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Aid isnt working

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Saving the children
W
hen a humanitarian tragedy disap-
pears from our newspapers, there
are two possibilities: that the cri-
sis is over and life for survivors is gradual-
ly returning to normal or that the human
toll has become so routine as to no longer be
considered newsworthy. Sadly, the deaths of
migrants from North Africa and the Middle
East as they attempt to cross the Mediter-
ranean to seek a new life in Europe fall into
the latter category. Eighteen months after
the photographs of little Alan Kurdis body
on a Turkish beach generated a huge swell of
public emotion, entire families are still dying
on a regular basis. In the first ten weeks of
this year, some 525 people were lost crossing
the Mediterranean.
Europe is still no closer to ending this
outrage. As a continent we have wavered
between trying to stem the tide of boats and
encouraging it as Angela Merkel fatal-
ly did by briefly opening Germanys doors
to migrants in the weeks following Alans
death. Policy tends to be driven by public
emotion: torn between compassion for peo-
ple thought to be in a desperate situation
and fears that we are taking in too many of
the wrong sort of people, with grave implica-
tions for national security.
It is ludicrous to regard migrants who
survive their journey across the Mediterra-
nean and land on European shores as sabo-
teurs, out to destroy our way of life. But its
also wrong to see them as the worlds poor-
est and most desperate people. Some may
have begun their journey escaping wars in
Syria, Somalia or elsewhere, but by the time
they board their boats on the southern Med-
iterranean coast, most have already arrived
in safe countries. The Mediterranean leg of
their journey is a search for a better life.
What they are escaping from is a life in a
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
established 1828
refugee camp in favour of a far riskier, yet
potentially far more rewarding, life of oppor-
tunity.
Europe has failed to find a coherent
way of addressing the migration problem
because its approach is stuck in the 1940s.
International law on asylum is still based
on a firm distinction between refugees and
economic migrants which in practice does
not exist: many migrants are a mixture of
both. Poverty, combined with lack of oppor-
tunity for self-betterment, creates its own
form of desperation.
The recent fuss over the Dubs Amend-
ment encapsulates what is wrong with
our current debate. This was a proposal from
Lord Dubs, a Labour peer who arrived in
Global migration is the greatest new
problem of our times, and Britain is
leading the world in its response
Britain as a child seeking refuge from the
Nazis, that Britain takes in about 3,000 child
refugees from Europe. It was inevitable that
parallels should be drawn with his proposal
and Kindertransport but the situation has
changed, utterly, from that we once faced.
We are or were, until the government
announced the end of the arrangement
playing into the hands of people traffickers
who are happy to take money from migrants
to put them in unseaworthy boats and care
not one jot for their lives.
Instead of the Dubs Amendment, the
government proposed something better:
taking 20,000 children straight from the
Middle East and giving them refugee sta-
tus in Britain. This fulfils our humanitarian
obligation while cutting out the people-traf-
fickers. David Cameron lost this argument
in the Commons so gave up and started a
Dubs scheme; Theresa May abandoned it.
She was promptly accused of heartlessness
in turning away child refugees, but said noth-
ing in response. She might have mentioned
that accommodating refugees in Britain can
cost 50 times as much as doing so in Jordan,
where Britain is doing a great deal. Indeed,
her government is spending more to help
Syrian refugees than any country in Europe.
But it must not stop there. As Oxfords
Professor Paul Collier argues in these pages,
fixing up people with food and tents is not
enough. The vast majority do not want to live
in camps and will not thrive in them. Far bet-
ter if refugees could be resettled temporarily
in countries close to Syria from which they
are much more likely to return, and in condi-
tions which offer them much greater oppor-
tunities to support themselves and develop
their skills than does a refugee camp. Pro-
fessor Colliers ideas are taken seriously by
Mrs Mays government, which now supports
companies in Jordan that employee Syrian
refugees. No other nation in Europe or
beyond is doing more in this field.
The government could boast about this.
But instead it stays quiet, as if ashamed of
defying the prevailing orthodoxy. Her ene-
mies are not so reticent. Nicola Sturgeon
has been busy using the closure of the Dubs
scheme as proof of the blackness of West-
minster hearts.
Ministers need to stop being caught on
the defensive and continue the develop-
ment of a policy aimed at helping the maxi-
mum number of Middle Eastern refugees
while minimising the evil human trade that
is causing so many deaths in the Mediterra-
nean. Global migration is perhaps the great-
est new problem of our times, and Britain is
leading the world in its response. The Prime
Minister should have the courage to say so.
5
 What does the current Standard
editor make of him?, p9
Revolutionary ego, p28

The worst of public art, p47

THE WEEK BOOKS & ARTS

5 Leading article 12 Our duty to refugees BOOKS
8 Portrait of the Week Camps are not the answer; heres 28 Roland Elliott Brown
what we should be doing instead on the Russian Revolution
9 Diary Osborne and me Paul Collier
Sarah Sands 30 Andy Miller Thrill-Power Overload,
13 Fleur Adcock by David Bishop and Karl Stock
10 Politics The win-win way to Brexit Kidnapped: a poem
James Forsyth 32 Brian Martin
14 The McGuinness effect 2084, by Boualem Sansal
11 The Spectators Notes Martin What the eulogies arent saying Matthew Dennison
McGuinness; roads; passive cooking Jenny McCartney From the Heart, by Susan Hill
Charles Moore Anthony Howell
16 The importance of being trolled
15 Rod Liddle My BBC shocker Social medias privileged victims Vitamins: a poem
16 From the archive Emily Hill 33 Peter Stanford Reformation
Hurrah for the revolution! 18 Pressing back Divided, by Eamon Duffy
20 Barometer Eccentric principalities, Why I love Trumps spokesman 34 Ian Thomson Be Like the Fox,
drones and centenarians Matthew Walther by Erica Benner
21 Ancient and modern The Rubicon 20 Cameron adrift 35 Viv Groskop
22 Hugo Rifkind The hardest Brexiter Post-No. 10 life isnt what he thought The Patriots, by Sana Krasikov
Stephen Robinson Richard Francis The White Hare,
24 James Delingpole by Michael Fishwick
Durham now beats Oxbridge
36 Jane Ridley Talleyrand in London,
25 Letters Scotland, birds, dogs, by Linda Kelly
darning and Jack the Ripper
37 Lee Langley Memoirs of
26 Any other business Google, a Polar Bear, by Yoko Tawada
Bob Diamond and a Brexit bonus Suzi Feay Mirror, Shoulder,
Martin Vander Weyer Signal, by Dorthe Nors
38 Mick Brown Kahlil Gibran:
Beyond Borders, by Jean Gibran
and Kahlil G. Gibran

Cover by Morten Morland. Drawings by Michael Heath, Castro, RGJ, Bernie, Kipper Williams, Grizelda, Geoff Thompson, Nick Newman, Robert Thompson, NAF,
Paul Wood and Evans. www.spectator.co.uk Editorial and advertising The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP, Tel: 020 7961 0200, Fax: 020 7681 3773,
Email: editor@spectator.co.uk (editorial); letters@spectator.co.uk (for publication); advertising@spectator.co.uk (advertising); Advertising enquiries: 020 7961 0222
Spectator Life If you are an overseas reader and would like a copy of Spectator Life please email customerhelp@subscriptions.spectator.co.uk with your name and address
and subscriber reference if appropriate Subscription and delivery queries Spectator Subscriptions Dept., 17 Perrymount Rd, Haywards Heath RH16 3DH; Tel: 0330 3330
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Distributor COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 7QX
Vol 333; no 9839 The Spectator (1828) Ltd. ISSN 0038-6952 The Spectator is published weekly by The Spectator (1828) Ltd at 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP
Editor: Fraser Nelson

6 the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk


Time for a blossom party, p52
ARTS
40 Martin Gayford
Howard Hodgkin
42 Opera Partenope; Faramondo
Alexandra Coghlan
Music Maurizio Pollini;
Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Damian Thompson
44 Radio Kate Chisholm
45 Jonathan McAloon The real joy of
Lena Dunhams Girls is the boys
46 Theatre My Country; a work
in progress; Whos Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?
Lloyd Evans
47 Television James Walton
Public art Whats That Thing?
Award for bad public art
Igor Toronyi-Lalic
49 Dance Project Polunin;
Royal Ballet mixed bill
Louise Levene
Cinema Another Mothers Son;
All This Panic
Deborah Ross
CONTRIBUTORS
Emily Hill, who writes about
her plan for social media fame
on p. 16, is crowdfunding the
publication of Bad Romance,
a collection of her short stories,
at Unbound.com. One of them
was in the Christmas Spectator.
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
If its not abstract, what is it?, p40
LIFE
LIFE
55 High life Taki
Low life Jeremy Clarke
56 Real life Melissa Kite
57 Bridge Susanna Gross
AND FINALLY . . .
52 Notes on Cherry blossom
Will Heaven
58 Chess Raymond Keene
Competition Lucy Vickery
59 Crossword Doc
60 Status anxiety Toby Young
Battle for Britain Michael Heath
61 The Wiki Man Rory Sutherland
Your problems solved
Mary Killen
62 Drink Bruce Anderson
Mind your language
Dot Wordsworth
Roland Elliott Brown, Peter Stanfords Martin
who considers Lenin in our Luther: Catholic Dissident was
lead book review on p. 28, is a published this month; previous
writer and editor for Iran Wire; biographical subjects include
his work has also appeared Judas, the Devil and Lord
in Foreign Affairs and the Longford. He praises Eamon
Guardian. Duffys essays on p. 33.
Durhams dreaming towers, p24
The BBC is never happier than
when finding someone who voted
Leave and now regrets it
Rod Liddle, p15
The difference between a troll
and a troll victim is as complex
as that between a terrorist
and a freedom fighter
Emily Hill, p16
The unit of charm ought
to be a milli-Helen: a face
that would launch one ship
Bruce Anderson, p62
Viv Groskop, who reviews a Mick Brown writes for the
first novel on p. 35, is an online Telegraph Magazine; his most
agony aunt for The Pool and recent book is Tearing Down
a former artistic director of the Wall of Sound: the Rise and
Bath Literary Festival. Her Fall of Phil Spector. On p. 38,
most recent stand-up show was he assesses Kahlil Gibran.
called Be More Margo.
7
 Home
T heresa May, the Prime Minister, said
that on 29 March she would send a
letter to Donald Tusk, the president of the
European Council, under Article 50 of
the Lisbon Treaty, triggering the process
of the United Kingdoms departure from
the European Union. A summit of EU
leaders was convened for 29 April, with
the aim of briefing its negotiator, Michel
Barnier. Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister
of Scotland, elicited the support of the
Scottish Parliament for her policy of
seeking a second referendum on Scottish
independence within a short time of
Brexit. Mrs May had dismissed her request,
saying: Now is not the time. Ms Sturgeon
said an independent Scotland would seek
membership of the EU and use sterling
as a starting point. The BBC had been
pessimistic and skewed in its coverage of
Brexit, 72 MPs said in a letter to its director
general. A 32-year-old man died while
charging his mobile phone in the bath.
M artin McGuinness, for many years
an active IRA commander, guilty
of bombings and shootings, who became
deputy first minister of Northern Ireland,
working with the Unionist first minister
Ian Paisley, died aged 66. Tom Watson, the
deputy leader of the Labour Party, said
that the left-wing Momentum group was
trying to gain funding from the trade union
Unite in order to take control of the party.
George Osborne, the former chancellor of
the exchequer, was appointed editor of the
Evening Standard; some people criticised
his intention of continuing to sit as an MP
8 the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
and spend four days a month at BlackRock,
the asset manager, for an annual payment
of 650,000. The first of 800 British troops
being sent to reinforce Nato defences in
the Baltic arrived in Estonia. Skin creams
containing paraffin were blamed for dozens
of deaths of people who accidentally set
themselves on fire.
T he annual rate of inflation measured
by the Consumer Prices Index rose
to 2.3 per cent in February from 1.8 per
cent in January. Marks & Spencer joined
McDonalds, LOreal and several banks
in withdrawing advertising from Google,
owner of YouTube, where advertisements
had been allowed to appear next to
extremist videos. Waitrose asked customers
to buy something before claiming a free
cup of coffee. The derailment of a goods
train closed the line to Castle Cary in
Somerset for days. Colin Dexter, the author
of the Inspector Morse books, died aged 86.
Abroad
J ames Comey, the director of the FBI, said
that it was investigating alleged Russian
interference in the US elections in 2016 and
any links between Russia and individuals
associated with the Trump campaign. With
respect to the presidents tweets about
alleged wiretapping directed at him by
the prior administration, Mr Comey said:
I have no information that supports those
tweets. Admiral Mike Rogers, the chief
of the National Security Agency, giving
evidence to a congressional committee,
denied he had asked Britains GCHQ to
spy on Donald Trump, as that would be
expressly against the construct of the Five
Eyes agreement that has been in place
for decades. The United States banned
electronic devices larger than mobile
phones from cabin baggage on passenger
flights from Morocco, Turkey, Egypt,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and
the UEA. Britain followed suit for flights
from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt,
Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.
P resident Xi Jinping of China shook
hands with Rex Tillerson, the US
Secretary of State, in the Great Hall of the
People in Beijing. President Donald Trump
refused to shake hands for the cameras
when he welcomed Angela Merkel, the
Chancellor of Germany, to the Oval Office,
even when she said: Do you want to have a
handshake? Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime
minister, set about forming a coalition
when his party remained the single largest,
with 33 seats out of 150, after a general
election that saw the far-right party of
Geert Wilders increase its seats from 15 to
20; the Party for the Animals won five seats.
I n Iraq, more than 180,000 civilians
fled west Mosul as government forces
attacked Islamic State positions. Syrian
government forces fought rebels and
jihadists in east Damascus. More people
starved to death in Somalia. President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said he
would review relations with the EU, which
he called fascist and cruel. Cinemas in
Kuwait were prohibited from screening
the Disney live-action film Beauty and the
Beast because one of the characters was
depicted as gay. CSH

S o I am feeling a bit better about my
lack of radio experience. These are
exciting times for free movement of
labour and with Westminster under the
control of Tory and Labour cabals, lovely
jobs outside Parliament are tempting.
George Osborne is no more qualified to
edit the London Evening Standard than
Tristram Hunt to run the V&A, but now
art and antiquities scholars have dried
their tears, that is turning out splendidly.
The late Nick Tomalin pointed out that
success in journalism requires only ratlike
cunning, a plausible manner, and a little
literary ability. The trade is temperament
as much as technical skill and Osborne
has a journalistic love of mischief-
making. When I introduced him to the
newsroom last Friday, I thanked him for
livening up our day. As the email about
his appointment flashed up on journalists
screens there was a murmur of What?
that grew to a chorus of astonishment. It
was a far greater shock to Downing Street.
I t is moving to see newsprint suddenly
revered again, but those of us who
can still do shorthand must face the fact
that the old skills are in flux. These days,
citizen journalism is a virtue, and I dont
think newly famous Instagrammers
pause to consider who, what, why,
where and when. The premium now is
bearing witness and access to scoops.
The new Evening Standard editor will be
in a position to bring in some fantastic
political and City stories. I am sure he will
be bold enough to put them in the paper.
G eorge Osbornes appointment
is viewed as representative of
a new world order, but really it is
reasserting an older tradition. Politics and
journalism have long been intertwined,
never more so than by a previous owner
of the Standard, Lord Beaverbrook. He
also controlled the Express the biggest-
selling paper in the world after the war
and understood more than anyone
the presss power. Evgeny Lebedev
will enjoy a star editor who shares his
fascination with power and influence.
Mr Lebedevs parties are celebrated
and run late. Imagine what they will be
like now. The good news is the working
day at Northcliffe House starts so early
that the new editor may as well go
straight on.
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
Sarah Sands
A couple of years ago, I was invited to
No. 11 by the then chancellor for a
dinner to honour Robert Caro, biographer
of Lyndon Johnson. Osborne greeted my
husband by reminding him that he worked
for him as a news intern at the Sunday
Telegraph. My husband asked Osborne what
had happened to him in the intervening
years. Osborne had had a sticky week
after the Lords had taken him on over
tax credits. I remember him questioning
Caro with intense concentration over
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alternative routes to political victory
when conventional ones are blocked. He
learned the lessons well. Between Lyndon
Johnson and Boris Johnson, he has role
models for asymmetric political warfare.
Disasters are temporary setbacks to
future successes. The important thing is to
be in play. And if Tatton disappears in the
boundary changes, all the simpler.
O sborne has been a good friend
to London. He sees the point of
infrastructure and I hope hell fight hard
for Crossrail 2, which has been shunted
into the sidings by this government.
London business rates are a huge issue,
close to Osbornes heart. Hes a supporter
of the arts, with a streak of romanticism
missing in David Cameron and Theresa
May. Its good news for Sir Simon Rattles
concert hall, and Thomas Heatherwicks
Garden Bridge. The mayor Sadiq Khan,
who is more than a match for Osborne as
a political strategist, will understand what
they can jointly achieve as champions of
an open, liberal city. The Prime Minister
is anxious to move attention away from
London, so as to re-balance the rest of the
country. The Osborne-Khan combination
restores London as a major fighting force
and possibly a city state. Both men have
political outlooks at odds with the leaders
of their parties. Both men would like to be
leaders of their parties.
T he caravan moves on. I must soon bid
farewell to colleagues at the paper
I have loved for joyful possibilities as
the editor of the Today programme. The
intelligence and decency of those Ive
met so far at the BBC make me impatient
to begin. It will be liberating to start
thinking nationally. How can we recreate
the ability of our great cities to challenge
London? Germany, where concert halls
are springing up across the country, shows
how culture can create municipal pride.
At a Radio 3 event last week, my new
colleagues from Manchester and Glasgow
extolled their cities musical excellence.
Glasgow is particularly well off for
orchestras. Shall we demonstrate our love
for Scotland by nominating Glasgow as
our second city?
Sarah Sands has been editor of the
Evening Standard since 2012, and is
a former editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
9

A way for both sides to claim Brexit victory
T
heresa May doesnt do drama. She
regards order as both a political and
personal virtue. And this goes a long
way towards explaining why she is Prime
Minister. After the Brexit vote last June and
David Camerons resignation, the Tories
had had enough excitement. They turned to
the leadership contender who was best able
to project a reassuring sense of calm.
It is in keeping with Mays approach that
she has drained the drama from the trigger-
ing of Article 50, the start of the two-year
process for leaving the EU. Other prime
ministers might have been tempted to do it
with a flourish to feel the hand of history
on their shoulder. But May has removed any
sense of surprise by having her spokesman
blandly declare that shell be sending the let-
ter on Wednesday. In doing this, shell both
meet her deadline of invoking it by the end
of March and avoid clashing with this week-
ends celebrations for the 60th anniversary
of the Treaty of Rome. Filing divorce papers
during the EUs party would not be the right
note on which to start the talks.
Those intimately involved in prepara-
tions for the Brexit talks cite two reasons for
this advance announcement. First, it gives
the EU time to work out when it can get its
27 member states together to discuss their
response. After press speculation that Arti-
cle 50 would be triggered last week as soon
as the Brexit bill received Royal assent, EU
leaders had pencilled in a date for a sum-
mit and were irritated when May didnt
send the letter. The government hopes that
by letting Brussels know when its coming,
they can prevent any further frustration.
The second reason is to kill off specula-
tion about a snap election. When your party
is ahead by 19 points in the polls and you
are hemmed in by both a small majority and
the ill-thought-through manifesto promises
of your predecessor, there are always going
to be rumours about going to the country.
But May has ruled out an early election too
unequivocally to go back on her word now.
Engineering an early vote would also go
completely against her brand, which is all
about being someone who just gets on with
the job and doesnt play political games.
I suspect that there is another reason,
too: to get any currency movements out the
way early. It wouldnt look good to send the
Article 50 letter and see the pound start
falling on the foreign exchange markets.
The EU, meanwhile, has stuck by its
10
POLITICS|JAMES FORSYTH
position that there will be no negotiation
without notification. Not even the issue
of guarantees for EU citizens already liv-
ing in the UK and UK citizens in the EU
has been addressed in the nine months
since Britain voted to leave. After Wednes-
day, it should be resolved relatively quickly.
As the Brexit bill made its way through
Parliament, ministers repeatedly reassured
MPs that they would try to get a deal on
the issue as soon as possible, and the EU
seems keen to sort it out, too. Its lead nego-
tiator Michel Barnier has talked about how
citizens must come first. And Spain, which
has the largest population of British immi-
grants in the EU, has made it clear that it
has no problem with a reciprocal rights deal.
The EU insists that the so-called
divorce bill must be settled before
anything else can be discussed
One reason why the EU might move
quickly here is a desire to reassure Eastern
European countries that their interests will
be respected in the Brexit negotiations.
Brussels is worried that Britains defence
capabilities might lead these states under-
standably concerned about security given
Russian revanchism and Trumps ambigu-
ous attitude towards Nato to threaten the
unity of the 27 by taking a softer line during
the talks. By giving them an early win on the
rights of their citizens here, the EU hopes
to keep them bound to a common negotiat-
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
ing position. But it is hard to see much else
that can by quickly resolved. The EU insists
that the so-called divorce bill must be set-
tled before anything else can be discussed.
The commission is particularly hung up on
this, with its president Jean-Claude Junck-
er saying that in Europe, you eat whats in
front of you or you dont sit at the table.
But the UK government is clear that it will
discuss the divorce bill only if the future
trading relationship is on the menu too.
This will make for a testy start to the talks.
It isnt obvious how this impasse will
be broken partly because all the elec-
tions coming up in Europe make it hard to
see who could step in to broker a compro-
mise. The initial meeting of the EU27 to dis-
cuss Mays Article 50 letter will take place
between the first and second rounds of the
French presidential elections, which means
Paris will be in a holding position. Indeed,
if Marine Le Pen is still in the contest, the
French preoccupation will be to make
Brexit which she has celebrated look
as unappealing as possible.
After the French elections, attention will
turn to Germany. Angela Merkel is facing her
most serious electoral test yet this autumn.
Martin Schulz, the former president of the
European Parliament, has revived the Social
Democrats and is running as a left-wing,
pro-EU populist; he presents himself as the
antidote to Trump and Brexit. Faced with
such an opponent at home, Merkel will not
want to do anything that could be portrayed
as being soft on Britain before polling day.
It is impossible to be certain what the
shape of the Brexit deal will be, given that
we do not yet know who the UK will be
negotiating with. But, paradoxically, the ten-
sions over whether the divorce bill should be
discussed alone or in tandem with the future
trading relationship, reveal how a mutually
acceptable deal could be agreed. The EU
could grant the UK tariff-free and relative-
ly frictionless access to the single market,
which would let May say she has achieved
her goal. And the UK could agree to a gen-
erous leaving payment which reduces the
Brexit-sized hole in the EU budget, letting
European leaders tell their voters that the
British have paid a price for leaving. As the
old adage has it, negotiations succeed when
both sides can claim victory.
SPECTATOR.CO.UK/EVENINGBLEND
The only daily political email you really need.

W e keep being incited to find
it heartwarming that Martin
McGuinness and Ian Paisley were
known as the Chuckle Brothers. But
what were they chuckling about? Their
shared success at outwitting the British
state. Both, though for opposite reasons,
had made their careers out of harassing
Britain, and both, in their later years,
had acquired money, power and status
by doing so. In the case of McGuinness
and his gang, Britain greatly underplayed
its hand. Having militarily beaten the
IRA, successive British governments
could have marginalised them, but
instead they accepted them as authentic
representatives of the Irish people who
had to be included in any settlement.
The process for doing this systematically
disadvantaged the moderates and bigged
up the thugs. It created arrangements
which virtually guarantee that Sinn Fein
and the DUP will permanently carve up
(share is the wrong word) government
between them. So Martin and Ians
collusive chuckles were at the expense,
not only of Britain, but also of the non-
sectarian people of Northern Ireland.
M y only encounter with Martin
McGuinness was on BBC Question
Time in 2001. En route to Belfast, I
bumped into David Trimble, who was
also on the panel. He advised that
McGuinness was a good television
performer but could be stirred to
injudicious anger. In the greenroom
beforehand, McGuinness exercised his
famous charm on all of us, surrounded
by grim-faced heavies. On air, everything
went pleasantly until a question about
Afghanistan prompted someone from the
floor to ask how McGuinness justified
people being shot in the back of the head.
Trimble said there was a new book about
that by Liam Clarke and left it there.
Instead of ignoring Trimble, McGuinness
foolishly rose to the bait and said the
book was all lies. I had read the book, and
this gave me the cue to quote a sentence
from it about how McGuinness had been
influential in a number of incidents in
which dead bodies were found by the
roadside. He started screeching Wheres
the evidence? Wheres the evidence? I
went on, through the yells, to speak about
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
Charles Moore
his involvement in the Remembrance Day
bombing in Enniskillen and the killing of
the informer Frank Hegarty, who came
back home because McGuinness had
assured his mother he would be safe. Martin
screeched some more, and looked absolutely
murderous, and therefore less charming.
As the lights went down, McGuinness
whispered to David Dimbleby, That was
libellous, so I rushed round to see the editor
(the programme airs shortly after it has
been recorded) and begged him not to cut
it. To the BBCs credit, it did not, so viewers
could see the charmers mask slip. Now some
people are wearing black ties on television
to mark what they call his passing. There
are better people to mourn, some of them
killed on the orders of Martin McGuinness.
He definitely, as one dignified brother of
a terrorist victim at Claudy acknowledged
on Tuesday, changed his ways. He never,
however, changed his mind: he saw the
armed struggle as a necessary phase, not as
something of which he should be ashamed.
L ast week, this column called for an
organisation to keep fighting for the
Union, whether or not there is a Scottish
referendum in prospect. I should have
mentioned Scotland In Union. It is a non-
party organisation which began two years
ago. I am pleased to report that it is now
flourishing, thanks to Nicola Sturgeon.
The SNPs attempt to turn independence
into a permanent campaign has belatedly
galvanised people who dont agree.
Last week, with Ms Sturgeons call for a
referendum following Brexit, saw Scotland
In Unions best recruitment ever.
T he CPRE has produced a report laying
out the evidence that the building of
new roads creates more traffic. It would
seem logical. If you make it easier to get
somewhere, more people will tend to
want to go there. The new, better road
does not simply make life easier for
those who travelled the old one: it also
encourages new people to travel along
it. One must question the CPREs
conclusion, not its research. It thinks its
evidence proves that more roads make
everything worse. To a normal mind, it
surely shows how much these roads are
wanted, and how much they contribute
to general prosperity. To see how peculiar
the CPREs logic is, one should follow
its natural course (which the report does
not). Why stop at not building new roads?
Why not close down a lot of existing
ones? Why not block the M25? After a
bit, you would undoubtedly discover that
fewer people were using the roads. There
might be some ill effects, however, like
the collapse of the modern economy, and
dire poverty. It reminds me how many
country-dwellers argue against building
any new houses there. When you suggest
that they could help by knocking their
own houses down, they go curiously
quiet. Large parts of Britain need more
(and/or better) roads, and no part needs
fewer. The environmental debate should
be all about how to make them as quiet,
unobtrusive and clean as possible.
I f Health and Safety is (are?) your
thing, you must always be dreaming,
like Alexander the Great, of new worlds
to conquer. The next one, I predict, will
be cooking at home. Recently I have
noticed talk about the bad effect of
particles produced by hot food cooked
in or on ovens. The sequence will go
thus: a study will prove that people who
cook at home inhale more particles than
others, reducing their life expectancy. A
woman seeking divorce will win a higher
settlement because, she says, she was
forced to spend hours of each day in such
dangerous culinary conditions, suffering
various harms. Then it will be shown
that children are the innocent victims
of passive cooking. Ovens, except for
microwaves, will be forbidden in new-
build homes. After a few more years, the
only ones to be found will be on display in
National Trust houses. The word kitchen
will gradually become as archaic as
butlers pantry.
11
 The camps dont work
Our global system for aiding refugees dates from the 1940s no wonder its broken
PAUL COLLIER

T
he civil war in Syria, and the resulting
displacement of half the population,
has been the tragedy of our times.
We cannot turn our backs on the ten million
people who have been forced to flee their
homes. Every decent society knows this and
knows that its our moral duty to come up
with a workable way of helping the refugees.
But while the scale of the displacement is
substantial, it is not unmanageable. The 21st
century should be capable of dealing with
such catastrophes and we must prepare our-
selves actually to do so.
To rise to the challenge, we need to
combine the instinctive compassion that
mass suffering arouses with the dispassion-
ate analysis necessary to craft an effective
response. We need the heart supported by
the head. The growing humanitarian crisis
has come about because weve deployed one
without the other. Our response has veered
between the heartless head and the headless
heart, and the results have been calamitous. still need temporary humanitarian support spirit. We shouldnt, even with the best
We all, by and large, agree that we have a but for most the priority is quite different. intentions, crush that spirit. We should do
duty to help refugees. We have a duty of res- Refugees nowadays do not have the lux- what we can to make autonomy less grim.
cue, but what does that entail? The standard ury of a short-term solution. The problems For Syrian refugees we can do a lot. The
example in moral philosophy is of the child they are fleeing are likely to last for a very duty of rescue towards refugees applies to
drowning in the pond. We, as passers-by, long time. Imagine yourself in their position, all societies in a position to help, but this
have an unequivocal duty to pull the child displaced with your family. Would you really principle of solidarity is complemented by
out. We are not entitled to protest, Where resign yourself to years in a refugee camp, comparative advantage: each society should
are the parents? or, Why isnt there a living off food tokens, housed in a converted concentrate on contributing that which it is
fence? Similarly, the child is not shouting, I container? Most Syrians, indeed most ref- best placed to provide.
demand my rights! It shouts Help! Having ugees globally, choose to ignore the whole Neighbouring countries are usually best
pulled the child out, we should then use our placed to provide the physical location for
best endeavours to get it dry, and to return it Imagine yourself and your family in safe haven they are the easiest to reach
safely to its parents. What, then, is the equiv- their position. Would you really and often speak the same language. When
alent for a displaced family? The common resign yourself to years in a camp? Nazi Germany turned on its Jewish citi-
duty is to do what is reasonably possible to zens, it was the duty of the rest of Europe
restore normality. international support system. They head for to provide proximate safe haven. Since 2011,
So heres the crucial question: what, the cities and try to find work there, even Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon have been in
beyond safety itself, are the critical elements if they have to do it illegally. Understand- the same position with regard to the Syr-
of normality for a Syrian refugee? The ing why they do this is not difficult. Their ians. The question of admitting refugees
entire international refugee support system priority, just as yours would be, is to restore to Britain today may soak up much of the
has presumed that the answer is food and autonomy. political attention, but its not the way to
shelter. It is structured to deliver them in the The refugee system is the apex of inter- restore normality or autonomy to these mil-
most efficient organisational form camps. national humanitarian provision. UNHCR, lions of people.
But is this really the right response in and its penumbra of similar organisations, Our comparative advantage the way
2017? The system was designed to cope with are designed for care. Like all welfare pro- in which we can help most is obvious.
the displaced of post-war central Europe, grammes, theirs treats people as passive We are much richer than the neighbouring
many of them Germans who had fled the Rus- recipients. Inadvertently, it infantilises. That haven countries, and so should pick up the
sians, or Jews freed from the concentration so many refugees forgo this care, preferring bulk of the tab, which in fact were doing:
camps. While they were in transit, food and the struggle of earning a living beneath the the 1 billion donated by the British gov-
shelter were indeed what they needed. But official radar of regulations that prohibit it, ernment is almost as much as contributions
what about today? Its true some refugees is testimony to the heroism of the human from the rest of Europe put together. Our
12 the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
businesses should be generating the jobs
that refugees could do in the neighbouring
haven countries.
Unfortunately, the duty of rescue
towards refugees has been badly misunder-
stood. For the first four years of the Syrian
conflict, Europe essentially denied that it
had such a duty. Only when a small minority
of refugees in safe haven in Turkey began to
take their chances of migrating to Europe
did the question get posed. Almost inevita-
bly, the incipient influx shrivelled the ques-
tion to Do we let them in? In the process,
a moral duty around which all could readily
have united (bar the 1 per cent of any society
that is psychopathic) was transformed into
the most divisive and ugly issue in politics:
Should Muslim migrants be welcomed?
Inevitably, this rapidly degenerated into
the familiar polarised conflict between those
who regard themselves as occupying the
moral high ground of human decency, and
those who regard themselves as mounting a
desperate defence of their homeland.
Kidnapped
That humming sound you can hear is of bees
feasting on the blossoming cherry tree
outside East Finchley Methodist Church,
into which my little boy was kidnapped
for a year or two of Sunday mornings
to march up and down the County roads
in his navy Boys Brigade band jersey
and a round sailor-boy hat, yo-ho-ho,
playing whatever instrument he played
and not forgetting his penny for Jesus
his reward being to appear onstage
at the Sunday school end-of-term gala
in the role of a chrysanthemum petal,
or a letter in the word chrysanthemum.
Fleur Adcock

T he key confusion has been to conflate

refugees with migrants. Refugees, by
definition, are people who didnt choose to
be migrants: they wanted to live at home
but their home became unsafe. Migrants are
people who seek a better life. Migrants go
to honeypots dream locations can readily
be ranked by their desirability. Refugees do
not go to dream locations; they are seeking
proximate havens. All of the top ten destina-
tions for refugees are themselves countries
of emigration. All are poor countries in dis-
orderly neighbourhoods.
Migrants consciously embrace the pros-
pect of living in a new society. The recent
injunction of the Dutch Prime Minister,
Mark Rutte, to act normal or leave is an
ethically reasonable requirement of those
who choose to come, and one that most
migrants are willing to meet. But because
the goal of refugees is to restore normality,
they have not chosen to embrace a new soci-
ety. On the contrary, their priority is likely
to be to hang on to the culture of their own
community.
Even after the defeat of the Nazis, few of
the Jews who survived the Holocaust hoped
to go back to Germany: the right objective
was permanent resettlement. But most of
todays refugees do hope to return to their
homes. Individuals in danger of persecution
will always need a haven and we must have
effective processes to provide one. But the
image of the persecuted individual is long
outmoded as representative of the typical
refugee. Most refugees are groups fleeing
disorder or famine. They seek to restore nor-
mality, not build a new life in an alien society.
A humane international response would
be to encourage this entirely reasonable
desire, which means not bringing them here
or packing them into stagnating camps, but
helping them to find work; helping them get
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
on. In the years while they are in havens,
our priority should be to restore the auton-
omy and community that are the bedrocks
of normality. In havens and in post-conflict
societies, our firms, not our NGOs, will be
the critical organisations. Entrepreneurs, not
lawyers, will wield the critical skills.
Of course, it is sometimes possible to turn
a refugee into a migrant, if the lure is suffi-
cient. This is what happened when northern
Europe briefly opened its borders in 2015.
What hit the media were those images of
thousands of people on the move. What was
ignored was that the vast majority of Syr-
ian refugees stayed put in the neighbour-
hood havens. While the mass flight out of
Syria had been demographically unselec-
tive, the more modest rush to Europe was
highly selective. Contrary to the media
images, which focused on women and chil-
dren, it was 70 per cent male. Because of
the high cost of buying a place on a boat
run by people-smugglers more than the
annual income of the average Syrian, to be
paid in cash those reaching Europe were
the affluent.
And most crucially, as with all migration
The tooth fairy left you a brush and some paste.
from poor countries to rich ones, the strong-
est incentive was for the highly educated.
Less that 5 per cent of Syrians have come to
Europe, but my co-author Alex Betts and I
estimate that this group includes something
between a third and a half of all Syrians with
university-level education. These are the
very people who will be needed to rebuild
Syria. Despite the vocabulary, post-conflict
reconstruction is not primarily about pour-
ing concrete; it is about renewing organisa-
tions. Instead of fussing over whether these
educated Syrians will integrate into Euro-
pean culture, we should be enabling and
encouraging them to retain their links with
home.
There are the beginnings of an awak-
ening about all this. In October the World
Bank approved its first refugee loan for
job generation for Syrian refugees in Jordan.
And at last there is innovation: the bank has
also just won authority to use aid to bear
some of the financial risks facing firms in
fragile states.
So this is the real answer for refugees, not
tents and food but autonomy and commu-
nity. Its what you would want in their posi-
tion. In asking the development agencies to
scale-up and integrate the new mechanisms
for generating jobs for refugees with those
for speeding post-conflict recovery, it would
at last become possible to meet our true
international duty of rescue. In the process
we should free ourselves from the lazy trap
of fitting the present into the past.
Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee
System by Alex Betts and Paul Collier is
published on 30 March.
13
 Lest we forget
Martin McGuinness showed no remorse for the pain he caused
JENNY MC CARTNEY
I
never met Martin McGuinness, but I was
certainly affected by him from an early
age. His decisions, and those of his col-
leagues on the IRA Army Council, indelibly
coloured my childhood. Belfast in the 1970s
and 80s was a grey, fortified city, compelling
in many ways, but permanently charged with
the unpredictable electricity of violence.
Our local news steadily chronicled the
shattering of families, in city streets and down
winding border lanes that were full of bird-
song before the bullets rang out. There were
regular, respectful interviews with pallid wid-
ows and dazed widowers, and funerals attend-
ed by red-eyed, snuffling children tugged into
stiff, smart clothes to pay formal respects to
the end of family life as they had known it.
The murders arrived singly or in pairs, via
gunshot or car bombs, occasionally bursting
into more audacious atrocities that claimed
many lives simultaneously. The names of the
bigger ones Claudy, La Mon, Enniskillen
stained the memory with a vivid horror. And
the knowing strategist behind much of this
killing was the young Martin McGuinness.
It was a pity for Northern Ireland that
McGuinness failed his 11-plus. He was
undoubtedly intelligent, and early academ-
ic success might have directed his talents
towards something fruitful. Instead, those
energies poured into the zealous dispensa-
tion of death for Irish republican ends. Dur-
ing the Troubles, McGuinness firmly believed
that the cause of a united Ireland could be
furthered by killing, and he was broad in his
selection of targets.
One illustration: according to Liam
Clarke and Kathryn Johnstons book Mar-
tin McGuinness: From Guns To Govern-
ment, McGuinness personally supervised
the Derry IRAs first major success of 1987.
That success was for two IRA men first to
murder a psychology student called Leslie
Jarvis, who taught leatherwork to inmates in
Magilligan prison and was therefore deemed
a legitimate target. The killers then used the
dead man as bait, switching his briefcase with
one containing a bomb. When two policemen
arrived on the scene and examined the case,
they were both blown to smithereens. An
IRA volunteer interviewed by the authors
explained that McGuinness was in the house
opposite watching everything. He quite often
liked to be close when things went off to
14
watch and see... it was part of his strategy, his
way of refining operations.
I suppose it will be considered bad form to
mention this kind of detail in the immediate
aftermath of McGuinnesss death, when we
are awash in eulogy. Sorry, chaps. The older
McGuinness could certainly exude courtesy
and joviality, and got along with the DUP with
a warmth that is unimaginable from Gerry
Adams, with his cold well of creepiness. But
McGuinness saw Provisional IRA violence
chiefly through the lens of strategy rather than
humanity, and did so until the end of his days.
Consider his 2001 statement to the
BBC about the 1987 IRA bomb that killed
11 people and injured 63 others during a
Remembrance Day service in Enniskillen: It
was a total and absolute disaster. I felt abso-
The enduring pain of those bereaved
and injured by the IRA did not sit
heavy on his conscience
lutely gutted by it. I felt this would be damag-
ing to our strategy in trying to build Sinn Fein
as a political party. The gutting, it was clear,
was because of the damage to Sinn Feins
electoral prospects rather than the bodies
strewn around the cenotaph.
In 2013, at a debate at the Oxford Union,
McGuinness refused to condemn the 1990
IRA murder of Patsy Gillespie, a Catholic
canteen worker and father of three who was
strapped into a lorry loaded with IRA explo-
sives and forced to drive it to a British Army
checkpoint. There it was detonated remote-
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
ly, killing Gillespie and five British soldiers.
McGuinnesss parting political statement in
January this year contained not a word of
remorse for the casualties of IRA violence.
If it had, I might even now be writing a dif-
ferent article.
Already, the mythologising is in full swing
Alastair Campbell: the man I knew was
a great guy; Jon Snow: an extraordinary
life that culminated in great service; Jeremy
Corbyn: a great family man. His eulogisers
seem to believe that there were two distinct
McGuinnesses: wayward, gun-toting Martin,
whose past is now often described as contro-
versial, and good statesman Martin, whose
astonishing achievements were lent piquancy
and gravitas by the preceding carnage.
It is a feature of a particular type of edu-
cated Englishman and this phenomenon is
most noticeable in men that he is rightly
repelled by manifestations of extreme Eng-
lish nationalism, yet bizarrely soppy over its
Irish equivalent. Once people such as Camp-
bell and Jonathan Powell met McGuinness,
and seemingly realised that he was not some
howling Celtic monster but could talk agree-
ably about fly-fishing, cricket, football and
poetry, they were quite entranced. His back-
story, while officially reprehensible, clearly
delivered a potent thrill once the immediate
threat of attack was neutralised.
The reality is that both the IRA and the
loyalist paramilitaries used appalling and
sadistic violence as a form of conversation
with each other and the British state. Instead
of capital letters and exclamation marks, they
deployed the corpses of the security forces
and civilians. If these organisations were peo-
ple, they would be psychopaths.
The violence stopped not because it was
bad morality, but because it was becoming
bad strategy. The intelligence services had
penetrated the IRAs inner circle to a degree
that made operations increasingly difficult.
Although it couldnt be extinguished, neither
could it win: the conflict was at stalemate,
and too many members were in jail. A dif-
ferent plan for Irish unity emerged, one that
involved Sinn Fein swallowing the SDLP and
seeking to top the polls in both Northern Ire-
land and the Republic.
That might be a long game, but it has gone
pretty well so far. Yet while it is clearly pref-
erable to seek votes than to blow people up,
Im not sure why switching from violence to
democracy should garner McGuinness more
plaudits than those who never espoused vio-
lence at all. It is right to send condolences to
his family, even though his ideology wrecked
so many other families, but not to wallow in
this weird orgy of sentimentality.
In death, his admirers will try to pin a
Damascene conversion on him, but the
enduring pain of those bereaved and injured
by the IRA did not sit heavy on his con-
science, nor did he really pretend that it did.
In this respect at least, McGuinness was more
honest than his eulogisers.

The real BBC shocker: occasionally it isnt biased
T
heres one thing that bothers me a lot
about the letter sent by more than
70 MPs to the director-general of the
BBC complaining about bias in its coverage
of the Brexit debate. There are 650 MPs in the
House of Commons, of whom 330 are Con-
servative. So does this mean that more than
570 of our elected representatives, including
the vast majority of Tories, think the BBC is
doing a bloody good job and is an exemplar
of impartial reporting? If so, I suspect they
have been secretly lobotomised perhaps
by members of the BBCs impeccably fair
and impartial editorial board. In the dead of
night. Silently, without remorse. Chloroform,
a hacksaw, a scalpel.
My guess is that the DG, Sir Tony Hall,
will not give a monkeys about the letter, for
the reasons Ive outlined above. But even if
it had been signed by all 650 MPs, he would
also be sanguine, hunkered down behind that
familiar defence of: If all sides think were
biased then we must be getting it right
a self-justifying falsehood if ever there was
one. We live in an age of fatuous petitions
and round robins and most of these are best
ignored. Especially those which come from a
very small minority indeed of our politicians.
Hall will probably dispatch some overpaid,
half-witted, oleaginous middle-managing
BBC gimp to placate the complainants while
assuring them that they are wrong in every
respect and that, within the BBC, every-
thing is for the best in this best of all possible
worlds. As it always is.
And yet the complainants are right, sure-
ly. Even the pre-referendum coverage, gen-
erally praised for its lack of bias, occasionally
betrayed the BBCs pro-EU mindset and its
astonishment that anyone might contem-
plate voting Leave. After the referendum,
Radio 4s PM programme ran a regular fea-
ture called Brexit Street, in which a reporter
was dispatched to sound utterly nonplussed
by the troglodytic inhabitants of a road in
Stockton-on-Tees that had been firmly for
out. Weird, peculiar, uneducated people,
was the gist. And yet, as we know, Brexit
Street was simply a part of Brexit Town. And
Brexit Town was just a part of Brexit Region.
And Brexit Region was in Brexit Country.
The horror when this unexpected eventu-
ality dawned upon the BBC was one of my
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
ROD LIDDLE
greatest pleasures of last year. The presenters
and reporters looked magnificently shocked
on 24 June, as if theyd all been touched up or,
in some cases, perhaps violated by a gibbon.
Since then the gloves have come off.
Encouraging financial news of which there
has been a great deal is reported always
with baleful caveats: just you wait, you thick
bigots. Gloomy financial news by and
large, just the falling of the pound leads the
news programmes with Armageddon head-
lines. And, as the letter to MPs rightly asserts,
the BBC is never happier than when finding
I was told that not a single person
on Newsnight had voted Leave
investigations rounded this up to one
someone who voted Leave and now regrets
it despite the fact that the polls show the
country has not remotely changed its mind.
It was pretty much ever thus with the
BBC. I may have told you before about the
comment made to me when I was editor of
the Today programme about complaints
from Eurosceptics which claimed our cover-
age was guilty of bias. I had been inclined to
take the complaints very seriously. But a sen-
ior BBC apparatchik said to me: What you
have to understand, Rod, is that these people
are all mad. That was the BBCs controller of
editorial policy, since you asked.
The BBC Brussels office, meanwhile, was
implacably pro-EU: stories of bureaucratic
profligacy and incompetence were routinely
Youll be paid per death, and will need
to provide your own cloak and scythe.
knocked down. Its impartial and fair-minded
chief correspondent wrote a book about the
populist movements then springing up across
Europe Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands
and the Front National in France, to quote
two examples. The book was called Preach-
ers of Hate. None of this was ever queried by
the Beeb bosses.
In fairness, this was a long time ago,
around 2002, but stuff hasnt changed at New
Broadcasting House. I was told that not a sin-
gle person on Newsnight had voted Leave
although subsequent investigations rounded
this up to one. The BBC is deeply, institu-
tionally biased towards a soft-liberal, nave,
middle-class view of the world, especially
with regard to immigration, Europe, Islam,
homosexuality (yes, they manage to square
that tricky little circle in their own minds)
and all race issues.
But the corporation is at its most obvious-
ly biased away from the news programmes,
which at least have to genuflect towards a
notional impartiality. None of the other pro-
grammes such as Countryfile, The Food
Programme or The Archers are required
to follow the guidelines. And they certainly
dont. Give a listen to The Food Programme
just once and tell me if you think the pre-
senters and producers have ever been near a
McDonalds, unless it was to daub it in paint.
The bias is so evident, so obvious, so
blinding that it sometimes obscures the good
things the BBC does and the baby steps it
seems to be making towards impartiality. For
instance, there was a recent documentary on
(supposedly) gender dysphoric children that
actually shocked me with its even-handed-
ness. Another documentary, fronted by the
excellent Adrian Chiles, revealed that the
Leave voters in his home manor of the West
Midlands were actually not unthinking bigots
at all. And check out the BBCs China editor
Carrie Gracie superb reporting and analy-
sis day after day. There is not a better foreign
correspondent alive, I think.
Elsewhere, though, there is too much
unthinking, liberal mush. As John Birt once
pointed out, the BBC found it very difficult
to come to terms with Margaret Thatchers
victory in 1979. It is having precisely the same
problems right now and, sadly, that well-
meant letter wont change anything.
15
 The importance of being trolled
In social medias strange class system, victimhood belongs to those at the top
E
ver since a Twitter troll was elected
45th President of the United States,
the Twitterati has agonised over who
to blame. But since it was Twitter that gave
American voters unfettered access to Don-
ald Trumps brain, they really ought to be
blaming Twitter itself. Its not possible to say
anything balanced or nuanced in 140 char-
acters thats a format for jokes, insults
and outrage. If you want to seize the worlds
attention today, you must troll or be trolled
on Twitter.
And since this is the one skill at which
Trump is utterly unrivalled, hes now busy
trolling both America and himself. When a
man with barely any followers once tweeted
him in the middle of the night to say: I firm-
ly believe that @realDonaldTrump is the
most superior troll on the whole of Twitter,
Trump retweeted it to his millions of follow-
ers: A great compliment!
In 2017, our ability to write books, act in
films or even govern appears to be measured
in Twitter followers, not talent. So there will
be no stopping Trump or his disciples here
in the UK, Katie Hopkins and Piers Morgan.
Were it not for Twitter, Hopkins would be
a failed Apprentice candidate, not a highly
paid commentator for Mail Online. Morgan
would be a disgraced former newspaper edi-
tor, not a television host engaging in Twitter
spats with J.K. Rowling. Unless Twitter ends,
there will be no end to them.
At its worst, trolling is utterly repugnant,
a sickening spectacle, and no one gets any-
thing out of it. This was the case last year
when Leslie Jones, star of an all-female
remake of Ghostbusters, was hounded off
Twitter after the alt-right tweeted racist
abuse at her. It was also the case in 2013,
when a PR consultant named Justine Sacco
was hounded off Twitter by anti-racists after
she tweeted: Going to Africa. Hope I dont
get AIDS. Just kidding. Im white! But
whereas the forces of good Twitter, quite
rightly, felt bad for and fell in love with Les-
lie Jones, almost no one sympathised with
Sacco; they thought shed revealed herself
to be a racist and therefore a vicious troll.
No one ever points out that the differ-
ence between a troll and a troll victim is
as complex as that between a terrorist and
a freedom fighter. Nor that being trolled
can have unbelievably positive results for
your career. The pop star James Blunt, for
16
EMILY HILL
instance, has reinvigorated his fanbase as a
result of retweeting all the abuse he gets on
Twitter. He has been hailed (in a Buzzfeed
article viewed almost a million times) as the
trolliest troll of all Twitter trolls and millen-
nials love him for it.
Blunt must relish getting trolled and
so do many journalists, though theyd never
admit it. I once sat in a restaurant with
someone whod written a perfectly innocu-
Troll attacks can have
incredibly positive results
for your career
ous article for Grazia magazine and became
positively giddy when her bleeping Black-
Berry showed she was being trolled as a
feminazi by hordes of maladjusted losers
on Twitter.
As Jamie Bartlett explains, Being trolled
by strangers on the net gives you the chance
to show how hard things are for you, how
right you were, and how noble and mag-
nanimous you are in sharing your suffering
with the world. In his book The Dark Net,
he notes, It is very rarely mentioned that
the victims of trolls are far more often priv-
ileged, wealthy, happy, and successful than
their perceived oppressors, who are often
frustrated, jealous, and lonely.
Bartletts theory is neatly encapsu-
lated by the example of Owen Jones, who
announced this month that he was taking
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Up the revolution!
From The Russian revolution,
24 March 1917: Even now, though the
Revolution is young, the Russians have
proved that they are fit and worthy
to exercise the full benefits of self-
government. In the highest spheres of
government they had hitherto been always
thwarted, but no one who has watched
the progress and expanding influence of
the Zemstvos and the Municipalities can
deny that Russians have long displayed
the capacity for local self-government.
Such a Revolution as has just occurred
was inevitably born in violence, but the
violence was much less than might have
been expected.
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
a break from Twitter because he couldnt
stand the abuse he gets. Owen is the author
of two best-selling books, Chavs and The
Establishment, and has amassed half a mil-
lion followers. But he didnt just close his
account and shut up shop. He posted a sanc-
timonious, self-pitying 1,000-word status
update on Facebook that attracted 10,000
likes, 2,400 comments and 1,000 shares.
And three days later he was back tweeting
out articles and videos. He got a lot of atten-
tion, bolstered his media profile and further
maximised his earning potential. Mean-
while, all those who trolled him remain as
poor and ignored as they ever were and
vilified to boot.
The term troll is not borrowed from
fairytales it refers to a method of fish-
ing. It is, in the words of internet expert
Derek Powazek, a behaviour online where
someone would leave a lot of lures to snare
people, to entice them to get angry. If you
are not famous, you might feel that youve
been trolled for years before Twitter was
even invented by highly paid opinion-
formers and pundits whose views you dont
agree with but have had to listen to on pro-
grammes such as Question Time.
Before Twitter, youd shout impotently at
them on the television when they said some-
thing you didnt like. Now, you can tweet
your rage straight at them online and if
they read all their tweets theyll hear you.
But one must never, but ever, make such
excuses for a troll. So one must not point
out, for example, that Owen Jones has made
a lot of money claiming to be the voice of
the disenfranchised and now doesnt like
it when the disenfranchised find they have
their own voice, thank you very much and
use it to swear at him.
The same goes for fashionable Twitter
feminists who have won fame claiming to
speak for anyone who has a vagina. Ive lost
count of the number of women who tell me
(privately and in the strictest confidence)
that theyre sick to the back teeth of being
told How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran.
One says she particularly hates Morans
claim I now live in Crouch End and my
walls are painted in fucking Farrow and Ball
and I have a cleaner but I will feel working-
class to the day I die. She wants to respond,
Your cleaner has a name, shes not a pot of
paint and youre not fucking working-class,
are you? But if she tweeted that at Moran,
this would constitute abuse, which is what
trolling has come to mean.
I t is acceptable to be almost anything in
the 21st century except a Twitter troll
for there is no person more despicable and
deserving of punishment, especially when
tweeting rape and death threats. I have
been threatened with rape in real life, so I do
know how unbelievably ill-making it is. But
at the time I was alone with a drunk man in
central Moscow who could have done it if
hed wanted to it wasnt a threat tweeted
at me over the internet. And since he didnt
do it, he would not have deserved to go to
jail for saying he would.
Yet when two Twitter trolls sent drunk-
en threats of rape and worse via Twitter to
Caroline Criado-Perez, who campaigned to
put Jane Austen on the 10 note, and were
sent to prison, Criado-Perez hailed it as a
brilliant day for women. No one ques-
tioned how one privileged middle-class
woman with 37,500 Twitter followers (cur-
rently represented by the Wylie Agency for
a book about the gender data gap) send-
ing two of lifes losers (one of whom was a
23-year-old woman) to jail for writing offen-
sive words represented some sort of victory
for women.
Feminism used to be a battle for equal-
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
The meaning of everything? Hang on
ity. But now, if you were to listen to Cria-
do-Perez and co., youd think it was the fight
for special victim status. Several prominent
Labour MPs have launched a campaign
to Reclaim the Internet. And yet since a
Demos survey last year showed that half of
misogynistic tweets are sent by women, this
is really just a movement for women of high
status seeking to silence women of lower sta-
tus who want to send crude tweets at them.
We should be defending freedom of
speech, saying: I disapprove of what you
tweet but Ill defend to the death your right
to tweet it. But this is not the correct nar-
Your need-to-know nancial
news, delivered weekly
www.spectator.co.uk/newsletters
rative. We are supposed to cheer en masse,
instead, for Jack Monroe, who won 24,000
in libel damages from Katie Hopkins after
malicious tweets upset her. Monroe didnt
prosecute on her own account, though
she did for the rest of us, saying, I hope
it teaches people to be a bit nicer to each
other.
What its taught me is the only way Ill
ever get anywhere in this life is if I get mer-
cilessly trolled on Twitter. All I need to make
it, la Monroe, are enough hate-filled tweets
to fill six A4 ring-binders. And as long as
Im not raped or killed in real life Ill be
laughing. Overnight Ill go from a penniless
hackette no one has rightly heard of to the
reincarnation of Joan of Arc with 98,000 fol-
lowers. If no one else has quite grasped the
miraculous power of being trolled, Monroe
seems to understand precisely what its done
for her. Thanks to her Twitter fanbase she
managed to crowdfund a cookbook in a sin-
gle day. Now her Twitter bio reads not cook-
book author or campaigner, but Ask not
for whom the bell trolls; It trolls for me.
As long as Twitter continues to dominate
western society, and all our worth is summed
up by the number of Twitter followers we
have, the election of Donald Trump will sim-
ply be the ultimate symbol of a simple truth:
that the only surefire way to triumph is to
embrace the joy of trolling.
Sign up today:
17
 Pressing back
At last, someone is taking on the pompous White House hacks
MATTHEW WALTHER
Washington, DC
I
hate to admit it, but I think Im falling in
love with Sean Spicer. No doubt Donald
Trumps stocky, gum-chewing, sartorially
challenged press secretary will strike many
readers as an unlikely object of passion. But
its hard not to get red-hot for a man capable
of inspiring so much outrage among the most
boring, self-important people in America.
As press secretary, Spicers only real job is
to run the Presidents daily press briefing, one
of those bizarre, quasi-official American insti-
tutions like the State of the Union address
or the Easter Egg Roll on the White House
lawn whose utility no one ever seems
to question. Its the closest thing we have
to Prime Ministers Questions, except that
instead of, say, Bernie Sanders needling the
commander-in-chief about unemployment
figures or heath care, its a bunch of hacks
talking to a PR man. During Obamas time in
office, the briefing always reminded me of that
old cartoon where the wolf and the sheepdog
enjoy a quiet lunch together people who go
to the same parties and pretend to cry at one
anothers funerals asking niggling questions
and feigning outrage over non-controversies.
For those of us who were allergic to school,
even the format of the briefing is insufferable:
bodies arranged in rows with hands raised, all
of them having spasmodic muscular contrac-
tions at the idea of being given the opportuni-
ty to make some show-offy pseudo-point. The
only difference is that there are no jocks, class
clowns or even bullies: everyone is a nerd.
Like so much else in Washington, the
briefings character has been altered, I hope
forever, by Trump. What was once a boring
tickle-fest for white liberals is now a kind of
orgy of pouting and breathless self-aggran-
disement. For the mainstream press, Spicers
first offence was to install screens allowing
him to take questions from reporters across
the country: an agreeably egalitarian sop to
the hard-working journos of places such as
Fall River, Massachusetts. Even worse has
been his lack of deference to national news-
papers and cable TV channels in favour of
Breitbart, LifeSiteNews and other dubious
right-wing outlets. I suppose its all very dis-
maying if youre the sort of person who thinks
that asking whether a thrice-married serial
philanderer who has appeared in a Playboy
video opposes legalised contraception is a
vital contribution to our national discourse.
18
As enjoyable as it is to watch Spicer work
on television, the briefings are like Wood-
stock: you have to be there to get the full
effect. The first thing you notice is that the
briefing room itself, which used to be an
indoor swimming pool before it was adapt-
ed by Nixon for the present purpose, is very
small. Cynical as I am, I was astonished to
realise that behind the chairs and the ris-
ers is a Keurig coffee brewer and a soda
machine. Call me crazy, but this doesnt look
like ground zero in the war against fascism.
(Would you accept a Pepsi from Hitler, much
less pay him for one?)
Nearly all the chairs are assigned in
advance by the White House Correspond-
ents Association to very big names. The
rest of us have to fight for our seats and
our lives. Outside of a combat zone you are
Like so much else in Washington,
the daily press brieng has been
altered, I hope forever, by Trump
unlikely ever to find people invested with a
greater sense of purpose. They certainly have
a very lofty conception of journalisms role in
safeguarding our cherished freedoms. If you
dont think the word sorry can be uttered
with contempt, much less deployed as an
insult, youve clearly never heard April Ryan
of American Urban Radio Networks snap-
ping at another reporter who, having been
called on by Spicer, dared to follow up on
her question before April had decided she
was finished. Nor is this frenetic and omni-
directional intensity restricted to the people
asking the questions. A few weeks ago a col-
league and I were nearly trampled to death
by a monomaniacal cameraman.
Unfortunately, George Osbornes got them all.
Would you guys move? Ive gotta feed
this material! he shouted, as if the fact that
we were composed of matter rather than pure
spirit were an affront to press freedom.
OK, bud, I said, determined not to take
any guff.
Dont bud me, dude.
OK, my dude.
Half the fun is watching and listening in
on other reporters. It reminds you of the dif-
ference between people for whom journalism
is a vocation and those of us who simply fell
into it. Youll be standing there pretending to
tweet or email, trying to decide whether you
should go for another smoke easier to do
on the White House grounds than in almost
any bar in the country when suddenly a
woman bites furiously at her granola bar, like
Ozzy going after the head of a bat, without
even ceasing to type. Then one of the old lore-
stuffed would-be sages carrying nothing but a
notebook and a pen will say, to no one in par-
ticular, There was a time in this press room
when at least somebody was carrying a flask.
If the press briefing is a circus, the honor-
ary ringmaster is Glenn Thrush of the New
York Times, who has built his reputation on
in-depth interviews with Hillary Clinton,
eliciting such gems as, Well, but fly on an air-
plane, the whole thing makes no sense to me.
Does it make sense to you? Thrushs trade-
mark is his fedora, which he probably thinks
makes him look like one of those haggard old
newspapermen from the days when report-
ers were more or less perpetually sozzled. He
must be one of the only people in America
who can pace around holding his phone side-
ways saying, Hey, can I kiss your ass for like
two minutes? with a straight face.
In the presence of such exemplars it is pos-
sible, if youre not careful, to end up feeling
inadequate. Everybody seems to be so good
at their jobs, so smooth, so confident with
their icy, fact-enhanced contempt, whereas
I can barely remember my wifes birthday.
How, I remember thinking at the last briefing
I attended, was I going to come up with one
of those appropriately cutting impossible-to-
answer questions, with the requisite follow-
up statistics about the number of secondary
school boys in counselling because they were
denied access to the girls bathroom?
The answer turned out to be that I just
needed to start firing off text messages to
friends and colleagues. One came back with:
Has there been any movement on appoint-
ing a new ambassador for international reli-
gious freedom? Is Ken Starrs name still
being floated? With its gasping urgency
about an unimportant-sounding, perhaps
even fake position that I and everyone else at
the briefing, including, no doubt, Spicer, had
never heard of, I considered that the perfect
question. Too bad I wasnt called on.
Matthew Walther is associate editor of the
Washington Free Beacon and a Robert
Novak Journalism Fellow.
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
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 BAROMETER
Princes among men
British DJ Mark Dezzani was hoping to be
elected prince of Seborga, a self-proclaimed
independent state in Italy. Some other self-
declared nations not recognised by others:
Hutt River in Western Australia
declared independence in 1970 after farmer
Leonard Casley complained he hadnt been
granted a large enough quota for growing
wheat. He later proclaimed himself Prince
Leonard but abdicated last month in favour
of his youngest son, Prince Graeme.
Sealand, previously known as Roughs
Tower, is a gun emplacement built to
defend the Thames during the second world
war but then abandoned. In the 1960s it
was occupied by businessman Roy Bates,
who ruled as Prince Roy until his death in
2012. Since 1987, the UK has reasserted
ownership thanks to the extension of
British territorial waters. Sealand also has a
government in exile: in 1978 it was invaded
by a German lawyer who was captured,
charged with treason and then released. He
still claims to be its prime minister.
Drones club
Devon and Cornwall Police have set up a
drone unit. Who buys and uses drones in
Britain?
96% are men, 4% women.
The highest number of drones per capita
are owned in Hereford and Worcester,
followed by Suffolk.
50% are owned by those aged between
35 and 54, with 23% owned by under-35s
and 27% by over-55s.
Source: dronesdirect.co.uk
Islamic state
The European Court of Justice ruled in
favour of employers who want to ban
Muslim women from wearing headscarves
so long as it was part of a ban on all
religious symbols. Which EU countries have
proportionally the most Muslims?
Cyprus 25%
Bulgaria 14%
France 8%
Netherlands, Belgium, Germany 6%
Austria, Greece, UK 5%
Source: Pew Research Centre
March of the centurions
Vera Lynn celebrated her 100th birthday.
How unusual a feat is this?
In 1983, 3,000 people in Britain reached
100. Last year it was 14,500.
According to projections by the Office
for National Statistics last year, 248,000 of
the 783,000 babies born in 2015 will live
to celebrate their 100th birthdays.
Males born now have a 28% chance,
females a 35% chance.
20
Cameron adrift
George Osbornes new job throws a harsh light on his old boss
STEPHEN ROBINSON
I
t can be cruel, the way politics plays out.
At the very moment George Osborne
was telling the bemused staff of the Lon-
don Evening Standard last week that his
working life in politics had obscured a pas-
sionate desire to become a newspaper edi-
tor, a familiar figure could be seen in the
fresh meat department of the Whole Foods
supermarket almost directly underneath the
papers Kensington newsroom.
That man was David Cameron, and
inevitably someone with journalistic
instincts spotted him, snapped him on her
phone, and tweeted it.
We congratulate ourselves on the here
today, gone tomorrow nature of British
politics. So it is a healthy sign that there is an
informality about the man described by the
Washington Speakers Bureau, the agency
which now organises Camerons lucrative
global lecture schedule, as one of the most
prominent global influencers of the early
21st century.
If he volunteers to do the family shop,
that reflects well on him, and by extension
us. There is nevertheless a poignancy in the
juxtaposition of Osborne cementing his
position with a newspaper editorship while
his former boss is still searching for a role.
The problem is that David cant really
fill his day, says someone who knows him
well. An old friend, who now sees less of
him than he did, adds: Dave found he was
really good at the mechanics of being Prime
Minister, and loved almost every minute of
it. Obviously it leaves a hole.
After he left Downing Street at the age
of 49 last summer, Cameron had unrealistic
expectations of the world beyond politics.
He would ring up mates and suggest a
game of lunchtime tennis, recalls a friend.
Im afraid hed get the answer: Sorry, cant
make it; I have a job.
Perhaps because he was born into money,
and then married into even more of it,
Cameron has never appeared to worry too
much about accumulating wealth. Another
friend says he feels aggrieved that George
Osborne is hoovering up more than his fair
share of the potential earnings of deposed
Cabinet members.
Osborne is showing true New Labour
zeal in flaunting how intensely relaxed he
is at becoming filthy rich. With his recent
BlackRock contract (650,000 a year for
one day a week, plus future stock options,
plus speeches at 80,000 a go), Osborne is
already well-insulated from any delayed
manifestation of Project Fear. And his latest
role as editor of the Standard, which will add
another 300,000 or so to the pot, gives him
a platform from which influence the politi-
cal debate.
Cameron, by contrast, has taken honor-
ary leadership roles at an Alzheimers chari-
ty and at the National Citizen Service. To put
bread on the table, he has also made some
lucrative speeches. Now he has left the Com-
He would ring up mates for a game of
lunchtime tennis. Sorry, cant make
it; I have a job, came the reply
mons he does not have to report his earnings
publicly. This week he has been in America
doing lectures, and at Davos he spoke at a
lunch held by Viktor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian
billionaire.
As a former prime minister he has
appeal, but in the long run the big money
on the lecture circuit is in speaking to banks
and hedge funds, where Osbornes experi-
ence as Chancellor guarantees top dollar.
Cameron tells his friends that he has one
more big job in him, but it is difficult to
see what that might be. Aside from a spell
at Carlton Communications, he has scant
corporate experience. Brexit has obviously
destroyed any prospects of him or any other
Briton securing a big job in Brussels.
A year ago, the top job at Nato would
have seemed a good fit for a British elder
statesman. The Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg
is due to step down next year, but it seems
unlikely that European Nato members will
accept as secretary-general the man who
triggered the break-up of the EU.
This leaves Cameron with a book to
write, and according to members of his
circle, it is heavy going. Few politicians, even
those with first-class Oxford degrees in PPE,
write very well.
Cameron, according to a friend, was
initially gung-ho about his memoir. He went
along in person to some of the pitches to
reassure publishers that his book would not
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
be a ghost-written trot around the block. He
secured an 800,000 advance, which might
be rated a bit of a disappointment, certainly
compared to the $60 million Barack and
Michelle Obama are reported to have
secured for their autobiographies.
The problem is that unless Cameron
is prepared to settle scores and wash dirty
linen, it is difficult to see how his memoir
will fly off the shelves. Thatcher and Blair
had a guaranteed book-buying audience in
America. That cannot be said of Cameron.
By all accounts, the writing has proved
a trial for him. Jacob Rothschild has
helped him with an office in St Jamess,
but Cameron prefers to go to the weekend
home in Oxfordshire to write, or to his wifes
family estate in Yorkshire.
I t turns out that the principal victims
of Brexit are the game birds of North
Yorkshire and Oxfordshire, for Cameron
is back out with his shotgun, having taken
a break for presentational reasons during
his Downing Street years. His inner toff is
coming to the fore now he is out of office,
says an associate who speculates whether
the old Bullingdon Club photographs will
be coming down from the attic.
One habitu of St Jamess says Cameron
is once again a regular luncher at Whites, the
club from which he resigned in showy pro-
test at its non-inclusive membership rules.
His son is reported to have been consider-
ing St Pauls Juniors, so the only question
now may be whether the boy goes on to a
private London day school or to Eton.
Samantha says she wont allow politics
to influence her childrens education, which
is what wives say when they want to give
their husbands the political cover to climb
down from expedient positions. It is safe to
assume that state education is now off the
agenda for all three children.
While Samantha Camerons outlook
remains very London-focused, with her
fashion label, friends report Davids cen-
tre of gravity has shifted slightly back to
Oxfordshire. The Brexit furore has triggered
a breach with some of his old friends, most
spectacularly Michael Gove. Generally,
Cameron sees less of his Notting Hill friends
and more of the county set, though word is
that the Chipping Norton gang of Jeremy
Clarkson, Rebekah Brooks et al are not as
thick as they were.
It was striking how few of the 20 or so
guests at his 50th birthday party in the
autumn were from the political world.
Dinner was cooked in the family Aga by the
property developer and Tory donor Tony
Gallagher, an Oxfordshire neighbour, but
there was no room for his newly knighted
former press man Craig Oliver or many
other close political associates.
Cameron has not been able to shake off
the humiliation in political circles of the
Brexit defeat, or forgive those on the other
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
after Brexit, hed have banged out his mem-
oirs in three weeks and moved on; Cameron
cannot show such ruthless zeal. Meanwhile,
his abrupt decision to leave the Commons
has deprived him of a daily structure and of a
political platform where he could have influ-
enced the implementation of Brexit. It was
proving excruciating to remain in the Com-
mons, says a friend, because anything he
said was misinterpreted. But it has left a gap.
Paul Dacre, the Daily Mail editor, never
really saw the point of David Cameron,
an animus redoubled when it was recently
reported Cameron had tried to get him
sacked before the referendum. From time
to time, Dacre would drop in at Downing
Street to catch up on politics over an early
side of the argument. Thus, the most curious evening drink. Then Dacre would head back
omission from his birthday guest list was to the Mail office to oversee the first edition
Anthony Bamford, a friend and generous
party donor who never concealed his Brexit
sympathies.
proofs, telling subordinates of his amaze-
ment that he had left the Prime Minister
with his feet up having settled in for the
It would be wrong to suggest that Cam- night with a boxset of Scandi noir.
eron has sunk into a post-Downing Street Some fear that an absence of a strong
funk. That is not his nature. He is, friends say, work ethic, and his tendency to chillax over
an optimist who almost all his political life a glass or three of wine, does not lend itself to
was blessed with amazing good luck. a post-Downing Street portfolio existence.
But those who know him well or in When evicted from Downing Street last
some cases, knew him well say he is not year, Cameron was five years younger than
firing on all cylinders. He has always been Ted Heath and Margaret Thatcher when
something of a dilettante, for whom politics they arrived there. The young man who
was a bit of a parlour game between Eton always seemed to be in a hurry has been left
and Oxford friends. with a lot of time to ponder how he will be
Had Boris Johnson met political oblivion remembered.
ANCIENT AND MODERN
Theresa May at the Rubicon
Last week many about to do. Plutarchs
commentators drew on the account continues: Using an
Ides (15th) of March, the expression common among
anniversary of Julius those about to take a
Caesars death in 44 BC, to desperate and unpredictable
reflect on the signing of chance, he said Let the die
Article 50 and Julius be thrown up in the air and
Caesars famous cry The die hurried across the river.
is cast (iacta alea est) in And that is the point.
49 BC, when he crossed the force ahead to the Rubicon Alea in Latin meant
River Rubicon into Italy and spends the rest of the gambling, risk-taking,
and started the civil war day without a care in the hazard and die only
against Pompey. But they world enjoying a few figuratively. For who knows
got it wrong: it does not local shows, checking out his where dice will fall? And
mean no turning back. planned gladiatorial school, that is what Caesar, the
Whatever the rights and and entertaining guests for ultimate chancer, meant by
wrongs of the Caesar- dinner. those words.
Pompey power struggle, He then excuses himself That is also much more
Caesar knew the and with a few men in a appropriate for the
consequences of this hired cart (not to attract impending Brexit. Whatever
moment. Our sources attention) makes his way to anyone says politician,
describe the build-up. the Rubicon by night. And Leaver, Remainer, Eurocrat,
Caesar is camped with his gets hopelessly lost. They commentator no one has
troops in Ravenna. continue on foot, find a the remotest notion what
Messages are flying back shepherd who knows the the outcome will be. No
and forth between him and way, and arrive at dawn. wonder Mrs May and her
Pompey in Rome. When his It is here that he pauses, team, like Caesar, hesitate at
final offer is turned pondering with companions this Rubicon moment.
down, he secretly sends a the magnitude of what he is Peter Jones
21

Juncker is now the hardest Brexiter there is
T
he best thing about being a Remain-
er is obviously the dinner parties,
where we all sit around being incred-
ibly well-heeled in leafy Islington. Bloody
love a good heel, I do. And a leaf. Honestly,
you havent lived until youve heard Eddie
Izzard and Nick Clegg crack jokes at each
other in French, as Lily Allen and Matthew
Parris do impressions of old people from
Northumberland, while in the background
Bob Geldof and Professor Brian Cox duet
on the piano. Its almost literally how I
spend almost all of my time. Whereas Leav-
er dinner parties, so Im told, are just IDS
and a Scotch egg.
The worst thing about being a Remainer,
though, is Jean-Claude Juncker. Indeed, Id
go further and say that hes the worst thing
about the European Union altogether. Even
if the fantasists were right, and the whole
thing was a Hun plan for a federal Fourth
Reich, with borders collapsing and Turks
taking your jobs and waves of possibly Eri-
trean immigrants coming off boats and set-
ting up mosques-cum-brothels in formerly
pristine Home Counties cricket pavilions.
Not from the Atlantic to the mouth of the
Danube, nor from Italys shoe to Finlands
pointy bit, would you find something more
awful than Jean-Claude Juncker. Hes the
pits. He really is.
Its not just that hes Luxembourgish.
Theyre all a bit Luxembourgish. Its more
the way hes smug and lazy and unelected,
and secure, and utterly impervious to eve-
rything. I am not fond of comparing the EU
to the Galactic Empire in Star Wars, but if
this was that, then the president of the Euro-
pean Commission would be Darth Vader.
Only Darth Vader, in this case, would be an
overly familiar struck-off dentist, a bit pissed
on claret, which would mean that the Rebel
Alliance would not just be oppressed but
incredibly irritated all the time, too.
In fairness, at least hes consistent.
Before the referendum he was open with
his threats, saying a Britain which voted out
would be considered a nation of deserters
which does not have its hair stroked in the
right direction. Ive no idea what that last
bit means, but its still very annoying. This
week, hes been at it again, promising that
22
HUGO RIFKIND
the example made of Britain will make
other countries fear to leave, and that the
remaining member states will fall in love
with each other again and renew their vows.
He might be right. In fact, I fear he probably
is. But he still ought to shut the hell up.
Theresa May will be triggering Article
50 on Wednesday. Technically it is the Euro-
pean Council that will strike the final deal,
rather than the commission. This matters,
because the council is made up largely of
elected leaders from proper places, unlike
the commission, which is quite a lot more,
well, Luxembourgish. If they have any sense,
Junckers threats might come true.
In fact, I fear they probably will.
But he still ought to shut the hell up
Angela Merkel and whoever leads France
will work hard to cut the Eurocrats out of
the picture altogether. Better still, they
should take Juncker and lock him in cell
until the whole thing is over. Hes a menace.
It is not true that the EU is an inherently
federalist, nation-smashing project. Euro-
philes with an alternative vision of its future
include the actual elected leaders of pretty
much every constituent nation bigger than
Shropshire. Juncker, however, is that feder-
alist bogeyman, forever mouthing on about
the future stateless mush. Possibly for some
in the EU, this is regarded as harmless ide-
alism that nobody is supposed to take seri-
ously a bit like the way even New Labour
used to indulge its own hard lefts fondness
for Stalinism. They should comprehend,
Well, I suppose we could start
with his listening skills.
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
though, the damage that it has done. I can-
not speak for Lily Allen, Bob Geldof and
the rest of them, but I sure as hell didnt
vote Remain because I fancied more of
that. Rather, it was in spite of that, because
I feared the consequences, social and eco-
nomic, of a hard severance. I still do. I still
think anybody who doesnt is a fool.
I do not know if I will be able to consider
myself a Remainer, once the process of leav-
ing has begun. Possibly that will no longer
be the right word, because the terrain will
have changed. Yet I maintain that, just as
a narrow vote to stay should not have been
interpreted as a ringing endorsement of that
smirking winesack, so a narrow one to go
is no real mandate for a hard, totalitarian
severance, which turns Britain and the EU
into foes.
In this, I stand against the Farageites,
and plenty of Tories, and anybody else who
thinks, in the maddeningly garbled words of
our Prime Minister, that no deal is better
than a bad deal. But perhaps it is time for
the likes of me to realise that, after Article
50, those people will have allies on the other
side. Come next Wednesday, Jean-Claude
Juncker will be the hardest Brexiter there
is. So, my friends, know your enemy. Every-
thing is about to change.
Remainers rethink
Speaking of changing terrain, keep an ear
out for the rhetoric of Britains remaining
Remain parties, because they are chang-
ing, too. Having announced plans for a sec-
ond Scottish referendum entirely because
of Brexit, Nicola Sturgeon is now incred-
ibly cagey about whether her independent
nation would even be part of the EU, or per-
haps more like Norway.
The same is true of the Lib Dems. Last
weekend, Tim Farron managed to give a
whole speech to his partys spring confer-
ence railing against only a hard Brexit and
thus never quite saying whether a Lib Dem
government (humour me) would leave the
EU or not. These people need to get off the
fence. Mind you, so do I.
Hugo Rifkind is a writer for the Times.
ANTHONY
NOLAN
CURES
BLOOD
CANCER
Every day, we match stem cell
donors to people with blood
cancer and blood disorders in
desperate need of a lifesaving
transplant. Thats what we do.

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Reg charity no 803716/SC038827981CM 0317

For a real Oxbridge education, go to Durham
S
hould I just have done with it and tell
them theyre a bunch of tossers?
I was on my way to speak at the
Durham Union. The motion was This House
believes the NHS is out of date. And, as
usual, I was on the wrong side of the debate
so why should I even bother? You know
beforehand which way the vote is going to go
at any university debate these days: the one
which enables the snowflakes most easily to
signal their virtue.
But, on the spur of the moment, I decid-
ed to give Durham the benefit of the doubt.
I was going to be incredibly rude to you,
I began. Which you totally deserve for being
a bunch of snowflakes who are going to vote
against the motion because hashtag I heart
the NHS. But instead Im going to make a
case by appealing to your intellects
I could scarcely believe what happened
next. The audience listened. They laughed
at my jokes. When I made eye contact, they
didnt look away nervously like I was some
snarling right-wing pariah with whom they
wanted nothing to do. Then, perhaps most
amazingly of all, they voted by 75 to 50 in
favour of the motion.
Now I accept that this was partly thanks
to the brilliance of my co-speaker, Kate
Andrews of the Institute of Economic Affairs,
who was eloquent, reasonable and fearsome-
ly well-briefed. Our opponents, with their
envy of the world pabulum, just didnt have in danger of throwing out the baby with the
a prayer.
Except at both the Oxford and Cam-
bridge Unions, I know, the other side would
still definitely have won. Ive said this before
but its worth repeating, just to annoy him:
the last time I debated at Oxford, the ex-
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger gave a
boilerplate speech of such unutterably pre-
dictable, dreary, fatuous lefty tosh that I hon-
estly thought the undergraduates would feel
insulted by its glib platitudinousness. Instead,
they just couldnt get enough of it. Bizarre, I
thought at the time.
No, worse, I realise after my Durham
experience: tragic. I know some of you think I
bang on about Oxford so infatuatedly I sound
like Withnails Uncle Monty recalling his first
love Norman and his poetry book stained
with the butter drips from crumpets. But I
24
JAMES DELINGPOLE
care because its my alma mater, because
it really did shape my intellect in a way for
which Ill be eternally grateful and because I
want it to go on being the amazing, liberating
playground of ideas that it was in my butter-
stained youth. These days, I fear, in order to
recreate that echt Oxbridge experience, you
need to apply, not to Oxford or Cambridge,
but to one of those establishments such as
Durham which we used to scoff at for being
filled with Oxbridge rejects.
They still are filled with Oxbridge rejects,
of course, but of such a high calibre that they
would once have been a shoo-in. Quite a
hefty portion come from the private schools
against which, anecdotal evidence suggests,
While trying to broaden its social mix,
Oxbridge has achieved the opposite:
creating a sterile PC monoculture
Oxbridge admissions tutors are becoming
increasingly prejudiced. If youre someone
like the radical-left politician Michael soak
the rich Gove, who recently argued for pub-
lic schools to be stung for VAT so that they
can be punished even more than they are
already, youll no doubt consider this anti-
elitism a healthy thing. But after my own
admittedly brief recent trips Id say that in
its eagerness to purge itself of students from
a certain kind of background, Oxbridge is
raised $6 billion in alumnus donations?
bathwater.
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
Take, for example, the right-on enthusiasm
for recruiting Greats candidates from schools
that dont do Latin or Greek. The theory goes
that by the fourth year, these eager state-
school kids will have attained the same profi-
ciency as private-school ones who have been
hothoused on classics since they were eight or
nine. But I gather that only the Oxbridge clas-
sics tutors who have drunk the social justice
Kool-Aid actually believe this has worked in
practice. The rest are worried about declining
long-term standards and are also a bit frus-
trated: if youre an Oxbridge classics don, you
want to teach Oxbridge-level classics not
catch-up for beginners.
Then theres the money thing. At dinner
the other night I sat next to the wife of a Cam-
bridge-educated billionaire whose privately
educated son wasnt even going to consider
applying to Oxford or Cambridge because of
their anti-public-school prejudice. She spelled
out what this meant: no lavish bequests; no
more donations not even to her husbands
old college, because who wants to donate to a
college that wont take your son? Apparently
and she knows: these are the circles she
moves in a lot of her friends feel the same
way and Oxbridge is increasingly feeling the
pinch. How if it continues to discriminate
against such people does Oxbridge hope
to compete with US rivals like the University
of Southern California, where a campaign has
You could argue that none of this matters:
that it is only right that Oxbridge should dis-
criminate against posh kids who have been
taught well and know stuff and seek out state-
educated ones who may work harder and
who may turn out to be brighter.
My counterargument would be that, in its
well-meaning attempt to broaden its social
mix, Oxbridge has accidentally achieved the
opposite: creating a sterile, conformist, PC
monoculture of earnest state-indoctrinated
Stakhanovites from which the children of
the sun have been all but expunged, exiled
to more simpatico institutions like Durham,
Bristol and Edinburgh, whose standards have
been raised greatly by this influx of talent.
Hardly anyone will publicly admit this stuff
because it sounds snobbish. But lots of you
reading this will know it to be true.

Speaking for Scotland
Sir: I wonder if it is wise of Charles Moore
(Notes, 18 March) to assume as so
many do that because they lost the
independence referendum back in 2014,
the Nationalists do not speak for Scotland?
In the following general election Scottish
voting virtually wiped out every political
party north of the border, other than the
SNP. Might it not be wiser to assume that
the Scots had thought again?
Ian Olson
Aberdeen
Birds, gangs and economics
Sir: Simon Barnes is correct in his
implication that the trapping and
harvesting of small birds by criminal
gangs in Cyprus is enough to make the
average Briton squeamish (Little birds,
big trouble, 18 March). However, while
this may be so, the current system of
enforcement is clearly failing.
The problem Barnes describes seems to
the uninitiated observer to be a variation
on the classic the tragedy of the commons.
While nominally anyone may benefit
hugely from bird-catching if they get away
with it, no one is willing to police the
area effectively. The risk-to-reward ratio
of illegal activity is simply too good for
criminal gangs to pass up.
By way of a solution, I suggest that
licensed individuals (local Cypriots
preferably) ought to be able purchase
quotas for the catching of birds from
the bases, with the revenue paying for
gamekeepers to patrol the areas.
This will have the quadruple effect of
eliminating the unsustainable take all we
can, while we can attitude, undermining
the profitability of criminal activity,
reducing friction with the local Cypriot
population and allowing the base police to
make actual security the priority.
While for some this may seem
distasteful, it must be remembered that the
current system will see the birds harvested
to extinction by criminals. Creating
legitimate livelihoods that rely on bird
populations continued strength is the only
way that they can be managed sustainably.
T.C. Philpott
London W14
Dogged enforcement
Sir: Bravo Toby Young for his piece
on dogs calling cards (Status anxiety,
18 March). He highlights a real problem.
There seems to be but one means of dealing
effectively with the minority of selfish dog
owners who allow their pets to foul private
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
LETTERS
and public areas, and that is an innovative
Italian solution whereby dogs must be
licensed and owners are required to submit
a sample of each dogs offering. The local
authority then retains a DNA record of
each animal and when canine muck is
collected it can be matched with the sample
and a hefty fine levied on the responsible
individual. If the fines and licence fees are
set at the right levels, the process can be
self-financing, covering the costs of data
collection, personnel and vehicles used in
such a scheme.
Anthony J. Burnet
East Saltoun, East Lothian
Chapter and verse
Sir: In her interesting piece on the veil
and the recent ruling from the European
Court of Justice (Uncover her face,
18 March), Qanta Ahmed writes that rigid
interpretations of the veil are derived not
from the Quran but from a misogyny
which claims a false basis from the divine.
I think she is on sticky ground here:
Quran 4:34 (Al Nisa) clearly states that
God created men as superior to women,
and enjoying corresponding rights and
authority over them. Indeed, disobedient
women may be beaten by their husbands.
If you believe, as I understand true Muslims
should, that this is the inerrant word of
god as revealed to Mohammed, it seems
perfectly reasonable that veiling and other
restrictions are imposed on the inferior sex
by its superior.
Peter Lucey
Wokingham, Berkshire
Darning with Daddy
Sir: Lara Prendergast reminded me that,
in the days of conscription, very many
young men were given instruction in
basic needlecraft, and much more besides
(Spectator Schools, 18 March). Those
conscripts passed on those skills to their
sons, as my father did to me. I never cease
to be grateful that my father taught me how
to sew buttons, how to repair split seams,
how to darn socks and how to cobble my
own shoes. As to ironing, there was only
one person who could iron my shirts in the
correct fashion, and that was me. While we
both acknowledged my mothers superior
skills in every area other than cobbling, my
brother and I felt no shame in threading a
needle and getting stuck in.
These days, I look forward to a hole
appearing in a sock so that I can lose
myself in the satisfaction that comes from
creating the perfect darn. Father would
have been proud.
On the other hand, what they taught
British conscripts about cooking probably
contributed to the reputation of the
post-war years for the most bland food
imaginable. My fathers efforts nearly
poisoned us.
Tony Bryan
Richmond, Surrey
Who was the Ripper?
Sir: I have great respect for Patricia
Cornwell as a writer of fiction. Sadly,
though, her beliefs on the identity of Jack
the Ripper (Redeeming the Ripper,
18 March) are just that. The generally-held
belief is that the correspondence from
Saucy Jack are fake, written either by a
journalist or some other hoaxer. My own
view is that the Ripper was probably Aaron
Kosminski, but I doubt very much that it
was Walter Sickert. He is as plausible a
candidate as Sir William Gull, or the Duke
of Clarence.
Eliot Wilson
Sunderland
WRITE TO US
The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London
SW1H 9HP; letters@spectator.co.uk
25
 ANY OTHER BUSINESS|MARTIN VANDER WEYER
Google still needs to try a lot
harder to do the right thing
S
hortly before agreeing, early last year,
to pay token back taxes on a decades
worth of UK-generated profits, Goog-
le also abolished its global slogan Dont be
evil. Instead it adopted a code of conduct
that urged employees to do the right thing
but at least in one important respect, they
didnt. Marks & Spencer, HSBC, Audi and
numerous other top brands found their ban-
ner adverts displayed alongside a variety of
YouTube hate videos which Google had
failed to exclude, apparently because it did
not have sufficient resources to monitor all
the video content that was being uploaded
at the rate of 400 hours per minute.
For fear of losing a chunk of its UK ad
revenues, the company has apologised and
promised to do better. But the episode
reminds us again of the slipperiness of the
21st-century digital mega-corporation.
In Googles case, that has meant paying
taxes akin to those paid by terrestrial com-
panies only as a negotiated last resort when
embarrassed into doing so, while trying to
duck responsibility for publishing much
of the vilest and most disturbing material
on the planet. Yet we all use Google many
times a day, believing it to be a miraculous
knowledge channel that is also benign, or at
least morally neutral. And so it should be,
but given its hugely influential position in all
our lives, it needs to try a lot harder.
Heres a Brexit opportunity
As Ive said before, the bellwether of post-
Brexit prosperity will be the health of the
UK car industry, rather than that of the far
larger financial sector. The City is nimble
enough to look after itself come what may;
it requires little more than plug sockets and
clever lawyers to outmanoeuvre barriers to
its trade. Car-makers, by contrast, require
massive investment in research, robotics and
logistics to keep them at the cutting edge of
a globalised manufacturing system operat-
ing on the tightest of margins.
So every indicator is worth tracking.
Peugeot-Vauxhall was a mixed signal, and a
26
cloud hangs over the Ford engine plant at
Bridgend. But theres positive news from
Toyota in Derbyshire, which is investing
240 million in an assembly line upgrade to
match Toyota systems worldwide. Toyotas
European chief, Johan van Zyl, says hes
hoping for the same safeguards against EU
tariffs that Theresa May is believed to have
promised Nissan; he also talked of sourcing
more components within the UK.
If the first of those two provisos remains
uncertain, the second is an opportunity. On
average, only 41 per cent of parts in Brit-
ish-made cars originate here. Whatever the
Brexit deal, its highly unlikely to offer car-
ry-on-as-you-are exemptions for this indus-
try alone. So the challenge in the automotive
game will be to generate competitive new
lines of supply, whether domestically or
from faraway places we can trade with tar-
iff-free. Lets open a factory.
Bobs comeback carriage
Lock up your Libor-linked instruments: Bob
Diamond is back in the City. Five years after
his scandal-driven exit as chief executive
of Barclays, my old sparring partner as I
like to think of him has teamed up with
Qatari investors to buy Panmure Gordon, a
stockbroking survivor from the 19th Cen-
tury, for 15.5 million. That sum, as the FT
sniffily pointed out, is rather less than Bob
used to earn per annum in palmier days, and
observers may be wondering whether hes
following a coherent strategy. Lately he has
been trying without obvious success to build
a bank in Africa and, through his private
equity firm Atlas Merchant Capital, buy-
ing up a ragbag of financial ventures, includ-
ing a Greek consumer credit business and
now the almost-forgotten small-cap broking
boutique of Panmure Gordon.
But at least his latest purchase has a histo-
ry that match Bobs own buccaneering spirit.
The founder, Harry Panmure Gordon (1837
1902), was a high-living Harrovian who com-
manded the Shanghai Mounted Volunteers
against the Taiping rebellion before return-
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
ing to found his London stockbroking firm
in 1876. An extremely successful practition-
er, according to historian David Kynaston,
he was also one of the most talked-about
men in the City, not least for his collec-
tions of carriages, neckties and trousers a
pair for every day of the year. Always full
of push and energy his restless tempera-
ment showed itself in staccato phrases:
that reminds me of Bob barking down the
phone from New York: I love the challenge,
Martin, I love the business.
In more recent times, Panmure pro-
vided a launch pad for the young Michael
Richardson, a tireless dealmaker who was
later labelled Margaret Thatchers favour-
ite banker, and for the hyperactive inter-
national networker Ronnie Grierson. Old
it may be, but Panmure Gordon looks an
appropriate carriage for Bobs comeback,
if thats what this is. Hell surely never run
a big British bank again, but as former
business secretary Vince Cable remarked,
a boutique is less alarming.
Hard-nosed capitalists
Melrose Industries is a lesser-known
FTSE 100 company whose executives are
reportedly about to partake in a 200 mil-
lion share bonanza under an incentive
scheme, having already had 126 million
from a pay-out in 2012. Are shareholders
furious? Not at all, apparently: They only
make money if we do, said one institutional
investor. Based on the Hanson conglomer-
ate model from the 1980s, Melrose special-
ises in turning around underperforming
industrial businesses and selling them; it has
returned 3 billion to investors since it was
founded in 2003. Its top team of Christo-
pher Miller, David Roper and Simon Peck-
ham did similar things in a previous venture
called Wassall, Miller having once worked
for Hanson and Roper having once been a
City colleague of mine, though his talent was
underestimated. Theirs is a hard-nosed form
of capitalism, but one that creates efficiency
and value. Hats off to them.
PRIVATE COLLECTION, LONDON HOWARD HODGKIN

DH in Hollywood, 1980 Jane Ridley reckons Peter Stanford welcomes a Damian Thompson thinks
84, by Howard Hodgkin Theresa May could learn a very different portrayal of its time for Maurizio Pollini
Martin Gayford p40
thing or two from Talleyrand Thomas More to Hilary to retire
Mick Brown reveals that Mantels bogeyman Deborah Ross watches a
Kahlil Gibran was a Jonathan McAloon documentary about teenage
champion sponger and suggests the real joy of Lena girls without wanting to
alcoholic Dunhams Girls is the boys stick forks into her eyes
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 27
BOOKS & ARTS
The man and the moment
With the old order rotten to the core, Russia was more than ripe for revolution in 1917.
But Lenin thought the revolution was all about him, says Roland Elliott Brown
Lenin the Dictator:
An Intimate Portrait
by Victor Sebestyen
Weidenfeld, 25, pp. 569
Russia in Revolution:
An Empire in Crisis
by S.A. Smith
OUP, 25, pp. 455
1917: Stories and Poems
from the Russian Revolution
selected by Boris Dralyuk
Pushkin Press, 8.99, pp. 236
The centenary of the Russian Revolution
has arrived right on time, just as the liberal
democratic world is getting a taste of what
its like to feel political gravity give way. In
2017, Lenin lives. In many ways he was a
thoroughly modern phenomenon, writes
Victor Sebestyen in Lenin the Dictator,
the kind of demagogue familiar to us in west-
ern democracies, as well as in dictatorships.
In his quest for power, he promised people
anything and everything. He offered sim-
ple solutions to complex problems. He lied
unashamedly. He identified a scapegoat he
could later label enemies of the people. He
justified himself on the basis that winning
meant everything. Lenin was the godfather
of what commentators a century after his time
call post-truth politics.
Sebestyen, whose family fled Hungary
as refugees when he was a child, revives a
style of history familiar to the Cold War, in
which leading Bolsheviks appear as black
sheep in an unhappy eastern bloc fam-
ily history. Like the Polish-born historian
Richard Pipes, his writing is full of caus-
tic asides and asterisks and daggers lead-
ing down wormholes of communist lore.
His well-sourced narrative feels as if it was
honed around kitchen tables for decades
before he sat down to write it. If anything
disproves the Marxist idea that it is not
individuals who make history but broad
social and economic forces, he writes, it is
Lenins revolution.
Parts of the story are familiar. In 1887,
when Lenin was a teenager, the tsarist
28
BOOKS
regime hanged his older brother Alexan-
der for plotting to assassinate Tsar Alexan-
der III. His familys subsequent ostracism
by the Simbirsk bourgeoisie fired his con-
tempt for his social peers. That same year,
he was expelled from Kazan university
for participating in a demonstration. He
delved instead into a resentful if disciplined
self-education in socialist classics and dis-
covered Marx a writer tsarist censors
thought no one would read.
Less often emphasised are Lenins rela-
tionships with women, which proved so
much more enduring than those with men.
His mother Maria fought for his educa-
tion and provided him with financial assis-
tance for much of his life. He was close to
his sisters. A classic socialist love trian-
gle defined his private life. In 1897, fellow
socialist Nadezhda Krupskaya married him
and followed him into Siberian exile, Euro-
pean exile, and eventually into the Kremlin.
In 1909, he met Inessa Armand, a femi-
When tsarist forces shelled
hundreds of Moscow workers in
1905, Lenin practically celebrated
nist migre in Paris who had abandoned
the Tolstoyan movement over the novel-
ists views on prostitution. She had read
Lenins The Development of Capitalism in
Russia on her way into Marxism, and Lenin
made her head of the Bolsheviks Interna-
tional Bureau. The two women kept cordial
relations.
Such was the revolutionary milieu.
Variations on that biography would not
be hard to find. But the personality that
shaped the humanitarian inferno after
1917 is more inscrutable. Sebestyen pre-
sents unsettling evidence of a man whose
objectives seemed to possess him, rather
than the other way around. When famine
and disease swept his native Volga region
in 1891, killing hundreds of thousands of
peasants, Lenin propagandised against
charitable relief efforts because the spec-
tacle of death might prove a progressive
factor in weakening the Romanovs. When
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
tsarist forces shelled to death hundreds of
Moscow workers and their families in 1905,
he practically celebrated: The one who has
been whipped is worth two who have not.
Russia was about due a socialist revolu-
tion in 1917 the old order was rotten and
socialist groups enjoyed broad support
but Lenins trajectory suggests he thought
the revolution was all about him. Sebesty-
en doesnt quite make this explicit, but the
Bolshevik who arrived from exile in war-
weary Petrograd that year was already
in blood steppd so far. He was in a race
not only against liberals, reactionaries and
rival socialists, but also with his own mor-
tality and sense of self-worth. Past middle
age, childless, short of money and with a
life invested in quarrel and conspiracy,
his mission to capture the revolution and
contain it within his Marxist innovations
seems to have been an existential concern
for him. His careless planning for his suc-
cession suggests as much.
Portraying the man in power, Sebesty-
en demonstrates with memorable exam-
ples his cold cynicism and easy recourse
to terror and his seemingly pathological
reliance on censorship and disinformation.
The impression is less of an idealist trying
to implement a lofty plan than of a half-
conscious charlatan trying to run out the
clock before he discovers himself.
Yet not all of Lenins traits, Sebestyen
observes, were dictator clichs. He didnt
care for riches, and disdained the person-
ality cult that surrounded him. Sebest-
yen suggests that Lenins legacy was to
provide Russia with a modern strong-
man archetype, although he slightly over-
states Lenins standing in the Putin era.
Queues for Lenins tomb arent as long
these days, and Putinists dont like revo-
lutionaries.
S.A. Smiths Russia in Revolution
belongs to the opposite genre of history.
Revolutions, he writes,
are not created by revolutionaries, who at
most help to erode the legitimacy of the exist-
ing regime by suggesting that a better world
is possibleAs Lenin himself well knew, it is
only when the existing order is in deep crisis
GETTY IMAGES
Lenin centre stage as the great self-promoter
that revolutionaries can break out of political
isolation and seek to mobilise popular forces
to bring the old order to its knees.
Weighing his research against the views of
other leading historians, Smith offers a well-
proportioned and skilfully condensed pano-
rama of the revolutionary situation in the
Russian empire and its aftermath, covering
nearly 40 years.
The central tension in his account is
between idealism and tyranny. He begins
with an epigraph from the dewy-eyed
Pierre Bezukhov arguing for the ideals of
the French Revolution in War and Peace.
Against the backdrop of a disintegrat-
ing empire, he encapsulates the ambitions
of nascent voluntary societies, an expand-
ing press, womens groups, recently eman-
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
cipated serfs and emerging revolutionary
factions (about 20 of which sought, like the
Bolsheviks, to overthrow the Provisional
Government in 1917). On the other side of
the Bolshevik curtain, he presents subtly
argued accounts of the bloody collapse of
political pluralism, the toll of civil war and
the inculcation of Soviet culture.
Smith contends that the passage of 100
years has made utopian illusions easier
to perceive than the attraction of ideals,
although his account highlights plenty of
illusions. While his Lenin is recognisable
from Sebestyens account, Smith also cau-
tions that Bolshevism was broader than
Lenins line. Even if Lenin thought himself
synonymous with the party, he points out,
the many thousands of workers, soldiers and
sailors who joined the Bolsheviks between
February and October 1917 numbers
shot from as few as 10,000 to as many as
350,000 probably had little acquaintance
with Marxism, and simply embraced the
Bolsheviks as implacable defenders of the
common people.
Such ambiguities are magnificently evi-
denced in 1917: Stories and Poems from
the Russian Revolution, which is one of
the real gems among the centenary books.
Half poetry and half prose, the anthol-
ogy presents Russian writers reactions to
the early years of revolution, from Febru-
ary 1917 until the ascendency of the Red
Army over the Whites in late 1919. Arrang-
ing the works thematically and detailing the
revolutions impact on the authors lives,
Boris Dralyuk assembles a potent blend of
novelty, utopianism and eschatology.
On the verse side, Marina Tsvetaeva
and Osip Mandelstam were mesmerised
by the spectacle of expensive wine flowing
into gutters and rivers in urgent displays
of revolutionary temperance. The long-
time Bolshevik Vladimir Mayakovsky wel-
comed a cleansing flood even greater than
Noahs. Such religious imagery abounded
in the nascent atheist state: the most uncan-
ny example is Alexander Bloks long poem
The Twelve, which imagines violent young
Bolsheviks as apostles.
Most memorable among the prose piec-
es are the morbid satires like Teffis The
Guillotine, in which the people of Petro-
grad display all their old petty gripes and
prejudices while reporting for behead-
ing, and Yefim Zozulyas The Dictator, in
which a Lenin surrogate, having raised the
question of every citizens right to life, vac-
illates weightily over the science of exter-
mination and then does a runner. Mikhail
Zoshchenkos early essay A Wonderful
Audacity contrasts Russians resentment
of the feeble politics of their Provisional
Government with the raw appeal of the
Bolsheviks. That, too, feels modern:
They were weak; and you cried, Stronger!
And now your wish is granted. Kiss the whip
that is raised above you.
Its cruel, you say? Yes, but, on the other hand,
it is powerful.
29
BOOKS & ARTS
ing, challenging times while displaying
A genial green an unerring instinct for giving his read-
guide to 2000 AD ers exactly what they want. In this issue:
Sinister Dexter; Kingmaker; and of course
Andy Miller Mega-City Ones Judge Dredd he is
still, indomitably, the Law (and would no
Thrill-Power Overload: doubt be greeted warmly by Mail readers
2000 AD The First Forty Years were he not at least in part satirical).
by David Bishop and Karl Stock There is plenty about Judge Dredd, his
Rebellion, 35, pp. 400 creators John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra
and 2000 ADs originators Kevin Gosnell
I can recall exactly where I was 40 years and Pat Mills, in David Bishops Thrill-
ago when I didnt buy the first issue or Power Overload, first published ten years
prog of 2000 AD. The just-launched sci- ago and now substantially revised and
fi comic, featuring space-age dinosaurs, expanded by Karl Stock as part of the com-
the new Dan Dare and a FREE SPACE ics extravagant 40th birthday celebrations.
SPINNER, i.e. a mini frisbee, looked quite As with the Daleks and Doctor Who, the
exciting and, at 8p, good value for pocket helmeted dystopian law-enforcer was not
money; but, as a regular nine-year old con- actually present in that first issue, but
sumer of Whizzer and Chips etc., I stuck Dredd was soon synonymous with the
with my usual comedy fare and opted for comic and became a significant part of its
a copy of Buster instead. It was a decision success, spawning two big-screen adapta-
I soon came to regret (eh readers?) tions: the excellent recent Dredd by Pete
I can also recall exactly where I was Travis and Alex Garland, and the earlier
when I bought the most recent issue Sylvester Stallone abomination we never
of 2000 AD in Gosh! Comics in talk about.
Soho a fortnight ago. Times may have For those who have measured out their
changed but the future has not. BORAG lives in progs, this is a glorious book, a
THUNGG, EARTHLETS! writes the maga- 100,000-word compendium packed with
zines editor at the front of prog 2018, as full-colour illustration and background
he has done every week for the past 40 information about some of 2000 ADs
years, Call me The Mighty Tharg, your most successful and enduring characters:
genial green guide to the zarjaz Thrill- Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog, D.R. &
plosion that is 2000 AD! Quinch, Nemesis the Warlock and, erm,
Like the Mails Paul Dacre, Tharg the Big Dave, the hardest man in Manches-
Mighty is rarely seen in public but has ter (look him up).
steered his publication through chang- Similarly the roll-call of writers and
30
artists who have contributed to the comic
over the years is extremely impressive
Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Dave Gibbons,
Grant Morrison and many of them
were interviewed by Bishop and Stock for
Thrill-Power Overload; definitive seems
an appropriate description.
But the book can also be read both as
an account of the challenges of producing
an illustrated magazine week in, week out,
under often perilous circumstances, and
also as a chronicle of the enormous chang-
es in the British publishing industry since
the 1970s. One former staffer recalls the
effect on morale of yet another takeover:
I was shell-shocked. First we were four in
Kings Reach Tower. Then they moved us to
this awful building where we became two.
Then Simon left and I become one. I remem-
ber Pat [Mills] saying Ill never create anoth-
er character for you because you dont pay
royalties like it was my fault. Thanks Pat!
Its a hard enough job to do anyway.
For all its debt to American comics, and
the fact that its editor is a green-skinned,
authoritarian egoist from the planet
Quaxxann, there has always been some-
thing tremendously British about 2000
AD. Its mixture of action, grit, humour
and, yes, social realism could have origi-
nated in no other star quadrant; and the
story of its survival from that first prog in
1977 to the present day is a similarly Brit-
ish one of pluck, determination and defi-
ant piss-taking. Happy birthday 2000 AD
and, in the words of the Mighty Tharg,
SPLUNDIG VUR THRIGG!
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
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
BOOKS & ARTS
Prophesying doom
Brian Martin
2084: The End of the World
Boualem Sansal, translated from the
French by Alison Anderson
Europa Editions, 11.99, pp. 240
Boualem Sansals prophetic novel very
clearly derives its lineage from George
Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four. A totali-
tarian surveillance state, a fundamentalist
religious autocracy, is portrayed as being
totally intolerant of free-thinkers. This is
a powerful satire on an Islamist dictator-
ship. It is unsurprising that Sansals writ-
ings are censored in his native Algeria.
The religious structure of the political
state is familiar. The one true god is Yolah
and his prophet or Delegate is Abi. Abis tells us of Ati, a young man who suffered
book, the Gkabul, is the foundation of the
religion; it is sacrosanct and immutable.
Places of worship are mockbas and the
nation is named Abistan after the true
Vitamins
I have grown heated under my rind;
At rest behind my eyelids,
While the figs ripen, one at a time.
On the edge of being over-ripe,
Ive cut out drink and drugs
And you could say Im rationing my cum.
I get up, engage with my work-out
(Health is my new high)
And then soak in the D
From heavens oriflamb
By basking at a balmy angle.
What a great big fruit I am!
But shouldnt I bask
In the moon as well,
Soaking in whatever she releases
Before I fall to pieces?
Might not her more subtle light
Work on the inner sprite
And set off fermentation
So essence might become
Leau propre de ma vie?
Make of me an alcohol, oh moon,
That bright young figs take swigs from
When immersed in me.
32
disciple. There are nine calls to prayer each
day. An official language has been institut-
ed, Abilang. Orwells Newspeak chimes in
the memory.
The states hierarchy mimics regimes we
recognise. Abistan has its supreme leader,
its Just Brotherhood, its Apparatus, minis-
tries that oversee every aspect of society;
they all watch over a cowed and depressed
population. Anyone who is detected dis-
senting from established views, by official
investigation or by the evidence of inform-
ers, is arrested and taken for public execu-
tion by stoning or beheading to one of many
stadiums. Women are hardly noticeable and
rarely mentioned; their masks and bur-
niqabs render them fleeting shadows.
Sansals target is obvious the desired
universal caliphate of Islamist extremists,
the so-called Islamic State. The narrative
ing, frightening novel Submission imagi-
from tuberculosis. He recovered at an iso-
lated sanatorium in the mountains where
people were mostly neglected and died,
or survived merely by chance. Ati makes
Anthony Howell
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
a long, difficult caravan journey back to
Quodsabad, the capital; his experience and
chance acquaintances lead him to doubt the
authenticity of the religious state.
His quest for personal liberation and
freedom of thought is the story. Sometimes,
like Ati himself, we might tend to get lost
in its labyrinthine complexity, but as with
Ati, perseverance is rewarded. Like Peking,
Qodsabad has its interior forbidden city, the
City of God; and like China or the USSR,
Abistan has its corrupt nomenklatura. As
with Stalins Red Army, soldiers who have
come into contact with abroad, when
returned home, are exterminated. Abistan
even has its civilian disappeared.
Sansal spares us nothing of the hor-
rors of the autocratic state, its hypocrisy, its
deceptions and malicious contrivances.
Michel Houellebecqs subtle, threaten-
nes the democratic takeover of France by
Islamist politicians. 2084 follows on, and
has terrifying implications for the entire
world.
The road to independence
Matthew Dennison
From the Heart
by Susan Hill
Chatto, 10.99, pp. 211
Alone with her fathers dead body, Olive
Piper says, I dont know anything, except
what I feel, and how can anyone know
more? In Susan Hills new novel, Olives
acceptance of the primacy of feeling rep-
resents a coming of age. Her maturity is
achieved at a cost.
As in a number of her recent novels
Black Sheep and A Kind Man Hill
explores with great economy an idea of the
ubiquity of differentness. Olive, her very
At every important juncture, Olive
is alone and aloneness becomes
central to her emotional growth
name suggestive of something drab and
unobtrusive, is a girl of conventional back-
ground: in appearance and, apparently, out-
look and ability, she is unremarkable. Her
life seems predestined for ordinariness. As
a schoolgirl she accepts a career in teach-
ing as inevitable, though she remains con-
vinced that real life was elsewhere.
There are moments in Olives journey
when she nudges close to territory more
typical of Anita Brookners heroines: an
unblinking acceptance of her own limita-
tions and a recognition of the inevitability
and painful fallout of mishap. Mis-
haps do come her way brutal, unfair
and in each case not overly surprising. But
Hills concern is not with a Brookner-style
exposure of her heroines tortuous interi-
or life. As an English student at university,
Olive fears lavishness of expression. In this
third-person narrative, Hills pared-down
prose mirrors Olives character: sensible
and unselfpitying, anything but lavish in
thought, utterance or gesture.
From the remorselessness of Olives
misadventures Hill unravels a sense of her
heroine growing in independence and self-
awareness hardly a novel idea, but one
that she successfully refreshes. Olive learns
from those around her, all of whom fail her
at key moments. At every important junc-
ture in her life Olive is essentially alone.
This aloneness becomes central to her
emotional growth. Only when she ceases
second-guessing other peoples feelings
does she approach an understanding of her
own: She felt a burden lift not from her
shoulders but from her heart, so that it was
free again and no ones but her own, after
all. Possibly this is a conceit more typical
of the present than that period of the recent
past in which Hill sets her story. She is suf-
ficiently adroit to shield her heroine from
suggestions of self-absorption or narcissism.
In keeping with her recent non-Simon
Serrailler novels, From the Heart shows
Susan Hill working in a consciously spare,
undecorated style: the novel moves quick-
ly, its sentiments pithily expressed. Such
sparseness is central to its impact.
Holy heroes
Peter Stanford
Reformation Divided: Catholics,
Protestants and the
Conversion of England
by Eamon Duffy
Bloomsbury/Continuum, 30, pp. 441
The Reformation is such a huge, sprawl-
ing historical subject that it makes sense, in
this the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther
producing his 95 Theses, to break it up into
bite-size pieces in order to sample its distinc-
tive local flavours. Eamon Duffy, emeritus
professor of Christian history at Cambridge,
takes England as his territory, and quickly
deprecates the very word Reformation as
an unsatisfactory designation concealing a
battery of value judgments. Instead, he sets
out to investigate what he characterises as
largely a series of homegrown reformations
and counter-reformations.
So far, so sensible, but the process of
reduction is then taken a step further.
Duffys ability to shape his scholarship to a
wide audience is well known, shown to daz-
zling effect in The Stripping of the Altars,
his groundbreaking 1992 account of the
rude good health of late medieval English
Catholicism before Henry VIIIs version of
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
the Reformation. Here, however, he offers
not a single narrative, but rather a series
of 14 essays that range, apparently ran-
domly, from Thomas Mores publication of
Utopia in 1516 to George Foxs founding of
the Quakers in the late 1640s.
Each is individually fascinating, but the
whole requires some pretty big leaps of
time and faith from his readers, who are
not granted the standard epilogue to pull
together the threads of essays that have
been written and published over a span of
four decades. Yet such is the energy, insight
and sheer quality of his writing that Duffy
pulls it off.
After Hilary Mantel has done so much in
Wolf Hall in its various incarnations to cre-
ate an authorised version of Thomas More
as a sour, bigoted bogeyman, as keen on
torture as any inquisitor, Duffy defends the
man for all seasons, explains his motiva- with Luthers attachment to justification by
tions, and absolves him of many of his sins.
The attractive playfulness of Mores Utopia
a thought experiment, Duffy argues, as Mary, as she put to death those who resisted
More vied with Erasmus of Rotterdam to
be the man most likely to lead reform of
Catholicism from within was exiled first
and foremost by the advent of Luther.
The Protestant reformers insistence
that salvation and eternal life came by faith
alone, and had no connection to the good
works done during an individuals time
on earth, had in Mores opinion made vir-
George Fox, founder
of the Quakers, was
no fanatic, but a
practical man of God.
He is likened to
St Francis of Assisi
for his charistmatic
blend of literalness
and freedom
THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY
tue irrelevant, and therefore threatened the
breakdown of a moral society. The impera-
tive to defeat the Lutheran heresy was for
him all-consuming, causing the strange
death of Erasmian England, and ultimately
leading to Mores own demise by beheading
in 1535, when he was unable to countenance
Henry VIIIs force-of-necessity dalliance
with Protestantism.
Another to get a makeover in Duffys
essays is Cardinal Reginald Pole, the last
Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury. Indeed,
in 1549, Pole had come within a vote of
being only the second Englishman elected
Within two generations,
Englands Catholic past
was obliterated
as Pope. Though one who had sympathy
faith over good works, Pole is today best
remembered as right-hand man to Bloody
the return to Catholicism during her reign.
Duffy, however, paints a much more
nuanced picture, resisting the caricature of
Pole as a Catholic extremist, recognising
the strength of many aspects of the Mari-
an counter-reformation, and pointing to his
resistance to the hardline Jesuits establish-
ing a base in England. Had Mary lived, what
Duffy sees as an essential Catholicism in the
33
BOOKS & ARTS

English might have drawn them back once The burning

more into communion with Rome. Instead, of Savonarola
within two generations, that Catholic past (detail)
had been obliterated. GETTY IMAGES

Among the delights of Duffys prose

are his crushing verdicts. Cardinal William
Allen, who aided and abetted the Span-
ish Armada and plotted the overthrow
of Queen Elizabeth from the seminaries
he established for the English mission at
Douai in France and in Rome, is described
thus:
The man courted and honoured by princes,
popes, politicians and plotters was a school-
master and pamphleteer who in another
age might well have enjoyed an uneventful
career in a minor academic post, or ended his
days in a cathedral prebend or a north coun-
try rectory.
Instead, extraordinary times allowed this
lightweight, Duffy judges, to help cement
into place English Protestant equation of
popery with tyranny and treachery.
When the professor turns his atten-
tion to a not-quite balancing contingent of
Protestant reformers, and especially those
Puritans who wanted to go beyond the mod-
eration of the Church of England, he is no
less clear-sighted. George Fox is perhaps his
favourite holy hero, no fanatic but a practi-
cal man of God, likened to Saint Francis of
Assisi on the basis on their shared charis-
matic blend of literalness and freedom.
The missing epilogue notwithstanding,
by ending this collection with Fox, Duffy
does offer a purer, more practical view of
English religion than he has found in those
who feature in the previous 13 essays. It ly torn alive from groin to neck. In mobster (preferring to bask in the romantic aura
gives the fragmented story he tells a narra- parlance, this was a balancing of accounts. of Mr and Mrs Robert Browning). Yet, as
tive arc and therefore a fragile unity. Machiavelli, born in Medicean Florence Machiavelli knew too well, the intellectu-
in 1469, was perhaps not quite the devious al energy of Renaissance Florence was not
schemer of popular imagination. As a man of confined to painting and literature; quite
Mach the Knife some political scruple he was appalled by the as much money and thought went into the
irreverence shown by the Pazzi plotters. The art of political double-speak and curry-
Ian Thomson signal for the attack came just as the priest ing favour (Benner has a weakness for
had raised the host at High Mass; Lorenzo clich) with bankers, popes and princeling-
Be Like the Fox: Machiavellis managed to barricade himself behind the diplomats.
Lifelong Quest for Freedom bronze sacristy doors, but his younger broth- Written in the historic present (Niccol
by Erica Benner er Giuliano died under knife thrusts. The ambles out to the piazza, Niccol offers
Allen Lane, 20, pp. 360 a modest bow), the biography provides
If sometimes I do tell the truth, a colourful picture of Renaissance Flor-
The business of banking (from the Italian ence in Machiavellis day. The Tuscan city
word banco, meaning counter) was essen- I hide it among so many lies was then officially a republic; however, the
tially Italian in origin. The Medici bank, that it is hard to nd Medici manipulated politics and alliances
founded in Florence in 1397, operated like to extend their power in monarchic fash-
a prototype mafia consortium: it rubbed out murder in the cathedral served only to con- ion. Machiavelli soon found himself him-
rivals and spread tentacles into what Nic- solidate Lorenzos popularity as a Florentine self embroiled in the Dominican friar
col Machiavelli called the alti luoghi (high strongman. Under torture, the ringleaders Girolamo Savonarolas hellfire preaching
places) of local power interests. Undoubt- confessed allegiance to the slyly watchful against the Medicis perceived financial
edly, Medici money was at its most arrogant Pope Sixtus IV, who favoured the Pazzi over and sexual outrages.
under the dictatorship of the merchant-poet the Medici as bankers to the Holy See. According to Benner, Machiavelli was
Lorenzo de Medici, whose supremacy was In her new biography of Machiavelli, not a supporter of Savonarolas Christian-
dramatically challenged in the Pazzi conspir- Erica Benner asks how the city that gave flagellant vows to purify Florence, but a
acy of 1478. Amid a fury of dagger blows in us Botticelli and Cellini could have been Savonarolan part of him agreed that Flor-
Florences cathedral (of all places) Lorenzo so appallingly violent. Certainly the Victo- ence had become a virtual police state.
narrowly escaped assassination by bravos in rians who toured the Uffizi with copies of Savonarola, Ferrara-born, was especial-
the pay of the rival Pazzi family. In retribu- Walter Pater did not concern themselves ly exercised by Florences reputation as a
tion, 70 presumed conspirators were public- much with the citys blood-soaked past sodomitical hotbed. Much of the greatest
34 the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
art partronised by the Medici (for instance,
the blatant musculature of Michelangelos
David) was unabashedly homoerotic. In
1497, however, Savonarola was excommu-
nicated and burned in Florence as a heretic
after he sought to challenge the authority of
papal Rome. Conveniently for Machiavel-
li, the Medici had by now been forced into
exile.
It was as deputy chancellor of the pop-
ular new Florentine republic that Machi-
avelli made his name. Appointed to the
position in 1498, he carried out diplo-
matic missions for the post-Medici Signo-
ria (city government), including one to
Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander
VI. As a diplomat, he learned much about
the manipulation of power and how best
to counter an autocratic Medici revival.
However, the liberty of Florence came to
an end 14 years later, in 1512, when Machi-
avelli was arrested and tortured after the
Medici family returned. Soon into his
imprisonment, by a miracle, Pope Julius II
died and his successor Pope Leo X, Cardi-
nal Giovanni de Medici, declared a gen-
eral amnesty for all political prisoners.
Afterwards, Machiavelli began to work for
the reinstated Medici, writing not only his
1532 political treatise The Prince (oppor-
tunistically dedicated to Lorenzo de Med-
ici), but also a series of books on the nature
of republics and some enduringly funny
satirical plays.
Benner, with two academic books on
Machiavelli to her name already, has written
a most unusual life of the Tuscan thinker-
diplomat. Using dialogue freely recon-
structed from primary sources, she builds
a novelettish picture of love and political
intrigue amid merchants of menace and
high finance. At times the prose is sub-
Jean Plaidy in its breathy overtones (he
curls up under the sheets on one side, timid
and bashful as a virgin wife on her wedding
night); at others, it tries rather too hard to
be reader-friendly:
Our great Florentine profiteers are shocked
when no one trusts their republic of skin-
flints, men whod do anything to dodge long-
term commitments to save a few ducats.
Benner, a Yale-educated political theo-
rist, nevertheless makes a decent case for
Machiavelli as being less Machiavellian
than The Prince might suggest. He was,
apparently, an ironist, whose views were
kept hidden for reasons of political cir-
cumspection. If sometimes I do happen to
tell the truth, he wrote, I hide it among so
many lies that it is hard to find.
All the same, very little that Benner
says actually disputes Machiavellis repu-
tation as a Renaissance-era pragmatist and
testa dura (hard head). The title Be Like the
Fox, after all, refers to his advice to be fox-
like in politics and thus avoid entrapment.
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
An epic for our times
Viv Groskop
The Patriots
by Sana Krasikov
Granta, 12.99, pp. 542,
Trailing rave US reviews, fan letters from
Yann Martel and Khaled Hosseini and a
reputation as Doctor Zhivago for the 21st
century, comes this outstanding historical
saga from debut novelist Sana Krasikov.
Its a dazzling and addictive piece of work
from an author born in the Soviet Repub-
lic of Georgia whose family emigrated to
New York when she was eight. Not only
is this novel accomplished and packed
with believable detail and entertaining
dialogue, it also feels curiously relevant,
tip-toeing around the complicated rela-
tionship between the United States and
Russia during and after the Cold War.
Raised in 1930s Brooklyn, Florence Fein
escapes a stifling existence with a seeming-
ly glamorous job entertaining Soviet digni-
taries on business trips to the US. Her new
comrades seem full of life and self-belief.
So when she falls in love with one of them,
its not much of a stretch for her to consid-
er a new life in Moscow. Under the spell of
the bright new Soviet future, she embraces
the system, becomes hopelessly entangled
and ends up in a labour camp. Her Ameri-
can passport is confiscated and her young
son Julian is raised in an orphanage, her
last words to him in English being: Dont
believe what they say about me and dont
make trouble.
Julian takes up the tale decades later.
Unable to enter university in the USSR
because he is Jewish, he heads back to his
mothers hated homeland as a student, only
returning to Moscow much later when his
own adult son is there to take advantage
of all the emerging riches of the New Rus-
sia in 2008. Its up to Julian to figure out
what sort of person his mother really was
and how this affects his feelings towards
his own identity.
Krasikov zigzags effortlessly back
and forward between countries and time
frames, allowing us to trace Florences
story through Julians eyes, using the offi-
cial records that document her arrest and
betrayal of the Soviet cause. We become
as torn as he is over whether she should be
viewed as heroine, victim or villain.
But Florence is an extremely attractive
compromised figure: she does some incred-
ibly stupid things but shes impossible to
write off and you cant quite say that you
wouldnt have done the same. This is the
real skill of this novel, which appears to be
about family, loyalty and dreams but which
is really about ideology and the price of
self-delusion. As an intelligent literary
commentary on Russo-American relations
of the past century, its unparalleled. Or as
President Trump might say: very nice.
The best sort
of magic realism
Richard Francis
The White Hare
by Michael Fishwick
Zephyr, 10.99, pp. 239
Michael Fishwicks new novel tells the story
of a young man called Robbie, who has been
uprooted from his London home after his
mothers death. He finds himself in rural
Dorset, where he inhabits a capacious pre-
sent that has ample room for the intrusions
of the mythic past.
Struggling with his loss, Robbie has
taken to using arson to express his rage
which is why his father, having rapid-
ly acquired a new partner and a couple of
stepdaughters, has moved the family to his
old childhood home to make a new start.
But its an ancient start that this landscape
has on offer. Robbie makes friends with a
girl called Mags, just a few years older than
he is, but a wise woman before her time,
and she immediately introduces him to the
folklore of the area, and in particular to the
poetry associated with hares creatures
that defy fire. Fishwick understands that
myths are best served neat, without expla-
nation to dilute and maybe dispel them,
so he describes the apparition of a white
hare with admirable grace and simplicity,
communicating its radiance without striv-
ing for literary effect: Her ears were long
and tapered like a birds wings, her body
hunched like a question mark. She was so
bright and so near, and there seemed to be
a light about her . . .
This stylistic directness enables him to
integrate the varied ingredients of his tale
into a single whole. When Robbie describes
a sunset as awesome, the word is exactly
poised between modern idiom and ancient
wonder. Fishwick combines the pangs of
bereavement and the perturbations of
35
BOOKS & ARTS

adolescence, exploring (often with a comic

GETTY IMAGES
touch) family tensions as well as the terrors
of the deep past, and all the time propelling
his narrative along with an adventure that
unfolds in the present. Apart from a few
pages of clunky exposition about three-
quarters of the way through, this is the best
sort of magical realism where the magic
enhances the reality, and the realism gives
solid immediacy to the magic.

Charming old fox

Jane Ridley
Talleyrand in London
by Linda Kelly
I.B. Tauris, 25, pp. 172

Talleyrand was 76 when he took up the post

of French ambassador in London in 1830.
Linda Kelly deals only with the last phase
of Talleyrands long and tumultuous career,
but this short book brings him marvellously
to life.
He was not an impressive figure. Little
over 53 in height, he walked with a limp
one leg was in an iron brace. Always dress
slowly when you are in a hurry, was one of
his maxims, and each morning during his
lengthy toilette his valet coiffed his long,
straggly white locks with curling tongs. One
wag described him as a big packet of flan-
nel enveloped in a blue coat and surmounted
by a deaths head covered in parchment. His
morals were notoriously ancien regime, and
his life was littered with ex-mistresses, many
of whom remained his intimate friends. His
chief rival for the job of London ambassador
was his tiresome illegitimate son, the Comte
de Flahaut.
Talleyrand had last visited London in
1792 when he was fleeing the French Revo-
lution, and the British government expelled
him for his links with extremists. An aris-
tocrat who began life as a bishop, he rose
to become foreign minister to Napoleon.
Nimbly changing sides, he engineered the
restoration of the Bourbons, and his skil-
ful diplomacy saved France from a puni-
tive peace at the Vienna Congress. His aim
in coming to London in 1830 after 15 years
retirement was to make the new liberal gov-
ernment of Louis Philippe respectable.
Talleyrand brought with him as ambas-
sadress in London his niece, the Duchess
of Dino. Thirty-nine years younger than
him, she was his companion and rumoured
also to be his mistress. Beautiful, clever
and socially ambitious, she had many other
lovers, but old Talley wasnt jealous, and
he and Dino formed a formidable power
couple.
Having accumulated a vast fortune by
very dubious means, Talleyrand poured
money into making the French embassy in
Portland Place Londons premier salon. He
36
Portrait of Talleyrand by Ary Scheffer
spent an hour each morning in consulta-
tion with his chef, and the embassy dinners
formed an epoch in the gastronomic his-
tory of London. Talleyrand sat up until the
early hours playing whist and gambling at
the Travellers Club, where a handrail (which
survives today) was added to the bannister to
help the old cripple climb the stairs.
But Talleyrand was not a purely social fig-
ure, far from it. As Kelly shows, he achieved
his greatest diplomatic success during his
London posting. So important did he consid-
Lecturing and banging the table were
not Talleyrands style. Theresa May and
her Brexit team could learn from him
er the four years he spent in London that he
devoted two-and-a-half of his five volumes
of memoirs to that time.
The issue was Belgium. In 1814 the Bel-
gians were joined with the Dutch to form the
United Netherlands under the King of Hol-
land. This had been intended as a bloc to con-
tain a resurgent France, but the arrangement
broke down when the Belgians rebelled, and
the French demanded the annexation of
Belgium. A conference of ambassadors was
called in London to settle the matter. Tall-
eyrand took the lead. I am not here as the
representative of France, he said. French
diplomacy has no role here. Claiming to act
as a man of experience intent on getting the
best solution, Talleyrand called for the cre-
ation of an independent and neutral Bel-
gium. This was a masterstroke. It disarmed
the great powers, showing that France under
Louis Philippe was no longer a restless,
expansionist state. France was linked with
Britain as a liberal constitutional monarchy,
in contrast with the autocracies of the north.
France was no longer isolated, and Louis-
Philippes monarchy was firmly established.
Talleyrand was able to pull off this dip-
lomatic coup partly because of his con-
tacts. He was in constant communication
with Louise Philippe and he had a hotline
to the kings sister Madame Adelaide. He
had excellent connections, too, in London.
He was friendly with Grey, the prime min-
ister, and one of his greatest cronies was
the Francophile Lord Holland, a govern-
ment minister who cheerfully leaked Tal-
leyrand the cabinet secrets.
Talleyrand is usually portrayed as a cyni-
cal old fox, but he emerges from Linda Kel-
lys delightful book as warm and human.
This book should be required reading for
Theresa May and her Brexit team. Lec-
turing and table-banging were not Talley-
rands style. He got his way by charm and
guile by persuading his adversaries that
what was best for France was actually in
their interests too. We could do with anoth-
er Talleyrand right now.
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk

Bear essentials
Lee Langley
Memoirs of a Polar Bear
by Yoko Tawada, translated from
the German by Susan Bernofsky
Portobello Books, 12.99, pp. 252
In Yoko Tawadas surreal and beguiling
novel we meet three bears: mother, daugh-
ter and grandson. But there will be no por-
ridge or bed-testing here: these are bears
with a difference.
Tawada has form in animal-linked fic-
tion: The Bridegroom Was a Dog won a
major Japanese award. Writing in Japanese
and German, she is a prizewinner in both
countries. This three-part novel, felicitous-
ly translated from the German by Susan
Bernofsky, draws us deep into the lives of
her ursine trio. Transcending anthropo-
morphism, her beasts retain their essential
bear-ness in the human world.
Mama bear, an ex-performer in a Mos-
cow circus, is savvy, opinionated and scatty:
I hate making small talk about the weather,
so I often miss forecasts of major changes.
Even the Prague Spring came as a com-
plete surprise to me. She attends solemn
conferences (The Significance of Bicy-
cles in the National Economy, Capitalism
and Meat-eating) and secretly scribbles
an autobiography that becomes an instant
bestseller. Writing proves more politically
dangerous than circus acrobatics, and an
invitation to West Berlin from Kaos (Keep-
ing Authors Out of Siberia) arrives just in
time. In Berlin she charms publishers, slips
into afternoon movies and picks up fast on
credit-card shopping for books and salmon,
though sharp claws are no help tapping in
her Pin. Mamas world-wide adventures are
just beginning.
Part Two belongs to her daughter Tosca,
honing her dance skills in an East Berlin
circus with Barbara, her trainer and fellow-
performer. Here Tawada turns circus mas-
ter, sending bear and woman spinning
through the pages like trapeze artists. As
they work on a daring new act, the two
inhabit a sphere between dream and real-
ity; they seem to be merging, while Barbara
writes Toscas story or is Tosca writing
Barbaras? It all builds to a finale with a
tango, a cube of sugar and a startling cross-
species moment.
Toscas son Knut is a zoo baby who
never knew his mother. Alienated from
his polar roots, he enjoys entertaining the
crowds, encouraged by Matthias, his devot-
ed human carer. The author delicately
explores the ambiguities of parental love,
and the blurred lines between human and
animal: when does affection become exploi-
tation? Unexpectedly, Matthias dies, and
the young bear is left languishing in the
lethal spotlight of stardom. He dwindles
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
into lonely celebrity, dreaming of a land he ity is expressed in her physical lack of ease,
has never known: I wanted to see a snow- including positional vertigo which renders
field before me, a field that unlike news- the manoeuvre of the title difficult. Not with-
print covered with gossip and lies would out a certain quiet defiance, she still feels
gleam an immaculate white. The North Pole unable to fire her driving instructor, aggres-
had to be as sweet and nourishing as moth- sive, non-stop-nattering Jytta, who wont let
ers milk. her shift the gears herself. In between bouts
Memoirs of a Polar Bear works on many of gossip and racist abuse of other drivers,
levels, fizzing with ideas on exile, migration Jytta bellows instructions at her cowering
and love. Its funny and outrageous, ques- pupil: GREEN ARROW, TURN GODDAM-
tioning what it means to be human. Part MIT, BIKE!
Two suffers from a convoluted narrative, In this short novel Nors manages to con-
but the triptych as a whole dazzles. The final dense the essence of a life. Sonja is stock-
paragraph, swirling with memory and snow, taking, wondering how to change; trying
evokes the calm gravity of Joyces ending to drive in a new direction but continual-
to The Dead. ly taking a turning back into the past. Her
peaceful childhood in Jutland is evoked
whenever she glimpses wild birds, especial-
Changing lanes ly the whooper swans that seem to hold a
mysterious message. Life is filled with dis-
Suzi Feay appointments for Sonja, who seems to ask
for so little yet receive even less, but shes
Mirror, Shoulder, Signal no wet lettuce; her life is filled with small,
by Dorthe Nors, translated from satisfying rebellions.
the Danish by Mischa Hoeksta Theres a touch of satire in the treatment
Pushkin Press, 10.99, pp. 188 of Sonjas career as a translator of fashion-
able Scandi-noir crime fiction. The misogy-
Its fair to say Sonja Hansens life has stalled. nist fantasies of bestselling Gsta Svensson
Forties, tall and ungainly, veteran of failed are lapped up by legions of female fans,
relationships, shes an uncomfortable fit for all savouring the angry ejaculations, the
modern life in bustling Copenhagen. Geo- mutilated vaginas, the ritual adornment of
graphical, spiritual and emotional immobil- evil. Even her remote, unfathomable sister,
Kate, is proud of the connection with liter-
ary fame, but Sonja cant see the appeal in
books that function only as a crossword
puzzle with sperm and maggots.
Lacking a robust world-view herself,
Sonja is oppressed by those of others, and is
particularly shaken by a brief encounter with
Subscribe for a fortune-teller, who, she believes, effectively
robbed her of a future. If you dont believe in
only 1 an issue the occult, she observes, you have no defence
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reads signs of trauma in her pinched muscles,
9 Weekly delivery of the magazine and recommends she stands with her hands
forming a funnel above her head so the uni-
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37
BOOKS & ARTS
Beautiful thoughts
for all occasions
Mick Brown
Kahlil Gibran: Beyond Borders
by Jean Gibran and Kahlil G. Gibran
Head of Zeus, 25, pp. 524
Kahlil Gibran was 40 years old, a short
he was just 53 dapper man with dole-
ful eyes and a Charlie Chaplin moustache,
and in the first throes of the alcoholism that
would result in his early death, when in 1923
he published The Prophet.
A collection of 26 prose-poems, written
in quasi-Biblical language, the book takes
the form of sermons by a fictional sage
named Al Mustapha, on the big questions
of life: family, friendship, love, work and
death. These range from the profound to
the banal. Love gives naught but itself and
takes naught but from itself. Love possesses
not nor would it be possessed; For love is
sufficient unto love. And who could argue
with that? But then again. And forget not
that the earth delights to feel your bare feet
and the winds long to play with your hair.
A nice enough thought, but is it really true?
Since its publication, The Prophet has
sold millions of copies around the world,
THE GIBRAN MUSEUM
Family Scene, by Kahlil Gibran, c. 1914
38
in dozens of languages. It was particularly
popular with hippies in the Sixties, and is a
mainstay at weddings and funerals, taking
its place alongside, at best, St Pauls letter
to the Corinthians and, at worst, Max Ehr-
manns Desiderata as a sort of universal
balm for the soul, its truths worn thin by
repetition and its platitudes drowned in the
syrup of the greetings card, tea-towel and
fridge-magnet industries.
But oddly, for one of the worlds best-
selling authors, little has been written about
Kahlil Gibran just two major biographies
in the last 50 years, of which this is one.
Written by the son of Gibrans cousin
and his wife, Beyond Borders was original-
ly published in 1974, and appears now in a
considerably revised edition. Beautifully
produced and illustrated with photographs
and reproductions of Gibrans drawings and
paintings, it provides an exhaustive account
of Gibrans journey from a poverty-stricken
childhood in Lebanon, through the bohemi-
an and literary circles of Boston and New
York, to international renown.
Gibran was born in 1883 to a Christian
Maronite family in Bsharri, Mount Leb-
anon, in what was then Ottoman Syria.
Growing up in an atmosphere of sectar-
ian strife between Christians, Muslims and
Druze, he was, by his own account, a solitary,
thoughtful boy who seldom smiled, and who
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
amused himself by drawing and writing sto-
ries and plays.
His father was a gambler and drinker
whose job as a local tax-collector led to his
arrest for embezzlement, obliging him to
remain behind when in 1885 Gibran, his
mother Kamila, his elder brother Peter and
his two sisters migrated to America.
Penniless, they settled in the small Syr-
ian community in the squalid slum of Bos-
tons South End, where Kamila supported
the family by peddling goods from door to
door, within a year earning enough to set
up Peter in a dry-goods store, where the
sisters, Sultana and Marianna, worked as
salesgirls.
Gibran, for the first time in his life, was
sent to school, at the same time attending
a charitable settlement house, designed to
instil culture into the children of impover-
ished families, and where his nascent tal-
ents as an artist led him to the door of Fred
Holland Day. A photographer, publisher
After his mothers death,
Gibran lived off his sister, and
became a champion sponger
and aesthete, who enjoyed dressing in a fez
and curled-toe slippers, Day seemed attract-
ed equally to Gibrans artistic talent and
his otherness, photographing the young
sheik in a burnoose like an exotic speci-
men from another world. Day introduced
the young boy to the works of Maeterlinck,
the transcendentalists Emerson and Whit-
man, and the gay English mystical socialist
Edward Carpenter.
Day seems to have been to borrow a
term favoured by Carpenter Uranian in
his enthusiasms, although this is not men-
tioned in the book, nor the fact that he liked
to photograph his young subjects nude. But
he was instrumental in setting Gibran on
his path as an artist, commissioning illustra-
tions for books of poetry and an edition of
the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and in 1904
holding an exhibition of Gibrans drawings
in his studio.
Gibrans sensuous appearance and his
air of wounded vulnerability made him
particularly attractive to older women.
The first was the poet Josephine Peabody,
whom Gibran met when he was just 15
and she 23. He writes Arabic poetry all
night, she wrote, and he draws (much bet-
ter than William Blake) all day, declaring
him to be an angel from God. Peabody and
Gibran exchanged heartfelt letters some
of which are published here which sug-
gest a relationship of deep and mutual but
chaste adoration.
Gibran took others estimation of him
as a rarified combination of artistic genius
and mystic at face value, and showed no
inclination to earn a living from anything
other than his art. When his brother died,
Gibran briefly took over his dry goods

GETTY IMAGES
store, but quickly dispensed with it. Follow-
ing his mothers death, he lived off his sister,
Marianna. In short and while this book is
much too respectful to put it this way he
was a champion sponger, and he found his
greatest benefactor in the shape of the edu-
cation reformer Mary Haskell.
Khalil, she wrote, shortly after their
first meeting, is quietly and calmly usurp-
ing a place in my thoughts and conscious-
ness and in my dreams. Ten years older
than Gibran, Haskell shared his belief in a
universality of spirit, and nurtured his aspi-
rations to give a GOOD expression to a
beautiful IDEA or a high THOUGHT. She
would become the the most significant fig-
ure in his life.
In 1908 she paid for Gibran to spend a
year in Paris studying painting, and despite
being far from wealthy herself continued to
support him financially thereafter.
You looked at money so wonderfully,
he wrote in a letter to her:
You said money was impersonal, that it
belongs to none of us, but it simply passes
through our hands; a responsibility not a pos-
session; and that our right relation to it is to
put it to rightness.

A philosophy that clearly worked in

Gibrans favour.
Haskell believed Gibran might be a
reincarnation of Rossetti (who in turn, she
believed, was a reincarnation of Blake).
But Gibran cited as his main influence the
French symbolist Eugne Carrire, with his
love of the manifestations of Nature and
the mysterious haze that hung over his
paintings which Gibran adopted himself,
both in his ethereal, graphite drawings
spiritual allegories with titles such as The
Cream of Life and The Souls of Men
and in his highly stylised paintings of cen-
taurs, angels and entwined nude figures
reaching upwards to a higher plane. Which
is where Gibran and Haskells relationship
appeared to rest.
At one point Gibran proposed marriage.
Haskell turned him down on account of the
difference in their ages, then changed her
mind and changed it again. But there is
no suggestion their relationship was ever
consummated. Other accounts of Gibrans
life have delved further into this, suggest-
ing that Gibran spurned her offer to be his
mistress, explaining that he was not sexu-
ally minded, while at the same time having
other lovers. But the Gibrans book, sani-
tised and consistently deferential in tone,
makes no mention of any of this.
Between the ages of 20 and 30, Gibran
wrote primarily in Arabic poems and
stories which drew on myths and legends of
his native Lebanon. As his reputation grew
among the migr Arab community, he
became progressively more involved with
the cause of Syrian Home Rule, agitating
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
Gibran, photpgraphed by Fred Holland Day in 1897
for an alliance between Christians and Mus- Jesus, The Son of Man while her husband
lims to overthrow Ottoman control. Treat was asleep.
poetically with the Turkish government, Throughout his life Gibran had been
he told Haskell. You might as well sing the plagued by what Haskell described as an
songs of Keats to... Standard Oil. But his ongoing malaise undefined, but which
principal theme remained one of religious seems to have been as much existential as
reconciliation; as a Syrian newspaper put it, physical. He had also, as the authors put it,
Jesus is in half his soul and Muhammad in always enjoyed a drink notably arak,
the other half. supplied by his sister Marianne. In 1925 an
It was Haskell who encouraged him to ill-fated real-estate venture with a friend,
broaden his readership by writing in Eng- converting some old row houses into a busi-
lish, helping him by correcting and improv- ness womens club, exacerbated his worries
ing his manuscripts not least The Prophet. (no prizes for guessing who paid off the
While Gibran described it as the culmina- debt) and he turned increasingly to alcohol
tion of his lifes work and experience all as medication. He died in 1931 of cirrohsis
these 37 years have been the making of it of the liver.
the book owed much to his conversations By then The Prophet was comfortably
with Haskell, and her painstaking editing on its way to its first million in sales, in the
and revisions. process fulfilling the view of Mary Haskell
In 1926, three years after the publi- somewhat prophetic herself that the
cation of The Prophet, and in need of book would be
an emotional and physical comfort that held as one of the treasures of English litera-
Gibran was unable to offer, Haskell mar- ture, and in our darkness and in our weakness
ried an older man. Gibran apparently we will open it to find ourselves again and the
shrugged it off, although he continued to heaven and earth within ourselves.
send his work for her appraisal. She edited
and revised the manuscript for his book She had not envisaged tea-towels.
39
BOOKS & ARTS
The late Howard Hodgkin stated emphatically that he was not an
abstract artist. So what exactly was he? asks Martin Gayford
O
ver 20 years ago I wrote about
Giambattista Tiepolo in The Spec-
tator. Shortly afterwards I went
to visit Howard Hodgkin in his spacious,
white, light-filled studio close to the Brit-
ish Museum. It turned out that he had read
my column and was pleased that someone
had been discussing this 18th-century Vene-
tian, who was just his idea of what a painter
should be: a subtle master of colour, poetic,
sensual, a bit neglected in other words,
much as he saw himself.
The real subject matter of an artist such
as Tiepolo, I suggested that day, is not real-
ly the Madonna or the apotheosis of some
minor aristocrat. It is something more elu-
sive and personal such as the painters
feelings about the charm of dogs, naked
bodies or dreams of flying. Yes, answered
Hodgkin. But who knows? You see, what
one is left with is the thing. And that, rough-
ly speaking, is how Hodgkin claimed his own
pictures functioned.
When he died a couple of weeks ago,
Hodgkin was widely described as an
abstract artist, which would certainly have
nettled him. He was emphatic on this point:
I couldnt make a picture that was not
about anything. I wouldnt even know
how to begin a picture without a subject.
For the complete avoidance of doubt, Hodg-
kin flatly stated in a television interview
from 2006, I am not an abstract painter.
What, then, was he since it is often, at
first glance, hard to make out anything in
his works beyond brushstrokes, coloured
patches and geometric forms? The exhi-
bition Absent Friends at the National Por-
trait Gallery is helpful in that regard. It was
not intended as a retrospective, still less as
a posthumous one; but Hodgkins sudden
40
ARTS
Internal affairs
death was announced on the day the instal-
lation was due to begin. In these sad cir-
cumstances this brilliantly conceived show
offers insight into the evolution and essence
of Hodgkins art.
Hodgkin was at the opposite end of the
scale to the contemporary artists who like to
tag everything they make Untitled. When,
years ago, I asked him how important the
names he gave his pictures were, his reply
was succinct: Totally.
A surprisingly large number include the
word portrait, including the last large pic-
ture he ever completed, Portrait of the Art-
David Hockney is transmuted into
a jaunty phallus with a ash of yellow
at the end
ist Listening to Music (201116). This is a
powerful painting, made up of sweeps of
pigment with a brush as wide as a broom,
dribbles, dabs, vertical stripes and even
handprints. It is urgent, dramatic and poign-
ant, in that these vigorous marks represent
the movements of a man so frail that he had
to be held up physically while he made them.
What it does not seem to be, in any
straightforward way, is an image of Hodg-
kin himself. Instead, apparently, it is a rep-
resentation of his mental state as he listened
to a couple of favourite recordings: Jerome
Kerns The Last Time I Saw Paris and the
soundtrack of The Third Man. And for many
viewers thats quite a stretch.
This is why its helpful to go back, as this
exhibition does, to the beginning. In 1949,
at the age of 17, Hodgkin painted Mem-
oirs, a little picture representing a man and
a woman in a room. He is turned to her,
she is lying on a sofa with her head so to
speak out of shot. Her hands, conversely,
are greatly enlarged. This, then, is a paint-
ing of an emotional situation: an interior,
though not one that is depicted altogether
naturalistically.
For decades afterwards, Hodgkins works
were at least sometimes just as representa-
tional. Interior with Figures (1977) could
almost be a Vuillard of a room with wall-
paper, windows and a lamp plus, at the
bottom, a couple of naked male figures less
reminiscent of the French master, one drag-
ging on a post-coital cigarette. Such pic-
tures Bed in Venice (19848) is another
example, with identifiable shutters, rumpled
sheets and graceful nude offer a way into
Hodgkins works for those who like a few
footholds in reality (as I myself do).
From quite early on, however, Hodgkins
subjects might go through strange meta-
morphoses. The collector Ted Power, in Mr
and Mrs E.J.P. (196973), for example, has
turned into a translucent green egg, symbol-
ising his enveloping conversation.
With Hodgkins pictures from the Sixties
to the Eighties, one often has the feeling one
is looking at something without being sure
just what it is. Once he was asked by the hus-
band of the couple who bought a certain pic-
ture whether the object in the middle was a
cock. Hodgkin felt, he told me, that this was
a delicate situation. He said his wife wanted
to know; I said that as long as I can tell her
myself I will.
The answer was yes and if the picture
was DH in Hollywood (19804), the ques-
tion was scarcely necessary. There Hodgkin
has clearly transmuted his friend and fellow
artist David Hockney into a jaunty phallus
with a flash of yellow at the end. The swim-
ming-pool and surrounding garden, howev-
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
COLLECTION ROBERT R LITTMAN & SULLY BONNELLY HOWARD HODGKIN
er, have been transformed into whorls, dots
and bars. Presumably, water and vegetation
turned into geometry as Hodgkin painted
them again and again over those four years.
His work began with a memory, which
he insisted he visualised distinctly. There is
evidence at the NPG, in the form of some
early drawings of people, that his visual
memory must have been extraordinarily
powerful. These are delicately precise in the
manner of the Euston Road painters such as
William Coldstream who taught him. How-
ever, they werent done from life, but after-
wards by inspecting a mental image.
Thats what Hodgkin carried on doing
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
Absent Friends, 20001, by Howard Hodgkin
and even in some late paintings its not hard
to grasp how it worked. Kathy at La Heuze
(Flame against Flint) (19978) began with
a moment when a friend and collector stood
Hodgkin left just the essence of the
moment: gold and russet swirling
against bobbily grey stone
in a yellow dress against the wall of a house
in northern France. In the picture, Hodg-
kin dispensed with inessentials such as her
face and body, leaving just the essence of
the moment: gold and russet swirling against
bobbily grey stone.
So he was correct. This isnt abstract,
even if that is how it looks. At times, the
subjects Hodgkin pursued seemed almost
impossibly nebulous, even to him: like try-
ing to paint the Cheshire cats grin without
the animal itself. As in the case of Tiepolo
or any good painter really you often
have to guess at the thoughts and feelings
that might be embedded in Hodgkins paint-
ings. But with artists you judge by results:
the things we are left with. Often Hodgkins
were sumptuously beautiful.
Howard Hodgkin: Absent Friends is at the
National Portrait Gallery until 18 June.
41
BOOKS & ARTS
Opera
Denial has rarely looked so
good
Alexandra Coghlan
Partenope
Coliseum
Faramondo
Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music,
until 25 March
Ceci nest pas une Partenope. Forget the
warring classical kingdoms of Naples and
Cumae: this is surrealist Paris in the 1930s
and imminent invasion is the stuff of con-
versational parenthesis, barely worth inter-
rupting a rubber of bridge for, let alone an
embrace. Man Ray, Lee Miller and their
androgynous associates slink and affect
their way around a monochrome salon
with its suggestively curved central stair-
case, offering up the performance of them-
selves as a living exhortation to make art,
not war.
As a response to Handels most Shake-
spearean of comedies, Christopher Aldens
production is inspired more now, if any-
thing, than in 2008 when it was new. Theres
a new kinship, a self-reflexive friction to
watching these languid baroque Charlestons
as our own world dances closer and closer
to the brink.
Denial has rarely looked so good or
pulsed with such a genuinely erotic charge.
The gender-bending of Handels original
prompted one contemporary to dismiss its
heroine as a role only fit for some He-
She-thing or other. Its a discomfort Alden
seizes on, celebrating and amplifying it in the
sensual play of his characters, their desires
as deliciously ambiguous as the nude cub-
ist collage that Emilio (an excellent Rupert
Charlesworth) creates a faceless play of
flesh, interrupted only by a single nipple.
Point made.
But if Andrew Liebermans gorgeous
designs have a strong Parisian accent, and
Christian Curnyns pit is all thrusting Ital-
ianate swagger, Amanda Holdens trans-
lation is earthily Anglo-Saxon, fuck-and
-buggering its irreverent and witty way
through a plot with added toilet humour
(a nod, surely, to Man Rays friend and
collaborator Duchamp) and some giddy
cross-dressing. Its exhilarating stuff, and a
reminder of how rarely ENO really takes
dramatic advantage of its opera-in-English
policy.
When a plot is as frothy as Partenopes
you need some pretty sparkling perfor-
mances to keep things buoyant. Step for-
ward Sarah Tynans sex kitten of a queen,
her tone as bright as the chink of ice cubes
in a cocktail shaker and every bit as brittle,
softening into something more fragile for
42
Qual farfaletta, turning mellifluous by the
time Act IIIs closing Si, scherza, si arrives.
Shes courted by a trio of would-be lov-
ers led by Patricia Bardons charismatic
Arsace, stopping time and stilling comedy
for a magical moment in Chio parta a
sleight of hand more potent even than the
rabbit Armindo (James Laing) quite liter-
ally pulls out of a hat. Gamely comic, both
Laing and Matthew Durkans Ormonte
give everything in pursuit of a gag, and if
the production doesnt find quite the same
play of emotional light and shade as the
black-and-white photographs that inspired
it, its a loss you hardly miss among so much
wit and surreal invention.
War invades the bedroom in Parten-
ope, but Handels Faramondo sees love set
up camp on the battlefield. For a plot that
finds three nations in conflict its remark-
ably short on actual action Chekhovs
gun (or, here, his flick-knife) hangs unused
for nearly three hours. The music, too, while
pretty, lacks arias capable of inflicting much
more than a flesh wound. In William Rel-
tons 1960s update for the London Handel
Festival, armies become gangs, fighting a
turf war in Gustavos a not-nearly-seedy-
enough nightclub. Like Alden, Relton wise-
ly pays little attention to the story, which, in
this case, hinges on a baby-swapping subplot
that remains conveniently unexplained. But,
unlike Alden, his reworking feels awkward-
ly superimposed, never fully integrated into
action thats baffling enough without the
coyly historical English surtitles that would
scarcely have frightened the ladies at the
1738 premire.
Lawrence Cummings conducts a merci-
fully brisk performance, supporting a Royal
College of Music cast led by thrilling Swed-
Sometimes I think you only married me
because you loved me.
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
ish mezzo Ida Ranzlov and soprano Harriet
Eyley, whose dipsomaniac Clotilde provides
most of the evenings very few laughs
knocking out clean coloratura while knock-
ing back the vodka.
Music
Alls well that ends well
Damian Thompson
Maurizio Pollini
Royal Festival Hall
Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Wigmore Hall
Theres a moment in the finale of Beethov-
ens Appassionata sonata when the frenzied
piano writing turns unexpectedly jolly. The
late Antony Hopkins described it as a bit of
an anticlimax, a little too near to the tradi-
tional Gypsy Dance that appears so often in
the less probable 19th-century opera.
Im not sure whether I agree but one
thing I can tell you is that this is the perfect
moment to tap the Uber icon on your phone
if you want to be whisked away during the
first burst of applause, before the pianist has
had the chance to play an encore.
Thats the effect Maurizio Pollinis play-
ing has on me. The man has been sucking
Knowing when to retire is one of the
tests of a great pianist
the life out of Beethoven piano sonatas for
decades, but surely never so annoyingly as
he did last week, when he opened the spring
season of the Southbank Centres Interna-
tional Piano Series.
The applause was thunderous, its true,
but it was a particular type of applause
that you hear more often at the Southbank
than anywhere else: a veteran soloist being
cheered to the rafters, not for the music (I
hope unless the audience were cloth-
eared morons) but for being himself.
The elderly Barenboim gets the same
treatment, though it seems less absurd,
because there are still lovely things happen-
ing beneath the hailstorm of wrong notes.
And in the past there were master pia-
nists, such as Curzon and Kempff, whose
shaky live performances conveyed more of
the essence of the music than their studio
recordings: they werent being applauded
simply for being themselves.
In any case, Pollinis technique is shot to
pieces in a different way far fewer wrong
notes, but the legendary precision is gone.
And, without that, he has nothing to say.
Indeed, he gives the impression of not want-
ing to say anything.
Listening to his Pathtique sonata, I
wondered if he was just there to collect his
 JAMES DODDS

Southwold Lifeboat
oil on linen 120 x 120 cms 47 14 x 4714 ins

James Dodds is an artist much concerned with the tensions and alliances between the trinity of head,
heart and hand.
His portrayals of boats allow the viewer to appreciate both the time distortion and the detail of a boats
complexities as the symbolic and the real are fused together. taken from the catalogue foreword by
A. L. Kennedy
Writer

29 March 21 April

2 8 C ork Street , Lond on W1S 3 N G

MESSUMS Tel: + 4 4 ( 0 )2 0 74 37 5 5 4 5 w w w.messums.c om
BOOKS & ARTS
cheque. He could hardly be bothered to
dot the chords in the Grave opening, which
should be tightly coiled so the main theme
shoots up the keyboard like a rocket. That
didnt happen. In all three Beethoven sona-
tas, Pollini ironed out contrasts of tempo and
dynamics. Also, he kept shaving the ends of
phrases and squeezing pauses, as if to say,
Lets get this over with.
I dont see why we should make excuses
for him because hes 75 years old. Knowing
when to retire is one of the tests of a great
pianist. Horowitz deserves full marks for
pressing on until the end: the recordings of
his mid-eighties are among his most treasur-
able, his bravura technique freakishly intact
(most of the time) and his touch more lumi-
nous than ever.
Richter tailored his repertoire in order
to compensate for his frailty, with mixed
but often miraculous results, before stop-
ping just in time. But the ultimate mas-
terclass in retirement was given by Alfred
Brendel, whose 2007 live performance of
Beethovens penultimate piano sonata at
Salzburg was simultaneously understated,
deeply felt and revelatory. The next year he
stepped away from the concert platform,
leaving us wanting more. Which is how it
should be.
I kept thinking of Brendel during Pol-
linis phoned-in recital because, three nights
earlier, Id spotted him in the audience at the
Wigmore Hall to hear Pierre-Laurent Aima-
rd. This recital was a triumph in almost every
respect. Only the end of the programme dis-
appointed.
Aimard has uncovered the piano music
of the Russian composer Nikolai Obukhov
(18921954), which the programme notes
hailed as the missing link between Scria-
bin and Messiaen, a sort of rainbow bridge
from Moscow to Paris. Really? It sounded
more like thinned-out Sorabji to me, and
not a patch on the kaleidoscopic wonders of
the work that preceded it, Julian Andersons
Sensation.
Anderson wrote this collection of pieces
some of them austere, some darting and
mercurial with Aimards finely spun vir-
tuosity in mind. In the past Ive worried that
this technique might be fraying under the
pressure of the pianists workload. At the
Wigmore he put those fears to rest.
The evening began with Liszts little-
known first version of Harmonies po-
tiques et religieuses, an early work in which
the conventionally sweet cadences of 1834
alternate with the spare harmonies of late
Liszt and, even more surprisingly, chir-
ruping worthy of Janacek. Then Aimard
launched into late Scriabin without a pause.
I hope I wasnt the only listener who took a
second or two to realise.
As for Debussys tude pour les degrs
chromatiques, I cant imagine it sounding
more spectrally delicate than it did on the
1899 Bechstein, played in the former Bech-
44
stein Hall. (Like our royal family, the build-
ing lost its German name during the first
world war.) So, all in all, this was a delicious
combination of soloist, programme and
venue: typical Wigmore, just as the Pollini
recital was typical Southbank.
Radio
Going underground
Kate Chisholm
When Wireless Nights hit the Radio 4 air-
waves in the spring of 2012, I was not at all
sure about Jarvis Cockers particular, not to
say eccentric, manner of presentation, butt-
ing in, making his presence felt, never let-
ting us forget that its his programme, hes
in charge. His coy comments were too self-
conscious for my taste. He didnt sound
natural; his after-dark meanderings felt too
contrived. Now I realise I had completely
missed the point. Cockers deliberate man-
nerisms, his upside-down way of looking
at things, his curiosity and desire to share
with us his thoughts are all very much part
of who he is, and once you get used to his
style of delivery it all becomes very beguil-
ing. When he invites us to join him as he
delves beneath the surface of what to the
untrained eye or ear could appear to be just
one more ordinary night on Planet Earth,
I no longer feel the urge to switch off but
rather revel in its potential for pretentious-
ness. Why not go over the top? After all,
there is nothing stranger than life itself.
This week, late on Monday, he was rid-
ing the all-night Tube through London with
Kylie. No, not that Kylie, he cant resist add-
ing, which I would once have found irritat-
ing but now recognise that hes only saying
out loud what has just flashed through his
mind, and mine too. He makes us feel were
co-conspirators, were of one mind with
the great Jarvis Cocker, and thats hugely
encouraging.
Kylie is a young single mother and stu-
dent who drives trains at the weekend to
make ends meet. Shes only been doing it
for six months but already sounds surpris-
ingly confident and matter-of-fact about
being by herself in the cab of a train thats
about to hurtle at 70 mph, yes, that fast, she
says, through a tight hole into utter darkness.
Its very lonely, she tells Cocker, who joins
her for the trip. But shes one of those peo-
ple who likes her own company. And, it also
gives her the chance to sing, and as loudly as
she likes, shut off as she is behind the glass
of her cab windows.
What do you sing? asks Cocker.
Beyonc, says Kylie.
Im not very good on Beyonc songs, Ai is excited by social media. Just to receive
the former Pulp frontman confesses.
Also on the programme (produced with
effortless seamlessness by Laurence Gris-
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
sell) Cocker talked to a busker at Oxford
Circus braving the drunken West End
crowd, various women at a gay singles night
in Kings Cross, and Cherie, who one night
left the pub in town at about 11.30 p.m. and
caught the last train home to Chingford.
Almost immediately, she says, she must
have fallen asleep. The next thing she knew
she woke up at 3.30 in the morning to find
herself in a pitch-black carriage, no one else
around, the doors all locked, and no idea
where she was.
As a child she had been terrified of the
monsters in An American Werewolf in Lon-
don and she panicked, big time. She texted
her housemate for help, but then her phone
died on her.
I stopped panicking when I realised
there was nothing I could do. So as if with-
out a care she lay back down across the seats
and went back to sleep.
Next Tuesday on the World Service, the
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is in conversation
with Tim Marlow (artistic director of the
Royal Academy) for the start of a new series
In the Studio, which aims to take us inside
the creative process by talking to artists,
designers, writers, poets in the places where
She woke at 3.30 in the morning
to nd herself in a pitch-dark train
carriage, the doors all locked
they work. Marlow visits Ai in his Berlin stu-
dio, a vast underground labyrinth of brick-
walled chambers carved out of a former
beer cellar. Why would an artist choose to
spend his days in such a place, deep down,
lacking light, cut off from the daylight world
above ground? I think it must be because I
was in exile with my father, Ai explained.
In the purges of the 1950s under Mao Tse-
tung, his father, a well-known poet, was ban-
ished and forced to live in a hole under a
brushwood roof. Ai, born in 1957, lived in
exile for 15 years. I still have this feeling
about underground, he says. It gives you
this sense of security.
Theres also plenty of space to house Ais
huge collection of found objects, especially
the 6,000 plain wooden three-legged stools
out of which he has created several installa-
tions. Every household in China would have
had one of these stools, says Ai. They were
humble, but necessary, unchanged for 200
years. Nowadays the old wooden stools are
being thrown out as useless and replaced by
substitutes from Ikea, usually made of plastic.
But, says Ai, his stools tell the story of China.
His latest project, though, comes out of
the refugee crisis and is inspired by life-
vests, maps, and a plywood table covered
with a grid of phone sockets, reflecting the
refugees reliance on their mobile phones.
one sentence or one strange half-sentence
makes me excited all day. The direct, inti-
mate connection with a brain.
 Lets hear it for the boys
Say what you like about Girls creator Lena Dunham, says Jonathan McAloon. She can write men

G
irls creator Lena Dunham has referred to as a sociopath or sex addict. feminist by default, we are desperate to
received criticism from all sides. But as the show progresses, and his depths shed any residual trappings of misogyny
Detractors on the right see her are revealed, you realise that Hannah while also retaining some sort of masculine
as an exhibitionist provocateur. Those on might be fetishising his bad qualities. You identity. Its not always a smooth process.
the left see her as a privileged narcissist, never ask me anything, he tells her. You Girls shows us the successes and failures
who cant help but see feminism through dont want to know me. of this in motion. As well as Adam there
a white middle-class prism and who Its like a reversal of the Jane Austen are various sensitive, well-adjusted, con-
unforgivably rooted for Hillary Clinton narrative: designated cad charms us, along ventional men who stifle, or else use their
over Bernie Sanders. with the heroine, then repels us all with his very considerateness and progressiveness
The HBO show that made Dunhams true nature. Adams character is constant- to ensnare or manipulate.
name, which she has written and starred ly gaining then losing our sympathy. He is Theres something liberating about a
in since her early twen- programme that features
ties, is on its final season. imperfect people who its
It has portrayed the young OK not to like. In fact,
lives and friendships of we dislike every principle
four millennial women Girls character most of the
trying to succeed, or just time. They are drawn with
subsist, in New York, and a critical detachment that
how their dreams either allows them to flourish
lose grandeur when they badly make their own
come true or dont come mistakes in a way that can
true at all. It honestly and be deeply involving. Just
often messily bears wit- as the camera seems, in
ness to a generation trying the shows many notorious
to negotiate sex and new sex scenes, to linger for too
relationships, where eve- long, as if it has forgotten
rything seems to be per- to look away.
mitted. It also offers one of Since campaigning for
the most revealing and Hillary Clinton, Dunham
sound critiques of the has become visible enough
modern man available on to be deemed a worthy
television. hate figure for the Ameri-
Say what you like about can alt-right. Spokesmen
Dunham, but she can such as Mike Cernovich, a
write men. Adam Sackler Adam Driver as Adam Sackler, the most unsparingly but sensitively drawn prominent Trump support-
(played by Adam Driver) modern male to grace the small screen this decade er, posts blogs like: How to
is the most consistently, Cheat on your Girlfriend
unsparingly but also sensi- and Misogyny Gets You
tively drawn modern male to grace the small by turns intransigent, annoying, pitiable, Laid, while alt-right outlets such as Breit-
screen this decade who is not a gangster or a frightening. He is progressive in his views, bart News have published numerous arti-
detective. If it wasnt for Girls, Driver proba- accepting and good at giving pep talks, but cles about her. One, by Milo Yiannopoulos,
bly wouldnt have been cast as the conflicted also possessed of latent misogyny. Hes a says, Without a doubt she is one of the best
villain Kylo Ren in the new Star Wars tril- collection of qualities, the roundest char- examples of how feminism attracts ugly
ogy. He is a Hollywood A-lister because of acter in Girls, and an impressive artistic women.
the room and complexity the Girls character achievement. But the joke, we feel, is on them. They are
has given him. Modern men ought to watch the show, exactly the sort of people who could do with
When we first meet Sackler he is an odd not for the insight into how women work, watching Girls.
and imposing man who is casually sleeping but for what it tells them about how they
with Dunhams character Hannah Horvath. men can come across. In an age Girls, which is in its final series, airs every
A recovering alcoholic, he is repeatedly where young cultured men identify as Sunday on Sky Atlantic.
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 45
 BOOKS & ARTS
JOHAN PERSSON
A nest of vipers forced into a skirt and cardigan: Imelda Staunton as Martha in
Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Theatre
Royal prerogative
Lloyd Evans
My Country; a work in progress
Dorfman, in rep until 22 March
Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Harold Pinter Theatre, until 27 May
No one should complain that My Country;
a work in progress is a grim night out. Its
rare for a good play to be written by royal
command. The co-authors are the Queens
personal minstrel, Carol Ann Duffy, and
the director of her Royal National Theatre,
Rufus Norris. These inspiring artistes have
sent their vassals beyond the security of
London to annotate the words of people
across the UK in the hope of understand-
ing a humanitarian disaster: Brexit. The
show makes its prejudices clear by dedicat-
ing the script to a Remain voter, Jo Cox,
who was murdered by a Leave supporter.
And it promotes the view, common among
Remainers, that Brexit is a crisis caused by
thick proles.
Seven actors represent various parts of
Britain and they recite random thoughts
about stuff: migrants, bananas, mosques,
black flags, benefits, pyjamas, sheep farm-
ing, taxis, disbanded football clubs, Brussels,
cornflakes, House of Commons whisky, and
so on. Then it changes from reportage to
drama and each region boastfully competes
with the others to assert its pre-eminence in
46
sport, leadership, dancing, and so on. Its a
colossal muddle that barely meets the level
of classroom intelligibility. Fact and fiction
are confused constantly, and no indication
is given that a switch has been made. Even
within the passages of real-life statements
its unclear who is speaking. An early chunk
delivered by a youngish man representing
South West (but speaking in a northern
accent) turns out to be the testimony of
a teacher who is elderly and female. The
scripts narrator plays seven roles, five male,
two female. Her male roles are all factual.
Of her female roles, one is factual the other
fictional. Quite a hotchpotch. She wears
Britain beyond the M25 is portrayed
as a sprawl of semi-civilised hill
stations populated by barbarians
a black trouser suit throughout but when
she assumes her make-believe persona,
Britannia, she wears a silly hat and spouts
the sort of weightless, ornamental rhetoric
that would give a true poet a coronary. I
have loved you all for ever, you children
of these changing, feisty, funny, generous
islands. No one wants to be called feisty.
Thats what a rapist says when his victim
fights back.
The omissions of the show are revealing.
Virtually every statement made by the peo-
ple across the UK has been chosen for its
impulsiveness and eccentricity. The political
and economic arguments are never made.
No voice is given to Cornwall, north Wales,
Manchester, Liverpool, Yorkshire, the Home
Counties or East Anglia. Overlooking the
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
whole of the south-east saves
Londoners like me from having
our guilty secret broadcast: mass
migration means cheap servants.
When the result is announced on
stage a great BONG from Big
Ben resounds like a death knell.
The lights darken ominously and
the air seethes with the shudder-
ings of the clueless and the foul-
mouthed. Gobsmacked, full
of fear, horrendous, absolutely
gobsmacked, could not believe
it, shit went wrong, gobsmacked
and frightened, horrendous, the
sky is falling. Even one of the
Leave voters calls the result
horrendous.
The show is due to tour the
regions, where I imagine it will
cause some puzzlement. It por-
trays Britain, beyond the M25,
as a sprawl of semi-civilised
hill stations populated by bar-
barians seated around their
campfires grunting at random
nuisances and all too willing to
let their frustrations coalesce
into a campaign of xenophobic
aggression. Elitists such as Rich-
ard Dawkins, who popped up on Newsnight
recently to call Leave voters ignorant and
misled, will love it. Theyll believe it too.
Thats the unsung tragedy of propaganda.
The only people who give it credit are its
creators.
Awards are certain for Whos Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?. Edward Albees best play
has a brilliant set-up. Martha is a pampered
soak whose father founded the college
where her husband, George, is failing at the
history faculty. During a night of stupendous
boozing, Martha seduces a younger lectur-
er in order to humiliate George. But hes a
streetfighter with a steely wit who relishes
Marthas aggression because he needs to
tangle to feel alive. They both do.
The script expects, and rewards, high-
minded audiences. When Martha says
abstruse, George corrects her to abstract
only for the correction to come boomerang-
ing back. Abstruse! In the sense of recon-
dite. Its a treat to hear language handled
with such delicious precision.
Superb performances all round. Conleth
Hills cuddly figure creates an unexpected
contrast with Georges dextrous sarcasm.
Imelda Staunton plays Martha like a nest of
vipers forced into a skirt and cardigan but
her sadistic one-liners are delivered with a
disturbing sense of erotic merriment.
A word of warning. This is not a fun night
out. Bitter misanthropes like me will rate it
a highlight of the year but in the interval I
heard viewers complaining that it was noth-
ing but a barrage of spite. True, in a way. But
spite is a human frailty rarely elevated to
such sublime heights.

Television
Beyond belief
James Walton
As we know from all those newspaper arti-
cles and actress interviews, theres a scandal-
ous lack of high-profile British TV dramas
starring women over 40. Indeed, if it wasnt
for No Offence, Unforgotten, Silent Witness,
Last Tango in Halifax, The Fall, NW, Aga-
tha Raisin, Broadchurch, Happy Valley and
Apple Tree Yard, thered really only be Vera,
which returned to ITV on Sunday.
The Vera in question is DCI Vera Stan-
hope, who, in the teeth of fierce competi-
tion, may well be the most implausible cop
on television even if she does fit snugly
into a thriving sub-genre featuring sharp but
kindly policewomen whose male colleagues
spend much of the time shaking their heads
in disbelieving admiration. Playing her with
understated relish is Brenda Blethyn, whos
required to put on a Northumbrian accent,
a wide selection of shabby clothes and the
kind of hat not often seen on TV since the
glory days of Siegfried Farnon in All Crea-
tures Great and Small.
As for the programme itself, its chief
characteristic is probably efficiency. On the
Whats That Thing? Award for bad public art 2017
PRESS EYE LTD/JONATHAN PORTER
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
one hand, its hard to imagine many people
tuning in with a sense of feverish excitement.
On the other, anybody who does happen to
watch is unlikely to be left feeling cheated.
Take Sundays episode, which unfolded
like a more leisurely, more psychologically
thoughtful and considerably greyer version
of Death in Paradise. A young woman was
found murdered on Ternstone Island, a local
bird sanctuary optimistically nicknamed the
Galapagos of the North. Yet, who could
DCI Vera Stanhope, in the teeth of
erce opposition, may well be the
most implausible cop on TV
possibly have killed her, seeing as she was
apparently alone on the island at the time?
Undeterred, Vera travelled the photogenic
countryside, leaving all the gloomy brooding
to the Northumbrian skies, as she gently ques-
tioned the womans friends and colleagues,
taking care to call each of them either love
or pet. Before long, shed duly established room carrying an automatic rifle. Unfortu-
that this was a classic whodunnit in which
every suspect had a dark secret only one
of which was having committed the murder.
But the solution, it turned out, was rather a
good one: unexpected, just about believable
enough and with an undertow of genuine sad-
ness. In short and the makers are welcome
to use this in their publicity there are worse
ways of passing a Sunday night in front of the
telly than Vera. (Exhibit A: SS-GB.)
But if you want to see how murder works
in real life i.e. a lot more messily this
week also saw the first episode of Ameri-
can Justice (BBC2, Tuesday), a documenta-
ry that manages to make us realise all over
again how foreign America can seem.
The programme began with a series of
captions reminding us that the United States
is the only country in the world where the
enforcers of law and order are elected by
the people. And in Jacksonville, Florida, it
appears, the people dont tend to bleeding-
heart liberalism. The citys state attorney is
Angela Corey, a death-penalty enthusiast
and a woman whos made it possible for
defendants to be tried for murder even if
they havent killed anybody.
So it was that one of the two cases we fol-
lowed concerned Trey Wright, who with his
cousin Bryant had broken into a students
nately, a neighbouring student called Jabarta
heard the noise and came into the room with
a gun of his own. He then killed Bryant and
left Trey badly injured. Because he was obvi-
ously acting in self-defence, Jabarta faced no
charges. Instead it was Trey who was put on

trial for Bryants murder.
Imagine climbing the hills that surround
Belfast and stumbling upon this 11-metre-
high steel bollock. It will be visible from a
number of different points throughout the
city, coos the Arts Council. Havent the peo-
ple of Northern Ireland suffered enough?
Origin is the winner of our second
Whats That Thing? Award for the worst
new public art of the past year. The crea-
tors claim the six-metre raindrop stuck on
top of a five-metre pole represents the ele-
gant flow of the Farset River and appears
to hover. Hover? Do you think they know
what the word means?
Clumsy, aggressive, cheap-looking
(despite costing 100,000), its the very
opposite of a raindrop. Like the worst pub-
lic art, its also the very opposite of art
ungenerous, suggestive only of itself.
Who to blame? The artists, Solas Crea-
tive, for sure. But also the arrogance of the
bureaucrats who commissioned it. In the
name of peace and economic regenera-
tion, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland
has littered the region with tat. If they were
a person, wed lock them up for fly-tipping.
For now, shaming them is the best we can do.
Email us at publicart@spectator.co.uk if you
have a nomination for next years award.
Igor Toronyi-Lalic
47
 The other case was no more edifying. A
man and his niece were found knifed to death
in his trailer, with suspicion immediately fall-
ing on her boyfriend TJ whod not so mys-
teriously disappeared. Soon afterwards, the
police tracked him down to a town in Geor-
gia, where he made a full confession, explain-
ing that he was sick of his girlfriend stealing
all the money he earned so she could spend it
on crack which was especially galling given
that hed planned to spend it on heroin for
himself. Ive never done anything like this
before, he added reassuringly. Burglaries
and dealing drugs, yes. Despite the fact that,
as one cop pointed out, TJ had stabbed the
uncle to death very quickly because he liked
him, the state decided to call for the death
penalty rather than merely life in prison with
no possibility of parole.
More surprisingly, meanwhile, after a
decidedly gripping piece of courtroom drama,
Trey got off. He and Bryant had, it transpired,
known the two students and had gone to the
room as arranged to sell them the weapon in
exchange for weed. It was a moral vindication
triumphant enough to earn Trey a standing
ovation from the entire congregation when
he returned to his local church.
Dance
Bravura bling
Louise Levene
Project Polunin
Sadlers Wells
The Human Seasons/After the Rain/
Flight Pattern
Royal Opera House
There was a nasty sound of pens being
sharpened last week as Royal Ballet runa-
way Sergei Polunin prepared to unveil his
latest venture. The reviews were as dire as
the show but the overriding mood was one
of regret that so great a talent should have
lost its way.
Project Polunins triple bill was cannily
timed to coincide with the release of the
documentary film Dancer, which follows the
young Ukrainian prodigys progress after
his snap resignation from the Royal Ballet
in 2012. The films director, Steven Cantor,
had no dance background and was a push-
over for all the bravura party tricks that
dominate the movies dance footage. This,
together with the flashdancing YouTube
sensation Take Me to Church, placed so
much emphasis on raw virtuosity that Pro-
ject Polunin was pretty much honour-bound
to supply more of the same.
The Wells evening got off to a respect-
able start with a duet from Vladimir
Vasilievs 1971 piece Icarus,The Night
Before the Flight. Like all Soviet choreog-
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
raphy of the period, it comes heavily gar-
nished with bravura bling: soaring jets and
swizzling chains of turns. Polunin storms
through these lustily enough but it is the
Royal Ballets Natalia Osipova, Polunins
on-off girlfriend, who spins straw into gold
as Icaruss sorrowing wife.
Polunin then took a breather, leaving
us with Andrey Kaydanovskiys dismal Tea
or Coffee, gamely performed by four danc-
ers from Moscows Stanislavsky Ballet.
It looked as if it had been made by some-
one who had heard contemporary dance
described but never actually seen any. Pol-
unin thinks its a really unusual concept.
Polunin needs to get out more.
Narcissus and Echo was choreographed
by Polunin himself (with help from Valen-
tino Zucchetti) to a commissioned score
Enter Polunin, in sheer tights and
what can only be described as a
spangled merkin
by film composer Ilan Eshkeri played live
by the London Metropolitan Orchestra.
A corps of five nymphs and four Theban
Boys ponce about in an Attic manner on a
rather retro-looking set dotted with clouds,
constellations and planets.
Enter Polunin, in sheer tights and what
can only be described as a spangled mer-
kin. He spins (magnificently), he leaps (not
quite so magnificently), then spends a sur-
prising amount of time getting his breath
back while draped over the North Pole of
planet Jupiter. Eventually, he resurfaces, pir-
ouettes some more then disappears down a
steaming upstage crater while various self-
ies of the star are projected on to the clouds
above. The whole sorry business is (partial-
ly) redeemed by Osipova, who shimmers
through an adorable solo of her own devis-
ing which shows the forlorn Echo dwindle
away to an answering voice.
Project Polunin played to packed and
adoring houses, and its director is unlikely
to rethink his decision to go it alone but, on
this showing, he has neither the taste nor
the choreographic talent to make a success
of it. A guest contract with a major com-
pany would give him a measure of freedom
while supplying the infrastructure he so
badly needs and most important of all
a repertoire worthy of his genius. It is
rumoured that he will be Armand to Osi-
povas Marguerite at Covent Garden this
June. I wont be holding my breath (but I
am crossing my fingers).
Without a big name, mixed bills can be
a very hard sell. The Royal Ballets latest,
which opened at the Royal Opera House
last week, is an ill-sorted trio with scant box-
office appeal despite a top price of only 50.
The evening kicks off with two plotless, bare-
chest-and-leotard exercises: Christopher
Wheeldons After the Rain and David Daw-
sons Human Seasons. Vadim Muntagirov and
four fellow principals do their best to mask
Dawsons weaknesses but the pairwork is ice-
dance-y at best and is dominated by an ugly
woman-as-floorcloth motif. Dancers spend
a lot of time making an urgent dash for the
wings (perhaps in a bid for escape).
The evening is saved by Crystal Pites
Flight Pattern, the Canadian choreogra-
phers first Royal Ballet commission, in
which she responds to the global refugee
crisis with 36 dancers and Goreckis haunt-
ing Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.
A less intelligent, less reflective dance-
maker might have struggled with such
an emotive subject but Pites profoundly
humane response is free of either soap-
boxing or sentiment. Her extraordinary
command of space allows her to create
powerful massed effects with often very
simple movements.
The 36 overcoated figures in the open-
ing scenes sway back and forth in a huddled
mass in the shadow of Jay Gower Tay-
lors monolithic set. Gradually, the seeth-
ing crowd fragments into tragic vignettes:
lovers are reunited; a distraught woman
(the excellent Kristen McNally) staggers
upstage with her coat cradled in her arms
like a drowned child. The great shoal of bod-
ies finally surges through the open gates but
Marcelino Samb is left behind to deliver
an agonised epilogue, his elegant lines rup-
tured and fragmented, as he dances out his
rage and frustration.
Cinema
Hide and seek
Deborah Ross
Another Mothers Son
12A, Nationwide
All This Panic
15, Key Cities
Two films for you this week, one of which
is surprisingly good and one of which does
not surprise in the least. Shall we be unsur-
prised first?
OK, Another Mothers Son, set during the
second world war on Nazi-occupied Jersey,
is based on the true story of Louisa Gould,
who took in an escaped Russian PoW for
the course of the war. Louisa Gold, what a
mensch she would later be named a Hero
of the Holocaust. But its the kind of story
that has been told countless times (I blame
Anne Frank), and here its told in such a per-
functory, plodding way that it brings nothing
new to the party. Its simply as if an episode
of Bergerac had developed ideas above its
station or a fancy for jackboots.
Jenny Seagrove plays Louisa, who has
lost a son to the war, and seen how cruelly
the Germans treat their Russian prisoners,
49
TOM BETTERTON
BOOKS & ARTS
so takes in Feodor (Julian Kostov), who is
on the run. She calls him Bill, and also my
love, which, I have to say, creeped me out,
while he cleans up nicely, proves a wonder at
languages learns English overnight, seem-
ingly and those horrific wounds to his
back, which she spots when he takes a bath
on his first night? Never mentioned again
although, heck, they would have to smart.
Judging from this, Louisa is not natural-
ly gifted at hiding fugitives. It could even be
said that she may be the worst hider of fugi-
tives known to man. What a mensch and all
that, but even so. Subject to Nazi searches
at any time, she does not install Bill in an
attic or cellar, but in a bedroom. Situated
on an island known to house informants,
she takes Bill shopping, to church, to the
park. When the Nazis call its quick, quick,
Bill, hide in the chicken coop, but then the
next minute hes serving in her shop, in full
view. Most baffling. Seagrove does add some
depth to Louisa with her grief for her son;
her Christian faith but every other role
is hopelessly underwritten, including her
brother, Harold. He is played by Ronan
Keating. From Boyzone. That is a surprise, I
admit, but as Harold is so one-dimensional
50
Ginger Leigh Ryan in All This Panic
its impossible to say how Keating acquits
himself. I will only mention that his accent
does travel over the Irish Sea and back again
a few times. Also, doesnt this casting mean
he has to be at least two decades younger
than his sister?
As directed by Christopher Menaul, it
gets us from A to B, but without much flair,
or any complexity, and is therefore not sur-
Its as if an episode of Bergerac had
developed a fancy for jackboots
prisingly good, unlike All This Panic. This is
a documentary, shot over three years, about
a group of seven girlfriends in Brooklyn who
start out at 15 or thereabouts and end up at
college (or not). I know. Who wants to hang
out with teenage girls? Id have said Id rath-
er stay home and stick a fork in each eye. But,
even at 79 minutes, its remarkably involving
and touching, and as for Lena, I wanted her
to come over so I could give her a hug. Still
do. I would even put my forks down.
This has been made by Jenny Gage
(director) and Tom Betterton (producer/
cinematographer), a married couple other-
wise known for their fashion photography.
A series of intermittent vignettes, in effect,
the film is quite fashion-y in its style: dreamy
shots, shots that blur out of focus then
become clear again. Itll take you a while
to get your eye in. Is that Ginger? Is that
Dusty? Is that Olivia? At the outset they
are, its true, narcissistically self-obsessed
boys, clothes, Facebook but thisll strike
you as a fragile, transitionary period, and
theyre also self-analytical: People want to
look at us but dont want to hear what we
have to say. I think that was Sage.
As we pop in and out of lives that are
never trivialised, we encounter anger, sor-
row, happiness, hope, disappointment and
a number of scenarios such as how to deal
with your friend who is drunk and vomiting
at a party, how to come out as gay, how to
find a sense of purpose. (Ginger, I hope you
have.) And then there is Lena, who starts as
a gamine, awkward waif, becomes a woman
in front of our eyes, Boyhood-style, and is
caught between longing for an escape from
her deeply troubled family and knowing
they depend on her. You will, I promise, be
profoundly moved. And there you have it:
a film to surprise and one that doesnt. You
cant say I dont cater for all tastes.
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
 NOTES ON

Cherry blossom
By Will Heaven

I
n what I like to think of as The Specta-
tors back garden most people call it
St Jamess Park the cherry trees are
in blossom. Theres a group of six or seven
of them, clouds of bright pink, in the corner
nearest 22 Old Queen Street. Theyre worth
a look, even if you think blossoms a bit
of a girlie interest. There are more dotted
around. A little grove of white cherries on
the south side of the lake is ranked among
the best in London, according to one
website: A simple point-and-shoot photo of
these trees somehow transforms itself into
an impressionist painting.
But we shouldnt rank blossom, or feel
compelled to photograph it (the blossom
hashtag on Instagram has five million posts),
or think of it as girlie. Because all of that is
beneath it. As the Japanese poet Otomo
no Kuronushi wrote in the 9th century,
Everyone feels grief when cherry blossoms
scatter. Thats the depth of feeling this tree
can produce.
The Japanese understand this better than
anyone. The native cherry blossom, they
say, inspires mono no aware: a rejoicing in
ephemeral beauty, and an untranslatable
sense of the pathos of things. Blossom is a
reminder of the fleeting nature of life, of its
heartbreaking quickness.
Which is why the moment when the trees
Party time... blossoms at Himeji Castle in Japan
burst into flower in Japan is party time, as it
has been for maybe a thousand years. Peo-
ple celebrate the blossom with hanami, or
flower-viewing, picnics boozy ones. Like
irritating Germans with beach towels, Japa-
nese office workers lay down big tarpaulins
or rugs under the best trees to secure their
spots, with signs that say when theyll be back
to eat and drink sake, which they do late into
the night. They anticipate this for weeks. Seg-
ments after the evening news follow the pro-
gress of the sakura-zensen the blossom
front in the same way that India keeps
an eye on the approaching monsoon rains.
Here its different. Cherry blossom
even if it arrives early on in Lent is seen
as a more hopeful sign of the Christian
festival round the corner. A.E. Housman
writes of the Loveliest of trees, the cher-
ry now... Wearing white for Eastertide.
But we dont tend to indulge anything like
mono no aware, that sense of pathos. So you
get the anonymous 1930s parody: Loveli-
est of cheese, the cheddar now... Or Ezra
Pounds sarcastic O woe, woe,/ People are
born and die,/ We also shall be dead pretty
soon/ Therefore let us act as if we were
dead already.
But isnt that ancient Japanese response
a better one? I think so. While the blossom
lasts, lets drink, be merry, enjoy life think
on its quickness. If you can get there in time,
take a picnic at the Brogdale Collections in
Kent, for example, where there are 350 or so
flowering cherry varieties and a little collec-
tion of Japanese artefacts. Or try Dodding-
ton Hall in Lincolnshire, the Kew Gardens
Cherry Walk, Regents Park, or Batsford
Arboretum in Gloucestershire.
Some of the best cherry trees grab your
attention unexpectedly. Theres a spectacu-
lar one blossoming right now on Balham
High Road, just south of the station near a
hideous Jobcentre building. Not the place
for a picnic, but it works its magic. Walk
past a tree like this every day for a few years
and you find yourself looking for buds in
March and willing it to bloom. When it does,
springs here.

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EST. 1925
ZZZGRYHUVRZHUVFRP
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
That got us talking about the
naughtiest girl of the 20th century
Bruce Anderson, p62
High life
Taki
A cloudless sky, crunchy spring snow, long-
er, warmer days. Ive finally got in some
good skiing, twisting around moguls like an
arthritic champ. Its all in the mind, as my
old wrestling coach used to tell me. If you
think the other guys better, youre bound to
lose to him. The same goes for the slope. If it
scares you, stay in the club and have anoth-
er drink. Otherwise, attack it with gusto and
feel like a champ again.
The same applies to the fairer sex. If youre
too nervous to speak to her, keep moving. We
have four of the prettiest young women at
The Spectator, all taken alas, and Ive man-
aged not to make a fool of myself with any
of them (well, a tiny bit with one of them, but
what the hell, no ones perfect). And speak-
ing of girls, at our last summer party, towards
the end, when I was well fuelled, I met Olga,
a very pretty Russian who works for Rus-
sia Today. Olga has perfect manners, some-
thing her male counterparts are not famous
for, and is well spoken and graceful. Even the
MoMC thought her too good for me when
they met at my birthday party.
Ive recently been reading rather a lot
about RT. My friend, the film director James
Toback who directed the greatest movie
of all time, Seduced and Abandoned tells
me it is the only news channel he watches
in New York. I may be biased against the
BBC and American networks because of
their hypocritical claim of impartiality (as
impartial as Saudi clerics judging a Jewish
smuggler), but I love RT as it doesnt do fake
news. And, unlike American broadcasters, it
has a sense of humour.
What amazes me is that if you bring up
Russia in America and Europe today, peo-
ple react the way academics used to back
in the 1930s if one criticized Stalin and his
purges. Fifty to 100 million died in the gulags,
and lefties the world over turned a blind eye;
now you say one nice thing about Putin and
youre toast. Lets take it from the top: from
the establishment of the Truman Doctrine in
1947, until the collapse of the Soviet Union
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
in 1991, only conservative journalists and a
few policy-makers demonised Russia no
one more so than the greatest Greek writer
since Homer.
Towards the late-1980s, the Soviet ambas-
sador to Athens befriended my father, the
coldest warrior of them all, and convinced
him that all Gorby wanted was to conduct
business with the West. He also remind-
ed him what Georgi Arbatov had told dad
when he had been a guest of the government
during the Moscow Olympics of 1980: the
Russians are a spiritual people who
yearn to connect with Christ,
not Wall Street
greatest danger Russia faced was not Amer-
ica and the West but the 40 million Muslims
within the Soviet Union.
One hundred years ago, after the Tsars
murder, westerners thought of Russia as a
savage, benighted land yearning to become
a second America. That was a crock, if ever
there was one. Russians are a spiritual people
who yearn to connect with Christ, not Wall
Street. After the collapse of communism,
America committed its greatest mistake until
the Iraqi invasion 11 years later. Instead of lis-
tening to George F. Kennan, a Russian expert
and diplomat extraordinaire, and to Richard
Nixon, who both advised helping the new
state financially as well as politically, Uncle
Sam heeded neocon siren voices and encir-
cled Russia via Nato. Neocons then doubled
down on their folly by convincing an idiotic
president and his poodle Tony Blair to invade
Iraq. A trillion dollars and hundreds of thou-
sands of dead later, not a single neocon has
been jailed or tried for their crimes. But Putin
has been demonised by those same neocons
and their networks, and by newspapers such
as the Mexican-owned New York Times.
The Nato expansion into the former
Soviet block is now being called a tragic
mistake by those of us not taken in by neo-
con propaganda. There was bound to be an
authoritarian backlash in Russia as a result.
And then there is the monstrously corrupt
privatisation, sanctioned by a drunken Yelt-
sin. (Chelsea fans and other beneficiaries in
London and New York should put up a stat-
ue of the drunk. Swiss and Bahama-based
bankers pray for him daily.)
And now we come back to Trump and
Putin and the fact that the media cannot
accept the fact that their dominance is over
and that the Trump regime wishes to dis-
mantle them. Needless to say, they are resist-
ing, and the best way they can do that is by
linking the Donald to Vlad. But take it from
Taki, anything that comes out will be fake
news, planted by those hysterics who oppose
Trump and disregard the truth.
The deepest challenges facing America
and the West do not come from Russia and
Putin. Anti-Russian epithets are a cover for
the class warfare taking place in the West. It
is not an economic warfare but a moral one,
and one that needs Christian understand-
ing and Christian wisdom and love. I know,
it sounds corny, but there you have it. This is
moral exploitation of the people disguised as
their liberation. If Putin is seen as a dictator
by the West, what are we to call the unelected
oligarchs of the EU. Watch RT and compare.
Low life
Jeremy Clarke
My joints were aching suddenly and unac-
countably fingers, wrists, elbows, knees,
toes so I cried off the dinner invitation, vol-
unteering instead to pick up Catriona and her
lovely daughter, who was staying for a week,
at around 11 p.m. At ten, Catriona rang. Had
I forgotten? She sounded a bit squiffy. No, I
hadnt forgotten, I said. Wed said 11, hadnt
we? Well, they were ready to be picked up
now, she said. When I arrived, the front door
was open and I let myself in. The four of them
were still seated at the dining table, chatting
and drinking over the remains of the meal.
I accepted a gin-and-tonic from the host,
Andre, and pulled up a chair.
So how did you spend your evening?
Catriona said.
I gave them chapter and verse. I lit the
fire, I said, and made myself a meal of sau-
sages, oven chips and a tin of marrowfat
peas. Then I had a bath, a tepid bath, as the
hot water was used up, and I was dismayed
at how difficult it was to raise myself up out
of the tub. Then I listened to the Moral Maze
on Radio Four on the subject of grammar
schools. An education adviser to Tony Blair,
I reported, had said that one of the purposes
of childrens education, in his view, was to
55
LIFE
inculcate a belief in diversity. (Here I main-
tained a straight face, but in my secret soul
I thought it incredible.) In support of a line
of inquiry, one of the Moral Maze question-
ers had cited a controversial study of human
intelligence, The Bell Curve, by Charles
Murray, in which it is stated that 50 per cent
of any given population is of below average
intelligence. Id heard of the controversial
book but not read it. So I googled it, curious
to know if this statement was part of what
made the book controversial, and if so, what
exactly was controversial about it. High on
the search list, however, was a piece in the
Guardian reporting that only the previous
week Charles Murray had been shouted
down by students at an elite US universi-
ty. He fled the podium and later his car was
attacked as he attempted to leave. In the
mle, a professor had her hair pulled, twist-
ing her neck, and was taken to hospital.
Then I smoked a cigarette smeared with
hash oil, I said. Then I read the comments
posted underneath the Guardian piece,
170 of them, because the level of debate
seemed to my stoned mind, anyhow
to be occasionally quite high. Some of the
contributors said that they were on the left
yet abhorred what had happened to Mr
Murray. Others seemed genuinely confused
by the lefts abandonment of its traditional
tenets, and by its new position as a sort of
medieval Catholicism. Oh yes, I added, and
Id heard on the news that the latest exit
polls were predicting that Geert Wilders
had failed to win a majority in the Dutch
general election, though he had gained
seats. Hurrah! exclaimed Catrionas lovely
daughter correctly, while I hid my desper-
ate disappointment behind a bland expres-
sion. And how did Manchester City get on
in Monaco? said Andre. I said that I hadnt
looked, but hoped very much that they lost.
There followed a political discussion
between Catriona and Andre about the
forthcoming French election, during which
her ignorance was exposed, and mine too,
though I kept mine quiet and didnt adver-
tise it. The election next month is a presi-
dential, not a party election. The deputies
are elected separately. That I didnt know. It
is therefore theoretically possible though
unlikely, thought Andre for Marine le
Pen to be elected president over a socialist
government. Then he patiently unravelled
another mystery: what it was that made the
fifth republic different from the fourth, and
the fourth from the third, and so on. All of
this revealed the sad truth that I really dont
know much about anything, thereby fitting
the lefts conception of a populist like a
bespoke glove.
And then we all stood up, hugged and
kissed in the French manner, and I drove
Catriona and her beautiful daughter home,
on the way narrowly avoiding a solitary
wild boar with absolutely no road sense.
As soon as I got indoors, I sat down with
56
the iPad to check the Monaco v. Manches-
ter City score, at which Catriona took great
umbrage. She said, to my great surprise,
that I was rudely ignoring her, and stalked
off to bed. Seconds later, her daughter
had a severe asthma attack, during which
it seemed possible she might die. When I
finally got to bed, my finger joints were so
painful that I couldnt unbutton my shirt
and had to sleep with it on.
Real life
Melissa Kite
Mesdames et messieurs, allow me to intro-
duce you to your meals, said the waiter.
Oh lordy, I thought. Here we go. We were
in a country pub near my parents home that
used to be a little local place where you could
get a Sunday roast for reasonable money. But
it has been taken over by a gastro-preneur,
whose party trick is to buy a small venue in
a Midlands high street where people were
perfectly happy being served normal food
for modest prices and gastro-pub-ise it until
no one local can afford to go there.
Which is not very nice. But given the
decline of the pub industry, one excuse you
might make for it is that perhaps world-class
food will bring inward investment to the
area, an influx of bored young executives
from West Bromwich, perhaps.
Whats more, we locals can always save
up our pennies and every now and then treat
ourselves to some haute cuisine to warm our
Brexit cockles as we watch the value being
wiped off our homes by HS2 carving up the
landscape.
Mum, dad, the builder boyfriend and
I had arrived not fully understanding the
extent of the gastro-pub-isation that had
gone on, however. It now had a Michelin star.
As such, the customers at the other tables
were making a right song and dance of it as
they chomped and glugged. I think at one
point I actually heard a Brummie car dealer
shout out that he was considerably richer
than yow!
We sat beneath a vast framed photo-
graph of the staff of Mosimanns and an
old menu of the Dorchester (the chef had
worked at both). The waiter placed a series
of menus in front of us, none of which con-
tained anything sensible: baby pigeon for
35 and a chateaubriand for the cost of a
side extension.
On a small piece of paper, however, was a
special of something called rump cap, form-
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
ing part of a 25-for-two-courses deal. So we
all ordered it, along with a beetroot salad to
start. Sparkling water, white wine, and the
builder b wanted an orange juice. When the
drinks came without the orange juice, we
asked again. The waitress snapped: Well,
you didnt order it from me! All the same,
I replied, we would like it.
She swept away and returned with a
glass shaped like the leaning tower of Pisa
on a tray. Into this, she attempted to pour a
Britvic while balancing it, which resulted in
it crashing to the floor. We would not have
minded. We are not considerably richer than
anyone. But she didnt give us the chance.
Jesus Christ! she screamed, and stormed
off.
Another waiter came and cleared up the
mess, while another waiter brought another
orange juice.
Shortly after, the starters were set in front
of us, and the waiter explained what they
were. Naturally one yearns to say, I know,
I ordered it, but it was obviously best to let
I think I actually heard a Brummie
car dealer shout out that he was
considerably richer than yow!
him explain that what we were looking at
was two slices of beetroot, some walnuts and
a tiny bobble of mozzarella. Thank you, we
all said, and ate it in ten seconds flat.
This at least freed us up to make conver-
sation. Or it would have done if the geezer
at the next table hadnt been deafening us by
telling his wife how rich he was. (You would
have thought she knew.)
We had to assure the waiter at length that
the beetroot was the best we had ever tast-
ed, for if we hadnt, he would not have taken
the plates away and brought the main course,
which revealed itself to be three two-inch
squares of steak set beside a three-inch square
of potato, three two-centimetre slices of carrot
and a four-inch streak of pured carrot.
Which was when the waiter cleared his
throat and said: Mesdames et messieurs,
allow me to introduce you to your meals.
Allow me, I wanted to say, to introduce
myself and my family to the meal. Beef cap,
Im Melissa, and this is builder boyfriend,
mum and dad. We will be eating you today.
and you have two lovely types of car-
rot, the waiter was saying in reality, which
was scarcely less surreal.
The meal was very tasty. We had to put a
lot of hard-working pauses into it, mind you.
Did we want dessert? No! we exclaimed as
one. For, thank heavens, we had a trifle in
the fridge at home. Just the bill, please.
We were delighted to find it was only
90. Not bad for an afternoon of gastro-tit-
illation. Except, as we walked to the car, the
waiter chased after us to explain they had
only charged us for half the portions they
should have. Considering which, one really
couldnt make any excuse for it at all.
 SPECTATOR WINE JONATHAN RAY
Bridge
Susanna Gross

Everyone knows him, but hardly anyone can

pronounce his name which is why Jacek
Pszczola is universally called Pepsi. Hes Pol-
ish, of course, but lives in the US, and is one

S
of the worlds most successful and popu- pectator readers, being wise wine-lovers, designed for drinking right now. A blend of
lar bridge pros. He does, however, have are particularly fond of Chteau Musar, Cinsault, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon, its
one very disconcerting habit. As soon as hes that extraordinary wine born of the soft and smooth, full of blackberries, black-
dummy, he opens a dog-eared crime thriller Bekaa Valley in the Lebanon. Whenever we currants and cherries. 11 down from 13.
and starts to read it doesnt matter who offer it in these pages, we promptly sell out. The 2012 Hochar Pere et Fils Red (3)
hes partnering, or how important the tour- This is surely our best Musar offer yet, effectively Musars second wine is a sin-
nament. The first time I saw him do this, he thanks to the canniness of our Wine Club gle-vineyard red made from low-yielding old
was sitting opposite a client and I thought it partners Mr.Wheeler. As readers will know, vines. Its aged in French oak for nine months
was incredibly rude. But she didnt seem to Musar only releases its grand vin when its and is succulent, with dark fruit underpinned
mind and nor, it turns out, does anyone deemed ready to drink and the mighty 2006 by spicy herbs and Grenache sweetness. It
else. Clearly, thats because neither Lee Child has only just had the nod, held back while the ages well too. 13.25 down from 16.
nor Michael Connelly nor John Grisham has 2007, 2008 and 2009 all matured before it. And so to the superb trio of grand vins:
ever put him off his game, or indeed stopped The Spectator, in cahoots with Mr.Wheeler, the 2006 Chteau Musar (4), made from Cin-
him from becoming a world champion. As has exclusive first dibs on said 2006 Chteau sault, Carignan and Cabernet Sauvignon,
soon as he puts his book down, his mind is as Musar, two months before anyone else. Not with ripe, warming red and black bramble
sharp as ever. Take this hand from the recent only that, the Chteau has put aside the last fruit and a mouth-fillingly long finish (19.75
Australian National Open Teams: of its 1996 vintage just for us, all 170 bottles of down from 26); the 2001 Chteau Musar (5),
it. No, no, dont thank me, just fill your boots. with the power and structure of both Cab-
Dealer North Neither vulnerable We have the 2007 Chteau Musar White ernet and Carignan to the fore rather than
(1), a complex blend of Obaideh and Merwah, the perfumed Cinsault, plus hints of leather
z 7 and hands up whos ever heard of them: two and cedar, blackcurrant and cherry fruit and
y J 8 6 2 ancient Lebanese varieties, possibly related plenty of spice (26 down from 29); the 1996
X K Q 10 8 to Chardonnay and Smillon. To me, though, Chteau Musar (6), produced only in tiny
w A 10 9 6 the wine tastes most like a fine white Rhne, quantities and marked by soft, rich fruit and
with its touches of peach and honeysuckle elegance rather than weight and power. Grab
and a long savoury finish. 22 down from 26. it while you can (33 down from 52).
zQJ 8 3 z 9
The 2013 Musar Jeune (2), the estates There are two mixed cases to sample and
yQ5 3 N y K 10 9 4 unoaked, easy-going entry-level wine, is delivery, as ever, is free.
W E
X9 S
XA 7 6 5 43
wQ J 7 5 3 w84
ORDER FORM Spectator Wine Offer
z A K 10 6 542 www.spectator.co.uk/wine-club
yA7 Mr.Wheeler, Estate Ofce, Park Lane BC, Langham, Colchester, Essex CO4 5WR
XJ 2 Tel: 01206 713560 Email: sales@mrwheelerwine.com
wK 2 List price Club price No.
White 1 2007 Chteau Musar White (case of six) 156.00 132.00
Red 2 2013 Musar Jeune (case of 12) 156.00 132.00
West North East South
Pass 3X 4z 3 2012 Hochar Pere et Fils (case of 12) 192.00 159.00
pass pass pass 4 2006 Chteau Musar (case of 12) 300.00 237.00
5 2001 Chteau Musar (case of six) 174.00 156.00
West led the X9. Heres what happened 6 1996 Chteau Musar (case of six) 312.00 198.00
at the other table, where the bidding and Mixed 7 Sample case, two each of the above 322.00 250.00
lead were the same: East played the X A
8 Vintage case, four bottles each of 4, 5 and 6 424.00 315.00
and declarer played the XJ under it to try
and avoid a ruff. East, unsure whether the Mastercard/Visa no. Total
X9 was a singleton or doubleton, found the
Start date Expiry date Sec. code
perfect switch instead: a low heart. The con- Prices include VAT and delivery on the
tract now had to go one off. Issue no. Signature British mainland. Payment should be
Pepsi was more far-sighted. He played Please send wine to made either by cheque with the order,
the X2 under Easts XA, making it obvious Name payable to Mr.Wheeler, or by debit or
credit card, details of which may be tele-
that West had a singleton. He wanted East to Address
phoned or faxed. This offer, which is sub-
return the suit precisely to cater for the layout ject to availability, closes on 28 April 2017.
above. East did; West duly ruffed and shifted Postcode
to a heart but it was too late. Pepsi won with Telephone
the yA, cashed two top trumps, led a club to Email*
dummys ace and played the XK for a heart *Only provide your email address if you would like to receive offers or communications by email from The Spectator (1828) Limited, part of the Press Holdings
discard. West ruffed but that was the last trick Group. See Classified pages for Data Protection Act Notice. The Spectator (1828) Limited, part of the Press Holdings Group would like to pass your details on
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the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 57

LIFE
Chess
Pauline conversion
Raymond Keene
Paul Keres is the only chess player to have
appeared on the euro currency, his face adorning
the two-euro piece in Estonia, where he remains
a national hero. Keres has a powerful claim to be
regarded as the strongest player never to have
won the World Championship. His scalps included
Capablanca, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal,
Petrosian, Spassky and Fischer.
This weeks game, with notes based on those by
Zenon Franco in Keres: Move by Move
(Everyman Chess) is a crushing victory against
another grandmaster who also has claims to be
seen as the strongest ever non-world champion.
Korchnoi-Keres: Tallinn 1965; Torre Attack
1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 e6 3 Bg5 h6 4 Bxf6 Qxf6 5
e4 b6 6 a3 The idea of this is to be able to play
Nc3 without fearing ... Bb4, and then castle
queenside. 6 ... Bb7 7 Nc3 d6 8 Qd2 Nd7 9
0-0-0 g5 (diagram 1) This caused some
astonishment at the time, although with the
passing of the years this idea no longer comes as a
surprise in such positions. It prepares ... Bg7, but
White must also must be on his guard against the
... g4 thrust. 10 Nb5 Kd8 Giving up the right to
castle and thus quickly coordinate his pieces, but
it is almost forced and is not easy for White to
exploit it. 11 h4 g4 12 e5 Seeking to open lines
to try to exploit the situation of the black king.
12 ... Qg7 13 Ne1 a6 14 Nc3 d5 15 f4 f5
16 exf6 This opens the position for Blacks
bishops, but also exposes Blacks weaknesses on
e6, e5, etc. 16 ... Qxf6 17 h5 c5 18 dxc5 bxc5
19 g3 Bc6 20 Rh4 Rg8 21 Nd3 Rb8 White
wants to capture the g4-pawn and Black is
preparing his counterplay against the white king.
22 Nf2 c4 23 Nxg4 Qe7 The threat is to win
immediately with 24 ... Qxa3! 24 Re1 (diagram
2) 24 ... Rxb2 A good decision; objectively it is
not winning, but White has to defend very well,
and that is not a simple task. 25 Kxb2 Qxa3+
26 Kb1 Bg7 27 Ne5 Closing the long diagonal
is not sufficient. It was essential to play 27 Re3!
and although this looks bad and Black has several
attractive possibilities, there does not appear to
be anything decisive: for instance, after 27 ... d4 28
Nb5 Qc5 White seems to hold miraculously with
29 Qa5+! Ke7 30 Na7!! Rb8+ 31 Kc1 Qxa7 32
Qa3+ Nc5 33 Re5! Bxe5 34 Nxe5. 27 ... Kc7
With his previous move Black also made way for
PUZZLE NO. 449
White to play. This position is from Mareco-Naka-
mura, Pro-League, chess.com 2017. Can you spot
Whites winning coup?Answers to me at The
Spectator by Tuesday, March 28, or via email to
victoria@spectator.co.uk or fax to 020 7961 0058.
The winner will be the first correct answer out of
a hat, and each week I shall be offering a prize of
20. Please include a postal address and allow six
weeks for prize delivery.
Last weeks solution 1 Nf6+.
Last weeks winner
Dr Richard Craven, Montpelier, Bristol.
58
Competition
A to P
Lucy Vickery
Diagram 1
In Competition No. 2990 you were invited to
rDWDkgW4 submit a poem of 16 lines in which the lines
0b0nDpDW begin with the letters of the alphabet from
A to P.
W0W0p1W0 This one proved to be a real crowd-
DWDWDW0W pleaser, attracting not only the regulars but
many welcome new faces too. You were at
WDW)PDWD your witty and inventive best, and I offer
)WHWDNDW
commiserations to a long list of unlucky
losers: Sylvia Fairley, Paul Evans, A.K.
W)P!W)P) Colam, Martin Eayrs, Nigel Stuart, Ralph
DWIRDBDR Rochester and Brian Allgar. Class swot Bill
Greenwell, who gave himself an additional
challenge by ending each line of his poem
with the letters K to Z, earns a gold star.
Diagram 2
The prizewinners, printed below, are
W4WiWgrD rewarded with 25 each. Basil Ransome-
DWDn1WDW Davies scoops the extra fiver.
pDbDpDW0 All poets lie, Pascal implied;
But thats their very game.
DWDpDWDP Chaucer was one who lied and lied,
WDpDW)N$ Dryden much the same.
)WHWDW)W Eliot wouldnt know the truth
From Ezra Pounds backside.
W)P!WDWD Gray went to Eton in his youth;
DWIW$BDW
He eloquently lied.
If Wild Walt Whitmans big I Am
Just takes you for a ride,
his rook to transfer to the queenside. 28 Nb5+ Kid, never mind. Its all a scam.
This closes the b-file, but Black is now only the Like Tennyson, he lied.
exchange down and the attack is still raging;
now the a-file is opened up. 28 ... axb5 29 Milton told tales, but for which side?
c3 Bxe5 30 fxe5 Rxg3 31 Rh3 Rg5 32 Nobody seems to know it.
Rhe3 Nc5 33 Rf3 Be8 Controlling f7. Black O bards, what guilty truths you hide.
has no need to hurry, although here he could Praise god, Im not a poet.
have played 33 ... Na4, since 34 Rf7+? Kb8 35 Basil Ransome-Davies
Re3 loses to, amongst other things, 35 ... d4 36
cxd4 Be4+. 34 Qa2 Qxa2+ 35 Kxa2 Rxh5 Alfred Lord Tennyson gave us a benison:
36 Ka3 Ne4 37 Rf8 Bd7 38 Kb4 Rxe5 39
Bedivere tending to Arthur his king.
Coleridge managed to write about Xanadu,
Ra1 Rf5 40 Rh8 The endgame after 40 Rxf5
Domes full of pleasure and Alphs sacred
exf5 41 Bg2 h5 would be sheer torture for
spring.
White, but the move played loses more easily.
Edward Fitzgerald was Omars great herald,
40 ... Rf2 White resigns There is no defence
Fashioning fingers that wrote and moved on.
against 41 ... Rb2+: 41 Rb1 Ra2, or 41 Ra7+
Gray got his elegy in every anthology,
Kb6 42 Rxd7 Rb2+ 43 Ka3 Rb3+ 44 Ka2
Holding a candle for those that have gone.
Nxc3+ and mate next move. In Shakespeare the sonnet had honour heaped
on it,
Just like his plays that were better than best.
WDrDWDkD Keats gave us odes in which poetry explodes,
Letting him live though hes long gone to rest.
0bDWhW4p Milton was blind and was one of a kind,
Nearing his maker in Paradise Lost.
W0WDWDWD Others there are who were destined to star,
DW)W0QDW Poets of perfection, a heavenly host.
Frank McDonald
qDWDWDWD Arsily-versily,
GWDR)WDP Benedict Cumberbatch
WDWDW$PD
curses his eminence,
dazed and beguiled.
DWDWDWIW Extracurricular
forays in nudity
garner him stardom in
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
 LIFE

Hamlet Gone Wild.

Crossword 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Innegan-finnegan,
Jennifer Aniston
2302: 9 10

knows what its like to be

left in the shit.
Urbane turban 11 12

by Doc 13 14 15

Monomaniacal 16 17 18 19
newsmongers slaver for
The solutions to twelve clues, all
off-colour titbits on of which lack definition, have 20 21
pretty-boy Pitt. to be adapted as the title indi-
Susan McLean 22 23 24
cates before the resulting word
is entered in the grid. These 25 26 27
All the worlds a stage, as Shakespeare wrote, resulting words are of a kind.
But few of us have roles of any note; Chambers does not give 4D. 28 29 30 31
Casts come and go, repeating whats been said,
Doing the same old parts others have played. Across 32 33
Every so often someone rises tall 1 Grotesque body-snatcher
Filling the stage to overshadow all, deaths dismissed (6) 34 35 36

Giving a great performance and displaying 4 Incompetent crossing

37 38
How transience can find a way of staying. street (8)
Illustrious victors live beyond their day 9 Friars make tiny tins (10) 39
Joining the stars in some mysterious way; 11 Stately home on outskirts
Kings are recalled to play their role once more of Osaka (6) 40 41
Living their reign in historys copious store. 12 Green copper transmuted
Masters of words receive a further part as a matter of import (7)
Nudged out of deaths oblivion by their art. 14 Staff on board railroad (6)
Only the great re-enter times domain; 15 Take rest, turning covers 2 Mechanics container 32 More than one spoke (5)
People like us dont get to live again. back (5) Nicola ordered (6) 36 Pleas altered (5)
Max Ross 16 Charwoman talked about a 3 Love let off in loo (7)
flower (6) 4 Two adjacent symbols from A first prize of 30 for the first
African elephants hate apple crumble. 21 Declare girls weight (8) grid changed before 1200H correct solution opened on 10
Badgers spurn toad in the hole. 22 Wastes time with Dutch (6) April. There are two runners-up
Cheese disagrees with all bees but the bumble. partners (7) 5 Some sun-decks are wavy (4) prizes of 20. (UK solvers can
Doughnuts spell death to the vole. 24 Followed old pretentious 6 Shelters partitions in church choose to receive the latest
Egypts Nile crocodile eats gluten free, fellow, we hear (4) (7) edition of the Chambers
Fussing when choosing its dish, 25 Girl with pound and savings 7 In the past, anoint some dictionary instead of cash
Getting upset if the omega 3 account (4) German electress (5) ring the word dictionary.)
Has low concentrations in fish. 27 Monopolise 1440, going 8 Debaucherys permits (8) Entries to: Crossword 2302, The
In Mali the hedgehog is rarely observed. topless (7) 10 Prudes desires Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street,
Japan is devoid of the skunk. 28 Worthing? Not first turning unfortunately suffered London SW1H 9HP. Please allow
Kangaroos reputation for spite is deserved. straight ahead (7, flight problems (13) six weeks for prize delivery.
Lemurs laugh coarsely when drunk. two words) 13 Highland attendants mount
My scholarly knowledge of facts such as these, 33 Fast progress? (6) that is good at first (7)
Notwithstanding the burden it brings, 34 To that extent, lounge 15 Look its horrible (5)
Name
Offers hope of a fellowship possibly Caius, furniture attracts Romeo 17 Throw gold wheel (6)
Peterhouse, Pembroke or Kings. (5, two words) 18 The purpose of camping? (6)
35 Sap affected reins (5) 19 Transfer deal starting in Address
Hugh King
37 One of the adult Hanseatic city (8, two words)
A toupee, bought to hide a patch, Beachboys, apparently, as 20 Angler rarely found in sea
Blending well in natural light, bedtime fairy (7) area (6)
Changed to a shade that didnt match, 38 Wife in the Valleys (6) 23 Wild reactionaries ignoring
Discernibly, alas, at night. 39 Note small room with some scene of missile attack (8,
Enticing, then, to try instead mixture (10) two hyphens)
Full fig, as women freely can, 40 River course (8, two words) 26 Draw in thesis (7)
Going blonde or dark or red, 41 Watch partnership from 29 One Soviet emblem, said to
However suits their fashion plan. here? (5) be cold and sharp item (6) Email
Its not that easy, though, for men, 30 Heraldic tincture conductor
Judged by where the nape fringe goes: Down topped (6)
Knowing glances now and then 1 Composer around secluded 31 Bridge partners left in the
Look at where it never grows. US bay (13, two words) Big Apple (5)
Mercifully God knows why
New growth sprang up: no need for weaves
Or transplant schemes that go awry SOLUTION TO 2299: PIECES OF EIGHT
Palliatives for a loss that grieves.
W.J. Webster
The unclued lights, including 28/3 in its English translation,
are compositions by Carl Nielsen, (i.e. pieces of 8 Down).
NO 2993: DUMPING GROUNDS
First prize K.J. Williams, Kings Worthy, Winchester
Break-ups are very much on the agenda Runners-up Roderick Rhodes, Goldsborough, North
at the moment. You are invited to submit Yorkshire; Megan Warburton, Walthamstow, East London
a Dear John letter, in prose or verse, in the
style of a well-known author (please specify).
Please email (wherever possible) entries
of up to 16 lines or 150 words to lucy@
spectator.co.uk by midday on 5 April.
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 59
LIFE
Status Anxiety
The liberals and
the deplorables
Toby Young
I
n America, an argument has bro-
ken out among journalists, writ-
ers and intellectuals in the after-
math of the presidential election about
whether Trumps white working-class
voters were decent, upright citizens
let down by the supercilious liberal
establishment or whether they were,
in Hilary Clintons words, a racist, sex-
ist, homophobic basket of deplorables.
The curious thing about this debate
is that the defenders of Trumps sup-
porters are, for the most part, left-
wingers, like the Berkeley sociologist
Arlie Russell Hochschild, who spent
five years chronicling a depressed blue-
collar community in Louisiana, while
those who disparage them as in thrall
to a vicious, selfish culture whose main
products are misery and used heroin
needles are conservatives. That last
quote was from a piece in the Nation-
al Review by Kevin D. Williamson.
The same role reversal has char-
acterised the Brexit post-mortem on
this side of the Atlantic. The most
outspoken critics of the white work-
ing-class Leave voters have nearly all
been conservatives, whether drawn
from the ranks of Tory parliamentar-
ians (Michael Heseltine, Anna Soubry,
Ken Clarke) or Tory scribblers such as
Matthew Parris and Janan Ganesh.
Their defenders, by contrast, have
often been left-liberals such as the
writer Amanda Craig, whose forth-
MICHAEL HEATH
60
coming novel features a smug London
couple who move to Devon in the hope
of discovering a pastoral idyll and have
difficulty grasping why their impov-
erished neighbours support Brexit.
In The Lie of the Land, which is due
to be published in June, Craig takes
issue with the caricature of Leave vot-
ers as stupid, racist and jingoistic. I
dont agree with how they voted, but
I respect them, she told the Guardian.
The example par excellence of this
political cross-dressing is David Good-
harts new book, The Road to Some-
where: The Populist Revolt and the
Future of Politics. Goodhart is, by his
own admission, a member of the lib-
eral London tribe, or at least he was
until recently. An Old Etonian and a
former FT journalist, Goodhart found-
ed Prospect, the left-of-centre political
monthly, and is the sort of furrowed-
browed hand-wringer who appears
regularly on Newsnight to agonise
about the slow death of the Labour
party. Yet in spite of voting Remain, he
has written what may turn out to be the
most sympathetic and insightful book
about Britains discontented masses.
He divides the UKs population
into two broad groups: the Some-
wheres and the Nowheres. Some-
wheres, who make up about half the
population, tend to be white, unedu-
cated, not particularly well-off and
middle-aged or older, while Nowheres,
The most who constitute between 20 and 25 per
cent of the population, are predomi-
outspoken nantly well-educated, affluent and
critics of white middle-aged or younger. The rea-
working-class son hes given them these names is
Leavers have that the Somewheres feel a strong
sense of attachment to a particular
nearly all been place, whether the part of the country
Conservatives theyre from or their nation, whereas
the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk
the Nowheres base their identity on
their educational and career achieve-
ments and are as comfortable in Paris
and New York as they are in London
or Cambridge.
Goodhart is a Nowhere, but he
thinks the Somewheres are right to be
angry about the neglect of their inter-
ests by Westminsters political class.
Theyre not racist, sexist or homopho-
bic, he says, but they do have legitimate
grievances about the pace and scale of
immigration, the fact that women are
now supposed to prioritise empower-
ment over traditional roles, and the
lefts abandonment of social democ-
racy for the lunacy of identity politics.
So why is it that our own basket
of deplorables, most of whom would
also vote Conservative if there were
an election tomorrow, have found a
champion in this liberal apostate? I
suspect it is precisely because they
have ended up in the wrong elec-
toral column that the white working
classes on both sides of the Atlantic
are attracting these sympathetic left-
of-centre Boswells. Intellectuals like
Hochschild and Goodhart realise that
social democratic parties need to win
back these blue-collar voters if theyre
to have a hope of winning elections.
Neoliberal politicians and journal-
ists, on the other hand, are suspicious
of these political refugees and worried
that their parties will adapt in all sorts
of undesirable ways to hold on to their
support, such as abandoning free trade
and raising taxes. My sympathies are
with the Hochschilds and the Good-
harts, but as a classical liberal Im also
alive to the dangers of populism.
Toby Young is associate editor of
The Spectator.
 most of us on the flight, this was a rev-
The Wiki Man elation. When we arrived promptly at
How I learned to love passport control we were, for the first
time, rather grateful for the bus. Noth-
the airport bus ing had changed objectively, but now
Rory Sutherland we had a new story to tell ourselves.
This illustrates a simple truth
about human psychology which
dates back to Aesop and his fable
act of choosing something generally
makes us like it more.
This is one reason why public
services and monopolies, even when
they do a good job objectively,
are often under-appreciated. It is sim-
ply harder to like something when
you havent chosen it. This is why
people who will happily pay 200 for

A
fter landing at Gatwick, the
plane taxied for five min-
utes or so and then came to
a halt in the middle of an outlying
patch of tarmac. I heard the engines
wind down. Oh shit! I thought to
myself. Its going to be a bus. Until
then, I had always felt short-changed
and mildly resentful when forced to
take a bus to the terminal rather than
being offered a proper air bridge.
Then the pilot made an announce-
ment so psychologically astute that I
wanted to offer him a job.
Ive got some bad news and some
good news, he said. The bad news is
that another aircraft is blocking our
arrival gate, so itll have to be a bus.
The good news is that the bus will
drop you off right next to passport
control, so you wont have far to walk
with your bags.
After years of flying, I sudden-
ly realised that what he said was
always true. The bus drops you off
right where you need to be: you dont
have to lug your carry-on bags for
800 yards through a shopping centre
before you can get to the exit. Yet, for
of the fox and the grapes. Given the
chance, our brain will do its best to
minimise any feelings of regret, but
it does need a plausible story to per-
form this feat. The reason we hated
being bused to the terminal was not
because it was intrinsically bad, but
because nobody knew of any redeem-
ing advantages to help us see it in a
positive light. Once we knew there
was an upside, we were free to min-
imise the pain of cognitive disso-
nance by choosing to see the bus as
a convenience and not an annoyance.
There is nothing either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.
It seems we can mentally cope
with trade-offs: what is intolerable are
Given the those experiences where there is no
chance, discernible upside at all. In such cases
our brain will there is nothing to help us escape
the pain of cognitive dissonance.
do its best to Even when people make fairly silly
minimise any decisions, they can usually post-
feelings of rationalise them. What upsets us most
are those inescapable things where
regret, but it there is no apparent positive pay-
does need a ing tax, speed-camera fines, season-
plausible story ticket increases, utility bills. The very
a pair of shoes resent paying their
electricity bill.
Last week in The Spectator, Peter
Jones suggested something I have
long believed that the tax sys-
tem should offer some kind of quid
pro quo, even if it is largely symbol-
ic, to people and companies who pay
more tax. The Greeks, he explained,
designed their system of wealth tax
so that it offered bragging rights to
those who provided public goods.
Rich Athenians relished competing
among themselves to fund a better
trireme than their fellows.
Permitting modern businesses to
display some sort of tax kitemark
would at least allow them to justify
to themselves why it was worth pay-
ing more than the legal minimum.
It may be a small thing in economic
terms, but at least there is some posi-
tive spin to be put on it. Remember,
when we construct stories, our intend-
ed audience isnt only other people. It
is also ourselves.
Rory Sutherland is vice-chairman
of Ogilvy Group UK.

DEAR MARY YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED

Q. We had some people up from
London for a very long weekend.
We put on an extra-special do,
costing a lot of money (even
hiring an after-dinner concert
pianist), all for the benefit of one
particular couple. This was eight
weeks ago yet despite being
of the age group who knows how
to behave they didnt write
a thank-you letter. My husband
has been grumbling and I worry
he might use this discourtesy to
curtail any further entertaining
on this scale. What should I do?
C.P., Blakeney, Norfolk
A. Email the couple saying you
found one of those annoying
Missed Delivery cards, dated seven
weeks ago, informing you that a
packet would be held at the local
post office for 18 days. You missed
the deadline, and it has been
returned to the sender, with no
identifying details held. You were
not expecting any other deliveries
so, as you have not heard from
them since the weekend and the
dates tie in, you have concluded
the packet may have been their
thank-you letter possibly
enclosing photographs of the
weekend. If so, you apologise for
not having acknowledged receipt
and would they resend? Next time
you will be more alert.
Q. Our local barber operates a
system of first come, first served
by first available barber. For the
past few years this arrangement
has suited me fine. However,
last time I went there was a new
barber who gave me an especially
impressive cut. My problem now
is how to get his services each
time without offending the other
two long-standing barbers who
are nice guys but just not as able
as the new man.
P.A., London SE21
A. Dont imagine that a barber is
thinking about you as much as
you are thinking about yourself.
As long as the custom is still
pouring into the salon, and his
wages are assured, a barber is
often more relieved than offended
if a client changes preference to
one of his colleagues. It means he
has fewer emotional dependents,
as repeat clients tend to pour
out their problems to a barber.
Have no reservations about
baldly telling the others in the
queue, You go ahead of me. Im
not in a hurry and Im holding
out for Raymond... No further
explanation is necessary.
Q. Some of our friends have
rather unhygienic habits with
nuts. Motivated by greed, they
thrust their hand into the bowl
using a clawing motion to get as
many as possible and touching
all the others in the process. How
can we prevent this behaviour
without being dictatorial?
Name and address withheld
A. Take a tip from the Chesa
Grischuna Hotel in Klosters,
which serves nuts in a small glass
vase with a narrow neck, so that
guests are obliged to tip the ones
they want into their hand without
touching the rest. That way they
can be as greedy as they like
without offending others.

the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk 61

LIFE

has never been more than a sticking-
Drink plaster to cover deep wounds: 1940,
The fall of Paris Vichy, the Liberation, which did not
happen quite in the way that de Gaulle
Bruce Anderson described. When the French fall off
their high horse, they suffer.
Yet we must not exaggerate. In
Paris, you are convinced that there is
only one way to translate chic paris-
ienne. The girls have an allure: a blend
of gamine and grace, haute couture
and mischief. That got us talking about
the naughtiest girl of the 20th century,
Pamela Harriman, a Dorset aristocrat
who ended her life as the American
Averell Harrimans mistress undoubt-
edly facilitated cooperation between
the UK and the US. The unit of charm
ought to be a milli-Helen: a face that
would launch one ship. Pamelas col-
laboration may well have launched
a number of lend-lease warships.
Around that time, a young officer ran
into her father, the then Lord Digby.
As she was already well-known, he
put his voice into neutral before ask-
ing after her. Pammys doing very
well. I was worried about her coming
up to London, because shes used to a
quiet life down here. But shes turned

P
aris used to be the most self-
confident city in the world.
Brash, assertive, boastful: Man-
hattan claimed to be the best. Cool,
elegant, sophisticated, supercilious:
Paris knew that it was the best. This is
no longer true. Paris has lost its lan,
and that has created a love-hate rela-
tionship with the UK. Everyone seems
to know someone who is working in
London. The ones left in Paris cannot
decide whether to punish us or join us:
to hope that Brexit fails or to fear
that Brexit might fail, and keep able
young Frenchmen from job opportu-
nities in London.
Flics everywhere, tattiness, ten-
sion: one is reluctant to acknowledge
the successes of evil, but terrorism is
at the core of Pariss problems. In this
most civilised of cities, there is a fear
that civilisation is losing control. On
all sides, there is a loss of faith in the
French system: economic, administra-
tive and diplomatic. La grande illusion
of post-war French foreign policy
Europe as a French jockey on a Ger-
man horse now seems just that:
an illusion. One must always remem-
ber that French political self-belief
ambassador to France, with so many
adventures along the way. Few hus-
bands could resist her; no wife ever
trusted her. I once reviewed a biog-
raphy of her, and one paragraph had
the lawyers reaching for smelling salts.
There was no use my protesting that all
the facts were in the book. But death
The unit is the ultimate antidote to a libel writ,
so here it is. She was the grandest of
of charm grandes horizontales, the most luxuri-
ought to be ous of poules de luxe. I carry my house
a milli-Helen: on my back, she often said. She cer-
tainly got all her houses on her back.
a face that Apropos horizontal, she was proba-
would launch bly the first horizontal collaborator of
one ship the war, but with an ally. Her role as
out to be a good manager. I dont give
her much of an allowance and I cant
imagine the War Office pays her much
but do you know: shes got a flat in
Berkeley Square.
We indulged in these reminiscenc-
es over wine made by one of the best
female vignerons in France. Nathalie
Tollot of Tollot-Beaut herself a gamine
enchantment, produces excellent Bur-
gundies throughout the price range.
The lesser wines, Bourgogne blanc or
rouge, Savigny-ls-Beaune, Chorey-
les-Beaune, are always good value.
But Jacques, our host, had a couple of
special bottles: the Beaune-Grves 88
and a Corton-Bressandes of the same
vintage. An expert, he was well aware
that 1988 Burgundies are contentious.
There are those claim that they are
over the hill, and those who insist that
they will never climb it. We awaited
with expectation. The Grves was past
its best, but only a little. It would have
been better three years ago, and now
needs drinking. But the Bressandes
was outstanding. Fully exposed, cer-
tainly, but its silkiness was still rein-
forced by power. If only that were true
of France.

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

Girls
Sir Roger Gale sounds like an
old-bufferish knight of the shires,
but he once worked as a disc-
jockey on a pirate radio station.
Last week he got into hot water
when he said on the radio that his
wife was utterly dedicated to her
job, as indeed are the other girls
in my office. Before he knew
it, Today got some American
academic on air to denounce
him. We know, looking in the
dictionary, she said, that girl
means a young woman only up to
the age of 11 or 12.
This bossy woman should
get a bigger dictionary to look
in. There is plenty of evidence
that girl has meant woman for
centuries. In its earliest history
it signified a young person of
either sex. The Oxford English
Dictionary avers that it still does
in Wexford, hard as it may be to
believe.
Even without a dictionary to
look in, we all know girl can mean
a grown-up. Me and My Girl is
a popular musical not dealing
with kiddies. London after dark
is swamped with women having
a girls night out. A dear old girl
is on a par with a nice old boy.
Shakespeare uses girl for adult
women in more than one play.
Where has this doctrinaire
American been? She seems
determined to find girl offensive.
Sir Roger spoke in an informal
register, but must we talk like
a management textbook about
people with whom we get on
well? The would-be genteel may
say ladies, which is twee. Women
can make them sound like
fishwives. Girls is friendly.
True, prostitutes are called
girls. A.H. Clough wrote in
1848 of The streets of the
dissolute city,/ Where dressy girls
slithering by upon pavements
give sign for accosting. That
was in The Bothie of Toper-
na-Fuosich, a title the poet
discovered with embarrassment
hid an obscene Gaelic pun on the
meaning bearded well, for which
reason he changed it to The
Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich. I
was so disgusted with the mishap
of the name, he wrote to William
Allingham, that I have never had
pleasure in it [the poem] since.
We all make verbal errors, but
I doubt if Sir Roger will in future
be disgusted with the word girl.
Dot Wordsworth

62 the spectator | 25 march 2017 | www.spectator.co.uk