict resigned, he creat-
Immaculate, ignored Cardinals but where ed an extraordinary precedent: that popes
is your mercy?
can choose to stand down. But to nudge an
The reference to mercy was a jibe that unwilling pope over the edge would be a tall
any Catholic could understand. Francis had order, even by the standards of todays Vati-
just concluded his Year of Mercy, during can skulduggery.
which the church was instructed to reach out If, however, we remove the fanciful spec-
to sinners in a spirit of radical forgiveness. ulation, we are left with a real story. It is no
But it was also a year in which the Argentin- secret in Rome that certain cardinals who
ian pontiff continued his policy of squashing voted for Francis are now worried that he
his critics with theatrical contempt. is leading the church towards schism, and
Before the Year of Mercy, he had that he must therefore be stopped. There
removed (or decapitated) the leaders of are many more than a dozen of them and,
the Franciscans of the Immaculate, appar- though they may not yet be ready to act
ently for their traditionalist sympathies. upon their concerns, they would like this
During it, he froze out senior churchmen pontificate to end sooner rather than later.
who questioned his plans to allow divorced- The stakes are so high because the dis-
and-remarried Catholics to receive Holy amid suspicion that influential cardinals are content is not fundamentally about person-
Communion. As the year finished, the papal plotting against Francis motivated not by ality: it arises from an argument about the
axe fell on the Grand Master of the Knights partisan malice, but by fear that the integrity central tenets of the faith.
of Malta, Fra Matthew Festing, who during and authority of the papacy is at stake. In the end, it all boils down to the ques-
an internal row over the alleged distribu- Antonio Socci, a leading conservative tion of giving communion to people who are
tion of condoms by its charitable arm had Vatican-watcher, says that cardinals once either divorced and remarried or married to
robustly asserted the crusader orders 800- loyal to Francis are so concerned about a a divorced person.
year sovereignty. Francis seized control of schism that they are planning to appeal to Non-Catholics, and indeed many Cath-
the knights. They are sovereign no longer. olics, find it hard to understand why this
So the sarcasm of asking the Pope about The stakes are high because the is such a big deal. Put simply, the Catholic
his mercy is pretty obvious. But Italians discontent arises from an argument church is the only worldwide Christian
noticed something else. A France ma about a central tenet of the faith denomination that takes literally the parts
ndo sta la tua misericordia? is local dialect of the Bible (Luke 16:8, Mark 10:11, Mat-
the Romanesco slang in which citizens him to step down. He predicts that the rebel- thew 19:9) where Jesus says that divorced
taunted corrupt or tyrannical popes before lion will be led by about a dozen moderate and remarried people are committing adul-
the fall of the Papal States in 1870. cardinals who work in the curia. tery. This isnt to say that church authorities
Although the stunt made headlines Their favoured candidate is understood havent hypocritically (or compassionately)
around the world, it is unlikely to have to be Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a veteran dip- bent the rules down the centuries but the
unnerved the Pope. There is a touch of the lomat who serves as the Popes secretary teaching has remained unchanged.
Peronist street-fighter about Jorge Bergoglio. of state, a post that combines the duties of Until now, anyway. In April last year,
As his fellow Argentinian Jesuits know only prime minister and foreign secretary. Paro- Pope Francis released Amoris Laetitia,
too well, he is relaxed about making ene- lin is unusually powerful because the Pope (The Joy of Love), a 200-page document in
mies so long as he is confident that he has indulges him. Power has drained from other response to a synod of the worlds bishops
the upper hand. The posters convey impo- Vatican departments towards the secretar- that had rejected any change to the teaching
tent rage: they are unlikely to carry the fin- iat of state. It is Parolin who is pushing the that Catholics in irregular marriages should
gerprints of senior churchmen. church towards an accommodation with not receive communion.
In any case, it is not anonymous mock- Beijing that, critics say, would betray faithful To cut a long story short, Francis appeared
ery that should worry the Pope: it is the pub- Chinese Catholics; it was also Parolin who to go along with the synods wishes. But a
lic silence of cardinals and bishops who, in moved against the leadership of the Order footnote in Amoris Laetitia hinted (and it
the early days of his pontificate, missed no of Malta, which had sacked one of his well- was just a hint) that couples, in consultation
opportunity to cheer him on. connected friends. with a priest, could decide for themselves
The silence is ominous because it comes The argument for replacing Francis with whether to receive the sacrament.
12 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
A few progressive cardinals and bishops Cuckold
most significantly in Germany, where
Catholicism looks an awful lot like liberal It wasnt the unruly agitation of sparrows
Protestantism seized on this footnote along the back benches, but the flight of arrows
and declared that divorced-and-remarried
couples could have communion if their con-
from you and the warblers under your wing
sciences were clear. that pierced Cock Robins lower chamber poor thing!
Whereupon countless cardinals, bishops,
priests and canon lawyers said, no they cant. Although your erstwhile partner prepared a noose,
But Francis, without going on the record, let
it be known that yes they can in his opin-
fouled the nest, and turned your swan into a goose,
ion, anyway. And hes the Pope. So please you rose like a phoenix from your campaign desk,
would bishops everywhere start falling into and joined the hen party as a diplomatic guest:
line and support a more liberal stance on spiky plumage smoothed, placed by your host,
communion for the remarried, even though
he has never formally articulated it? high up the pecking order in a fly or die post.

A split like this over the meaning of mar-


riage threatens to do to the Catholic
church what the issue of homosexuality has
How will you deal with the terns across the pond,
the chiffchaffs near the channel,
done to the Anglican communion: creating the crossbills perched beyond?
rifts between liberals and conservatives and How will you handle the unforgiving hawks,
dividing the church in the West against the the beaks as sharp as knives,
church in the developing world.
and those as curved as forks?
To a great many in Rome, it looks as if the
Pope is single-handedly ripping apart church
teaching in defiance of his own hierarchy. Talking cold turkey, cutting the mumbo jumbo:
Its utterly bizarre. Hes actually been ring- a stately Brexit peacock, or a feather-headed dodo?
ing round asking for support on this, says a
priest in the Vatican. Like an American pres-
ident lobbying senators? Exactly. But hes
A.K.S. Shaw
not getting the answers he wanted. Instead,
theres this silence that has not greeted any
other papal exhortation I can think of. those posters showed, taking resistance to suasion, otherwise known as arm-twisting.
Why the silence? The answer is that the extraordinary lengths. Several cardinals believe that this is what
Pope has put cardinals and bishops in an At the end of this month, the Universi- happened to Benedict XVI, though the pope
impossible situation. ty of Paris-Sud is hosting a conference on emeritus insists that the decision to resign
Consider the case of England and Wales. the canonical problem of the deposition was his alone. Benedict, a theologian, grew
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, president of the of heretical popes. The organisers are not to hate being pope. Francis, by contrast,
bishops conference, could not issue a set openly suggesting that Francis falls into this loves it so much that he hasnt taken a hol-
of German-style anything goes on divorce category, but others may draw their own iday since walking on to the balcony of St
guidelines even if he wanted to (and no one conclusions. Two of the professors giving Peters. That doesnt mean that no one will
knows what the inscrutable Nichols really papers have asked the Pope to rule against try to persuade Francis to step down, but
wants, except perhaps to be Pope himself). heretical misunderstandings of Amoris God help them when they do.
The conservative Bishop Philip Egan Laetitia which he refuses to do. So some This leaves the Catholic church in dead-
of Portsmouth has already said that there of the theoretical discussions of deposing lock. To quote one Vatican employee, Liber-
will be no change of pastoral practice in his popes may be rather pointed. al or conservative, what most cardinals want
diocese, full stop. Nichols couldnt even sell But can Francis really be forced out of is release from the endless fatigue created
relaxed guidelines to his own Westminster office by canon law? Moderate cardinals by Francis.
diocese: at least one of his bishops would wouldnt countenance it even if it were pos- The plotting will go on, of course: some
rebel. sible. That leaves what Socci calls moral clerical politicians cant stop themselves.
This dilemma is being replicated all over So will the papal lobbying, but it is unlikely
the world. Two thirds of diocesan bishops to bear fruit. And the longer the deadlock
either believe that the Pope is monkeying lasts, the angrier and more outspoken Fran-
with the fundamentals of Christian doctrine cis will become. Which leaves the Vatican in
or, taking a more lenient view, think his mis- the worst possible situation: a plot against
guided compassion has created pastoral the Pope that is an open secret, but which
chaos. And the chaos will persist for as long has little chance of success.
as this man is Pope. The word Catholic means universal
Which is why despite various efforts yet now local tension between the lib-
to cast Francis in the role of great reformer eral and conservative strands of the faith is
squaring up to satin-clad dinosaurs mod- intensifying, and is being made worse by the
erate cardinals are ready for a new pope Pope himself. Many priests have absolutely
who can kick this wretched issue into the no intention of giving communion to couples
long grass. in irregular marriages. So the couples are left
But how can this be achieved? The mod- wondering who is right: their priest or their
erates arent keen to join forces with anti- Pope? The conditions for a schism are there,
Francis conservatives, who are already, as Its just a front. Its actually Waterstones. for those with an eye to see them.
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 13
Poison, spies and lies
by their own standards Obama wasnt
born here, Cruzs dad killed Kennedy, Brit-
ish intelligence killed Litvinenko its fair
to ask about such speculation. Could Russian
A conspiratorial lunch with Donald Trumps old friend Roger Stone organised crime have supported Trump on
behalf of the Kremlin? Its highly unlikely,
PAUL WOOD Stone says. The danger with the current laws
and regulations, its too easy to prove, too
easy to find, and thats certain jail time its
not a grey area.
Two months ago I wrote that the FBI was
investigating exactly this. Several sources
told me there was a secret intelligence court
Washington DC thread that Trumps enemies say runs all order to get the electronic communications

R
oger Stone political consultant, the way to the Kremlin: money and organ- of two Russian banks into the US. The New
agent provocateur, friend and confi- ised crime. Stone was introduced to Trump York Times later named Stone as one of the
dant of Donald Trump arrives for in 1979 through Roy Cohn, the Trump fam- inquirys ultimate targets. I dont have any
lunch with a bodyguard in tow. Ive had way ilys mobbed-up lawyer. Stone writes that Russian contacts, he tells me. No Russian cli-
too many death threats, he explains. He says he went to see Cohn at his offices and found ents. No Russian money. I didnt speak to any
hes recovering from poisoning by polonium, him wearing a silk dressing gown. His heavy- Russians during this presidential campaign.
a radioactive substance used to kill the Rus- lidded eyes were bloodshot from a late night The whole thing is a canard. If they have evi-
sian defector Alexander Litvinenko in Lon- of revelry. Seated with Cohn was his client, dence to the contrary, go ahead: indict me.
don. Litvinenko, he says, had a much larger Fat Tony Salerno, boss of the Genovese If you cant, then its time for an apology
dose, probably done by British intelligence. crime family. Some attribute Trumps early because this is bullshit and its getting tedious.
But the British government named the Rus- success as a New York developer to Cohns Stone similarly dismisses claims that the
sian agents responsible, I reply. What was the Kremlin has video of Trump with prostitutes
proof? he asks.Its all mirrors.You know that. in Moscow in 2013. Zero chance, he says,
Stone blames his poisoning on the deep adding that Trump is a germophobe and has
state, a term that in Trumpworld means the a well-founded paranoia about being taped
intelligence community. Trump has taken to while travelling. This repeats the Presidents
Twitter to accuse the deep state of tapping his denials but Stone has an interesting story
phone on President Obamas orders. This is about that visit to Moscow, for the Miss Uni-
Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy! Stone verse contest. It came, he says, from Trumps
has called for Obama to be charged, con- head of security. Their handler in Moscow,
victed and jailed. All this adds a layer to the presumably reporting to the government
tangled skein labelled Trump and Russia. although ostensibly working for the pageant,
At its heart is a simple charge: that Trump said to him, Were going to send some girls up
was bought or blackmailed by the Kremlin. to Mr Trumps room afterwards for entertain-
Stone is accused of being a Russian conduit ment. The head of security posted guards
to Trump. Both men say they are victims of a outside Trumps room, Stone tells me, and It
conspiracy of lies by US intelligence agencies, never happened. Still, this supports one of
a silent coup. Stone is an icon to a mass of the claims in the Christopher Steele dossier:
Trump supporters who believe this is the hid- that the Kremlin was trying to co-opt Trump.
den truth behind the Presidents difficulties. Last weekend, Trump and Stone issued
Stone slides into the restaurants wood- their tweets accusing President Obama of
panelled booth. Hes in his sixties, white- mafia connections. They controlled the con- ordering wiretaps at Trump Tower. I was
haired, and wearing a bold pinstriped suit crete. Stone tells me: In his defence, the same disconcerted to find the White House citing
impeccably cut to make him look like a 1930s people he bought concrete from also sold it to my story of two months ago as evidence of
gangster. He lives in Florida and maintains a New York state and New York City. That was this. Since Watergate, a president cant order
deep year-round tan. On that tanned flesh, the only unionised concrete in the city. the wiretapping of an American citizen. It is
beneath the crisp white shirt, right between Wayne Barrett, a legendary muckraking possible, though, for Americans to be moni-
his shoulder blades, he has, famously, a tat- New York journalist, told me before he died tored as part of surveillance of a foreign enti-
too of Richard Nixons smiling face. Stone (of natural causes) that he had found 25 to 30 ty ordered by the intelligence court that
worked for Nixon and has seen ten presiden- mob connections in Trumps past. Today, the seems to be what happened to Trumps now-
tial races. He likes to quote the famed Repub- allegations are about the Russian mob, rath- departed national security adviser, General
lican political strategist Lee Atwater on how er than the Italian-American mafia. Russian Mike Flynn. Trump may have tweeted himself
to succeed in politics, and life: Lay low, play money is heavily invested or laundered into a corner by calling for Congress to inves-
dumb, and keep moving. He adds three cor- through the New York property market. tigate a wiretapping that was part of an inves-
ollaries, Stones rules: Admit nothing; deny Trump wont break your legs, I say to Stone, tigation into his Russian ties. They may have
everything; launch counterattack. I imagine but isnt he happy to take money from the guy to ask what was the probable cause for any
hes given this advice to Trump; he sees the who will? Money is definitely important to secret court order. Perhaps Trump didnt see
President from time to time, he says. him, yes, says Stone, drifting off into silence. this implication. Or he just couldnt restrain
Access is the currency of Washington A source in the intelligence community himself. Or the President is simply work-
and it is hard to be certain how much Stone told me you could draw a line from Putins ing from the Stone playbook: Admit noth-
truly has. But he has known Trump for almost mafia state, through Russian organised crime, ing; deny everything; launch counterattack.
40 years and he describes their history in his to Trumps businesses. This connect-the-dots
new book The Making of the President 2016. supposition is what the President and his Paul Wood is a BBC correspondent and
At the start of this relationship, you find the allies denounce as malicious nonsense. But fellow of the New America foundation.
14 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
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Dumbing down the house
next to it saying, Please do not climb on me.
At Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, work on the
South Terrace is fitted around the bats hiber-
nation cycle: Can you believe everything has
How the National Trust is spoiling its treasures to be scheduled around this sleepy little chap
and his friends? reads the notice. If any facts
HARRY MOUNT do sneak into the signs, they have to be dumb-
ed down, too. So the Kingston Lacy estate is
described as once covering over 10,000 hec-
tares (over 14,000 football pitches!)
The overall effect is extremely depress-
ing. You go away from National Trust houses
weighed down with namby-pamby, childish,
hectoring commands, constantly ordered to
think in a particular way. Gone is the magi-

O
sterley Park on the western fringes room and, on a bright spring lunchtime, the cal, mysterious, sublime aesthetic effect that
of London is a rare survival. A Rob- curtains are closed, while the tables set for unadulterated great houses and landscapes
ert Adam house, with splendid Adam dinner, with electric candles and tureens of gently lay down on your soul. The moment
interiors, its still surrounded by its Elizabe- plastic carrots and potatoes. beauty is explained, it loses its lustre.
than stables, an 18th-century landscape and At Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire, at The National Trust need to attract visitors
classical follies in the middle of urban lunchtime, the table in the 18th-century par- but they dont have to destroy themselves
Hounslow. Over the past decade, this Geor- lour is set for tea, with a plastic fruitcake and in the process. Blenheim and Chatsworth
gian gem has been increasingly despoiled and a copy of the Daily Telegraph from 3 June are vast money-making operations, but they
dumbed down by the National Trust. 1953, the day after the Queens Coronation. havent turned themselves into kiddy parks
The Trust is spending 356,000 to turn In a nearby chair, theres a copy of Country to get punters through the door. They know
Osterley Park into a child-friendly leisure Life from February 1976, showing a snowy that the beauty and history of their houses
centre. As one of the huge posters strapped to lakeside scene. So where are we supposed to and parks are their own magnetic attraction.
the park fence says, the money will pay for A be? Eighteenth-century Wimpole Hall, sum- In all the houses Ive been to, I never saw a
new skills area for young families providing mer 1953 or winter 1976? Were never told. single child look at the dumbed-down notices,
kids with a safe place to learn to cycle and gain These weird, empty stage sets are upper- either. The Trust is destroying these places to
confidence. Why splurge this vast amount of class murder scenes as if the Earl of Hard- no real purpose.
money on something you can already easily wicke has been whipped away from the tea But that doesnt matter. Interpretation
do on the paths at Osterley, i.e. bicycle? And and storytelling have become ends in them-
why use pointless language like skills area Youre never allowed a free thought selves under the current director-general,
and safe place, instead of just calling it a without being bombarded by Helen Ghosh, and her predecessor, Fiona
place where you can learn to ride a bike? idiotic, history-free messages Reynolds. Helen Ghosh was the one who said
Its just a small part of the disastrous National Trust houses had so much stuff in
dumbing-down of the National Trust all table just as hes about to have a slice of cake, them that, in 2015, furniture was temporar-
in the name of the Trusts great gods: acces- and strangled somewhere in the servants ily removed from Ickworths library to make
sibility, interpretation and storytelling. Every- quarters or The Servants Rooms, as they way for beanbags. She is also the one who has
where you go now at Trust properties, youre are called in the illiterate signs at Osterley. turned the Trust into an eco-charity, declaring,
never allowed a free thought without being The desire for fact-free interpretation is so The effect of extreme weather is the single
bombarded by idiotic, history-free messages. great that the National Trust has even taken largest threat to our conservation work.
At Prior Park, Bath, one of the greatest to writing rubbish on doors and blinds. At In the face of the green tide, curato-
mid-18th-century landscapes in the country, Standen, the butlers pantry door is painted rial scholarship has been discarded. I have
the grotto has been ruined by an enormous with the banal words, After breakfast at eight been at a seminar where a senior National
video screen, with a cartoon showing a Dis- I would go into the pantry and make sure that Trust employee declared that the reaction of
neyfied vision of Prior Park. No facts are the silver was polished according to what they someone who knows nothing about Stowe
allowed to intervene in National Trust Kiddy wanted that day. and its gardens is as valid as a leading archi-
World. Instead, the noticeboard outside the When National Trust signs arent illiterate, tectural historians reaction. I have heard the
grotto asks you to Think about how each they are patronising, as at Osterley: It was the head of one of Londons great museums say
area of the garden makes you feel. By the scullery maids job to empty and clean the they were horrified that the Trusts Peckover
elegant, urn-topped piers at the entrance to chamber pots every morning. A very smelly House in Wisbech had no Polish agricultural
Prior Park, a massive purple-and-white post- job. A tree stump at Hughenden has a sign workers visiting from nearby towns.
er asks you to Join the Cadbury Egg Hunt Some brave curators take a stand against
Enjoy Easter Fun at the National Trust. the idiocy. One in the West Country, talking off
Try walking round the garden at King- FROM THE ARCHIVE the record to avoid reprisals, objected when
ston Lacy in Dorset and you cant move for America confronts Germany asked to take a death mask off a wall because
blackboard signs propped against the trees, it was too gloomy for the children. As the
From The revelation of Germany to the
scrawled on in chalk, saying, Snowdrop-lov- curator wisely told them, Children love death
United States, 10 March 1917: Even if
ers are also known as galanthophiles. and gloom. Whats much more gloomy is
Mr Wilson stops short at his present stage,
Open a kitchen cupboard in Standen, the he has undeniably pulled the tigers tail.
when the greatest conservation charity in the
arts-and-crafts house in West Sussex, and It cannot be expected that the tiger will world turns into a politicised leisure centre.
youre presented with a rolling pin, a mix- forget this if we were Americans we
ing bowl and a copy of the Daily Mirror from should be very much alarmed. We think This is an extract from the forthcoming
1942, with a photo of General Eisenhower on we should want to make sure of killing the Charles Douglas-Home Memorial Lecture,
the cover. Why? Who keeps their newspaper man-eater while the chances are good. to be delivered at Stationers Hall in London
in a kitchen cupboard? Move into the dining on 15 March.
16 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
ROD LIDDLE

What I did on International


Womens Day

I
t was International Womens Day on Snape or maybe some of the more amenable to rain tomorrow, or maybe if it was going
Wednesday of this last week. The Guard- house elves. Anyway, well done to Emma, to be a bit windy. He did not tell us that we
ian had enjoined its readers to send in and congratulations on a fine pair of baps. ought to root out our Wellington boots or
reports of what they had done to advance She has been criticised for undermining galoshes, or instruct us to stay at home or
the struggle, or how they had been in some the cause by this latest photoshoot, but I do during periods of pleasant sunshine insist
way oppressed by men perhaps raped, or not see any contradiction, even if in the past that if we dared venture outside at any point
talked to as if they were stupid, or looked at she has said things about other female per- without adequate covering then the melano-
a little coldly when they squirted breast milk formers such as Beyonc appearing in mas would multiply on our skin and even-
over fellow diners at The Ivy. I tried to think states of undress. Quite the contrary: I think tually metastatise throughout our bodies,
of something I had done for the cause but the feminist cause would be advanced enor- leading to painful chemotherapy followed
came up short, sad to say. mously if Emma went further and decided by certain death. He did not tell us not to go
So instead I tried to show solidarity by to show us all what my 11-year-old daughter to work or not to use the roads. He did not
spending a substantial amount of Interna- refers to as her front bottom. There are try to scare the shit out of us by insisting that
tional Womens Day looking at a photo- Storm Hermione was on its way and millions
graph of Emma Watsons tits. The actress is I tried to think of something I had of people would die, when all that happened
a radical feminist campaigner and has even done to help advance the cause later was that a mild breeze slightly discom-
been given some kind of role at the United but came up short, sad to say bobulated some but not all of our garden
Nations to advance the cause of female lib- ornaments. Bill came from a better, more
eration across the globe. Presumably as part plenty of publications or websites which intelligent time. Bill and that man with the
of this drive to stop men regarding women would be happy to accommodate her in this, lugubrious moustache, Michael Fish. And
as sex objects, Emma got her tits out for many of them emanating from Russia. that other one called John Kettley, who had
Vanity Fair. Having exhausted myself with Emmas a silly song written about him which reached
I have to say, I heartily approve. They tits, I metaphorically hosed myself down by number 21 in the charts in 1988.
seemed to me attractive and exquisitely studying an article written by a man called Giles wrote a piece which was effectively
English breasts. Far superior, in my opinion, Bill Giles, who was once very familiar to us telling the weathermen to calm down a bit. It
to the bulbous, vulgar, artificially enhanced as a weatherman on the telly. Bill existed in is absolutely true that they have turned into
cantaloupes which adhere to many Ameri- a time before that law got passed which said a legion of immaculately turned-out bed-
can actresses especially those who appear that every weatherman has to be gay and wetters, pirouetting beside their little maps
in films towards the lower end of the market. should talk to us as if we were five-year-old and shrieking at us that the world is about
Emmas were modest, but not too modest. children. He turned up every evening look- to end. There are too many severe weather
They were not in your face, but at the same ing kind of normal, and told us if it was going warnings, was the gist of Bills argument.
time nor were they invisible. They eschewed To the extent that really severe warnings go
the rather plastic perkiness which you see in unheeded, because we have become inured
many womens breasts these days: in short, to them all and so take no notice whatsoever.
they were self-possessed and confident This seems to me so obvious as to be vir-
breasts, neither thrusting nor yet cowed. tually incontestable; even mediocre weath-
I suspect that, had he studied them with er these days requires some sort of fatuous
the same diligence I studied them, even advice from the perennially panicked gobs-
Professor Dumbledore would have got on-sticks. Perhaps it is a reaction to Michael
a bit excited. Except that we learned by Fishs famous failure to predict the Great
about book nine of the Harry Potter series Storm of 1987, which was a genuine extreme
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Irredeem- weather event. Or perhaps it is the Met
able Bollocks or whatever it was called Office attempting to shoehorn its climate-
that Dumbledore batted for the other side, change ideology into every evening fore-
so perhaps he wouldnt. The poor professor cast: the weather is getting more and more
had his new sexual orientation stapled on to extreme, a consequence of global warming.
him by his creator J.K. Rowling when it was Either way, I wish theyd shut up. Giles is
politically expedient to do so, and hence- right. The weather forecasts have become a
forth one imagined him lusting after Severus President Trump adopts a softer tone nightly hissy fit, an injunction to panic.
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 17
ANCIENT AND MODERN
Enemies of the people
How to make drugs boring
A former police chief on fighting cannabis by legalising it
DANNY KRUGER

Hardly a
week goes by without someone
applauding Thomas Carlyles

B
objection to democracy: I do not ill Blair, the former police chief of minors market and going after the really
believe in the collective wisdom of Toronto, slides into his restaurant dangerous drugs that kill people.
individual ignorance. In other words, chair and twinkles at the waitress. Bill complains that across Canada the
infinitely wise politicians should Hes 6ft 6in, white-haired now but perky. police have given up enforcing the law. In
tell the unenlightened mob what to Bill has 120 years of policing behind him. big cities the sale and possession of pot is
think, not vice versa. Such feelings He, his father and his grandfather all served effectively decriminalised, giving criminals
have been common ever since the
40 years in the force. Now hes an MP and an open and unregulated market. Its the
Athenians invented direct democracy
hes legalising cannabis in Canada. worst of both worlds, he says: lots of weed
in 508 BC, which lasted till 323 BC and
handed to citizens in the assembly The restaurant has been here since early and lots of crime.
(the dmos) the power to decide all in Bills fathers time on the beat. It claims to After lunch I walk a few hundred yards
Athenian policy. have invented the bacon cheeseburger. We to see what hes talking about. Beside a
One anonymous writer described sit round a plastic-topped table and Bill tells vacant lot, a nondescript entrance gives into
the dmos as ignorant, ill-disciplined me how he ended up pushing drug reform. a small whitewashed room with huge glass
and immoral, ascribing it to their When I left the force all three politi-
poverty and lack of education. The cal parties wanted me to run for office. Ive We do not need to ban everything
philosopher Plato thought a state spent my life avoiding politics and the other bad. After all, the Victorians
could be well governed only by parties reminded me why. They just wanted
Platonic philosophers. The historian
never prohibited alcohol
me for political kudos. But Trudeau was dif-
Thucydides rated oligarchies less liable ferent. He asked my advice on policy. jars of weed on the shelves. I am proud to
to revolution. Aristotle agreed that
Justin Trudeau, the handsome young see one labelled UK Cheese, which turns out
monarchy would be the best of all, if
leader of Canadas Liberal party, wasnt sup- to be a revolting-smelling skunk made to a
only someone of the required standard
could be found. posed to win the 2015 election. The Liberals British recipe of incredible potency.
So much for contemporary were third in the polls, in part because they This is a dispensary illegal, but pre-
intellectual rumblings from the side- had a bunch of wacky policies such as tending to respectability by hanging an illu-
lines. It was the Romans who turned it cannabis legalisation. Then, largely because minated green chemists cross amid the Bob
into fake news. They venerated Greek of Trudeaus telegenic appeal and political Marley posters. Punters are required to fill
cultural achievements but felt there savvy, they won. in a form citing anxiety or back pain, which a
was something dodgy about the dmos. A few months before the election, girl with a ring through her septum efficient-
Cato the Elder took up the theme Trudeau asked Bill how he should handle ly files away before ladling out the weed.
of the corrupt, dissolute Greek, and his partys position on cannabis. The old cop The police leave them alone; indeed last
Cicero elaborated it, characterising the gave him this advice: dont make it about week some cops came round and warned the
dmos as an inflamed mob. cannabis. I asked him why he wanted to do manager about a spate of robberies against
It was Plutarch, a prolific Greek
it. He said because he didnt want criminals dispensaries. You can see why that happens:
writer of the 2nd century AD with a
preying on kids. I said, Thats the policy. shops like these can take $15,000 (9,000) in
great admiration for Roman stability,
who really put the boot in. His Parallel Thats what we need to do. cash a day (untaxed, of course).
Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans Cannabis use among young people in I wander a few blocks north to the Vil-
commonly characterised the Greek Canada is the highest in the world. Almost lage, Torontos LGBT district. Im looking
dmos as animals unreasoning, a quarter of all teenagers are regularly get- for the citys biggest dispensary. I find it eas-
unruly, volatile and degenerate and ting high, and while most grow up and grow ily: a big green shopfront between two gay
determined out of envy to strike down out of it, some develop mental health prob- bars with a queue into the street. We shuf-
any great leader. Influential beyond lems and many more screw up at school. So fle along. A guy comes out looking cross.
any other classical author, Plutarch Bills advice to Trudeau was to make the top
dominated discussions in the West priority keeping cannabis out of the hands
about the best form of government of children. After the election, he wrote the
from the 16th to 19th centuries. His new governments policy paper setting out
idea that rule by a dmos could be
a path Toward the Legalisation, Regulation
nothing but mob rule became the
and Restriction of Access to Marijuana.
kneejerk position, and still is.
In the howls about mob rule, How, I ask, is legalising cannabis going to
however, Switzerland, virtually a restrict access to it? Bill explains: Cannabis
direct democracy for some 600 years, use is endemic in our society. Its a massive
somehow never features. Animals, market and were simply not managing it.
obviously. Legalisation for adults means we can reg-
Peter Jones ulate supply and put our law enforcement Sorry, were not looking for anyone
resources where we need them: policing the at the moment.
18 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
Theyre out of moonrocks, he complains to Canadians are simply applying their nation-
the crowd. I learn that a moonrock is a mari- al formula liberal and boring at the same
juana bud dipped in cannabis oil and rolled time to a problem that deserves it.
in kief, the dust that hash is made of. When Perhaps Canadas approach will appeal
we get inside I see, through a fug of weed to our own dour Prime Minister. Cannabis
smoke, the big jars of grass and a range of use is endemic in British society too, includ-
exotic products: oils, liquids for vaping, all ing in the just-managing towns outside the
sorts of edibles. Most people are buying to metropolises which Theresa May wants
take away. On low sofas at the back of the to help. She has already signalled her con-
shop a dozen dismal stoners lie about smok- cern about the crisis in young peoples men-
ing joints and pipes. Its like a Victorian tal health. The illegal cannabis trade is a
opium den with ice hockey on the TV. major contributor to this crisis. A brave step
would be to commission a report looking

C anada is joining a global trend. From


Uruguay to Portugal, countries are uni-
laterally withdrawing from the UN Con-
Oh no hes turned into a real boy.
at the impact on young peoples wellbeing
of drugs including the effect of illegali-
ty, and the potential for a regulated market.
vention on Drugs, which requires them to voted against an additional proposition to As the campaigning journalist Mike Power
maintain the international prohibition. US finance education and public health cam- recently suggested in a paper for the think-
states are doing it too: first Colorado, then paigns to encourage safe use. There will be tank Volteface, this market could be entirely
Alaska, Oregon, Maine, Nevada and Wash- billboards, TV advertising, Hollywood prod- online, without Canadas horrid high-street
ington have all opted to legalise. And last uct placement. Bill Blair says, I call these the dispensaries.
year, via a question on the ballot at the pres- Lets get the party started places. I dont All is permitted, said St Paul no lib-
idential election, Californians voted to join want a party in Canada. I want less people eral but not all is beneficial. We do not
them. Thats a population the size of Cana- smoking cannabis and I dont want to need to ban everything bad. After all, the
das and an economy the size of Britains. glamorise it so kids think its cool. Victorians never prohibited alcohol. They
Legal cannabis is coming. But California, Canadas approach is to be as square as regulated it, taxed it and hedged it about
like Colorado before it, is the model of how possible. There will be no advertising. Prod- with a culture of disapproval. In our own
not to do it. The focus in these libertarian ucts will be sold in plain packages, with no day, by the same means we have effective-
frontier states is on freedom and com- sales alongside alcohol and tobacco. The ly stopped children getting access to booze,
merce. Colorado has deliberately turned greater the potency, the higher the taxes will and reduced harmful adult use. Instead of
itself into a tourist destination for potheads. be. It is, one must admit, all rather joyless. the prohibition of cannabis we need an old
Californians, in voting to legalise cannabis, But after all, cannabis is joyless stuff. The Victorian virtue: temperance.

AM ty
ali

RS
IT
Y
OF
BU

or
CK
INGH

Te
ac
hingQ
u
MA in the History of
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Western Architecture
E
IV
UN ea
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Unive From the Late Medieval to Modernism
Starting in October 2017, this is a one-year, Each seminar takes place in central London
London-based programme of twelve evening and is followed by a dinner during which
seminars and an individual research project, participants can engage in a general discussion
offering an overview of the history of Western with the guest expert on the issues raised by
architecture from the late medieval to the 20th the seminar.
century, with lectures by a series of inter-
nationally acclaimed architectural historians. Examination for the MA is by a research
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Others wishing to attend the seminars, but not
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contact: Humanities Research Admissions on
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THE UNIVERSITY OF
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the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 19
BAROMETER
Calendar clash
Naming the weather We lose something by planning our diaries too far ahead
Former BBC weatherman Bill Giles has JENNY COAD
said hes fed up with storms being named.
The practice of naming storms in the
UK began with storm Abigail in October
2015, although some earlier storms, like
Bertha in 2014, were the remnants of
hurricanes already named in the US. The
St Judes Day storm of 2013 took its name
from the saints day on which it fell.
The US National Hurricane Centre rst

O
named storms in 1950, when it started n a Friday evening in May 2018 I Its exhausting. And it seems to be a dis-
calling them by a phonetic alphabet: Able, am going to see the Broadway show tinctly British affliction.
Baker, Charlie etc. Three years later it Hamilton. We had to book the tick- A friend who moved to Santiago in
switched to womens names, starting with ets two weeks ago. Fair enough, you might Chile last year doesnt know what she is
Alice, a damp squib with winds not say some theatre tickets sell out long doing from one week to the next. Her South
exceeding 60 mph. Its rst male storm was before rehearsals have begun. Nonetheless, American friends laugh if she tries to corral
Bob in 1979, a 65mph weakling. it seems a madly long way off and what if I them into a social commitment. If I organise
The practice began earlier in the Pacic;
forget about it between now and then? something a week ahead of time or even a
Australian meteorologist Clement Wragge
This week Ive tried to pencil in the cin- few days ahead, people think Im crazy. They
was naming storms in the late 19th century.
ema with a group of friends no one was dont seem to have their lives planned out
Doing it for themselves free until April and Saturday supper with the way we do at home. What if you agree
a couple: they couldnt do until July. to go for dinner and then, on that day, you
National Insurance contributions were This is far from unusual. My diary tends dont fancy it? they ask. Well, quite. But the
to rise for the self-employed. Which to be filled weeks in advance and there is lit- cult of cancelling is another topic entirely.
industries have the most self-employment? tle room for unexpected pleasures without Is she short of things to do, people to see,
Construction 24% of workers a shamefaced untangling of best-laid plans. places to go? Not at all shes having the
Financial/business activities 23% Most of us are masters at unpicking things time of her life. And I dont think thats just
Wholesale, retail and motor trade 9.1% that sounded like a nice idea at the time.
Transport, storage, communication 6.9% The builder is in. The children are poorly. When was the last time a friend
Manufacturing 6.3% Im stuck at work. phoned at teatime and changed
Social work 6.1%
All of which makes me wonder if we are the course of your evening?
Hotels/restaurants 3.3%
over-organising our lives for no good reason
Education/health 2.5%
Source: ONS at all. Being busy for the sake of it. Whatev- down to sunshine and pisco sours. Its the
er happened to spontaneity? Even free time sense of liberation and opportunity.
Diesel come, diesel go has become a thing we cling to, written in An Italian colleague who moved to Lon-
bold, desperate caps: KEEP FREE. don from Sicily told me in amazement that
Sales of diesel cars have fallen by 10 per When was the last time a friend phoned she has to book playdates for her children
cent following revelations about pollution. at teatime and changed the course of your weeks in advance. I didnt understand it at
How did their numbers grow, in terms of a evening? Well, that would have been so nice, first, she shrugged.
percentage of all cars sold? but you spent days filling in an online doo- We dont always regret our well-made
UK EU dle calendar some weeks ago and youre plans. But I cant help feeling that in living
6.4% 1990 14% committed that night, so sorry. like this we are missing out. As Mr Knight-
20% 1995 23% Fancy a drink after work? Love to, but ley exclaims to Emma, who is disappointed
14% 2000 33%
are you around three weeks on Friday? not to be able to count on his presence at the
37% 2005 50%
It is rare to leave weekends entirely clear spring ball: Why not seize the pleasure at
46% 2010 52%
48% 2015 52%
simply to take advantage of whatever might once? How often is happiness destroyed by
Source: European Automobile Manufacturers come your way. And if you do, it might be preparation, foolish preparation!
Association because you want to do nothing at all. Spontaneity is exciting. Vanessa Bell
We should give our diaries and ourselves drew her friends Molly MacCarthy and
Playing snap a break. Of course plans have to be made, Marjorie Strachey at what they referred to
dates marked, babysitters booked and dia- as spontaneous play. The resulting photo-
William Hague called for Theresa May to ries co-ordinated. My sister and boyfriend graphs are on display at the Vanessa Bell
call a snap general election this spring, are both junior doctors, working to con- retrospective in Dulwich Picture Gallery.
which would be just two years after the last stantly changing rotas with weird hours and Being models, they look graceful and, being
election. Eight general elections have been weekend shifts. If we didnt carve space out naked, very unconstrained.
called after shorter periods: in advance, I might not see them at all. That sort of spontaneity is not for every-
1886 6 months 24 days
Quietly-made plans are drip-fed to my one, of course. The Bloomsbury set were
October 1974 7 months 10 days
boyfriend, who has a fear of overfilled week- nonconformist spirits leading what most of
1924 10 months 23 days
1831 and 1911 11 months 16 days
ends. I tell him if we dont pin down anything us would consider wild lives. But maybe we
1923 11 months 21 days we wont be able to eat in that restaurant, could take a cue from their approach and
1966 17 months 15 days see a talked-about exhibition before it ends, relax our feverish timetables a touch. So
1951 20 months 2 days watch the latest film in our local cinema or ditch the list of engagements, plan to plan
catch up with equally busy friends. less, and lets do something in August.
20 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
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SYDNEY NOTEBOOK
Tom Switzer

T he other day, I went to a boozy


barbecue near Sydneys northern
beaches. The guests were all political
We are only in March, but already
his government has lost a prominent
senator, who has created his own break-
mates of mine and we chatted about away conservative party, and there is
those insurgent populists who threaten talk of other lawmakers defecting to
to upend established conservative fringe right-wing groups. Meanwhile,
parties across the globe: Donald Trump, the end of the mining boom means
Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Beppe higher deficits as far as the eye can see.
Grillo and, of course, Pauline Hanson Labor a party that barely registered
Australias version of all four. We put our exciting time to be an Australian. But a pulse a few years ago is leading the
wide-ranging discussion about domestic the trouble for any politician exciting government by as much as ten points. As
politics in an international context. But high expectations is that they can almost a result, authority is draining away from
it was not until the next morning that never be fulfilled. Once he was the it Turnbull as if from an open wound.
I realised that we had not even talked man; everyone wanted to know Malcolm
about Malcolm Turnbull: hes our fourth
prime minister in four years, who was
famous in the UK in the 1980s as the
or be seen with him, especially in his posh
Sydney electoral district, Wentworth (our
equivalent of Notting Hill in west London).
T he spectre of Pauline Hansons
One Nation has returned to
haunt Australian politics. Two decades
defence lawyer in the Spycatcher case. These days, if you were at the pub and saw ago, the former fish-and-chip shop
Turnbull waltzing in, youd look the other owner shocked the nation with

I n my hungover state, I texted my


friends and asked them if they noticed
way, hoping not to catch his eye. her parliamentary maiden address
complaining about the alleged
anything odd about the night before.
No one even brought up Turnbull.
My BBQ buddies are no focus group:
I ve known Turnbull since 2006, when
he was a rising star in John Howards
government. Back then, my wife Sarah was
dangers of Asian immigrants. She
was immediately given the pariah
treatment. But now she is back, her party
were just a bunch of conservative his press secretary, and it is fair to say we all controlling the balance of power in the
journalists, academics and businessmen, got on reasonably well. In my experience, parliaments upper house.
who usually vote for the centre-right he can discourse on anything from
Liberal party (where the word liberal
still means more or less what it meant in
the 19th century). Still, its hard not to
demography and Sino-American relations
to classical history and the Jewish diaspora.
He is also a decent chap. Malcolm and his
M y BBQ mates and I are not really
enamoured by Hanson, whom Ive
never met. But we understand why she
conclude that Turnbull, like another Tory wife, Lucy, have turned their harbourside attracts many folks, from Queensland
moderniser, David Cameron, is pass. mansion into a very pleasant and lovely to Western Australia, who deplore
He is the moment that has passed into place. I am among many writers who have both major parties. Above all else,
history. been dinner guests there. However, as can her resurgence represents a backlash
be the case with genuinely decent people, against political correctness and identity

I t was not supposed to be like this.


When Turnbull backstabbed his
predecessor Tony Abbott in a Liberal
Turnbull has not been very effective at his
job. Contradicting himself almost every
week, he has stood fast in indecision.
politics. For instance, our leaders,
bureaucracies and public broadcasters
have long played down the problems
party coup 18 months ago, the media He has been consistently indecisive. posed by radical elements within Islamic
herd declared hallelujah! The 62-year- communities, whereas many ordinary
old climate enthusiast and former
merchant banker, we were told, would
transform Australia into a beacon of
I n the political-loser stakes, Turnbull has
form. As the leading republican activist
in 1999, he failed to win the referendum to
Australians recognise that a significant
group of Muslims is much more resistant
to integration into western society than
progressiveness. At the time, I remember ditch the monarchy, even though polls had other ethnic or religious groups. For
attending one of those swanky dinner supported constitutional change. When he now, Hanson is filling a void. As a result,
parties in metropolitan Melbourne was opposition leader a decade later, in she doles out the red meat to hungry
where eyes lit up at the mere mention 2009, ordinary Australians shrugged their conservatives who are turning away
of Malcolm. There was a real sense shoulders with a profound lack of interest. from Turnbull in droves.
of excitement. In an echo of Harold Last winter, as the newly installed PM, he
Macmillans famous declaration that opted for a laggard election campaign that Tom Switzer is a presenter on the
Brits had never had it so good, Turnbull just drove about a million conservatives Australian Broadcasting Corporations
declared: Theres never been a more away from the party of Robert Menzies. Radio National.

22 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk


MARY WAKEFIELD

What will you do in the gene-editing revolution?

T
he only time I ever saw a wolf in the next time. Its this search-and-snip function things DNA but its germ line too, meaning
wild, a small one, I was so frightened that scientists have repurposed and repro- that the changes we made can be inherited.
that I closed my eyes. It was a useful grammed that lets us doctor all DNA. As part of our great leap forward in genet-
insight into the depths of my own cowardice. The great worry of this magazine last ics, weve invented a way of altering the basic
Every day, with each new story about spring was that gene-editing would mean the rules of heritability. We can use Crispr not
the exciting breakthroughs were making in return of eugenics: that the future rich would just to make changes to DNA but to drive
genetic engineering, I feel that same shameful buy all manner of genetic upgrades for their those changes through a species, dramati-
urge to shut my eyes. progeny, leaving poorer kids in a lower caste. cally upping the usual odds that theyll be
Far faster than anybody thought, were This anxiety is widely shared but possibly passed on. We can become, in other words,
working out the genes responsible for all misplaced. the authors of evolution.
manner of traits in all creatures great and Matt Ridley pointed out a few years Its easy to see the upside. The Gates
small. Far more easily than anyone expected, ago, when Crispr first hit the press, that real Foundation has invested tens of millions in
weve moved from standard gene therapies eugenics is state-sponsored, coerced. Back in a team at Imperial College London called
to figuring out how to actually edit our own the bad old days, sterilisation programmes Target Malaria, which has already succeeded
DNA, to ferret around inside living cells, snip- were enforced by governments who deemed in editing the genes of malaria-carrying mos-
ping out duff genes and replacing them. only certain people worthy of breeding. The quitos to make them infertile. If we released
Until recently it was mostly mice at (or 21st-century rich may well pay to be Crisprs these edited mosquitos into the wild, if the
under) the cutting edge of this new technol- mosquito population changed for ever, mil-
ogy. But late last year, just as everyone in the We cant stop this race and we lions of lives could be saved. We could edit all
West was agreeing that human trials were a shouldnt. But that doesnt mean we manner of disease-carrying nasties: rats that
mistake, China piped up and announced that can just sit back and watch the show spread fevers and plagues, mice that carry
it had injected edited genes into a cancer suf- Lymes disease. But what would be the effect
ferer. Then America joined in. The University first guinea pigs, but if we all pay attention on the environment? Gene drives affect
of Pennsylvania said that it was waiting for and hold our governments to account, cheap whole communities in ways that are impossi-
the final say-so on a trial which will edit the and safe gene therapy can be available to ble to predict. Would the animals that munch
T-cells of cancer patients (funded, oddly, by everyone. This fear of eugenics seems to me mice die out, too? Would it unbalance the
Facebooks Sean Parker). The race is on. The dramatically outweighed by the hope for peo- ecosystem? As much modelling as you do,
science press have begun to talk about a new ple with single-gene disorders such as Duch- its hard to tell.
moonshot, another great international com- enne muscular dystrophy, sickle-cell anaemia, Its far too late for finger-wagging or dark
petition, this time between the US and China. cystic fibrosis, and for cancer sufferers. Who talk of playing God. We cant stop this race
Edited humans! Its all happening at hasnt longed for a magic cure for poor and we shouldnt, given the potential it has
a dizzy ing pace. But its this pace which friends and family with cancer? And in the to relieve awful suffering. We believers have
requires us to stay alert. All of us, even those end, will we really want to design our young? to accept that God doesnt cower in the dark
who recoil at the thought of genetic tinker- Do we want children much brighter, say, than spaces still undiscovered by science, growl-
ing. The more I read, the more I think that we ourselves? I look at my own fat, bossy baby ing when men in lab coats comes too close. If
kooks and God-botherers, luddites and nona- and I think quite certainly not. He exists, hes bound up in it all, in evolution
genarians have got to start paying attention, If designer babies arent the biggest worry, blind or designed. But that doesnt mean we
because gene-editing will in the end affect all Im afraid theres still no lapsing back into a can just sit back and watch the show.
of us, and its going to take our collective and happy ignorance. The real danger of gene- Robert Oppenheimer, inventor of the
varied wits to figure out what to do. editing comes when we edit not just a living atomic bomb, said when testifying in his
The Spectator reported on the whole affair defence at a security hearing in the 1950s: it
in a cover story about this time last year, and is my judgment in these things that when you
introduced us to the discovery thats made (scientists) see something that is technically
this gene revolution possible: Crispr Cas-9. sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue
Crispr stands for Clustered Regularly Inter- about what to do about it only after you have
spaced Short Palindromic Repeats (meaning had your technical success.
weird sections of seemingly repeated genes) In a free society, scientists should be free
and in its normal life its a tool evolved by to discover and explore, but we have to edu-
bacteria to use in their age-old war with virus- cate ourselves about what theyre discovering
kind. Clever bacteria can snip out sections of and exploring, or else our objections carry no
hostile virus DNA and store them between weight. This time our world is at stake and the
sections of their own DNA (the palindro- future of all species, including our own. We
mic repeats) so as better to know the enemy have to wake up.
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 23
JAMES DELINGPOLE

Cash for ash is one green scam among many

T
offs are like jackals: always quick to which no one has been able to explain, her random accident of hickish local govern-
sniff out new carrion. I remember a department forgot to include capping con- ment. It was the predictable result of a fool-
few years back one florid aristo boast- trols, which meant the amount claimable ish scheme which incentivised precisely this
ing what obscene amounts of money he was under the scheme was limitless. kind of greedy and immoral behaviour.
saving on his heating bills thanks to a bril- And what a great deal it offered. For If you pay people a Porsche a year to
liant new government scheme to incentivise every pound spent on renewable wood fuel, burn vast quantities of wood in disused
wood-burning. Probably no use to you the Northern Ireland government would pay buildings, then that is what people will do.
your house isnt big enough, he said, you back 1.60. Even allowing for the initial And theres no point asking the Energy and
pityingly. Then he went on to tell me about capital costs of installing your eco-friendly Climate Change Secretary who introduced
the solar array on his estate. Makes perfect wood-burning boiler, the potential returns the RHI scheme what he now thinks of its
sense if youve got a few acres spare. were huge: at least 25,000 per boiler, per merits . Thats because in his lucrative new
But I havent told you the worst of it. The year guaranteed, inflation-indexed for 20 life as an ex-MP, Chris Huhne is doing very
worst was that my friend felt really virtu- years. Few questions were asked about the nicely, thank you, raking it in as European
ous. Some might say that here was another purpose of these boilers, which meant that chairman of Zilkha Biomass, a US company
well-heeled scrounger with a massive sense which ships wood pellets across the Atlantic
of entitlement raking in tens of thousands in If you pay people a Porsche a year to for us to burn in our eco-friendly power sta-
subsidies for sitting on his fat arse. But as he burn vast quantities of wood in disused tions and boilers.
saw it, he was doing his bit to save the planet. buildings, that is what people will do Thanks to the surge in demand caused by
In fact, he went on to indicate and Im not RHI, more wood is being burned in Britain
making this up that he considered himself canny farmers and businessmen could install than at any time since the industrial revolu-
a better person than me because all I did was them in previously unheated outbuildings tion resulting in swaths of woodland being
write articles advocating for selfish, greedy and rake in the cash. Northern Irelands main cut down, such as Ryton Wood in Warwick-
causes like unfettered free markets, whereas Porsche, Maserati and Jaguar dealer, its said, shire, where 50 mature oaks, some 300 years
he was making a real difference. has never seen such happy times. old, were felled for sustainable fuel. It has
My toff friend, it goes without saying, was Meanwhile, Stormont is skint: an already caused similar conservation issues in Amer-
a massive fan of the kinder, gentler Conserv- straitened budget which might have been ica, where deciduous forests are being felled
atism of David Cameron. So, no doubt, are spent on healthcare or education is now hav- to provide fuel for power stations such as
many other landowners who have benefited ing to be spent on RHI payment obligations Drax. Is that really eco-friendly?
from the feed-in tariffs and other subsidy of around 480 million. The full cost of the And cash for ash is just one renewables
schemes that Daves greenest government scheme is 1.3 billion over 20 years at current scandal among many. Theres also what jour-
ever used to incentivise renewable ener- prices, the bulk being absorbed by Westmin- nalist David Rose christened the great green
gy. But Im not. I think it was a disgraceful ster taxpayers. guzzler con, whereby farms have been paid
scam, an inexcusable waste of public money, But while focusing on the local incom- 216 million in subsidies for anaerobic digest-
and a grotesque, cynical and immoral wealth petence, corruption and malfeasance of the ers responsible for a number of environmen-
transfer from the poor to the establishment cash for ash scandal, were in danger of tal disasters, including one incident last year
elite, with poisonous consequences we will be ignoring the bigger picture. This wasnt a which poisoned an eight-mile stretch of the
ruing for many years to come. River Teifi in Wales, killing more than 1,000
Whats happening now in Northern Ire- fish on a well-loved salmon and trout beat.
land is but the latest example. There has been Can you imagine the outcry if a fossil fuel
a power grab at Stormont, with the major- power station had done that much damage?
ity Democratic Unionist Party deposed and Over the next six years, the blogger Paul
the grisly Sinn Fein in the ascendant, making Homewood has calculated, environmental
mischief. The excuse being milked by Sinn levies are going to cost the UK 65 billion
Fein is a massive scandal in which millions nearly 10 billion more than weve ear-
of pounds have been squandered on one of marked for HS2. Yet because its green so
the Cameron coalitions green schemes, the obviously good this outrageous waste of
Renewable Heat Incentive. taxpayers money has almost never been sub-
The person being blamed is DUP leader jected to proper scrutiny. Perhaps its time
and Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Theresa May showed that theres more to her
Foster who, for her sins, was the provinces Now, now, you know thats your brothers than just Brexit means Brexit and set about
economy minister at the time the RHI daddy. And hes your sisters daddy. undoing the damage part-created by her dis-
scheme was brought in. For some reason Your daddy will visit us tomorrow. mally useless husky-hugging predecessor.
24 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
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LETTERS

taking those commentators as his audience. national interest that everyone should be
On Scottish independence If so, hes rash. Many of us Spectator readers encouraged to send our children to state
Sir: Alex Massie writes of the order can still read and write without foaming. schools. This can best be done by making
permitting a second Scottish independence Daniel Moss private education so costly that the fees
referendum: Having granted such an order Kent can only be afforded by the really super-
in 2014, it will be difficult to refuse Mrs rich. VAT-exempt charitable status has
Sturgeons demand for another (Back into to go.
battle, 4 March). Surely that is precisely
Invested in state schools Tom Benyon
why Mrs May should refuse another? It was Sir: Charles Moore (Notes, 4 March) takes Bladon, Oxfordshire
the SNP who described the 2014 vote as a issue with Michael Gove for seeking to put
chance in a lifetime. VAT on school fees and accuses him of
The only thing way in which Brexit having a chip on his shoulder.
Rods social history
could have changed matters is if it had Well let me share Mr Goves chip. The Sir: Im intrigued as to why Rod Liddle
been a fundamental and unforeseeable UK has some of the best private schools in (4 March) thinks the now faltering elite
upset. Alex Massie, from this and his the world, appreciated by the 7 per cent of has lasted since about 1985. What made
previous writings, clearly believes it was. parents able to afford the vast fees. At the him alight on that particular year? Is it
But the Conservatives, at the time of the other end of the spectrum, we have 93 per something to do with the rise of David
Scottish vote, had promised to hold a cent who cannot afford the fees and suffer Owen and the SDP? The beginning of
Brexit referendum if they won the 2015 patchy free education in the state sector. EastEnders? The start of Aids in Britain?
general election, so Brexit was certainly on This folly will continue as long as the Or did he just pick a year in the middle
the cards. Furthermore, Mrs Sturgeon had most influential people who dominate of the 1980s?
been told that if Scotland left the UK, it the UK establishment, particularly those Perhaps 1985 was the year when
would have to reapply if it wished to rejoin involved in commerce, politics, the law Rod Liddle himself, then working as a
the EU and accept the single currency. It and the media, have no direct interest in Labour speechwriter, first thought of
did not seem to trouble her then. improving standards in the state sector. himself as a voice to be reckoned with?
Tim Hedges Why? Because usually their children arent We always confuse the ups and downs of
Panicale, Italy involved. Only when those with influence establishments and insurgencies with our
and campaigning skills are involved in state own highs and lows. For instance, I think
education will standards rise. So it is in the Britains social decay began in 1976, when
Vote for continuity I was turned away from a Rolling Stones
Sir: In last weeks piece on Sturgeon and concert.
Indyref 2, Alex Massie seems to have Catherine Mannering
overlooked the fact that a million Scots Oxfordshire
opted for Brexit in the EU referendum.
That is a quarter of the entire Scottish
electorate. Nor should anyone assume that
Yes to Queen Camilla
the 1.6 million who voted to remain in the Sir: Melanie McDonaghs argument against
EU were the foot soldiers in the van of a
PODCASTS the Duchess of Cornwall becoming queen
secessionist movement. On the contrary, is flawed on every level (Against Queen
most probably voted for reasons of Camilla, 25 February). Her attempt to
continuity within both the UK and the EU. Subscribe to The Spectator cite Prince Albert and Prince Philip as
The two million Scottish voters who voted precedents as consorts fails on the simple
Podcasts on the iTunes
No to independence in 2014 make that point that neither of them could be
sufficiently clear. store or listen at crowned king, whereas the wife of every
Donald Thomson spectator.co.uk/podcasts king of England has been a queen. Under
Aberdeen British law, wives take the rank and status
of their husbands, which means when
Prince Charles becomes king, the duchess
A Spectator reader writes should indeed become queen.
Sir: I do wish Matthew Parris wouldnt Furthermore, Melanies argument that
address Spectator readers as if we were all occupying a throne somehow validates
Leave zealots (4 March). I voted to remain adultery ignores the fact that the Duchess
in the EU, and I think Brexit could be a has been happily married to the Prince
disaster, but I still subscribe to and read for 12 years now, whereas there have been
your magazine because it provides different literally dozens of adulterers who have
points of view. What makes me doubt my sat on the throne over the centuries while
decision in the referendum is the throbbing actually committing the sin.
apoplexy of others on my side. I have As a Roman Catholic, Melanie should
admired Parriss journalism for many years, believe in the power of redemption, and
but fear he is becoming unhinged on this rejoice that in this case the institution of
matter. The gracious tone of your editorial marriage has won out. When the sad but
in the same issue (Carry on, Major) was a inevitable day dawns, we should be happy
welcome contrast. to cry God save Queen Camilla!
Perhaps Matthew is reading angry Andrew Roberts
online comments below his articles and London SW1
26 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
LETTERS

I have read that the white settlers in Of course, the depressing cheap hell
Islamic retrogression East Africa, many of British descent who of Wetherspoons is partly a result of
Sir: I enjoyed Christopher De Bellaigues have devoted their lives to help African excessively greedy alcohol taxation here
advocacy of an Islamic Enlightenment states emerge from their colonial past, the UK 50p a pint, compared with only
during the 19th century (Islams lost are being forced off their holdings with 4p in Germany. Mr Jeffreys obviously
Enlightenment, 25 February), yet remain no regard for the rule of law, nor for the enjoys good beer. Yet his pursuit and
unconvinced about the bigger picture. I support they give to their loyal workforces. glorification of Wetherspoons is damaging
agree that some westernised Muslims saw Many of these settlers previously gave to the British brewing industry. Really good
the value of buying in steamships, electric great service to our Commonwealth beer is worth paying for.
telegraphs, constitutional politics, and alongside native citizens and they do not David Gladwin
female education, but as none of these had deserve to be ignored in their hour of Black Isle, Ross-shire
any indigenous Islamic roots, they failed to danger. One Zimbabwe is one too many
find fertile soil. are we to condone what is happening in
Conversely, in the 18th century in the Kenya by looking the other way?
Serious fun
West, experimental science, libertarian Marshall Taylor Sir: Henry Jeffreys is right to say
politics, steam engines, Methodism Taunton, Somerset Wetherspoons has colourful characters.
and romantic poetry were homegrown In the Railway in Putney on a recent
products, and hence easily absorbed into an Saturday, I think I overheard people
evolving cultural mainstream.
Wetherspoons vs brewers having sex in the toilet cubicle next to me.
I would argue that since the Iranian Sir: Henry Jeffreys (Notes On, 25 February) That or they were ingesting large amounts
revolution of 1979, Islam has been actively misses the point on Wetherspoons or of illegal substances I cant be certain.
in the throes of a reformation, or a return Spoons as he affectionately calls it. The On another occasion, a woman threw a
to cultural roots. But unlike the European whole concept of the business is to screw pint glass at my head because I asked her
Reformation of the 16th century, this the brewer down to almost unprofitable group to be quiet.
did not involve a return to figures like margins. I dont report this disapprovingly. I keep
St Peter, St Paul and the Christian Gospel I have sympathy for the students and going back every weekend: the cheapness
Evangelists. Rather, it meant a return to the old men he describes as typical clientele, of the beer makes the Railway fun.
Holy Wars of conversion unleashed by the but not much with the pre-work Post Office Matthew Salt
Prophet Mohammed after ad 622. drinkers, or girls guzzling cheap wine. London SW15
Dr Allan Chapman
Wadham College, Oxford
Natures soundtrack
Sir: It would be good if Tim Martin,
Shoot the owners the jovial boss of the music-free pubs
Sir: Camilla Swifts otherwise (Letters, 4 March), could take charge
excellent piece on clueless dog owners of the television productions in this
(Flock horror, 4 March) omits to mention country. We then might be free from the
the scourge of the professional dog walker. dreadful noise that masks bird and animal
Two or three of these descend on our neck sounds in nature documentaries, which
of the woods most mornings with anything obscures speech in plays and frustrates the
up to eight dogs each, and allow them intelligence in TV dramas.
to roam with impunity. One local sheep Martin Bloomfield
farmer has lost several lambs already this Kingston, Surrey
year due to his ewes self-aborting after
being chased by dogs, causing distress to
the sheep and financial loss to the farmer.
Fashionable mumbling
May I suggest the 1971 Animals Act Sir: Peter Jones, as usual, is spot on when he
be amended to allow farmers to shoot the writes of mumbling becoming fashionable
owners as well as the dogs? (Ancient and Modern, 4 March). Ive been
Martin Allen complaining for years that the younger
Eastcombe, Gloucestershire generation hasnt been taught to enunciate
clearly. When I was in school (Im 83 now),
we had to read aloud in class and declaim
Trouble in Kenya poetry learnt by heart.
Sir: As a fellow farmer, albeit in the I searched Google for hearing aid sales
UK, I wonder how your Wild Life and saw this headline: Hearing Aid Unit
correspondent Aidan Hartley is surviving Sales Grow by 10% in Q2 of 2016. Am I
the dangerous times in Kenya. I fear being ingenuous in seeing a connection?
for his safety, being very aware that the Flora Selwyn
current government appears neglectful St Andrews, Fife
of its white residents and that some
native tribes are openly hostile, especially WRITE TO US
towards those who farm, help feed the The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street,
local population and contribute to the London SW1H 9HP
countrys economy. letters@spectator.co.uk
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 27
ANY OTHER BUSINESS|MARTIN VANDER WEYER

New European giants? Standard-Aberdeen


looks a better bet than Peugeot-Vauxhall

B
udget week also turned out to be a single-person companies) all paying less 158 million; on that basis, the valuation is
week of notable deals. PSA, French tax and NI than we might have done if we also six times what Facebook paid for the
owner of Peugeot and Citron, went were employed to do much the same work rival Instagram site in 2012.
ahead with its 2.2 billion takeover of Vaux- in the old-fashioned way. Meanwhile, theres Doubters say Snapchat could rapidly be
hall and Opel from General Motors, cre- huge growth in Airbnb lettings, parking- overtaken by the next social media fad and
ating a new European giant to challenge space rentals and other ways of monetising that its potential growth in user numbers is
Volkswagen, according to the spin, and new personal assets and skills largely outside limited by demographics: there just arent
fears for those who foresee post-Brexit attri- the purview of HMRC. enough millennials out there with nothing
tion of the British motor industry. By way of You might argue that the self-employed better to do. Even if it endures, it may go the
reassurance, PSA boss Carlos Tavares said enjoy less security than the employed, so its way of Twitter which has priceless daily
a hard Brexit is an opportunity to beef fair they contribute less; you might argue publicity from the White House but mount-
up the domestic supply chain while reduc- that the sharing economy is a nifty pocket- ing losses and a share price stuck far below
ing component imports from the EU and money source for hard-pressed families, and its 2013 flotation level. Whats more, Snap
that I trust Vauxhall workers to improve that tax grabs will swiftly kill it. But revenue- Incs public shares carry no voting rights, so
their productivity. That last bit sounded to starved Chancellor Hammond will retort investors have no say in its future. In fact the
me more like a threat to their jobs. that all income and commerce, however whole thing looks mad. But what do I know
Then came the agreed merger of Aber- novel in form, must be taxed unless specifi- of the youth of today two of whom, Snap-
deen Asset Management and Edinburgh- cally exempted, otherwise government cant chat founders Evan Spiegel, 26, and Bobby
based Standard Life to create what really make ends meet: tax should keep pace with Murphy, 28, are now worth $4 billion each?
will be a European giant of the investment changing patterns of life and technology.
sector, with 660 billion under management. Thus Microsoft founder Bill Gates recent- Picture that
Chaired by wily Whitehall veteran Sir Gerry ly proposed that if robots are replacing
Grimstone, Standard Life has moved a long humans in business, then companies oper- Another eye-catcher, not least for the gra-
way from its 19th-century origins but steered ating robots should pay income tax on their tuitous picture opportunities it offered, was
a steady course since its 2006 demutual- behalf. Back in 1991, Chancellor Norman the sale of Agent Provocateur to a group
isation. Emerging markets specialist Aber- Lamont had an even better idea, though led by Sports Direct tycoon Mike Ashley.
deen, by contrast, is the mercurial creation at the time it was scorned: a tax on mobile But the terms of this one are preposterous,
of entrepreneur Martin Gilbert, and has phones. Think what a massive revenue earn- or so said the lingerie brands founder, Joe
had more downs than ups in recent years. er that would have been by now. Corr. Well, yes if for a horrible moment
Together, even after cost-saving job cuts, you imagine portly Ashley wearing the Pro-
they will form the pre-eminent financial Set to self-destruct? vocateur product, in the way that he likes to
institution north of the border but dont be seen wearing the Newcastle United strip
expect them to move into the space left by Overvalued dotcom stocks hardly make he also sells.
Scottish banks that formerly competed for headlines these days. But the New York Ashleys name is enough to taint any deal
that title. One of Standard Lifes few strate- debut of Snap Inc parent of Snapchat, the these days, whatever hes wearing, but in fact
gic mishaps was to start a bank of its own in social media site designed to make embar- the villain of this one appears to be the seller,
1998; the unhappy venture was sold a dec- rassing selfies self-destruct really wins a 3i, rather than the buyer, Four Marketing,
ade later to Barclays, which demolished it. coconut. Launched at $17, the shares traded of which Ashley holds 25 per cent. 3i is a
up to $29, giving a valuation of $30 billion private equity firm, formerly owned by the
Taxing the gig economy which, as one US commentator observed, high-street banks, that has latterly acquired
made Facebook, Amazon and Googles par- what I have called a shark-like reputation.
As for the Budget, what caught my eye ent Alphabet look like bargain-basement In this case it deployed a device called a pre-
was the Chancellors move to claw big- value stocks. Snapchat has no obvious pros- pack administration, an insolvency scheme
ger National Insurance contributions from pect of breaking into profit, but in dotcom that allows a failing businesss assets to be
the growing multitude of self-employed, la-la land, analysts look instead at the ratio sold while leaving unpaid its debts to suppli-
as a step towards catching the so-called of market value to sales: for Snapchat that ers, banks and the taxman. A phenomenal
gig economy in the tax net. Theres a big ratio turns out to be six times higher than swath of litigation is bound to follow, growls
issue here: there are now five million of us Facebooks. Another measure is market Corr. But Ashley and his pals are just snap-
self-employed (and almost a million using value per user, of which Snapchat claims ping up 3is bargain lingerie offer.
28 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
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Is France on the brink of a political revolution? Marine Le Pen, leader of
the Front National, is leading the polls for the rst round of the French presidential election on 23
April. Another outsider, Emmanuel Macron, could be the only person standing between her and
the lyse Palace. A Le Pen victory, however unlikely, would be a political earthquake that could
topple the European Union. Should we welcome a shake-up in the cradle of European revolutions?

MELISSA DOMINIQUE ROBERT ANNE- JONATHAN


BELL MOSI TOMBS LISABETH FENBY
CNN Paris Political Professor of MOUTET Author and
correspondent scientist French history Journalist and historian
and writer at Cambridge political
commentator

CHAIRED BY ANDREW NEIL

TICKETS BOOK NOW


Spectator subscriber rate: 23 www.spectator.co.uk/frenchelection
Standard rate: 26 020 7961 0044
Peter Carty is appalled by

WAYNE THIEBAUD/DACS. LONDON/VAGA, NEW YORK 2016


the barbarity of daily life
in Raqqa
Clare Mulley salutes the
lonely courage of female
SOE agents in occupied
France
Cressida Connolly feels a
better person for reading
Julia Samuels book on grief
Richard Bratby wishes
opera houses staged more
Gilbert & Sullivan
Lloyd Evans is surprised to
find Elsinore looking like a
Travelodge
Rod Liddle used to love
working-class nihilists
Sleaford Mods no longer

Gumball Machine, 1970,


by Wayne Thiebaud
Stephen Bayley p42
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 31
BOOKS & ARTS

BOOKS

Back with a vengeance


Jane Carlyle found comfort in her miserable marriage by splashing off whatever was on her
mind in letters to friends which became famous in her own lifetime, says Frances Wilson

Jane Welsh Carlyle and Her having just braved the consequences of is probably sexless; they sleep, at least, in
Victorian World: A Story of Love, interrupting the sage in one of his mono- separate rooms, although this might be due
Work, Friendship and Marriage logues must be something next worse to mutual insomnia. We get brief snapshots
by Kathy Chamberlain to being married to Satan himself. Samu- of their previous life in Craigenputtock,
Duckworth, 25, pp. 384 el Butler refused to take sides. It was very Dumfriesshire, of his background as the son
good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Car- of a Calvinist stonemason and hers as the
One hour in No. 5 Cheyne Row, Virginia lyle marry one another, he quipped, and daughter of a doctor, and we are occasion-
Woolf observed, will tell you more about so make only two people miserable and ally reminded of the crippling remorse he
the Carlyles than all the biographies. The not four. Their quarrels might have been will feel following her death in 1866, when
house lived in by Thomas and Jane Car- spared, thought Woolf as she toured the he discovers, from her writing, how unhap-
lyle from 1834 until their respective deaths, house, had the Carlyles possessed hot and py she had been. But for the moment the
and now owned by the National Trust, was cold running water. Domestic tensions are Carlyles are carrying on the business of
one of the great battlegrounds of domestic their daily lives.
history. Here Jane warred against bedbugs Being married to Thomas Carlyle Drawing from the 44 volumes of their
and coal dust and her husbands obsession must be something next worse to letters and journals, Chamberlain catches
with the vast and unstoppable Lady Harriet Jane on the wing: supervising the servant,
Ashburton (there were three people in her being married to Satan himself stitching the curtains, nailing down the car-
marriage), and Carlyle warred against the pet, smoking in her bedroom, sitting up late
intrusions of the outside world. While next inevitable when taking a bath requires the with Tennyson and smoothing her skirts
doors rooster kept him awake at night, by maid, supervised by her mistress, to pump when Mazzini comes to call. Also includ-
day, as Jane wrote in one of her peerless let- water from the well, boil it on the range, and ed amongst her friends are a Sapphic Ger-
ters, he was disturbed by transport it soundlessly, of course in man governess called Amely Bolte, another
men, women, children, omnibuses, carriages,
bucketloads up three flights of stairs. young German abroad called Richard
glass coaches, street coaches, wagons, carts, Kathy Chamberlain, in this hugely satis- Plattnauer, who suffers from severe manic
dog-carts, steeple bells, doorbells, gentle- ifying new life, is firmly in Janes camp, depression, and the novelist Geraldine
man raps, twopenny-post-raps and footmen- but she has no interest in making a mar- Jewsbury. At the centre of her life, however,
showers-of raps. tyr of her subject. Chamberlains Jane is her rival Lady Ashburton, whose invita-
is a complex heroine, caught between a tions for prolonged visits cause Jane agony.
Not to mention the dutiful piano-practising fierce regard for convention and the high The story begins, writes Chamber-
of the girl in the adjacent house, the rack- romance of rebellion. Her closest male lain, inside a house, and for the most
et of hawkers, organ-grinders and washer- friend, after all, was Guiseppe Mazzini, the part, unless she is marooned in one of Lady
women, and the hourly chiming of the old father of modern Italy, who was in exile in Ashburtons mansions or visiting friends in
Chelsea clock. No man could write under London until 1848. the north in protest against the presence of
these conditions, and soundproofing his Trimming away the fat of the story, Lady Ashburton, the story stays in Janes
study made little difference. Chamberlain focuses on the years Chelsea house, where she is sometimes
Thomas Carlyle is now more famous for 18431849, when the Carlyes are nearly miserable, often ill, always busy, and at her
his feisty wife than his life of Frederick the 20 years into their marriage. Jane is in her happiest when, as she puts it, splashing off
Great, and observers of their marriage dis- forties and Carlyle, now famous for his whatever is on my mind in missives to her
agree over who was the most long-suffer- novel, Sartor Resartus and his history of the circle.
ing. For some, he was the victim of a shrew French Revolution is suffering agonies over Janes letters, which have lost noth-
who mockingly recorded his every gesture; his life of Cromwell, the first draft of which ing of their freshness and mischief, take us
for others she was the victim of a brute who he has just thrown on the fire, watched by immediately into her world, or rather into
failed to see her brilliance. Being married his notetaking wife. They are childless, but the world as she chose to construct it. She
to him, said Janes friend Anna Jameson apparently not unhappily so; their marriage saw her letters as a roman fleuve I must
32 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
Watercolour sketch of Jane
Carlyle by Karl Hartmann
(1850)
BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

ens Jane Carlyle to Jane Austen (there is a


touch of Mr Collins in Carlyle and of Lady
Catherine de Burgh in Lady Ashburton),
but the Carlyes, who thought Austens nov-
els were washy watergruel, would not have
appreciated the comparison.
It is Chamberlains own style which
makes this book such a happy read. Choos-
ing Janes free-associative splashing over
Carlyles solid biographical template,
Chamberlain speaks with us. Talking about
Mazzini, for example, who is sitting in Janes
parlour looking tragic and handsome, Cham-
berlain tells us about the school he has set
up for impoverished children, such as the
organ-grinder boys, hawkers of plaster casts,
and trinket sellers who were common fig-
ures on the London streets. This leads her
to note how very much Carlyle disliked the
noise made by impoverished children such
go on, she writes to a friend, to the end of in which she starred as a Herculean house- as these, and how Helen Mitchell would
the chapter in which she recorded con- wife. What Woolf failed to see, and what order them, through an opened window, to
versations, sketched what she called dramas Chamberlain fully appreciates, is that Jane move on. It reminds her of the story told
in one scene (such as Carlyles throwing liked housework. She liked the business of by Henry Mayhew about an organ-grinder
his Cromwell manuscript into the fire), and pumping and boiling and carrying water. A boy, which Chamberlain in turn then tells
reshaped her days for comic effect. This is an proud and fastidious Scot, she approached us, eventually returning to poor Mazzini in
example of a drama in one scene, in which domestic combat with vigour and gusto. Her the parlour and his fondness for Jane, who
Jane describes being cornered at a party by comic companion throughout these years is he described as the woman I value most in
the rancid old gossip Samuel Rogers: her tiny, alcoholic Scottish servant, Helen England.
SR (pointing to a chair beside him): Sit down,
Mitchell: I think, talk, and write about my Later, when Mazzini returns to Italy and
my dear I want to ask you, is your hus- own servant, Jane noted, as much as Ger- the Roman Republic is being established,
band as much infatuated as ever with Lady aldine does about her lovers. Helen, who Jane, Chamberlain tells us, had to confront
Ashburton? observes Jane as closely as Jane observes a very special crisis in her kitchen. Helen
JC: Oh, of course (laughing). Why shouldnt Helen, possessed, when sober, what Mitchell was drunk again her mouth
he? Carlyle called an intellectual insight almost covered with blood, wrote Jane, her brown
SR: Now do you like her her? tell me hon-
estly is she kind to you as kind as she is to
of genius. cheek and dark dress whitened with the
your husband? Janes letters, which were famous in her chalk of the kitchen floor her hair stream-
JC: Why you know it is impossible for me to lifetime, constituted what Elizabeth Hard- ing wildly from under a crushed cap and
know how kind she is to my husband wick has called a private writing career, her face wearing the smile of idiotic self-
but they were not private objects. They were complacency.
While Carlyle, who told us that history written to be read aloud, passed around, Im not going to say what happened next.
was the biography of great men, wrestled quoted. She wrote for entertainment. Open- You have to buy the book, which youll then
with his marathons in his attic study, Jane, ing a letter from Jane, said Mrs Gaskell, I read aloud, pass around, and quote from.
poised in her parlour, threw off mock epics begin speech with you. Chamberlain lik- Jane Carlyle is back with a vengeance.
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 33
BOOKS & ARTS

inassimilability into an adult morality means


GETTY IMAGES

A mother and
child, refugees it can assume a cartoon flavour. It is regret-
from Raqqa, table, therefore, that stylised illustrations
wait to cross have been interpolated into the diaries,
into Turkey in because they reinforce this egregious disori-
September 2014 entation and diminish the trauma of Samers
testimony.
While Samer does not discuss interna-
tional intervention at length, it is ironic that
one of the agents who wishes to extirpate
Isis from the Levant, in the form of Presi-
dent Trump, also carries connotations of the
cartoon. Unfortunately we know that Isis
will most likely resemble the spider that is
squashed only for myriad baby spiders to
scatter in all directions, here in the form of
terrorists posing as refugees and perpetrat-
ing atrocities wherever they go.
When Samers diary ends he is a refugee
in Syrian territory controlled by the Free

Repeatedly, Samer witnesses public


beheadings and the mutilated bodies
of friends on prominent display

Syrian Army. Despite everything, he retains


a positive view of history, holding onto the
notion that good will prevail eventually in
his country. Patently, if that happens at all,
it could take decades. All the while his com-
patriots continue to flee abroad in their
thousands. Their migration offers anoth-
er promise of happy endings, though in
truth many of them will fail in their efforts
It has now been collected into this slim to integrate successfully into new cultures.
Descent into hell volume. These struggles are, in their own mundane
Peter Carty To begin with, Raqqa is wrested from the ways, as heroic as Samers fight against Isis
Assad regime by a coalition of the Free Syr- but perhaps regrettably do not make
The Raqqa Diaries: Escape from ian Army and two Islamist groups. Samer such compelling reading. At the time of
Islamic State believes his city is free from oppression, but writing, meanwhile, Raqqa remains under
by Samer, edited by Mike Thomson, then Isis seizes control and a descent into Isis control.
translated by Nader Ibrahim, hell begins. By now we know the broad line-
illustrated by Scott Coello aments of Isiss mistreatment of civilians, but
Hutchinson, 9.99, pp. 107 Samers straightforward account carries an Nothing matters
intense, claustrophobic horror.
In my work as a reviewer, a small, steady He witnesses sexual slavery: his girlfriend very much
proportion of all the books publishers send is blackmailed into marriage with an Isis Steven Poole
me concern the Holocaust. With middle fighter to gain her brothers release from
age has come a curious foreshortening of captivity. There is financial extortion: he sees
my perspective on modern history so that, jihadists demand exorbitant sums of money Void: The Strange Physics of
paradoxically, the Nazis inhumanity has from tradespeople, driving them to destitu- Nothing
begun to seem less distant in time and, there- tion. Yet it is compulsive, barbaric and piti- by James Owen Weatherall
fore, more horrible still. Fortunately I can less murder that lends Isis notoriety. If the Yale, 16.99, pp. 224
reassure myself that, objectively, it happened Nazis attempted to keep their atrocities hid-
long ago and that even the atrocities of east- den (as even Assad does), Isis has no such Nothing will come of nothing, said Lear,
ern Europe and Rwanda are now a couple of scruples. Repeatedly, Samer observes the because he wasnt familiar with quantum
decades safely in the past. public beheading of individuals suspected physics. According to our current best theo-
Such consolations vanish when con- of opposition. Repeatedly, he sees the muti- ries, a region of space that contains noth-
fronted by The Raqqa Diaries, which is lated bodies of friends on prominent display. ing at all is still seething with pairs of virtual
shockingly of the present. It is a terrible Day after day, he lives with the knowledge particles popping in and out of existence
reminder that we are unwise to impute that his own execution could be next. Soon for no good reason. Meanwhile, it is possi-
any kind of teleology to history. Raqqa is he learns he is on Isiss blacklist and that he ble to be mathematically sure that an entire
the capital of the so-called Islamic State must try to escape. universe contains nothing whatsoever, but
and this is a portrait of daily life there by The arrested development of Isiss then if you go looking for stuff in a particu-
the pseudonymous author. He smuggled it members becomes evident. It is cruelty of lar part of this same universe you could find
out at the risk of beheading and it was first the kind disturbed adolescents dish out to a wheelbarrow.
broadcast on Radio 4s Today programme. hamsters and other defenceless pets. Its But what did I mean by a region of
34 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
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BOOKS & ARTS

space? It turns out that all sorts of assump- results is that the geometrical structure of
tions are baked into such a phrase depend- empty spacetime itself depends on the
Comfort the suffering
ing on what cosmology I have and stuff that is zooming around in it. (Mass Cressida Connolly
similarly with the ideas of stuff and its bends spacetime, and the bendiness results
alleged opposite, nothing. What this enter- in what we loosely call the force of grav- Grief Works: Stories of Life,
tainingly mind-expanding primer on physics ity.) More peculiarly, it turns out that a uni- Death and Surviving
accomplishes brilliantly is to demonstrate verse obeying Einsteinian equations can be by Julia Samuel
how much confusion, but also how much totally empty of anything we would normal- Penguin, 14.99, pp. 292
fruitful progress, arises from the tension ly call stuff (particles, matter in general),
between our folk concepts of what counts as but it can still contain a black hole, or grav- If a single book could help you to be kind-
nothing (and, concomitantly, what counts ity waves (which are ripples in the geom- er and more compassionate, could expand
as stuff), and the way such concepts are etry of empty spacetime itself). So thats and deepen your understanding of other
retooled and stretched almost beyond com- not nothing either. people (and possibly yourself) and make
prehension for scientific purposes. It turns out to be very difficult to get rid you less afraid of dying in the process, you
The story is told through refreshingly of everything, as aspirant declutterers know would surely be eager to acquire it at once.
nuanced accounts of three revolutions in all too well. Well look no further, for Grief Works is that
physics. First, Isaac Newtons account of The third revolution, quantum physics, book. The King Lears among us whose
gravity painted a picture of space as basi- hardly helped. Now what we loosely call every third thought is the grave will need
cally an empty container in which bod- particles are widely understood in physics no persuading that a collection of essays
ies could move. This void was absolute, to be particular excitations of fields, like about surviving bereavement is an enthral-
Newton thought: effectively describable the electromagnetic field, that pervade the ling read. For those of a more timid or sunny
by a vast system of objective Cartesian co- entire universe. (This, Weatherall notes, is disposition, ask yourself this: when someone
ordinates given by God. Newtons great very like the unfairly mocked old idea of the you love dies, how will you manage?
rival Leibniz disagreed: he thought that ether, a kind of omnipresent fluid medium The odds of avoiding grief are not in any-
the relative space between actual objects through which light waves could propagate.) ones favour. In Britain half a million peo-
(planets and the like) was all we could rea- Mathematically, there are particular states ple die each year and its estimated that each
sonably talk about. (Leibniz turned out to of affairs, called vacuum states, in which it death affects at least five people. Julia Sam-
be right.) is absolutely certain that there are no par- uel is founder patron of Child Bereavement
The second revolution arrives with ticles in the whole universe. Could this be UK and has worked as a grief psychothera-
Albert Einsteins theory of relativity, bol- the perfect nothing we have been searching pist, helping grieving families, for 25 years.
stered by Hermann Minkowskis mathe- for? Unfortunately, no. The whole world as But theres nothing po-faced about her:
matics of spacetime. Among its surprising we know it, Weatherall explains shocking- Im sure some would disapprove, but when
ly, is consistent with the universe being in a Im talking to someone who has had really
vacuum state. This kind of nothing, it turns bad news, I often swear a lot. Its really fuck-
out, is not the absence of matter; its just one ing terrible, isnt?... somehow swearing goes
straight to the heart of how awful it is.
particular way in which matter can hang out.
So our best theories of nothing are not Nor does she toe the line, so beloved of Mac-
like the screen of a blank, switched-off millan nursing, that people in denial about
TV set; they are like the static of an old- their own impending death need constantly
style analogue TV tuned to no channel. to be reminded of it. Instead she is gentle,
The author is always courteous enough to warm, wise and unexpectedly funny.
help the reader with such local colour. At The central message of the book is that
other times he invites us to picture a buck- grief takes time. There isnt a short cut round
et of water rotating in an otherwise empty the back of it: you have to go through it to
universe, and celebrates the charming get out the other side. Samuel notes that at
indifference to social niceties displayed least 15 per cent of all psychological disor-
by great geniuses. One time a journal- ders have unresolved grief as their source.
ist asked the British physicist Paul Dirac Its surely at the root of countless cases of
whether he could explain his research insomnia and alcoholism besides. At the
in laymans terms. Diracs answer? No. very least it is isolating: Grieving is lonely-
Chapeau! making. All that missing, and wanting, and
In an action-packed epilogue, the not finding can feel like excruciating lone-
author describes how the contested field liness.
of string theory posits a bogglingly large As with the essays of Oliver Sacks, much
number of possible kinds of nothingness, of Grief Works draws on case studies. Sam-
and impresses upon the reader how much uel looks at four kinds of bereavement: the
of physics still depends on intuition and death of a parent, a partner, a sibling and,
battling interpretations. The book is not most agonisingly, a child. There is a section,
an exhaustive typology of scientific noth- too, on facing your own death. Under each
ings: not directly addressed, for example, is she describes the process of three clients,
the nothingness that supposedly obtained before concluding with reflections of her
before the Big Bang. But to regret this is own. The book begins with a short piece on
just to emphasise the success of this styl- understanding grief and ends with a chapter
ishly written and admirably concise book, under the loose heading What Helps.
at the end of which you will be inclined What seems to help the most is allow-
to agree, along with the author and ing the bereaved to talk. Really listening
Freddie Mercury both, that Nothing real- to someone is just as important as talking
ly matters. to them, she says. The overriding premise is
36 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
that, as she puts it, an examined death is as Just as impressive were the one-legged

REX FEATURES
important as an examined life. It is begin- American Virginia Hall, the only per-
ning to be recognised that it takes courage son to work for both SOE and its US
for people to show their vulnerability in the equivalent; and the irrepressible Nancy
face of death and bereavement, she notes. Wake, who supported an escape route
Certainly the people whose stories she tells before having to flee on it herself, and
seem unbelievably brave. It is wonderful and was later parachuted back into France
miraculous to see how they change over the to organise arms, training and liaison
course of their meetings with her. with London for 7,000 maquisards.
For friends of the grieving, Samuel advis- Among the many stories here,
es patience and active support. Dont leave one speaks volumes about the expe-
vague messages saying youre there for the riences of women in war. Learn-
person: take food round. Do simple things ing that three female spies had been
together, like going for a walk. Dont cry too captured by the Maquis and were
much or they end up exhausted from hav- being beaten and raped, Wake had
ing to comfort you. Grief can manifest as the women brought to her for inter-
grumpiness, so you may need to persist. If rogation. The first, just 17, denied all
you say the wrong thing, dont run for the charges against her. Wake had her
hills. Take a breath, be brave and say, Im released and disciplined the men
sorry. I can see that what Ive said has upset involved. The second, who had slept
you. Thats all it takes. What she calls pro- with a collaborator, was also released.
miscuous honesty is not a good idea; in other The third, however, just as abused as
words, dont rabbit on about how great your the others, admitted to being a spy.
life is. Above all, dont tell them to buck up Unable either to release or detain her,
and get over it. Wake told her she would be shot. She
Julia Samuel says she wants to then provided her with clean clothes
reach those who cross to the other side of the until the sentence could be carried out.
street, those who dont look their bereaved When the same maquisards who had
friend in the eye, and do anything rather than abused the three prisoners said they
mention the name of the person who has died. could not shoot a woman in cold blood,
Im not sure how to get to them, but if I could, even if guilty, Wake called them cow-
I would say: acknowledge, listen and simply ards and said she would do it herself.
give them time.
The next day the spy was shot, standing
This marvellous book shows how. against a tree, as her male equivalent
Paris-born Pearl Witherington led a force of over 1,500 would have been. Wake went on to kill
maquisards in the summer of 1944 several of the enemy in action.
Carve their names As well as the female SOE agents
stories, Stroud manages to explore
with pride to, but rather interweaves the womens nar- some important supporting narratives.
Clare Mulley ratives through the story of SOE-supported Among others, we learn fleetingly about
resistance in Nazi-occupied France. What the brave Agns Humbert, who established
emerges is something rather greater than an early Parisienne resistance network; and
Lonely Courage: The True Story of the the sum of its parts: a fascinating story that Mathilde Carr, La Chatte, a Resistance
SOE Heroines who Fought to Free shows just how much each agent depended agent, turned double-agent, whose lover
Nazi-Occupied France on the judgments, courage and actions of was sent to England as a spy and, ironically,
by Rick Stroud their colleagues, French counterparts and also turned double-agent, but for the British.
Simon & Schuster, 20, pp. 295 London HQ, and how their individual con- Key male traitors, such as the French priest
tributions combined to great effect. and Nazi informer Robert Alesch and the
Women, Captain Selwyn Jepson, SOEs There were 39 women among the 400- double-agent Henri Dricourt, are also
senior recruiting officer, once wrote, have a plus agents in SOEs French section. A third exposed, although much mystery still sur-
far greater capacity for cool and lonely cour- of them would not survive the war. Stroud rounds Dricourt. But it is the inadequacy of
age than men. This questionable assumption focuses on six, whose diverse stories, achieve- Maurice Buckmaster, SOEs head of F-Sec-
is not actually the reason why the women ments and fates provide a very personal and tion based in London, repeatedly dismissing
were recruited. That was down to their abil- poignant way into this history. evidence that his agents had been captured,
ity to move around enemy-occupied territo- The Brixton-born shop assistant Violette that is the most shocking.
ry carrying messages, arms or heavy wireless Szabo, although operational for just a few With so much impressive material, this is
sets without arousing as much suspicion as weeks, is perhaps the best known. Less famil- a whistle-stop tour, packed with anecdotes
able-bodied men. But lonely courage was an iar but increasingly remembered are Noor but dizzying in pace. Occasionally Stroud
essential virtue for the female agents, who Inayat Khan, the Muslim Sufi princess who zooms in and we see the pennants fluttering
had to face long weeks of keeping a low pro- became the first radio operator infiltrated from whipping aerials as panzer tanks enter
file, with very little support, in between hours into France; Paris-born Pearl Witherington, Paris, or the hooves of wounded horses slip-
of terrifying activity. Most of them only met who led a force of over 1,500 Maquis resisters ping on the bloody remains of the dead as
each other during training or, in several in the summer of 1944; and the Polish Coun- the Nazis retreat. A longer book would have
cases, in detention after capture. tess Krystyna Skarbek, a.k.a. Christine Gran- allowed for more attention to detail through-
The great strength of Rick Strouds book ville, who secured the defection of a strategic out; nevertheless this is a hugely engaging
is that it does not further isolate the female Nazi garrison on an Alpine pass and single- account, that weaves the womens stories
agents by segregating each into her own handedly rescued three officers from immi- together with increasing momentum towards
chapter, as previous histories have tended nent execution, among other achievements. its poignant conclusion.
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 37
Father, son Starlings

and holy ghost in the lone evening: flooding, falling, flocking,


D.J.Taylor with locked-out wings, flashers black macs,
stretched to the tip. Taut batman capes.
Fathers
by Sam Miller
They glide and weave, cutting chutes,
Cape, 14.99, pp. 243
curves, into cloudy city skies. One favourite tree
No disrespect to any of the present incum-
bents, but Karl Miller (19312014) was a across the street; there they roost seasonally.
literary editor in an age when such jobs My trilling friends. My loyal morning roof callers.
mattered. Between the late 1950s and Pulled me through winter to spring.
the early 1970s he not only ran the books
pages of two weekly magazines The
Spectator, and the Paul Johnson-era New My early evening railing spirits. My tall
Statesman before moving on to edit the tree trumpeters. My end of work signallers.
Listener, but did so with a conviction that
their cultural stance was quite as impor- Boy, they know how to sing. The why of starling?
tant as the political material that crowded Continually in receipt of lifes good news.
out the front end. The virus that had pro-
pelled him into literary journalism burned
away for nearly 60 years, and his last book What is it they say? Absolutely its no secret.
review appeared in these pages four days Each day is match day.
before his death.
Not everyone liked or approved of Mill-
er, or thought that the considerable power Paul Deaton
he wielded either in Grub Street or in his
subsequent incarnations as Lord Northcliffe
Professor at UCL and founding editor of the evading father once informed him That Adoring friends can only supply bromides:
London Review of Books was a good thing. includes myself, of course. If Sam has his that he was blessed, that he was the life and
The Bloomsbury diarist Frances Partridge own family problems, then the secret that soul of the party. Karl, on the other hand,
left a caustic account of an intelligent, auto- hangs over his upbringing is pretty much a cruises valiantly on into his eighties, pawky
intoxicated Scot; doesnt want to hear any- red herring. From the moment that Karls humour disguising, or sometimes failing
great Cambridge friend Tony White appears to disguise, a fair amount of internal
The sexual sub-world of the 1950s in the text, is introduced to Karls wife Jane disquiet.
and starts going on holiday with them, it is Tactfully composed and sensitive-
was full of secret assignations, false clear that Tony will eventually be revealed ly written, Fathers leaves an abiding
names and fake wedding rings as Sams father. Sam himself was told short- impression of decent people doing their
ly after Tonys premature death in 1976. best in difficult circumstances. Mean-
thing from anyone else, but just to do his own Karl, having been assured that the teenage while, a full-length biography of Karl is an
turn ad lib; while even his son Sam, in this boy knew, kept his lip buttoned for the absolute must.
notably loyal and affectionate memoir, diag- next three and a half decades.
noses an odd sense of entitlement, a hint that Given the storys grounding in that
the 1950s Cambridge generation, of which late Fifties sexual sub-world of secret Night of the living dead
his father was a part, sometimes behaved assignations, fake wedding rings and false
as if the world had been created with their names offered up to hotel receptionists, Sam Byers
future success in mind. what follows might easily have opened
There is not very much in Fathers about up a gloomy landscape of inference, eva- Lincoln in the Bardo
Miller the books page trusty, although Sam sion and concealment. That it doesnt is a by George Saunders
does offer tantalising glimpses of teen-era testimony to the matter-of-factness Bloomsbury, 18.99, pp. 343
notebooks in which the apprentice crit- occasional rueful moments notwith-
ic doles out marks out of a hundred to the standing with which all those involved On 5 February 1862, the night Abraham
great works of English literature (Ham- seemed to have treated the situation. Sam Lincoln and his wife gave a lavish reception
let comes out top with 95; The Turn of has warm feelings towards both parent and in the White House, with the civil war swell-
the Screw, alas, trails at 65). What we do surrogate, and the only real twitch on the ing outside and their 11-year-old son Wil-
get, on the other hand, are some sharp thread comes when, discovering an entry lie dying of typhoid fever upstairs, what was
glances at Millers difficult early life he in Tonys diary that reads a long-drawn the state of the moon? Was it a fat green
was brought up by his grandparents in out affair with Jane ended when she found crescent? Or was it yellow-red, as if reflect-
working-class Edinburgh before the winds out she was pregnant, possibly by me, he ing the light of some earthly fire?
of upward social mobility that picked up so adds the codicil: I think I would have been According to George Saunderss huge-
many talented grammar-school boys of the pleased if there was more than that. ly ambitious Lincoln in the Bardo, his first
postwar era safely deposited him at Down- Forty years gone, ex-actor, Connemara novel after four peerless collections of
ing College, Cambridge, under the vigilant lobster-farm tenant and occasional author short stories, neither of the above descrip-
eye of F.R. Leavis. Tony, who turns out to have written a book tions might be true, but when read in their
You have been most unfortunate in the called How to Run a Pub: Advice to Would- tragic context, either can impart symbolic
family you were born into, Karls duty- Be Publicans, is impossible to reconstitute. meaning. And meaning, as this novel so
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 39
BOOKS & ARTS

cleverly demonstrates, is not the same as torical accounts. Some of these, such as
truth. those in the short chapter collating con-
Light in the East
Lincoln takes place on a single night, flicting descriptions of the moon, are fic- Andrew Lycett
17 days after the party. Little Willie, now tional, if brilliantly ventriloquistic, but
dead, is laid to rest in the local cemetery. others are real and accredited, meaning The Islamic Enlightenment
His grieving father visits him one last time. parts of this novel are not so much written by Christopher de Bellaigue
It is an acutely private moment, but, like all as assembled. We, as readers and as pres- Bodley Head, 25, pp. 398
moments in the life of a president, it is also ences in the real world, therefore inhab-
a public spectacle. Abraham believes him- it a similar limbo to the death-shy ghosts: Christopher de Bellaigue, a journalist who
self to be alone, but the cemetery is crowd- that between truth and meaning, historical has spent much of his working life in the
ed with ghosts. Their reality is delusional. accuracy and emotional veracity a void, Middle East, has grown tired of people
The coffins in which they reside are not, Saunders suggests, that only fiction can fill. throwing up their hands in horror at Isis,
they believe, coffins at all, but sick boxes. Saunderss stories have always been Erdogan and Islamic terror, and declaring
Unable, or unwilling, to accept deaths as notable for their unexpected kindness that the region is backward and in need of
truth, they remain trapped in a liminal as for the sharpness of their satire, and at a thorough western-style reformation.
state the bardo to which the title refers. times it has felt as if he were in conflict with As he argues in this timely book, the
Saunderss great feat here is the novels his own instincts. Here, he crosses over Islamic world has been coming to terms
libretto-like narration. Two voices domi- completely, abandoning irony in favour of with modernity in its own often turbulent
nate: Hans Vollman, who died just as he a disarming and distinctly unfashionable way for more than two centuries. And wed
was about to consummate his relationship warmth. better understand it, because its an inter-
with his young wife, and Roger Bevins III, The result is revelatory. In structure, esting story, and often a positive one the
who killed himself, having struggled with execution and emotional force, Lincoln is way vast crowds streamed onto the streets
a different kind of acceptance that of a masterpiece a tapestry of fact, coun- of Cairo, Istanbul and Tehran in demon-
his sexuality. Others, however, continual- terfact and wild, hallucinatory invention. strations against authoritarian rule over
ly and spectacularly intrude. Almost all of It never congeals into mere technical the past decade, for example. Western-style
the ghosts get a chance to speak, and the exercise, but instead swells into a sym- participatory democracy remains the
tales of their individual deaths cohere into phonic and deeply humanistic vision a dream of the man and woman in the souk.
a violent collective history an exhuma- mapping of the bardo between truth and Globalisation means that technical innova-
tion of Americas oppressive past. fiction that has, perhaps more than Saun- tion and modern ideas cannot help seep-
Saunders provides earthly context for ders ever could have imagined as he was ing across borders. And Islam is a notably
the events of the afterlife by augmenting crafting this book, become our contempo- broad church, by no means totally uncom-
his deathly chorus with a collage of his- rary reality. promising: witness the popularity of the

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40 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk


Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen who, from Portrait of Persias
American exile, preaches inter-religious Prince Abbas Mirza,
accord while being accused of trying to over- c.1820. From his
throw the Turkish state. bailiwick near the
De Bellaigue approaches his subject Russian border he
largely through those three cities Cairo, dispatched educational
Islams intellectual centre with its famous missions to Europe,
though often sclerotic Al Azhar universi- sponsored translations
ty; Istanbul, once capital of the vast inter- of key European works
denominational Ottoman empire which and imported metal
straddled Europe and Asia; and Tehran, the casting techniques and
furthest from the West, with its powerful the printing press
Shia tradition. GETTY IMAGES

Back in our own Dark Ages, Abbasid


openness to science and philosophy pro-
vided a bridge between ancient Greece
and Renaissance Europe. However, these
advances were reversed as ijtihad, or inde-
pendent reasoning, gave way to taqlid, or
emulation of authority. The razing of the
Galata Observatory in Istanbul in 1580 epit-
omised a waning intellectual curiosity.
The Islamic world was forced to deal
with the post-Enlightenment West after
Napoleons conquest of Egypt in 1798.
His ambitious Description of Egypt sig-
nalled purpose, which bore lasting fruit in
developments such as a medical college in
Cairo, run by the French surgeon Antoine
Barthlemy Clot.
Stung by a sense of cultural inadequacy,
the cleric Hassan al-Attar was one of sev-
eral Egyptians who travelled in search of
knowledge to Europe, where he conclud-
ed that the Quranic ban on body dissection
was wrong. The scholar Rifaa al-Tahtawi
oversaw the translation of over 2,000 Euro-
pean and Turkish books. Rulers like the
Khedive Ismail Pasha underpinned such
initiatives with infrastructural projects,
including hospitals, railways and the Suez
Canal. But he also copied the Wests baser
habits in his profligacy. The countrys par- laigue points out, the aspirations of poten- Add to this a strong Shia sense of resist-
lous finances allowed Britain and France to tates were not always shared by the masses. ance to injustice, articulated by the soci-
extend control, sparking incipient national- In charting the emergence of an alter- ologist Ali Shariati, and you have the
ism which led to Colonel Ahmed Urabis native Muslim approach to the world, he wellsprings of Ayatollah Khomeinis revolu-
revolt in 1879. Opposition to western intel- summons up intriguing characters such the tion in 1979. Meanwhile, Qutbs ideas were
lectual and economic hegemony has played canny Iranian born Jamal al-Din Afghani, steeled by the concept of takfir, which held
a significant part in the Islamic revival who travelled the world developing a spirit that a state or individual could be declared
ever since. of pan-Islamism. Out of Egypt came Hassan apostate and deserving of death. This dis-
It was a similar story with the Tanzi- al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brother- puted theory was adopted by al-Jihad, the
mat reforms in Turkey and the progressive hood, and the Conan Doyle-loving Sayyid group responsible for the assassination of
teachings of Babi and his successor Bahaul- Qutb, whose studies in innocuous sounding President Sadat in 1981, and, more recently,
lah, the founder of Bahaism, in Iran, which Greeley, Colorado, left him frothing about by Isis.
enjoyed a constitutional revolution in 1905. American permissiveness while developing De Bellaigue is happy to describe this
The first world war boosted nation- incisive ideas about the lack of spirituality at as Counter-Enlightenment. But he is con-
al awareness across the region, confirm- the heart of western civilisation. vinced there is a parallel story, and devel-
ing, from an Islamic perspective, the Wests In Iran a different spin came from Jalal opments such as the moderate Hassan
appetite for territorial and economic gain at Al-e-Ahmad, a former communist whose Rouhani becoming President of Iran show
the expense of the rights of the populations 1962 book Gharbzadegi (variously trans- an underlying respect for democracy and the
involved. lated as Westoxication, Westernstruck and individual. He skilfully conveys the curious
The convulsions of 191418 proved par- Occidentosis) has, de Bellaigue says, taken game part confrontation, part balancing
ticularly important in Turkey, which, shorn its place with Qutbs Milestones and Frantz act which has been played out between
of an empire, underwent a secular nation- Fanons The Wretched of the Earth as one western dominion and Islamic Renaissance.
alist catharsis under Ataturk. Leaders such of the three most influential anti-western While generally critical of the former, he
as Reza Shah in Iran and Colonel Nasser in political tracts. Al-e-Ahmad argued that the has written a sweeping and hugely engag-
Egypt followed similar paths: western-style Wests cult of the machine had undermined ing book that throws much-needed light on
development was still the aim. But as de Bel- traditional village-based Quranic values. modern Islam.
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 41
BOOKS & ARTS

ARTS

ED RUSCHA MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK/SCALA, FLORENCE


Paradise lost
How art chronicled the birth and death of the
American dream, by Stephen Bayley

T
he American dream was a consumer- American Dream: pop to the present, neat-
ist idyll: all of life was to be packaged, ly complements, and frankly upstages, the
stylised, affordable and improvable. Royal Academys oil-painting show, Ameri-
Three bedrooms, two-point-five children, ca after the Fall, although its curator Stephen
two cars and one mortgage. The sense was Coppel denies the intention. And in May the
first caught by Alexis de Tocqueville in Design Museum will examine California and
Democracy in America (183540), where he what the Sunshine State has done for person-
talks about a people more excited by success al liberty, from LSD to the various iFads.
than fearful of failure. One aspect of the American dream was
We all know when the dream died: on born here in the Gold Rush of 1849 and
9 November 2016. People in Brooklyn were the sense of accident bringing great riches.
crying. In Manhattan they couldnt breathe.
A national angst had been revealed: the We all know when the dream died:
land of plenty had become the land of the on 9 November 2016
plenty cross.
But when did the dream start? There was Experimental lifestyles flourished in Cali
the Jeffersonian trinity of life, liberty and because it was the end of the world. Even
the pursuit of happiness, which was diverted now, driving through the rich wastes of Cul-
into frontier mysticism, but by the mid-20th ver City or the San Fernando Valley, you
century this had evolved into an almost reli- think of Gertrude Steins when you get
giose belief in the enhancement of life by there, theres no there there. Materiality was
ever-increasing consumption of manufac- not essential: the worlds biggest hotel com-
tured goods. Chevrolet ergo sum. pany, San Franciscos Airbnb, owns no hotels.
Consider this sequence: 1926, mass pro- The American dream took many forms,
duction is mentioned in the Encyclopaedia however, several of them absurd. The loopy
Britannica; 1927, Raymond Loewy opens techno-utopian Buckminster Fuller wanted
the first design consultancy in New York; Americans living in his round Dymaxion
1931, the phrase American dream is coined houses. In 1952 the New York Times had a
by James Truslow Adams, a journalist: headline: Architect offers bubble for house.
Says plastic Space Container with sleep-
The American Dream is that dream of a land ing tents may replace present structure.
in which life should be better and richer and Meanwhile, Fullers Dymaxion car was so consciousness and witty self-effacement.
fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each under-engineered that it took off and killed At about the same time, Roy Lichtenstein
according to ability or achievement. It is a dif- its test driver. aped the four-colour commercial print pro-
ficult dream for the European upper classes to Still, the dream continued to influence cess of pulp comics, known as Ben-Day dots.
interpret adequately, and too many of us our- real life. And often its coordinates were best In this dream, mass-produced art was not
selves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. understood by grateful immigrants: by the diminished by multiplicity, but enhanced by
It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages mid-Fifties, a US citizen could lead his entire it: a movie seen by one person is not much
merely, but a dream of social order in which life surrounded by cars, shavers, toothpaste, of a movie.
each man and each woman shall be able to razors and cigarette packs designed by In the British Museums spacious new
attain to the fullest stature of which they are Loewy, a Frenchman. The sheer maximal Sainsbury Galleries the exhibition gives
innately capable, and be recognised by others gorgeousness of it all made contemporary exhilarating light and air not just to War-
for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous gallery art look introverted, so artists began hol and Lichtenstein, but also to every great
circumstances of birth or position. to employ industrial methods in pursuit of name in pop art: Robert Rauschenberg, Jas-
their own version of the dream. per Johns, Jim Dine, Richard Estes, Tom Wes-
This dream will one day deliver a stream- In 1962 Andy Warhol started to use silk- selmann and Ed Ruscha.
lined electric kitchen. In the same year, one screen printing, or serigraphy, precisely But there are abstractionists and mini-
Neil McElroy of Procter & Gamble invented because he wanted an assembly-line effect. malists too, so different in mood from noisy
brand management and imagery became He started as a hack commercial artist, draw- pop. When they took to print, these were not
the most valuable part of commerce. ing shoes for advertisements, then became furtive atelier experiments, but, echoing the
There is something of an American the most commercial artist of them all. dream, aesthetic campaigns of great ambi-
season in London. The British Museums His mass-produced prints were the tion and high purpose. The aim was no less
astonishing new exhibition of prints, The result of a baroque collision between brand than to establish an international American
42 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
American
beauty:
Standard
Station, 1966,
by Ed Ruscha

monopoly on high art, rather as Procter & Rosenquist, a former billboard painter, his rations than anguish or blame. Consumerism
Gamble had done with soap. never-before-assembled F-111 (1974), at bests activism.
The best work here is contemporaneous 86ft a little longer than the bomber that Can the dream be salvaged in a dismayed,
with the creative revolution in advertising: inspired it. deindustrialised, ethnonationalist America?
artists enjoyed words with their images, as There is a diminution of artistic and Maybe, because Trump has a crude appre-
advertisers did. But it was at about this time intellectual quality at the end of the show. hension of its magic allure. Meanwhile, if
that the first cracks began to appear, letting Wesselmanns deliciously objectified and you wanted an example of American excep-
harsh daylight into the dreamworld with the cartoonishly ridiculous nipples, as luscious tionalism, here it is in the artistic variety
publication of critiques about the environ- as ice cream, and Estess mesmerising hyper- and ingenuity on display. And if there is still
ment, media and auto industry from Rachel anyone who doubts the power or beauty of
Carson, Daniel Boorstin and Ralph Nader. Artists of the American dream high modernism, a visit to the British Muse-
Art revelled in the cracks. In Bruce Nau- were at their best worshipping trash, um is urgently indicated. Pop imagery and
mans Malice of 1980, the dreams favoured enjoying cars and mocking death minimalist shape-making have acquired the
messenger, the neon sign, turns coolly bil- magnificent, aged lustre and enduring value
ious and almost illegible. In Walasse Tings realist diners, so superior to their architectur- of the Old Masters.
poem, accompanying a print of a gun-tot- al original, are, in the end, more moving than
ing Puerto Rican, America has a brain campaigns about Aids, minority rights and The American Dream: pop to the present
made by IBM & FBI/ stomach supported feminism. Artists of the American dream is at the British Museum until 18 June.
by A&P/love supported by Time & Life/ were at their best worshipping trash, ironis- America after the Fall is at the Royal
tongue supported by/ American Telephone ing the military-industrial complex, enjoying Academy until 4 June. California is at the
& Telegraph/ soul made by 7up. Nearly cars, teasing celebrities and mocking death: Design Museum from 24 May until
the first thing you see? A print by James pleasure, sex and beauty being better inspi- 15 October.
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 43
BOOKS & ARTS

remarkably controlled line between impas- tine, our major companies would be staging
Opera sive and impulsive; the unignorable focus G&S every season. And theyd be queuing
Scottish power of every scene in which she appeared. up to get John Wilson to conduct it.
Andrei Bondarenko, as Pellas, sang with
Richard Bratby a tremulous ardour that was fascinatingly
at odds with his pale stage presence and Television
Pellas and Mlisande markedly different from the handsome bar-
Scottish Opera itone of Roland Woods Golaud, a piece of On the money
vocal characterisation that pointed up the James Walton
The Yeomen of the Guard gulf between the characters motives and
Symphony Hall, Birmingham actions, at least until his smooth tone cur-
dled and broke in the quietly devastating Fans of tough investigative journalism
Perhaps in this world nothing ever hap- final scene. should probably avoid Channel 4s Howd
pens without purpose, sings old, blind King At moments like that when superficial You Get So Rich? Presenter Katherine
Arkel in Debussys Pellas et Mlisande, and beauty disintegrated under extreme emo- Ryans main tactic is to ask wealthy peo-
that at least is something to hold on to. God tion this performance showed its teeth. ple how much they paid for something and,
knows, you need it. Peel away the fairy-tale Mlisandes sobs and Arkels anguished when they tell her, to repeat their answer in
trappings of Maeterlincks original play, and rasp of Golaud! felt brutally real. Add to a tone of wondering admiration. Yet, despite
the world of this opera is profoundly cruel. that Stuart Stratfords conducting rich her best efforts to keep it shallow, the pro-
Its characters are often passive observers and passionate, Debussy in oils rather than gramme does end up shedding some light
of their own fate (Pellas admits before his watercolours and this felt like a particu- on our peculiar attitudes to the very rich
final scene that hes never yet returned his larly physical, even raw Pellas et Mlisande. and in particular our capacity to feel supe-
beloved Mlisandes gaze). And yet Debussy But McVicars productions have a habit of rior and inferior to them at the same time.
pretty much compels you to feel for them, in maturing. This one deserves a long life, and Ryan, a Canadian comedian wholl be
a score of all-but-unbearable tenderness and will surely continue to yield new insights familiar to anybody whos watched virtu-
beauty. Its only once youve left the thea- with successive conductors and casts. Before ally any panel show, began Mondays open-
tre that, wrestling with the pieces of this rav- that, though, a final word for Cedric Ama- ing episode at the Shropshire pile owned by
ishing, troubling puzzle, you realise that its moo, as Yniold: a boy soprano whose musi- Steve Smith, the founder of Poundland. At
either insoluble or that it offers a message cality and alertness to the text would shame
bleaker than any Gotterdmmerung. many adult singers. Hes a former choris- To be properly rich you need to spend
Wisely, David McVicars new produc- ter of the Chapel Royal, and its meant as your life breaking models noses
tion for Scottish Opera leaves its options a compliment to say that I wouldnt have
open. The cast wears Edwardian costume guessed. first, the gratifying vulgarity of the dcor
of the operatic variety the sort where In Birmingham, meanwhile, the only real seemed to offer us the promising chance
disappointment in the CBSOs concert per- for a good sneer. Sadly, though, Steve and
If our operatic taste-makers were less formance of The Yeomen of the Guard was his wife Tracey proved so unselfconsciously
philistine, major companies would that it was a one-off. This was a semi-stag- chuffed about how their lives had panned
stage G&S every season ing, with colourful costumes, rudimentary out that it was impossible not to warm to
direction and a huge (and superb) student them. They also appeared to have changed
men in frock-coats carry huge medieval chorus. But it proved in heroic style a truth little since the young Steve worked on
swords. Advance publicity suggested that that we apparently keep having to relearn his dads market stall. Having cheerfully
the production would be inspired by the about Gilbert and Sullivan namely, that declared that he painted all the grapes on
paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi and if you cast these operas with first-rate art- the ballroom ceiling himself, he and Tracey
the programme duly reproduces a couple ists, G&Ss supposedly stereotyped char- then packed for a forthcoming trip to Major-
of chilly Nordic interiors. Someone clear- acters will suddenly flood with humanity. ca, making sure not to forget the teabags.
ly got the memo about Scandi chic being Catherine Wyn-Rogers, in majestic voice, After that, they flew by helicopter for a date
over, though, because the sets looked noth- was Dame Carruthers; Sarah Foxs lumi- night in a curry house.
ing like that. Tree trunks poke through the nous Elsie played heartbreakingly off Simon Not so appealing, mind you, was Ryans
floors of designer Rae Smiths decaying Butterisss birdlike, increasingly frantic Jack next magnate, Danny Lambo, a former pop
mansion; floorboards lift to reveal stagnant Point, and Bozidar Smijanics sunny bass- star of the big-in-Japan kind who now
pools and the walls shimmer with gold and baritone transformed the jailer Shadbolt owns a London hotel. Im actually known as
silver. McVicar and his lighting designer from comic grotesque to a credible (if dolt- Britains flashiest playboy, Danny explained
Paule Constable respond with moments of ish) love interest. Presiding over it all, com- matter-of-factly (and, just as annoyingly, a
visual wonder to match Maeterlinck and passionate and grizzled, was Sir Thomas quick Google of the tabloids confirmed that
Debussys imagery of light and water: doves Allen as Sergeant Meryll. he actually is). What this means in practice
become ominous, fluttering black forms, John Wilson conducted. If youve heard is that he drives around the streets of Chel-
and a vengeful Golaud quietly appears, him with his own orchestra (and if you sea in a Lamborghini, and when he spots an
just as Mlisande predicts, at the end of her havent, youve lived only half a life) youll attractive woman, waves signs at her read-
shadow. McVicar is sometimes dismissed be able to imagine the vitality and colour ing either, Youre cute or less romantically,
as a safe pair of hands. But here he dem- he finds in Sullivans music how natu- Nice arse. Even so, he confessed in a voice
onstrates that a staging can illuminate the rally he shapes its phrases, warms the inner of puzzled disappointment, most of his girl-
story without being clunkingly literal, while voices and generally makes The Yeomen of friends turn out to be gold-digger types.
leaving generous scope for the performers the Guard sound exactly what it is: a mas- But to be properly rich, it seems, you need
to give of themselves. terpiece, glaringly overdue for a full profes- to spend your life as Ryan put it with a
That, compellingly, is what Carolyn sional staging from a director whos alert to welcome touch of asperity breaking mod-
Sampson did as Mlisande. Dressed in its pain as well as its humour. The capacity els noses. By far her wealthiest interviewee
white, with a voice that (like Debussys audience, meanwhile, spoke for itself. If the was Dr Raj Kanodia, an LA plastic sur-
score) seemed lit from within, she trod a UKs operatic taste-makers were less philis- geon, who, among other things, carries out
44 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
GUY TAPLIN
Guy has an astonishing eye for what Gilbert White called the air of
birds, just as he has for the unrealised potential of his bits of found wood.
Richard Mabey

Four Sanderlings
carved and painted driftwood
27 x 29 x 22 cms
1038 x 1138 x 858 ins

catalogue 15 inc p&p

15 March 21 April 2017

MESSUMS
2 8 C ork Street , Lond on W1S 3 N G Tel: + 4 4 ( 0 )2 0 74 37 5 5 4 5 w w w.messums.c om
BOOKS & ARTS

250 nose jobs a year at $20,000 a pop. The

MANUEL HARLAN
programme filmed him reassuring an anx-
ious young knockout that he could indeed
fix the unsightly, if almost imperceptible,
bump on her nose. Ryan then observed,
without apparent irony (or evidence), that
hes motivated not by money but by a pas-
sion for beauty.
For lovers of plus a change moments,
going from Howd You Get So Rich? to a
three-part history of British photography
on BBC4 mightnt sound an obvious choice.
Nonetheless, one thing we learned from
Britain in Focus (Monday) is that Victori-
ans having their portraits taken by commer-
cial photographers would often ask for their
nose bumps to be magically smoothed away
in the darkroom.
Otherwise, this was much as youd expect
from a three-part history of British photog-
raphy on BBC4 i.e., richly informative
and heroically unafraid of getting too tech-
nical. The presenter is Eamonn McCabe, a
former Guardian picture editor, who gamely
went a bit Lucy Worsley for the commercial-

In its third series Catastrophe


remains something approaching
a work of genius
portrait section by donning a top hat and
frock-coat. (To his credit, his heart never
really seemed in it.) Fortunately, for the rest
of the time, he stuck to being a middle-aged
bloke who knows an awful lot about his sub-
ject, combining the wider historical devel-
opments with close readings of the most
important 19th-century pictures.
Above all, he provided a startling remind-
er of how quickly photography evolved:
from Henry Fox Talbots first tiny pictures
of windows in 1835 to Roger Fentons imag-
es of the Crimean war just 20 years later. No
other medium in history, McCabe persua-
Nympho with a bus pass: Juliet Stevenson as Gertrude
sively argued, had ever gone from a standing
start to a fully realised art form so quickly.
Finally, Im happy to report that in its third
series Catastrophe (Channel 4, Tuesday)
Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaneys endlessly ing trousers suggest a snooker pro at the
sharp comedy about the strange business of
Theatre Crucible or a steward on a Virgin train.
marriage and parenthood remains some- Changing of the Bard Scott is known as a character actor (code
thing approaching a work of genius. Almost for baddie) rather than a leading man. His
every line is still a perfect encapsulation of, Lloyd Evans petulant, squelched-up face and his Ronnie
if not what people say, then what they would Corbett physique make him perfect casting
say if only they were cleverer, funnier and Hamlet for Third Crackhead in a squat melodrama
more fearless. Theres the same immaculate Almeida, until 15 April
intertwining of filth and tenderness, and the Andrew Scott gives Hamlet
same ability to treat its characters in a way Ugly Lies the Bone everything hes got, which isnt much
thats both unsparing and sympathetic. Lyttelton, in rep until 6 June
As a teenager discovering the joys of but he hasnt a chance of capturing Ham-
reading reviews (no, really), I remem- Hamlet was probably written sometime lets lordly despair, his scathing humour,
ber being highly impressed by someone between 1599 and 1602. The Almeidas his meditative isolation, his rebellious gran-
or other praising Chekhovs gift for find- new version opens with a couple of secu- deur, his personal affability, and so on. Scott
ing the pain in comedy and the comedy in rity guards watching surveillance footage gives it everything hes got, which isnt
pain. Now Im older, I cant quite decide taken in a corridor. Well, of course it does. much. Gruff, sarky, cynical, bad-tempered,
whether that remark was pretentious or not Nothing says late medieval Denmark like ever prone to the full-on hissy fit, he stomps
but I am pretty certain that it also applies closed-circuit television. Hamlet (Andrew around in his waiters costume bawling out
to Catastrophe. Scott) appears. His black shirt and match- the text as if he were an angry nun or a fed-
46 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
up driving instructor about to retrain as a
cage fighter. He does the soliloquys like a
a handsome boyfriend. Now shes human
landfill but she has the spirit of a survivor.
Cinema
signing exercise for the deaf. Up goes a fin- The play starts out as a triumph-over- Victim mentality
ger to indicate heaven, down goes a finger adversity weepie but its complications are
to indicate hell. When balancing an antith- unpredictable and intriguing. Jesss geeky Deborah Ross
esis he spreads one arm wide, and then ex-boyfriend (Ralf Little, exquisitely charm-
the other. To suggest faltering courage he ing and awkward) is still half in love with her Elle
wiggles his hands next to his ears. For pas- but cant express his confused adoration. 18, Key Cities
sion he punches his breastbone. For deter- Her sister Kacie reveals flashes of aston-
mination he pumps his fists. He seems to ishing bitterness over her sisters fate. And Elle has been described as a rape revenge
be posing for a series of woodcuts entitled Kacies sponger boyfriend, a dimwit with comedy, which seems unlikely, and also as
Rhetorical Attitudes. Too often his deliv- a fake disability, turns out to be far nobler post-feminist, which is likely as, in my expe-
ery spills into the falsetto range that makes than he seems. rience, that simply means anything goes so
for painful listening. This is a marvellous and often very mov- long as you acknowledge that feminism has
Blame the director, Robin Icke, who likes ing drama, which properly belongs in an happened. The film stars Isabelle Huppert,
his actors to lose control of their voices, even intimate black-box theatre. Director Indhu who was Oscar-nominated for her perfor-
if their seagull honking becomes unintelligi- Rubasingham has added complex lighting mance, and who has repeatedly said that her
ble, because he seems to equate high emotion and sound effects to help her production character, Michle, is not a victim although,
with high volume. Claudius (Angus Wright) fill the massive Lyttelton. Just occasionally, as you have to watch Michle being raped or
is portrayed as a bloodless technocrat. Juliet they feel like padding. Kate Fleetwood puts near-raped several times, I dont know how
in a thrilling display as Jess. Is there a more we can be so sure about that. Perhaps Im
The textual omissions and versatile actress alive? How she suggests just not sufficiently in touch with my post-
misreadings in this production the raw horror of physical pain is sensa- feminist side to fully comprehend.
could ll a small book tional. How she suggests the determination Directed by Paul Verhoeven (Basic
to defeat that pain is miraculous. Instinct, RoboCop, Total Recall, Showgirls)
Stevenson plays Gertrude as a nympho with In a short and unobtrusive scene she and written by David Birke from a novel by
a bus pass. Theyre always snogging, like strips away her sexless outer layers, while Philippe Djian correct me if I am wrong,
naughty virgins in the playground, which is singing obsessively to silence her screaming seriously, but have any women ever made a
embarrassing at first, then tedious, finally nerves, and she dons her sisters blue dress rape revenge film, comic or otherwise? it
irrelevant. The company simply cant rise to and completes a twirl to recapture her lost opens with a black screen, a scream, then the
Shakespeares level. And the production can femininity. The scene lasts a few minutes. sound of sexual congress. The camera then
barely reach Alan Ayckbourns. Elsinore is Its emotional imprint feels permanent. enters a doorway and we see a woman being
presented as a sort of Travelodge with sliding
glass doors, swivel chairs and squishy round-
the-corner sofa units.
The textual omissions and misreadings
could fill a small book. Some examples. fine art design antiques
Shakespeare wrote the temptation scene
(now might I do it, pat) as a pair of mono-
logues for Claudius and the prince, but here
its done as a two-handed conversation. Jes-
sica Brown Findlay has been encouraged
to play Ophelias tragic farewell (good-
night, sweet ladies) without tenderness or
true sentiment, as if she were Diana Ross
firing her PR team. The short scene with
Osric fails because no one seems to real-
ise that Osric is an overeducated show-off,
and the facetious aside intended for Hora-
tio (What imports the nomination of this
gentleman?) is delivered, incorrectly, to
Osric himself.
These are pretty basic misunderstand-
ings of a script which, I have to say, is fairly
well known in theatre circles. Icke finishes
on a happy note with all the dead people
getting up off the lino and dancing togeth-
er in the Travelodge bar. Which is lovely. It
lasts four hours.
Ugly Lies the Bone studies the human
aftermath of Bushs botched invasions. Kate
Fleetwood plays Jess, an American service-
woman severely injured in Iraq. Half her
body has been blown to bits, she walks with
extreme difficulty, she can barely raise her 15 21 march kings road london sw3
right hand, and she wears a headscarf to hide badafair.com
her hairless scalp. Once she was a happy,
confident graduate with a bright future and
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 47
BOOKS & ARTS

raped by a man in a ski mask. He is grunting no one ever asks her about it again. Youd is not enacted by Michle. It is enacted by a
and rutting. Her shirt is torn and her skirt think they might. But no. man. Perhaps this is post-feminist revenge?
is pulled up to her waist. He wipes himself Michle replays the rape in her mind, so This film is beautiful to look at, but if
down with her knickers before escaping we have to watch it repeatedly. The rapist it has anything to say about sex, violence,
through the French window. Meanwhile, her returns, until she has sex with him consen- desire, it all passed me by. Rape should be
cat, with its unblinking eyes, watches with sually, which means what exactly? She was shown on screen, if only to challenge it, but
the sort of icy feline detachment that makes up for it all along? If there is comedy, it is if this does any of that challenging, that too
me, has always made me, and will continue mostly in the form of social satire and mostly passed me by. Ultimately, you will have to
to make me, very much a dog person. it is cruel. Michles mother, for instance, is make up your own mind. I have made up
This is Michle, who lives in a grand mine. But maybe post-chauvinists will
Parisian house, which at least makes a Perhaps Im just not sufciently in like it?
change from a cabin in the woods. Michle touch with my post-feminist side
shares her cats icy detachment. She coolly to fully comprehend
clears up, and takes a bath where she dispas- Exhibitions
sionately observes the blood from her vagi- a Botox-ed grotesque who appears to exist
na rising up through the bubbles. She orders solely so that we can laugh at her. Home help
sushi. She does not call the police. Instead, The compelling Huppert is, indeed, com- Martin Gayford
she goes to bed holding a hammer. pelling. That is, compellingly composed. But
Michle, we learn, runs a successful she is also every single negative female ste-
video-games company that itself seems reotype: controlling mother, bitchy ex-wife, Madonnas and Miracles: The Holy
to specialise in sexual violence against selfish daughter, seducer of husbands. We Home in Renaissance Italy
women. Harder, faster, louder, she says, dont know what motivates her except in Fitzwilliam Museum, until 4 June
on being shown the latest game, which one instance. She didnt call the police due to
involves a monster with phallic tentacles a horrific act once committed by her father. There have been many explanations for
taking a princess from behind. No one in (And shes not a victim?) This has also been what happened in the Italian Renaissance.
Elle behaves as you would expect anyone described as a psychological thriller but it Some stress the revival of classical antiquity,
to behave. Out to dinner with friends, she is hardly that. For example, when the rap- others the rise of individualism. A pioneer-
announces that she has been raped, detail- ists identity is revealed, she simply pulls his ing exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum,
ing the circumstances, and there is a brief mask off and voil, there he is. I would also Cambridge, Madonnas and Miracles: The
hiatus in the conversation, admittedly, but put it to you that the revenge, when it arrives, Holy Home in Renaissance Italy, takes a
different line. Its all about the 15th- and
16th-century household and the religious
Adagio furnishings and fittings it contained.
To a 21st-century eye some of these are
distinctly bizarre. Early on, there is a paint-
The last logs glow subsides. Its time ing of the Madonna and Child by a follower
to bundle blankets on this borrowed sofa of Filippo Lippi just the kind of thing one
expects to find in an art gallery. Underneath
and unplug the Christmas tree. it is a brightly painted wooden figure of the
Beyond thin curtains infant Christ, very similar to the one in the
cold slides down outside the window picture. But this was not so much a sculpture
as a doll for a fervent adult. A mystic named
Camilla Battista da Varano received visions
where tattered mist an hour ago while kissing, holding and nursing just such
moved up the path ahead of us a replica baby Jesus with great tenderness.
Other items in the exhibition touching-
to drape the trees and blend with woodsmoke ly reveal the anxieties of their owners, such
into incense for the secular, as a crude woodcut of the crucifixion with
augmenting shreds of choral anthem a prayer asking for protection from sudden
earthquakes beneath (in that respect, life in
central Italy hasnt changed). In the category
clinging to us since those closing echoes one could label for the Renaissance home
hovered over vestry chatter that has everything there is a set of din-
ner knives. Each has engraved on the blade
and big plates of fruit cake for small boys a Latin grace and benediction plus musical
who swapped white robes for anoraks notes. The idea was that before and after eat-
to lead us over midnight water meadows. ing, everyone in the household could give
thanks, singing from the score on their cut-
lery. Like so many ingenious gadgets, these
A make-do bed; a tree already shedding never caught on.
needles; drifting smoke and chilly mist Madonnas and Miracles makes the case
that Renaissance Italy was a much more
unzipping breath; those ringing wineglass voices devout civilisation than has often been
which will break: its still a mystery assumed. The nudity and bodily beauty
the way in which these things all hold together. of Botticellis Venus or Michelangelos
David might suggest that this was an era
of sensuality and secularism. But it was also
Michael Bartholomew-Biggs a time when religion was taken very seri-
48 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
MUSEO DEGLI EX VOTO DEL SANTUARIO DI MADONNA DELLARCO
Boy falling from a window, 1592, Italy, Naples (possibly)

ously, so much so that in the mid-16th cen- how a picture appeared to a 16th-century els at the end of the display is an index of
tury Europe fragmented and descended into viewer. Annibale Carraccis Mary Magda- Renaissance anxieties or looking at it
savage warfare because of disagreement on lene in a Landscape (c.1599) is both tearful another way, an anthology of contemporary
points of theology. and voluptuously bare-breasted, and to the accidents. In one a boy has given himself a
Piety also permeated the average home, modern gaze it seems mildly erotic. The jus- nasty cut on the throat with a pair of shears,
whether those living in it were super-rich tification, according to Federico Borromeo, in another a diner is attacked by a bandit
financiers such as the Medici or the Renais- Archbishop of Milan, was that depicting the while still at the table.
sance equivalents of Mrs Mays just-about- Magdalene thus, as a young woman of vibrant In every case, supernatural aid is at hand:
managing class. The exhibition mixes up St Nicholas of Tolentino appears in the sky
what we would normally think of as high art After eating, everyone in the above to retrieve a victim who has tumbled
with much more downmarket objects. And household could give thanks, singing into an enormous barrel of vino. The image
it brings home how often even those works from the score on their cutlery marked a thanks-offering ex voto means
we now think of as masterpieces of art origi- from a vow. No doubt as the foaming vin-
nally had a religious purpose. freshness, emphasised her love of Christ all tage closed over her head, the unfortunate
Certain areas of a tender, and very rare, the more. Perhaps, though, even in the coun- woman had implored the saint to save her
drawing of The Dead Christ (c. 14324) by ter-reformation not everybody looked at the from drowning.
Fra Angelico are softly blurred. It looks as painting in quite such a virtuous way. This beautifully conceived and installed
if they have been touched and kissed by the A lot of the exhibits in Madonnas and exhibition makes you think freshly about
owner (perhaps a member of the wealthy Miracles are aids to domestic devotion: all manner of objects, from cheap and
Strozzi family). So this wasnt a study made rosaries, terracotta decorated with Bibli- cheerful pieces of folk art such as those ex-
by Fra Angelico as a preliminary to paint- cal scenes, jewellery with pious inscriptions. voto panels to paintings of the highest qual-
ing his Descent from the Cross. It was a There is a section devoted to the Jewish ity. All of them were intended to affect the
reproduction of the central figure intended home, a reminder that Christians though behaviour of the people who owned and
for someone to contemplate and venerate in hugely in the majority were not the only used them. As the 15th-century architect
private. Its purpose was not appreciation of religious group in Titians Venice or Botti- and theorist Leon Battista Alberti put it,
the marvellous draughtsmanship; this was an cellis Florence. This, too, is full of devotional The images of things impress themselves
aid to the spiritual imagination. ornaments and accessories. in our minds. In other words, pictures are
Sometimes, however, its hard to know A spectacular display of ex-voto pan- powerful. Thats still true.
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 49
BOOKS & ARTS

THE LISTENER Radio ity to the masses while at the same time
offering spiritual counselling to a string of
Sleaford Mods: English Tapas Keeping the faith American presidents. We heard him talking
on the phone to Lyndon Johnson, for exam-
Kate Chisholm ple, in October 1964 about wanting to ask
God how to deal with the Russians and the
Perhaps surprisingly, in these secular times, Chinese.
Radio 4 keeps up its annual (and very Reith- Intriguingly, Graham, by then aged
ian) tradition of holding a series of esoter- 80, knew that he was a fish out of water
ic talks about faith and belief to mark the at such a trendy collection of TED afi-
Christian season of Lent, those 40 days of cionados and began his talk by acknowl-
preparation and penitence leading up to edging this. You can imagine how out of
the events of Holy Week. In the first of this place I feel. Then, with a masterly under-
years Lent Talks (produced by Christine standing of how to gather the crowd into
Morgan), the psychotherapist Anouchka the palm of his hand, he told them that he
Grose talked about the role of the uncon- knew they were also feeling awkward at
scious in our behaviour and the peculiar finding themselves listening to a man who
tendency of human beings to repeat expe- was always popular but never fashiona-
riences they claim not to enjoy. You could ble. I hope you wont feel that these few
Its all beginning to wear very thin say that unconsciously we influence our own moments are an anti-climax, he said, bril-
indeed. Ten years ago this already fate, and that however hard we might try to liantly disarming any potential criticism,
addled Nottinghamshire duo tame our own impulses we are always liable before launching into his analysis of the
captured the attention with bellowed, to be thrown off-course. difference between belief and faith. Belief
caustic and often astute observations We are pushed at times to act, says is easy, he said, but faith is a feeling. Some-
delivered in an ur-rap monotone Grose, by forces inside us that can at times thing you cant easily explain.
above cheapo punky laptop beats. appear to go against who we consciously Lesley Hazletons TED talk was based
The message then, humorously think we are. This behaviour is coded into on her book about the life of Mohammed.
enough, was: everything is shit. us by the stories we grow up with, those Shes Jewish but was intrigued by what
Total shit. Youre shit, Im shit, the early experiences of expectation and judg- exactly happened on the night in 610 when
countrys shit. ment. Our cunning unconscious minds the Prophet received the first revelation of
This briefly entertaining and the Quran on a mountain outside Mecca.
frequently obscene working-class In the ungraspable, the unknowable, She researched the events of that night and
nihilism was gratefully received lies buried some strange comfort discovered that Mohammed was horrified
by a music press that, desperately by the revelation, terrified for his life, over-
looking for something edgy, found bring about certain situations without our whelmed not by conviction but by doubt.
itself confronted by the mimsy being consciously aware of ever having He ran down the mountain, trembling not
and anodyne public-school folk of taken action. Free will becomes illusory. with joy, but with stark primordial fear.
Mumford & Sons and Stornoway and Where we think we are in control were That he could doubt, she said, makes him
Laura Marling. Fair enough: it was, not, and where we think were not in con- human, adding, What exactly is imperfect
for a while, enlivening and a certain trol, we are. about doubt?
kind of antidote. But, you have to Grose spoke for only 15 minutes but in The most interesting image from all
say, with a rapidly diminishing sense that time took us through so many huge the celebrations surrounding International
of return over the following eight questions. What do we mean by destiny? Womens Day on Wednesday came from
albums. How much can we control what happens to the interview on Sunday on Radio 4 with
On their latest, English Tapas, the us? Are there bigger forces at work within Sally Axworthy, Britains ambassador to
message is the same as it was in 2009: us? This was a pure audio experience. No the Vatican. A female diplomat let loose on
everythings shit. And so indeed intrusive backing music needed. Just the the college of Catholic cardinals. Edward
it is, not least this album, which human voice, speaking one-on-one about Stourton asked her what it was like to walk
sounds tired, uninspiring, boring those discomfiting questions, those fears and into a room of male priests, the only woman
and curiously child-like, even as its insecurities which usually we keep hidden among them. You quickly adjust, she replied.
progenitors approach their fifties. even from ourselves, dreading what answers There are areas which would benefit from
The beats have not got any more we might find. Yet, says Grose, its precisely women being involved in decision-making,
inventive and musically one of the within such doubt we may find a kind of cer- she told Stourton, diplomatically not adding
few highlights is the bassline ripped tainty. In the ungraspable, the unknowable, what they might be.
off Cameos Word Up on Just Like lies buried some strange comfort. While in Rome, and at the Vatican, she
We Do. Believers and doubters were also the has been looking at the world through the
There are, of course, no tunes, just theme of the first programme in the new prism of religion. Its very helpful, she said,
that incessant monotone barking, but series of the TED Radio Hour on Radio to focus on that religious dimension (rath-
the nastiness of the lyrics now seems 4 Extra. Guy Raz, of Americas NPR (the er than the political, social or economic)
targeted more at their own fanbase, national syndicate of 900 publicly funded when thinking about people-trafficking, for
for daring to get drunk or to smoke, radio stations), threaded together talks instance, and the wars in South Sudan and
for being dead in the head. When given at events organised by TED (the the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She
the best track on the album is called non-profit, non-partisan outfit dedicated also insisted that what has struck her most
Dull, you know youve got a dog on to Technology, Entertainment and Design). while in Rome are the numbers of religious
your hands. A fairly shit dog. The session began with a talk given by the women who are very active in the Church.
evangelist Billy Graham in 1998, decades We shouldnt underestimate their impor-
Rod Liddle after the height of his fame when he toured tance, she continued. Soft power can be
the world on a mission to bring Christian- real power.
50 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
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NOTES ON

The Suffolk-Essex border


By Mark Mason

Y
ouve already seen a picture of the the skull of Simon of Sudbury, separated
Essex-Suffolk border. Assuming from his body in 1381 during the Peasants
youve seen Constables The Hay- Revolt; the peasants objected to his role (as
wain, that is: the Stour (the river into which Archbishop of Canterbury) in the introduc-
the farmer has cleverly driven his cart) forms tion of the poll tax. The churchs website
the county boundary, meaning the land on advises those wishing to view the skull to
the left is Suffolk, that on the right, Essex. contact Barbara, Margaret or Colin.
Years of David Beckham and jokes about Many of the houses in the area are paint-
girls in white stilettos had rather inclined me ed the traditional Suffolk pink, original-
against Essex, so when I moved to Suffolk it ly made by mixing whitewash with berries
was galling to discover I had a Colchester and/or pigs blood. In 2013 the Angel Hotel
postcode. Only gradually did I realise how in Lavenham, then owned by Marco Pierre
well the two counties work together. White, was daubed a shade that the local
This part of the world is beautifully council likened to the colour of blancmange.
untrendy its on the way to nowhere other Mr White had to find a darker pink.
than the North Sea, so, unlike the Cotswolds, The areas most poignant square yard is
we are spared invasion by tourist coaches. The Suffolk side of the Stour to be found in Gestingthorpe, just over the
Flatford Mill (home of The Haywain) is boundary from Sudbury in Essex. Specifi-
at the eastern end of the boundary. Further The town of Sudbury is where the dogs in cally the villages church, and even more
inland are the villages of Nayland and Pol- 101 Dalmatians pause during their journey specifically its plaque to local boy Captain
stead, both of which feature in Ruth Ren- from London, on a mission to rescue the kid- Lawrence Oates. When all were beset by
dell stories. The author was born in Essex napped colleagues who have been brought hardship, reads the message from his army
an early job on the Chigwell Times ended to Suffolk for skinning. Dodie Smith owned colleagues, he being gravely injured went
when she filed a story about an event she several dogs of that breed herself, and got out into the blizzard to die. What it doesnt
hadnt attended, failing to mention that the the idea for the story when a friend said they record is that he did so in his socks, real-
after-dinner speaker had died in the middle would make a lovely fur coat. Sudbury also ising as he left the tent that there was no
of the speech. But she finished up as Bar- does a good job of keeping up the areas point putting his boots on. Oatess moth-
oness Rendell of Babergh, a Suffolk area artistic credentials it was Gainsboroughs er still lived in Over Hall across the road,
whose name goes back to the Domesday home town. His house survives as a museum, and every week for the rest of her life (25
Book. Her grave is there, admirably modest which runs excellent workshops for children. years) she came to the church and polished
(just her name and dates). Meanwhile, St Gregorys church contains the plaque.

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How about omitting a place setting for
the special infant and putting a dog bowl
in the corner of the room?
Dear Mary, p61

old friends, no nothing. I spoke with Aleko movement of cattle herders due to drought
High life over the telephone and also to his butler, conditions, inciting them to invade ranches
Taki who is called Plutarch. Anyone whose per- and drive white farmers out, and what are
sonal man is called Plutarch has to be a great the Brits doing? Sending more aid so that the
man, and Aleko is definitely that. Mind you, African lite can travel first-class to Europe
whenever Im in Athens nowadays I get a and enjoy first-class hotels and hookers.
bit sad seeing a once warm, wonderful place Ring your local MP and tell him or her
turned into one big begging bowl. Those that the next time they vote for one penny
madmen who accepted the criminal terms of aid for Africa they can forget your vote.
of the EU bailout are driving around in gov- It is the least one can do to avenge this cow-
ernment-issued limos, while the countrys ardly murder.
middle class disappears. Austerity measures
A lousy fortnight if ever there was one. Two have driven even law-abiding Greeks to go
great friends, Lord Belhaven and Stenton Low life
and Aleko Goulandris, had their 90th birth- I was always against tax-avoiding
day celebrations, and I missed both shindigs Greeks, but no longer
Jeremy Clarke
because of this damn bug.
Lord Belhavens was in London, at the off the books and get involved in the black
Polish Club, but flying there was verboten. market. No Greek will pay 70 per cent tax,
Robin Belhaven is an old Etonian, served as the new measures require, and many peo-
as an officer in Northern Ireland, farmed in ple have stopped reporting their income to
Scotland, and has four children, eight grand- avoid paying such taxes. Unpaid taxes have
children and one great-grandchild. He spent now soared to 95 billion, and businesses
35 years in the House of Lords when that simply do not have the financial resources
institution was a responsible arm of the gov- to meet their tax obligations.
ernment and not a cesspool full of smarmy What gets me is that there are still people In Spain, I stayed in youth hostels in Bar-
lawyers. His wife Malgosia is Polish-born who regret Brexit, the best move Britain has celona, Alicante, Almeria and Seville. But
and never fails to stand up for that country made since Trafalgar. I was always against that first hostel in Barcelona, where the
by reminding everyone how courageously tax-avoiding Greeks, but no longer. Not one manager got me totally stoned as part of the
the Poles fought against both the Axis pow- penny should go into that black hole. After check-in process, then took me out to a huge
ers and the commies, and how their Catholic all the misery of the past seven years, the dancehall, where about 2,000 Catalans were
faith has helped the people survive both evils. debt has risen exponentially, something a throwing shapes to a fantastic reggae band,
The Belhavens I met recently, 15 or so know-nothing like me knew would happen remains the most memorable.
years ago, but I feel we are very close friends. when the crisis began. The EU is the most I was stoned still when I woke the next
Their beautiful daughter, Olenka Hamil- evil institution in the world, enslaving peo- morning. I rose Id slept face-down in my
ton, is a journalist who quit her EU job in ple with red tape and regulation. We should clothes and bimbled into the communal
Brussels in disgust, as rare a happening as have left a long time ago, but Tsipras likes to living area. Lit by sunshine and seated con-
Diogenes finding an honest person with his go to Brussels and serve drinks to the mega templatively at the dining table was a man
lamp. Poland is doing fine, despite the EUs crooks, and to hell with the Greeks. His days of about my age with blond and grey dread-
meddling and the medias campaign against are numbered, of course, but the damage has locks hanging down to his backside. I sat
its conservative government. Poland and been done. down opposite this preternaturally relaxed
Hungary are doing well because of a lack And now for the really bad news: a loyal and accepting individual and introduced
of ethnomasochism (hatred of ones own Spectator reader whom I have on tape read- myself. Whether or not because I was still
skin colour) and the self-loathing so prev- ing High life and laughing about my politi- stoned, and he was stoned already, I couldnt
alent in western societies today. Keeping cal incorrectness has just been murdered say, but we quickly found the wavelength.
Africans out has raised the temperature of by African thugs, namely Samburu and I forget his name. He was Dutch but
the European lite to boiling point, but they Pokot cattle herders. Tristan Voorspuy was a spoke good English with a Rotterdam accent.
can go and reproduce themselves. Poland for Guards officer who settled in Kenyas farm Maybe it was a flash of intuition that made
Christian Poles and Hungary for Christian heartland and, like our own Aidan Hartley him mention right away that he used to be a
Hungarians, says Taki. No matter how much (who writes about his friend on p57), farmed Feyenoord hooligan. I became interested in
money George Soros pours into those two the land and protected the animals. He Dutch football hooligans after being caught
countries in order to subvert them, Catholi- rode his horse out to inspect ranch houses in the middle of a surprisingly determined
cism and nationalism come first. Yippee! torched by the murderers, who are protected showing by ADO Den Haag hooligans when
My oldest friend Aleko is no stranger to by the politicians in Nairobi, and a cowardly West Ham were there in 1976. And who can
these pages. We met and became friends 72 invader shot him and his horse. forget that Uefa Cup final between Feye-
years ago, and for me to miss his 90th was My friend Lara Livanos told me about noord and Spurs in 1974? Also, I was quite
misery indeed. But the bug Ive had kept Tristan, how much fun he was and what a up-to-date having recently viewed the cel-
getting worse and the doc finally ordered me brave man those thugs killed in cold blood. ebrated YouTube video of the prearranged
to bed: so no Athens, no reunion with very Local politicians have taken advantage of the toe-to-toe in a wood between Feyenoords
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 55
LIFE

finest and a coalition of the Nancy and Stras- even 50 to reserve my seat for the onward not allow development of my back garden
bourg lite. (Feyenoord wholly prevailed.) journey despite presenting a pass suppos- on moral grounds.
So I knew a bit about it and what he implied edly valid for free rail travel in 30 countries This blew the agents mind, I suppose.
by the name Feyenoord. for 30 days. My fresh, extroverted, best But in truth she ought to be rejecting all
But nowadays he was a Rastafarian, self had relished many of these things. My offers based on lunatic development plans.
he said, a vegetarian, and the great Jah tired, introverted, worst self, not so much. One of the stipulations of the buyer I
was his heavenly father. And to prove it, I surrendered. From Seville I took a train broke up with was that the flat must be able
he switched to an astoundingly authen- to Madrid, and from there a train direct to have a bifold door fitted in the kitch-
tic Jamaican patois. I was so surprised by to Aix-en-Provence, where I cadged a lift en, ripping away half the party wall jointly
the seamlessness of the transition that I back to our hillside shack to bless up, wul demised to and I suppose ultimately owned
laughed in his face, which he accepted with ah fresh, see mi boonoonoonoos, yeah mun. by the freeholder.
poker-faced equanimity, perhaps because Why would he allow that? I asked the
the derision of the world merely sanctified agent. Well, he might want the money, she
his truth. When he spoke to me from then Real life said. Yes, and there again, he might not. He
on, he switched randomly between the two might want his supporting wall left alone
accents, and I always laughed, in spite of Melissa Kite and quiet enjoyment of his property. Had
trying not to. she considered that? Had she considered
He had resided in Barcelona for three the possibility that not everyone is suscep-
weeks now and was a regular customer at tible to cash bribery?
a nearby coffee shop. Would I like to come More pertinently, is some jiggery-pokery
with him this afternoon to smoke some- going on designed to lock me in to my con-
thing? He usually went at around five. So tract even though there are no suitable buy-
we agreed to do that. And then a sleepy ers around?
black woman, whom he introduced as his To wit, when is an offer not an offer?
wife, emerged from his room. Originally For the agent surely cant claim to be fulfill-
from Guyana, she had lived in Holland for If it takes any longer to find a buyer for my ing the terms of their contract to me if they
ten years. Before they came to Barcelona, London flat I am going to start coming to are only obtaining offers that stretch the
they were in Alicante. She was wandering the conclusion that it is perfect for me in my bounds of credulity and logic.
alone in Alicante, he said, when she was old age. Forget moving to a cottage with a What next? Dear Melissa, one of our
picked up by the police simply because vertiginous staircase in the inhospitable registered buyers who viewed your proper-
she was black. Because the Alicante cop- countryside, this two-bedroom apartment ty recently has made an offer very close to
pers had never seen a Guyanan passport minutes from the hustle and bustle is just the asking price! This is very exciting and we
before, they assumed it was a fake docu- the thing for an aging couple like the build- hope you will be in a position to accept. PS.
ment and locked her up. She had to prom- er boyfriend and me. The offer is conditional on them getting full
ise to pay a lawyer 600 to have her freed. Think about it, said the BB the other planning permission to knock the building
Did the experience upset you? I asked evening, as we sat in my cosy living room, he down and erect a luxury development com-
her. She shrugged. Not really. Some white nursing the usual aches and pains he brings plex of 15 flats, gym, swimming pool and
people dont like black people and some home after a hard day on a roof. This is just underground car park. What do you think?
black people dont like white people. What what we need. Its handy for shops and ser- Could you ask the guy who lives upstairs if
can you do? Gyal fyah cyaah quench! vices and its all on one level so I can limp he would mind his flat being demolished?
approved her husband. around as my dodgy hip gives out. Please let us know!
My open-top city bus tour finished later Hes right. If we didnt own a flat in Lon- Is that an offer? Am I in breach of con-
than anticipated and sadly I missed our five don at this point in our middle age we really tract if I continue to reject such propo-
oclock rendezvous. Around seven, he shuf- ought to be buying one for convenience sake. sitions? Lets look at it this way: if I had
fled into the hostels communal room with Certainly, I cant be bothered selling one for instructed an agent to sell a banana I owned,
his head down, went straight into his room, much longer, given the sort of shenanigans would I not be entitled to vacate my con-
collapsed on his bed with his face to the wall, that are going on in this weird climate. tract if the agent continually came to me
and mumbled a refusal to the can of lager I The agent, panic-stricken since I smelt a with offers to buy the banana so long as I
was offering. rat with the last buyer they persuaded me proved that it was possible to convert it into
That was in Barcelona, but in lovely to entertain for three months, is putting all a mango?
Seville I was suddenly tired of it all: tired manner of insane propositions to me and On top of everything else, and notwith-
of youth hostels, youth, bunk beds and of claiming they are offers. standing the crazy development plans of
securing my worldly possessions in a locker Good news! they emailed a few days ago. the clueless and disreputable, the com-
with a little brass padlock. I was tired of pic- Someone wanted to buy my flat, but on the ments from potential buyers who dont
turesque medieval streets and stupendous condition that they will be able to extend over want the flat at all have been nothing short
cathedrals; tired of street maps decorated the side return into my small back garden. of deranged.
by smiling tourist-information ladies with I pointed out that this was not, in my Last week a series of viewings resulted
flamboyant Biro circles and crosses; tired humble opinion, the dictionary definition in the following feedback sent to my email:
of tapas; tired of my clothes; tired of drag- of good news. The flat is leasehold and in a 24 Feb 2017, 6 p.m.: applicant loves the loca-
ging my wheeled bag across striated or cob- conservation area. Extending it would ruin tion. Unfortunately didnt feel this flat was
bled pavements; tired of being largely mute life for three sets of neighbours, obscuring spacious enough for him.
and confined in my pedestrian mind; tired their light and peace. It would concrete over 23 February 2017, 10.30 a.m.: unfortu-
of trains, train stations, train-station toilets, a little oasis of green space, setting a prec- nately she decided the flat was slightly too
and standing around in station booking edent for more gardens in the area to be big for her. She would prefer a smaller flat
offices waiting for my number to come up, built on. with a bigger garden.
while blanking the impassioned entreaties I told the agent that even if this so-called Presumably, this one wanted a smaller
of a surprisingly wide variety of opportun- buyer could get planning permission, and flat with a bigger garden so she could extend
istic beggars, then paying 10, 20, 30 or the agreement of the freeholder, I would into the garden to make the flat bigger.
56 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
Tristans people could not retrieve the body
Wild life under the hails of gunfire. Overnight Loita
Bridge
Aidan Hartley vanished, perhaps eaten by hyenas, and it Susanna Gross
was not until noon the next day that a senior
policeman reached the place in an armoured
vehicle to retrieve poor Tristan. His daugh- There are plenty of bridge professionals who
ter Imogen said, When Tristan set out on his believe in flattering lesser players (whether
horse, he was doing it for what he loved and theyre clients, friends or spouses) by exag-
believed in most his honourable dedica- gerating how well they play, or claiming their
tion to the welfare of wildlife and the safety mistakes are perfectly understandable. Not so
of us in Kenya. Espen Erichsen. Espen is a great player and
On the bush telegraph we have heard I like him enormously, but hes also the most
Laikipia that when Tristan arrived at the burned blunt-talking man Ive ever met. More than
On Tristan Voorspuys hell-for-leather rid- house site he encountered a Pokot and ten years ago we used to play together a bit,
ing safaris across Kenyas savannah, he two Samburus. One of them was carrying and Ive never forgotten the time I mistaken-
cracked a bullwhip at predators that tried to an AK-47. Tristan said calmly to them, I ly ducked a trick in defence. Let me give you
eat his guests. One time a lion chased Ameri- come unarmed and I am not here to cause some advice, he said sternly. Never try to do
can actress Glenn Close on her horse and you any problems. The Samburu grapevine anything clever. It will always backfire.
Tristan said, We nearly lost her. They all claims that the Pokot, an illiterate youth Last week, I played against him at the
joked about it that night around the camp- named Kachartat, shot the horse and then Young Chelsea. I had a difficult hand to
fire. Tristan was among the last of the styl- killed Tristan. The Pokot grapevine, mean- bid, but my partner and I fumbled our way
ishly mad people in Kenya. He once rode his to a good slam. Afterwards, I asked Espen
horse into the bar at the Muthaiga Club dur- Tristan held his head high at the instant how I should have bid it. There were vari-
ing a stag party. From the saddle, he toasted of his death. He was not eeing, ous options, he replied. But one things for
the groom, his steed defecated on the par- sure: what you did made me want to puke.
quet and off he trotted between astonished
because they shot him in the face Ah well. I wonder whether he felt equally
drinkers into Africas night. Tristan was a while, blames one of the Samburus for pull- queasy with the way East-West (Alex Hydes-
gentleman and well read. He walked with ing the trigger. It appears that Tristan held Jason Hackett) bid this hand against him at
the stiff, bow-legged gait of a man who has his head high at the instant of his death and the NEC Cup in Japan a few weeks ago:
fallen off a polo pony too many times, he was not fleeing, because they shot him in
had a wild temper and he threw unbelieva- the face. Dealer South Both vulnerable
ble parties with his wife Cindy at Deloraine, I knew Tristan on and off for 27 years
their tumbledown pile in the Rift Valley. and I never imagined that he would become z 10 3
He was a conservationist who loved birds a symbol of our despair or hope in this y KQ J 9 2
and animals. His best years were devoted way. He was not the only person to suffer XA 4 2
to Sosian, a ranch on Kenyas Laikipia pla- violence in Laikipia: in recent months a
w 10 3 2
teau and the farm next to us which he frightening number of Kenyans have been
bought when it was a derelict dustbowl. He murdered and wounded across the plateau.
turned it into a very successful tourism and This week Samburu raiders shot a woman zK2 z AQ 9 8 654
ranching enterprise, full of game, employing who was seven months pregnant in her legs y64 2 N yA
W E
hundreds, paying lashings of tax. and also shot her children aged four and 12. XQ 8 5 3
S
X K J 10
A few days ago, when Tristan Voorspuy They poured bullets into these poor peo- w AQ 6 5 w74
rode out on his grey gelding Loita on the ples mud hut as they slept. The attackers
ranch, his farm manager said, Dont go. were not there to steal it was pure mal- z J 7
Across Laikipia hordes of armed Samburu ice. The mother and children are down-page y 10 8 7 5
and Pokot invaders are running amok, kill- news, but Tristans killing has made head- X9 7 6
ing people, vandalising, looting and mas- lines around the world. We pray that this will
sacring elephant and other game. Sosians encourage Kenyas government to finally
wK J 9 8
tourist lodge closed a month ago after raid- wake up and tackle the spreading chaos a
ers torched another safari camp on a neigh- few months ahead of national elections. If it West North East South
bouring conservancy. More than 100,000 does not, then we will have all lost tragically. Pass
cattle and well over 1,000 armed youths have In Laikipia we have to hope that Tristans pass 1y Dble 3y
invaded our immediate area an extraordi- appalling death and the sad tale of his white Dble pass 4z Pass
nary sight when you fly over this multitude. horse Loita will signal our lowest point. 5NT pass 6X All pass
Before the weekend they had burned
down three ranch houses on Sosian. Any- Hackett meant 5NT as pick a slam; Hydes
body venturing into the area was ambushed. thought it showed both minors, which is why
Tristan declared that this was his farm and they ended up in 6X instead of 6z. South
he wanted to see what was happening for (David Bakhshi) led a heart to the ace. Hydes
himself. He rode off, unarmed, heading to played the XK and Espen (North) ducked.
one of the ruined houses. Hours passed. His He then played XJ and Espen ducked again.
distraught son Archie and staff down the hill Its rare to have to duck your trump ace twice
could not get close in soft-skinned vehicles. from Axx to beat a contract superb defence.
A circling helicopter spotted Loita standing Hydes switched to spades. On the third round,
saddleless and alone. Later a scout was able Bakhshi ruffed, dummy overruffed and Espen
to reach the site unscathed. Loita had been still didnt overruff. Hydes ruffed a heart to
shot twice and had a broken leg. Nearby was hand and played another spade. This time
Tristan, shot three times execution-style. Espen ruffed and played a heart down 3.
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 57
LIFE

Chess Competition
Mutkins masterpiece Mark making
Raymond Keene Lucy Vickery
This Saturday, 11 March, the annual Oxford v Diagram 2 In Competition No. 2988 you were invited
Cambridge Varsity match is being hosted by to compose a poem making the case for a
The Royal Automobile Club Pall Mall. WDWDWDrD national commemoration day for a person
Cambridge lead the series with 59 wins to
Oxfords 53 in a contest which goes back to 0bDkDpDp or thing of your choice.
While Alanna Blake championed the
the 1870s. Primum mobile at the RAC is W0qgpGWD dandelion, there were also impassioned calls
DW)WDWDQ
Henry Mutkin, who himself led the Oxford for days that high-five Thomas Crapper,
team in the mid-1950s. This weeks game sees Doris Day and the tent. I, for one, would
Mutkin felling not one but two former
British champions, both grandmasters, with a
WDWDNDWD happily celebrate a Tom Waits day with
series of mighty blows. Thanks to Henry for DW)W)PDW Adrian Fry. The winners below take 25
each. Bill Greenwell pockets 30.
providing variations.
PDWDWDr)
DWDRDRDK
Bring us the day of the dodo,
Hodgson/Sadler-Mutkin: London 2016, The day of the passenger pigeon,
Trompovsky Attack That their memories never corrode, oh
Lets cheer them, and more than a smidgen:
1 d4 Nf6 2 Bg5 Ne4 3 Bf4 d5 4 e3 e6 5 come as a shock to the grandmasters. 23
Bd3 Bd6 6 Ne2 Nd7 7 Bxe4 dxe4 8 Nd2 Rxd6+ Kc8 Lets praise those whose very long luck
Nf6 9 Bg5 c5 This leads to complicated play. Receded to zilch and to zippo:
White wins a pawn but Black gains practical WDkDWDrD The quagga, the Amsterdam duck,

0bDWDpDp
counterchances. 10 Nxe4 Qa5+ The bluebuck, the tiny dwarf hippo,

rDbDkDW4 W0W$pGWD The great auk they killed on St Kilda,

0pDWDp0p DW)WDWDQ
The red rail, and slim Wimmers shrew,
All dead for a ducat, a guilder,
WDWgphWD WDWDqDWD Like the broad-faced and pale potoroo.

1W0WDWGW DW)W)PDW Though the gracile opossums extinct,

WDW)NDWD
Let us sift our remembrances urn:
PDWDWDr) All creatures misfortunes are linked
DWDW)WDW DWDWDRDK
Dont forget. It could soon be our turn.
Bill Greenwell
P)PDN)P)
$WDQIWDR
Please let there be just once a year
Now there is only one way for White. 24 Rd8+! A day when gods have vanished,
Rxd8 25 fxe4 Bxe4 26 Qe5 Rg4+ 27 Qxe4 Rxe4 When things are seen as they appear
28 Bxd8 Kxd8 29 cxb6 axb6 leads to a drawn And heaven has been banished.
11 b4 11 Qd2 Qxd2+ 12 Nxd2 cxd4 13 Nxd4 Be7 endgame. If instead the grandmasters had And on that day let every bell
gives Black some chances based on the bishop accepted the queen then after 24 fxe4 Bxe4 it Be tolled for US alone,
pair. 11 ... Qxb4+ 12 c3 Qb6 13 Nxf6+ gxf6 looks as though 25 Rd8+ will still draw but, in A day we wish each other well
14 Bxf6 Rg8 15 0-0 Qc6 White is a fairly safe fact, Black can play 25 ... Kb7! 26 Qf3 Rg1+ 27 And ghosts of gods have gone.
pawn up but Black has play against g2. 16 Ng3 Rxg1 Bxf3+ 28 Rg2 Rxg2 and now the threat Then let us praise the minds of those
b6 17 Qh5 Bb7 18 f3 Rg6 19 Ne4 Kd7 20 of Black playing a discovered check with the Who burned in cause of science,
Rad1 This is an inaccuracy, granting Black rook forces 29 h3 when 29 ... Rg6+ 30 Kh2 The heretics whose conscience chose
chances. 20 dxc5 is very strong. 20 ... Rag8 21 Rxf6 is a winning endgame for Black. Note A statement of defiance.
dxc5 White threatens to capture on d6 and it also that after 24 fxe4 Bxe4 25 Rd8+ Kb7 26 And if they must let people pray
does not look as if the black counterattack is Rxg8, Black plays 26 ... Rg4+ mating. 24 h4 That in the years to be
sufficient. However 21 ... Rxg2+ 22 Kh1 Rh2+! White was quickly mated. 25 Kxh2 Not one, but every single day,
(see diagram 2) 22 ... Qxe4! This must have Qc2+ 26 Kh3 Qg2 mate Will come as heaven free.
Frank McDonald

We burn Guy Fawkes on bonfire night


PUZZLE NO. 447
WDQDWDWD
Because he hatched a plot.
Yet many think that he was right
Black to play. This position is from Kozera-Wang,
Varsity Match 2016. White has powerful threats DpDWDWir (Though many others not.)

and Black has only one way to stay in the game.


Can you see it? Answers to me at The Spectator
WDWDp1WD So let us choose to burn instead
A chap, we wont say who,
by Tuesday 14 March or via email to victoria@ DWDp$WDW That everyone thinks better dead,
spectator.co.uk. There is a prize of 20 for the first
correct answer out of a hat. Please include a post-
pDW)WDWD Except his motley crew.

al address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. )WDWDPDW A scarecrow we will stuff with straw
To represent this person,
Last weeks solution 1 Rf7 W)WDWDPD Since nobody, in peace or war,
Last weeks winner Bernard Golding,
Newcastle upon Tyne
DWDWDWIW Could prove to be a worse un,

And we will execrate the same,


Who sold his soul for cash,
58 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
LIFE

Giving his body to the flame,


Till it be turned to ash. Crossword 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

John Whitworth 2300: The law 11

Two centuries ago the birth occurred


Of one whom we must really not forget.
by Columba 12 13 14

15 16 17
London would be a single steaming word
But for Sir Joseph William Bazalgette. Each of ten clues comprises 18 19 20
a definition part and a hid-
Kings, politicians, matter not a bit, den consecutive jumble of the 21 22
Nor all celebrities of newer age. answer including one extra let-
London would be up to its neck in it ter. Extras in Across clues spell 23 24
But for Joes great Victorian sewerage. a definition of three unclued
25 26 27 28
lights, and extras in Down
On Bazal-Day, then, each convenience clues spell a definition of three 29 30 31
Must make their services completely free, unclued lights; these definitions
And save a grateful populace expense, combine to spell a definition of 32 33
Where one pee can cost up to 50p. three unclued lights.
34 35 36
So heres the declaration of intent: Across
37 38
We need a special day for Bazalgette, 1 Provided police report,
Who did his best to shift the excrement quite emollient (8, 39
Through sewage systems which are working yet. hyphened)
Brian Murdoch 8 My mistake, very big, 40 41
about work (4)
This day is called the Feast of Tony Blair. 11 Deprecators doubted
He that outlives this day and holds his seat nuclear survival (12)
Will stand a-blushing when this day is named 14 Nervous man among 3 Church in move upset A first prize of 30 for the first
And blench him at the name of Tony Blair. drunkards returning jar (7) ancient people (6) correct solution opened on 27
He that shall vote this day and live told age 17 Study odd parts of test for 4 Debates at sea over birds March. There are two runners-
Will yearly on the vigil dodge his neighbours negative effects (5) (7) up prizes of 20. (UK solvers
And say, Tomorrow is not Tony Blairs? 22 Tasted cabbage, mostly 5 Note anger about new can choose to receive the latest
Then will he duck the Press and hide his part acceptable with wine (8) money in county (10) edition of the Chambers
And say, These deeds I did on Blairs orders. 23 Sailor has worked in 6 Go faster than offensive dictionary instead of cash
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, Cornish town (7) mob to Utopia (7) ring the word dictionary.)
But hell remember, with apologies, 24 Hemingway? Keen 8 Shell, old, not fine (5) Entries to: Crossword 2300,
What flights he fled that day. Then shall these storyteller (6) 10 Well-informed material The Spectator, 22 Old Queen
names, 25 Cattle follow a course mostly about saints (6) Street, London SW1H 9HP.
As soft soap in his mouth as household brands south (6) 13 Unusual feel on smooth Please allow six weeks for prize
Tony the Mad, Bradshaw of Exeter, 27 Harrys band unbeaten in part of bat (8, hyphened) delivery.
Jack Straw and Amos, Hoon and Reid the cur old battle (7) 15 Relieve tension about
Be in their guilty cups, rarely remembered. 29 Tax rye, sadly sparse (8) retreat, keeping connection
Nigel Stuart 33 Commander securing aim with base (11, three words)
in programme (6) 19 Feeble column, maybe, by
Lets remember the bigoted woman; 34 Hapless, idiotic stake (5) apologist (10, hyphened) Name
who put Gordon Brown in his place, 35 Left enthralled by cool disc 26 Phosphorescence in view
harangued him on policy issues (4) around a tree (7,
37 See womens quiet hyphened) Address
and left him with egg on his face.
assistance poorly rewarded 28 Sole crumpled covering
Well treasure that unguarded moment (7, hyphened) insect sheds (7, hyphened)
when Gordon, revealing his views, 38 Snares around in grass (5) 29 Rodent, thin, not mobile in
was broadcast in full to the nation 40 Salmon in time eaten by marketplace (6)
in time for the six oclock news. parrot (4) 31 Grass throughout
41 Buildings with colonnades, courtyards (6)
And the woman from Rochdale declaring special variable kinds (8) 32 Beginning in hard area
the man in the street has a voice below mountain (5)
and that no ones immune from a roasting Down 36 Old-fashioned practice Email
an occasion for all to rejoice! 1 Provinces thus stabilised receiving good press (4)
(6)
So lets mark the encounter with bunting, 2 Extra payment, not British
hold rallies and sing a reprise responsibility (4)
to honour the bigoted woman
who brought the PM to his knees.
Sylvia Fairley SOLUTION TO 2297: THOROUGHLY

NO. 2991: THESE FOOLISH THINGS Corrections of misprints in clues give INSIDE OUT.
The BBC once marked April Fools Day Thematic entries at 2, 15A, 25, 30 and 39 are defined by
5, 28, 11, 21 and 12.
with a report on the Today programme that
evidence had emerged that Shakespeare was First prize Belinda Bridgen, London NW8
French. You are invited to submit an April Runners-up S.J.J. Tiffin, Cockermouth, Cumbria;
Fool disguised as a serious news feature that Tim Hanks, Douglas, Isle of Man
contains a startling revelation about a well-
known literary figure, alive or dead. Please
email entries of up to 150 words to lucy@
spectator.co.uk by midday on 22 March.
the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 59
LIFE

free schools are built in areas where head in 2011. The war isnt over, but
Status Anxiety they are not needed. However, the victory is in sight.
Victory in sight for the Department for Education estimates It looks as if some of these new
that 83 per cent of those approved to free schools will be grammars, assum-
free schools revolution open since 2013 will provide places ing Theresa May can get the ban
Toby Young that meet demographic need. While lifted. My view on selective schools
its true that a small minority of free- is that there really isnt any need for
school places dont do this, parents them in areas already well served by
wouldnt be able to exercise any good comprehensives. The evidence

I
m not surprised the Chancel- choice without some spare capacity. shows that high-ability children do
lor allocated more money for the It was the lack of choice in Acton no better at grammars than they do
free schools policy in the Budget. that prompted me to help set up the in the top 25 per cent of comps, and
Its not an exaggeration to say its the West London Free School. I wanted that remains true if they come from
most successful education policy of my four children to have the kind of disadvantaged backgrounds.
the last 25 years. education Id had in the last gram- But in areas with mediocre or
To begin with, free schools have mar school year of a state school in poor state secondaries, I think theres
proved to be a cost-effective way north London. Looking around my a strong case. It doesnt seem right
of meeting the need for additional neighbourhood, there were some that a bright child in one of these
places. This was underlined in the good comprehensives, but they were areas should be denied the opportu-
National Audit Offices recent report either faith schools or had such tiny nities available to a bright child liv-
on school capital, which said that on catchment areas that you practically ing near a good school. You could
a like-for-like basis, they cost 29 per had to live within the school gates to argue that it would be better to end
cent less than new schools built under get a place. So, as readers of this col- the injustice by improving the local
Labours Building Schools for the umn will know, I got together with a sink comprehensive, but its hard to
Future programme. Given that the group of local parents and teachers fob parents off with jam tomorrow,
Department for Education has esti- and we set up the first free school particularly when their own children
mated that we will need 420,000 addi- to sign a funding agreement with will be too old to benefit. I didnt buy
tional places between 2016 and 2021, Michael Gove. Today, its one of the that argument in Acton, so it would
it makes sense for as many of these most popular schools in the country, be hypocritical of me to make it now
as possible to be in new free schools. with 11 applicants for every place, that my children are OK.
Then theres the fact that theyre and its GCSE results put it in the top What a journey its been. Im
generally of a high quality. Free 5 per cent of Englands secular co- now the head of a charity that helps
schools for 16-to-19-year-olds are educational comprehensives. groups set up free schools, and I want
particularly good, like the London Thanks to the extra 320 million to see more of them established in
Academy of Excellence in Newham, for free schools announced yesterday, cities like Birmingham and Manches-
where eight students received offers Hundreds of a further 110 can now be set up, in ter, as well as Opportunity Areas
from Oxford and Cambridge this addition to 500 already budgeted for, like Stoke and Doncaster. Extend-
year. Theyve also proved to be a hit thousands of which means that hundreds of thou- ing parental choice to all parts of the
with parents. In 2015, secondary free children will sands of children will soon have the country is essential if were going to
schools attracted an average of 3.5 soon have same opportunities as mine. If you heal the divisions laid bare by the EU
applicants per place, compared with add those to the 429 that have already referendum.
an average of 2.3 applicants per place
the same opened, 1,000 free schools will have
in local authority schools. opportunities been set up just ten years after my Toby Young is associate editor of
Some critics claim that too many as mine little platoon first secured its bridge- The Spectator.

MICHAEL HEATH

60 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk


In fact digital connectivity increas- overwhelmingly being manufacturers
The Wiki Man es rather than reduces the drive close to the rail hub in Chicago.
Technology and the towards urban concentration. By Such power laws are sometimes
greatly extending the range, ease and described as the Pareto Principle or the
winner-takes-all effect frequency with which people can form 80:20 rule, the maxim being that, say,
Rory Sutherland networks, it increases the number of 20 per cent of a companys customers
people who need to meet each other account for 80 per cent of its sales, or
in person: such meetings increasingly that 20 per cent of a countrys citizens
concentrate in the worlds few mega- typically own 80 per cent of the land.

I
was exchanging emails with some- hub cities. So the draw of London is But this understates reality. In reality
one the other day and signed off magnified still further. the three most successful tenors might
with the sentence let me know This distortion happens at a small- earn 95 per cent of recording fees. Or,
when you are next in London or er scale everywhere, of course. If you as happens now, two or three Euro-
words to that effect. It then occurred have two offices, with ten employees in pean cities might attract the major-
to me that I had absolutely no idea Liverpool and six in Preston, you will ity of overseas property investment.
where in the world my correspondent find that over 90 per cent of all meet- Whats wrong with Lisbon or Rome?
lived. This interested me. Because it ings take place in Liverpool. But at a Likewise, the mean salary of an
occurred to me that I could write the larger scale things get more extreme. author hasnt changed much since the
sentence next time you are in Lon- When technology and globalisa- 1950s. That sounds reassuring until
don to more or less anyone in the tion break down the buffer of geog- you remove J.K. Rowling and Dan
world without it sounding ridiculous. raphy entirely, the winner-takes-all Brown from the total. Every other
Of how many other cities is that true? effect intensifies. An early manifesta- author is poorer in adjusted terms
New York, certainly. But then it gets tion of this came with the invention than their 1950s equivalent.
difficult. Paris or Singapore? Well, at a of the gramophone: in an era of live If the world seems increasingly
pinch. It wouldnt work for Perpignan, performance, there was a good liv- mad to you, spare a nod for Vilfredo
say, or Bourton-on-the-Water. ing to be made as the fifth best tenor Pareto, after whom the effect was
This thought experiment helps in Denmark; when the gramophone named. Unusually for an economist,
explain why the many people (includ- appeared, one man, Caruso, earned he did at least live in accordance with
ing me) who once naively assumed In an era the lions share of worldwide royalties. his theories: his final years were spent
that the internet would make geo- of live If you ever wondered why so many secluded in an Alpine chalet with a
graphical location irrelevant have seen of the worlds packaged goods brands mistress and 20 Persian cats. My guess
ourselves proved diametrically wrong. performance, have their origins in the American is that he started off with five mis-
(In the late 1990s a shrewd friend there was a Midwest of the late 19th century, tresses and 100 cats before deciding
of mine in Palo Alto even bought a good living to its the same effect at work. Before that 20 per cent of these would give
secluded lakeside plot in the Rockies the advent of the railways, the Unit- him 80 per cent of the pleasure.
on the assumption that in ten years
be made as the ed States was home to thousands of
time he could live there more or less fth best tenor smaller regional brands. The railways Rory Sutherland is vice-chairman
permanently: no such luck.) in Denmark killed this diversity, with the winners of Ogilvy Group UK.

DEAR MARY YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED

special and unique. I see that Q. Following Defra regulations, I remembered her at Christmas or
my irritation is mean-spirited, have dutifully shut my free-range her birthday but has frequently
Mary, and I know that to hens into a shed to prevent them said to us, Sorry Ive been so
mention it straight out would be from catching flu. The shed is hopeless but Ive got too many
unnecessarily upsetting to the now disgusting from accumulated godchildren. I decided to punish
doting parents. Is there anything faeces, and I am obliged to spend her by not inviting her to the
I can do or should I just lump it? time mucking out. Furthermore, it service but am now getting cold
Name withheld, west London is no longer a pleasure to eat the feet. What should I do?
eggs: the yolks are pale and they Name and address withheld
Q. Most of my friends have small A. Its quite normal to refer to pets taste no better than eggs from the
children and being mostly media with a definite article, as in Well supermarket. None of this is what A. Of course you must invite her.
types in west London, have given bring the Puggles with us. How I had in mind when I became a Not least because forgiveness
them silly names: Zedechiah, about omitting a place setting for poultry keeper. What shall I do? is one of the central tenets of
Tiger etc. Im used to that. What the special infant and putting a dog Name and address withheld Christianity. Also you dont know
is driving me up the wall is that bowl in the corner of the room? what fate has in store. At the age of
some of them have begun to You can express apologies on A. Why not let them go on ahead 25, a well-known one-time pauper
use the definite article before the grounds that your daily help early? Then get a new lot when the whose godmother had been
referring to their offspring. As in: obviously mistook the name for restrictions are lifted. similarly negligent became the
Ill bring The Zed to tea, shall a four-footed guest. Additionally, surprise joint beneficiary of that
I? Or Im taking The Wolf to prime one of your small children/ Q. My daughter is being godmothers will. The sum was
swimming. What irritates me guests to express dismay that it confirmed this weekend. One enough to buy a flat in London.
is the implication that were isnt the real wolf or tiger they were of her godmothers, apart from The godmother had been too busy
all expected to join in with expecting. And you can mutter a token christening present, has to have children herself and, faute
the parents (understandable) sympathetically that you suppose not taken any interest in her in de mieux, had divided her estate
assumption that their child is this must often happen. the intervening years, and not between her godchildren.

the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 61


LIFE

History is now and England. But he thoughts, welcome, self-indulgent,


Drink could never immerse himself in the unwelcome, forced themselves upon
A vintage that tastes of Old Possum clod-hopping stolidity of the England me after a tasting of white 2015s from
deep-down things: the pint of beer in Bernard Vallet and the house of Pierre
Bruce Anderson the country pub, the discreet clever- Bourre. In 2015, the sun burst forth
ness of an Englishman who pretends over Burgundy with its benefactions.
to be anti-intellectual and turns out to The result was a Ceres, a Proserpine of
have read a lot of books the Dear- a hugely ripe vintage, like a voluptuous
ly Beloved in church on Sunday. In girl painted by Titian or Rubens, with
England at its best and wisest, there the obvious risk of blowsiness. But
is a eupeptic stoicism, an understand- there is an advantage. The lesser wines
ing that life is far too important to be are ready for early drinking. Thus it
taken seriously. Poor Eliot: he could was with Bernards bottles.
never escape for long from seriousness. Midwinter spring is its own sea-
Macavity. All that said, there are son. On a filthy evening in Febru-

E
liot. After 50 years trying to the cat poems. Necessary light relief ary, while one might be fighting down
make sense of his verse, and after you have been trying to fight envy of better-organised friends who
at the risk of admitting to ram- your way across The Waste Land, they always evade the final phase of win-
pant philistinism, I propose three con- must also have been light relief for ter by decamping to the Caribbean,
clusions. At his best, he is one of the him: his version of Dearly Beloved. Bernards Auxey-Duresses and Per-
finest poets in the language. Partly In my beginning is my end. I started nand-Vergelesses were wonderfully
because he is straining language and to read Eliot as a pretentious school- restorative. Happy in their own skin,
thought to the uttermost an anal- boy who thought that it would be easy these are village wines with no preten-
ogy with the final Beethoven piano to understand the human condition. sions to a higher status. Yet they have
sonatas he is sometimes incom- In 2015, the Half a century later, in sight, I sup- the promise and the charm of a gentler
prehensible: sometimes, indeed, falls sun burst pose, of In my end is my beginning, it season: an almost Apollonian serenity.
into arrant pseudery. Finally, his anti- forth over is more a matter of These fragments Winter shall have no dominion. These
Semitism before the war, his rejec- I have stored against my ruins. But I are the harbingers of summer.
tion of Animal Farm after it: this
Burgundy shall grapple with Eliot as long as my Other village wines can aspire fur-
great man and devout Christian was with its wits endure. ther. Bernards Meursault was thor-
not exempt from original sin. benefactions Voluptuary sweetness. Those oughly sound, his Puligny-Montrachet
Gerontion. The Jew squats on the as good as many a Premier Cru. At
window sill, spawned in some estami- that level, the palm went to another
net of Antwerp. We turn our eye from Meursault, a Premier Cru Les Per-
the page in revulsion and pity. Even rires, absolutely not a wine for early
before Auschwitz, how could one of drinking. As to how long the 15s will
the finest sensibilities of our era have last, everything will depend on the
written that? A few lines later: After grower. We should not underestimate
such knowledge, what forgiveness? the alchemical power of the best Bur-
Truly, this was a man of sorrows and gundians. In two millennia, their abil-
acquainted with grief. Much can be ity to blend the heat of the sun and the
forgiven to such a tortured soul. minerality of the terroir has not failed
England. Eliot may have moved to them. Their right arms have not lost
England and embraced Englishness: New presidential limo their cunning.

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE


Kippah
What, asks the columnist satin or felt cap, commonly with in, almucia, meant a fur hood. It
Philologus in the online magazine a cotton lining, of Ashkenazi seems that the latter word, which
Mosaic, is the difference between Eastern Europe. He mentions shares an origin with the Scottish
a kippah and a yarmulke? Im that it is often traced back to word mutch, cap, had acquired
glad he supplied an answer, a Polish word as the OED the prefix al-, the Arabic definite
for I know no Yiddish and less meant dome or vault, either of does, deriving it from jarmulka, article, even though it was not an
Hebrew, and the Oxford English a building or of the heavens. This cap. But Philologus thinks Arabic word. Anyway, Philologus
Dictionary is reticent. sounds a satisfying derivation. the borrowing is in the other is convinced by an origin of
Kippah first appeared in the But Philologus introduces direction, from Yiddish to Polish. yarmulke from almucella, a
OED in 1997, with the bare the possibility that kippah in the He favours instead an origin diminutive of almucia.
etymology from Hebrew. sense cap comes from the Latin put forward by W. Gunther Plaut So if you see a round Jewish
Philologus observes that it cappa, which gave us the English (19122012), who suggested head-covering being worn, it
denotes any skullcap worn by cap, once meaning hood or the medieval Latin almucia. In is not wrong to call it a kippah.
a Jew for religious reasons. He cloak with a hood, until it settled English, amice is a confusing Philologus has one piece of
suggests that kippah derives from down in the Middle Ages to mean word, since the liturgical vestment advice: if you dont want to sound
a word in early rabbinic Hebrew brimless male head-dress. that covers the shoulders and mocking, pronounce kippah with
(from the time of the compilation As for yarmulke, a Yiddish sometimes the head comes from the stress on the second syllable.
of the Mishnah, the first century word, Philologus notes that it a different Latin word, amictus, I shall do so gratefully.
in AD-dating). That Hebrew word generally refers only to the sewn while the word were interested Dot Wordsworth

62 the spectator | 11 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk


Winemakers lunch with
Eduardo Chadwick

Join us in the Spectator boardroom on Monday 27 March for the next in this years series of Spectator Winemakers
Lunches, with Eduardo Chadwick, arguably Chilean wines greatest pioneer and most eloquent advocate.

Eduardos family has been making wine in the Aconcagua, Casablanca and Curic Valleys for almost 150 years
and readers will no doubt be familiar with his famously accessible and much-admired Via Errazuriz wines.

There are other strings to Eduardos bow, though, and over a four-course cold lunch provided by our partners Forman
& Field, we will enjoy the latest vintages of his Aconcagua Costa Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Syrah; his new Las
Pizarras Chardonnay and Pinot Noir; the 2007 vintage of his hugely sought-after Don Maximiano Cabernet, and his 2015
Errazuriz Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc. Book now to avoid disappointment.

The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP For further information and to book
Monday 27 March | 12.30 p.m. | 75 www.spectator.co.uk/cwk | 020 7961 0015
Every morning I drive
past the Chinooks in the
hangars and it makes
me feel proud.
Lucy Brown, Boeing Contracts & Pricing

Every morning I drive past the Chinooks in the hangars and it makes me feel proud. Theyre the backbone of the UK
military. They provide emergency response, carry troops, and if ever I needed to be rescued, I would want to hear one
of those in the background. My team is responsible for making sure the Chinooks are maintained, modied and
upgraded. Being even just a small part of this bigger picture is really rewarding.
SEE HOW LUCY IS BUILDING A STRONGER UK AT BOEING.CO.UK

PARTNERS YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW.

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