Culture

The Spectator’s 48-year-old intern shows why it’s time to dispense with CVs

We at The Spectator don’t ask for CVs when recruiting interns so we had no idea that our last one of the summer, Katherine Forster, would be a 48-year-old mum-of-three from Yorkshire. Our aptitude test is intended to draw the most promising talent from anywhere. But her writing up her story for the magazine has caused a minor sensation. She has been on the BBC three times and has been the subject of the lead Evening Standard diary story and is interviewed in p23 of today’s Sunday Times (who took the above photo). She’s an inspiring person with a simple question: why, aged 48, shouldn’t she roll the dice again?

‘Bigot bashing’ is the fashionable new therapy for liberals

Were I to wake up one morning experiencing sudden doubts over my sexuality I don’t think I would turn to Mike Davidson, still less the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, which has been accused of offering a ‘cure’ for homosexuality, or anyone else offering gay cure therapy, gay conversion therapy or whatever else people call it. The very names hint to me of quackery, of people wasting their money on pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo. But then I am inclined to put much psychotherapy into the same category, along with all the self-help books imploring us to create a better self. But does that mean I want to ban any of them

Toby Young

Farewell Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair magazine’s very own Becky Sharp

Graydon Carter will be delighted by the amount of coverage his departure from Vanity Fair has received. Having edited the magazine for 25 years, he is leaving at the age of 68. The New York Times has devoted the amount of space to the story it would normally give to a departing Secretary of State. It would be inaccurate to describe Graydon as the last of his kind — Anna Wintour is still at the helm of Vogue — but there are unlikely to be many more magazine editors like him. He has homes in New York and Connecticut, part-owns two restaurants, hosts the most glamorous party in Los Angeles

How much is your child’s schoolbag worth? The answer might surprise you

As a new school term starts, this often spells an expensive shopping list for parents. School uniforms that no longer fit, new schoolbooks and lunchboxes; research shows that the average parent spends £170 on each of their children at the start of a new school year. But although much of that spending can’t be avoided – after all, you can hardly send your child back to school with shoes that don’t fit – there is another area of the back-to-school routine where we might be missing a financial trick. Why? Well because the average child has £302 worth of gadgets in their school rucksack. Even among the under 6’s, one

Toby Young

Prince George should be at a state school

I don’t want to come across like Dave Spart, but I am a bit disappointed that William and Kate have decided to send George to a private school. Nothing against Thomas’s Battersea, which is part of a successful, for-profit chain, but there’s no reason to think he will get a better education there than he would at a good state primary. One obvious choice would have been Kensington Primary Academy, the latest addition to the free school chain I co-founded in 2011. Admittedly, it hasn’t been inspected by Ofsted yet, but the other two primaries in the chain have both been rated Outstanding. He would have received a rigorous, knowledge-based

Clean eating goddesses seize on Corbyn’s vegan aspirations

Jeremy Corbyn’s interest in veganism has excited far more interest than is necessary, given most people probably assumed the Labour leader was already a follower of this plant-based diet (in between the odd pleasurable shortbread). It has gone down particularly well with the ‘clean eating’ lobby, who hope that the endorsement of a Labour leader who was cheered at Glastonbury will boost the appeal of their trendy diets. Today’s Evening Standard carries a piece by Camilla Fayed, the founder of ‘Notting Hill clean-eating restaurant Farmacy’ (though the ‘clean-eating’ line is only in the paper, not the online copy, which suggests that Fayed doesn’t like being lumped with other clean eaters) who

Camilla Swift

Are we wise to turn our backs on cash ISAs?

With interest rates so low, it’s no surprise to read that the amount of cash being put into ISAs has fallen dramatically in the last year. In 2015-2016, £58.7bn was paid into cash ISA accounts. In the most recent financial year, that fell by almost a third to £39.2bn. So what’s the reasoning behind the drop in cash ISA investments? James de Sausmarez, director and head of investment trusts at Janus Henderson Investors, argues that because Brits are ‘a conservative bunch’, we tend to fall back onto cash savings as being the ‘safest’ way of to look after our money. But here’s where we are going wrong; cash savings often aren’t

Isabel Hardman

Can leading politicians get away with opposing abortion and gay marriage?

What can politicians with socially conservative beliefs expect from public life? Is there now a faith glass ceiling under which lurks would-be party leaders whose views on abortion and homosexuality are just too unpalatable for voters? If there is one, Jacob Rees-Mogg might have a good chance of telling us where it is located. The alleged contender for the Tory leadership told Good Morning Britain today that abortion was ‘morally indefensible’ in any circumstances and that he opposed same-sex marriage because ‘marriage is a sacrament and the decision of what is a sacrament lies with the Church not with Parliament’. William Hill has already cut the North East Somerset MP’s

AN Wilson: Why Darwin was wrong

AN Wilson’s charming, 1840s terraced house sits on the brow of a hill, overlooking Camden Market in north London. Walking through the market recently, he was much taken with a particular stall. ‘There was a T-shirt for sale in the market, saying, ‘Too stupid to understand science? Why not try religion?” he says, laughing, ‘I like that. The people who think they’ve demolished religion by these scientific discussions think they’re in the same category. The questions posed by religion are very different from the questions posed by science.’ Wilson has just walked into a classic religion/science row with his new biography of Charles Darwin. The book certainly doesn’t pull its

2017: The year football went from a beautiful game to a caricature of its worst excesses

Football is theatre, that much has always been obvious; but it’s also business. And though the rules of the game haven’t changed much on-field since 16th century Etonians codified the random kicking of an inflated pigskin, off the field the game has been in constant evolution. This summer has demonstrated, once again, that football is as much about ritual performances of capitalist peacocking as it is about twenty-two men going head to head. As the transfer window creaks closed today, it is worth reflecting on an historic summer. Neymar’s £200m transfer from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain more than doubled the world transfer record and created a domino of wildly inflated transfers – including

Stephen Daisley

Melania Trump’s critics expose feminism’s blind spot

If you haven’t been keeping up, it’s okay to judge a woman on her appearance again. The latest public figure to learn about feminism’s part-time hours is Melania Trump. The First Lady and her husband were photographed on Tuesday as they made their way to the scene of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. But the talking point wasn’t the recovery operation or whether Donald Trump had finally managed to put on a presidential demeanour — it was Melania’s dress sense. For she had flung on a pair of slinky high heels and a bomber jacket for the journey.  The First Lady may as well have directed the floodwaters personally, such was the consternation

If it feels like you’re spending a fortune on going to weddings, you probably are

As happens every bank holiday, the roads were chock-a-block this weekend with people on the move – many of them heading off to weddings at opposite ends of the country. It can sometimes feel as though weddings cost a fortune; and that’s just going to them, not even having one of your own. Perhaps the reason it feels like they cost an awful lot, though, is because they do tend to be quite expensive for wedding guests. Of course, it’s lovely to be invited to a wedding, and perhaps even the engagements drinks and hen or stag do as well. But the price does tend to hit your wallet quite

Feminism’s obsession with equality sells women short

There was much fanfare last week when Holly Willoughby’s apparent ‘huge £200k pay rise’ meant she’d finally be earning the same as her This Morning co-host, Phillip Schofield. The closing of this pay gap was hailed by some as a victory for womankind, but it seemed a travesty to me. After all, why had there been such a mighty imbalance to begin with? What’s worse, though, was that the whole saga highlighted a bigger problem with feminism: its obsession with equality. The reality is that Willoughby isn’t equal to Schofield. She’s better than him – in a commercial sense – and therefore deserves to earn more. If you doubt me, just take a look at the

Game of Thrones bungles the execution of its last great villain

Another season of Game of Thrones is over, and nobody knows when it will return. After a run of seven short weeks, last night’s extended ‘The Dragon and the Wolf’ brought the curtain down on Westeros for the time being, except the curtain here was the colossal wall of ice that is the last barrier between the living and the dead. ‘The Dragon and the Wolf’ is a strange beast – extending its running time to 80 minutes allows the filmmakers to avoid most of the pitfalls of this season (notably the characters’ mysterious ability to teleport around the vast continent) but they are missing the confidence to know exactly

Is Islam antithetical to western values?

I just thought you ought to see this article, in case you hadn’t already. Granted, it’s from a journalist who has been demonstrably wrong on almost everything he’s written since the Iraq War (He liked the war. He thought the war was great. He said it would all work out nicely). But even so, this is a stretch too far. Because one Imam is opposed to enforced marriages, and some other Muslims might be quite courteous from time to time, that means Islam is not antithetical to western values? How does the chap exist within this delusion. When will the oxygen run out?

If it takes a credit card to live like Kim Kardashian, then so be it

Recent figures around the UK’s credit and debit card debt are startling indeed, with the number of transactions rising to its highest annual rate since 2008. This, paired with the fact that household income has barely changed over the last decade, has left financiers scared that the UK is on the verge of another recession. Some politicians will blame the government for the current situation. They will say that years of ‘austerity’ forced the British public to buy things with money they didn’t have. Though it is true to an extent that cuts have pushed many towards credit, it is not the whole picture. Relaxed attitudes towards lending have to

How can we encourage millennials to save for their retirement?

It’s a story we’ve become used to hearing in recent years. How millennials are the sensible generation. They’ve turned their backs on alcohol and going out every single night. They smoke less than other age groups, and have fewer sexual partners. And here’s another string to add to their bow – it turns out that they are also keen to invest in their retirement, even now, when that could be fifty years away. Research released today by Royal London show that auto-enrolment in workplace pensions schemes hasn’t put off those aged 24-35 from saving for retirement. 71% of those questioned said that they decided not to opt out of their

Considering retiring abroad? Don’t forget about your state pension

Retiring to a warmer, more exotic, country is something that many of us dream of doing – and sooner, rather than later. One in ten people over the age of fifty are currently considering retiring abroad, with the main reasons being a better lifestyle, a cheaper way of life and of course, better weather than the UK. Who can blame us for wanting to enjoy some sunshine in our old age? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most popular retirement destination for Brits is still Spain, with other locations closer to home – France, Portugal, Italy and South East Europe – following close behind in the popularity stakes. But growing old abroad can

Taylor Swift’s sexual assault case reveals feminism’s guilty secret

Despite Taylor Swift’s aspiration that her sexual assault trial last week should stand as an example for all women, what’s been notable outside the courtroom is how little support from the sisterhood Swift’s had. When Swift’s pop contemporary Kesha faced her own sexual assault case last year – against music producer Dr Luke – female celebrities clamoured to express their support. An MTV line-up of Divas tweeted their wishes: Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Kelly Clarkson, Lily Allen and Lorde made #freekesha trend. Even Adele used the headline-grabbing moment she collected her BRIT for Best Female Solo Artist to holler her encouragement for Kesha. By contrast, Swift’s case was met with deafening silence

The right is now more colourblind than the left

As a tot growing up in a provincial proletarian Communist household in the 1960s, I’d been led to believe that socialism was colour-blind. But when I moved to That London in the 1970s, I quickly became aware that the non-working-class Left operated what was best described as Paint-Chart Politics – the further from white, the more likely you were to be right. This began in a small way, with reggae bands who believed stuff about women that would have had them condemned as fascist Neanderthals had they been white playing under the Rock Against Racism flag; in recent years, it has seen the Left support similar Islamist stone-agers just because