Innholdsfortegnelse for January 10, 2015 i The Week

In a scathing assessment of the state of the nation, the Church of England claimed that the Government had “left the poor behind” and “cast aside” entire regions, creating a divide between North and South. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York – Justin Welby and John Sentamu – attacked party leaders for selling the “lie” that economic growth alone could solve the country’s economic problems, and decried the effects of spending cuts. In a new book of essays, On Rock or Sand?, they describe inequality as “evil”, and warn that Britain is dominated by “rampant consumerism and individualism”. Dismissing the attack, David Cameron said that only a stronger economy could improve people’s lives, and that the coalition had done much to tackle poverty by creating 1.75 million jobs. The Church’s…

Verviers, Belgium Terror cell raided: Belgian police shot dead two jihadis, recently returned from Syria, in a ten-minute gun battle in the town of Verviers last week. One is thought to have been of Chechen origin, the other Moroccan. In a series of raids centred on Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, a working-class district of Brussels, police also arrested 12 other jihadis suspected of plotting a major terror attack. Kalashnikovs, police uniforms, explosives and fake IDs were among the items recovered. Intercepted text messages suggested they were “hours away” from committing a series of atrocities that would have been “worse than Paris”, said a police spokesmen. Proportionate to population, more foreign fighters go to Syria from Belgium (about 400) than from any other country in Europe. Troops are now being deployed to protect potential…

Has satire always been risky? The universal urge people seem to have to mock and ridicule the times they live in appears strongest when the going gets tough, and the dangers of censorship, imprisonment or worse are most intense. “’Tis the persecuting Spirit has raised the bantering one,” wrote the first Earl of Shaftesbury in the early 18th century. “The greater the Weight is, the bitterer will be the Satire.” He was writing at the dawn of a golden age for British satire, a time when Jonathan Swift was penning pamphlets savaging the ruling elite of the day. In A Modest Proposal, for example, he proposed that poor people in Ireland sell their children as food for the rich. Did his pamphlets get him into trouble? Yes. The Public Spirit…

Can Mitt Romney make it third time lucky? If you thought the 2012 presidential election was eventful, just wait for the 2016 contest, said Frank Bruni in The New York Times. It’s set to be a very crowded race. By one count, 25 Republicans “have signalled at least a flickering interest” in throwing their hat into the ring. Remember those early Republican debates in the last campaign, when “so many contenders fanned out across the stage that they looked like misbegotten Rockettes? We could have twice that number in 2016. We could have a crowd scene in Cats.” Rick Santorum may try again to win the GOP nomination. So may Mike Huckabee. So may Rick Perry. And so – “the heart quickens and the flesh quivers” – may Mitt Romney.…

“Crack open the champagne!” said Lucy Hunter Johnston in The Independent. After 45 years of “softly pornifying” the newsstands, Page 3 is no more. Although no official announcement has been made, there have been no bare-breasted women in The Sun for a week. It appears that – following decades of protests by feminists, and two years of concerted campaigning by the No More Page 3 group – Rupert Murdoch has quietly dropped this “anachronistic relic”. If so, it has nothing to do with feminism, said Fleet Street Fox in the Daily Mirror. It is entirely about commerce. Men have always wanted to look at naked breasts, and always will. Until fairly recently, “pictures of ladies in the altogether” were hard to come by – so newpapers, which are good at…

When I heard that four Jews had been murdered in Paris by a gun-toting Islamist, “my blood ran cold”, said Emma Barnett in The Daily Telegraph. “For the first time in my life as a British Jew, 70 years on from the liberation of Auschwitz”, I felt “personally exposed”. And I’m “not alone in this new-found unease”. A disturbing poll published last week found that 58% of British Jews fear that the community may have no long-term future in Europe; and more than half say they have seen more anti-Semitism in the past two years that ever before. Another poll, by YouGov, found that anti-Semitic beliefs were common among Britons. One in four think Jews chase money more than other people. One in five think Jews’ loyalty to Israel makes…

Football: Arsenal find “steel” at last “Who are you? And what have you done with Arsenal?” Those were the questions one felt like asking the Gunners in their 2-0 victory over Manchester City, said Barney Ronay in The Guardian. They were unrecognisable. At the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, they displayed the qualities that tend to desert them “against the best”: grit, strength, organisation. Too often, in recent seasons, they’ve thrown away a solid lead; but this time, after Olivier Giroud headed in their second goal, they held on convincingly. It was perhaps Arsenal’s best performance of recent years, said Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail. But, more importantly, it was their most “effective”. The match seemed to be Arsène Wenger’s “eloquent response” to the growing chorus of criticism he has…

Theatre The Railway Children Based on the book by: E. Nesbit Adapted by: Mike Kenny Director: Damian Cruden King’s Cross Theatre, London N1 (0844-871 7604) Running time: 2hrs 10mins ★★★ Nearly five years after “it first steamed into London”, The Railway Children is back, said Sarah Hemming in the FT. Originally staged at the National Railway Museum in York, the first London home of this “warm” and “touching” family show was an old Eurostar platform at Waterloo. This time, it has its own purpose-built theatre behind King’s Cross – boasting a foyer decked out as an Edwardian railway station, a brass band to greet the audience, and vintagetype signs and station announcements. The effect is charming rather than cloying as you step “from the glass opulence of the 21st-century station…

Best books… Ben Okri Ben Okri, the Nigerian poet, novelist and Booker Prize-winning author of The Famished Road, picks his five favourite books. His new novel The Age of Magic is published by Head of Zeus at £10 Don Quixote by Cervantes, 1605 & 1615 (Penguin £9.99). I read this book over three months many years ago, and it expanded my soul even while shaking it. It is the story of a 60-year-old man who decides to live the adventures he has only read about. It is a book about the ambiguity of our life’s journey, and constantly redefines the possibilities of the novel as a form. The Odyssey by Homer, 800BC (Penguin £7.99). It is the foundation text of Western literature, a fountain of myths. If a book can…

New cars: what the critics say Top Gear Four years after its launch, Audi’s small SUV is “middle-aged by car industry standards”. So now it’s time for the “obligatory facelift”– albeit a fairly “modest” one in this case. The most welcome update is a more efficient engine: the basic petrol model comes with a turbocharged 1.4-litre unit that can shut down two of its four cylinders to aid fuel economy, which is 50mpg. Auto Express The basic 148bhp engine also packs a “pretty decent punch” – at least for a small car. Its “free-revving character” is “good fun”, and the throttle responds quickly, making it feel surprisingly zippy. Handling is “safe and involving”, although there is “precious little communication” between the tyres and steering wheel. The overall effect is of…

Glencore et al: clobbered by copper The precipitous plunge in the price of copper last week has upended the mining industry, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. This was the commodity “the big miners thought they could rely on” in 2015, as “levels of oversupply are said to be modest”. So much for that. The price is now 22% down on a year ago and at its lowest level since 2009. What caused last week’s 7% crash? Take your pick from a variety of explanations. A World Bank global growth downgrade didn’t help confidence, given “Dr Copper’s” historical role as a bellwether of the global economy, said the FT. Some worry that industrial commodities are “spinning into a deflationary spiral in the slipstream of oil”. But traders also cite a…

Like many young people at Centrepoint, Lisa was raised in an environment where violence was the norm. Helpless and unprotected she was sexually abused. “I felt so isolated. I wanted to kill myself” Her own mother was manipulative and started spreading lies about her. At school she was bullied because of things her mother had said about her. Fellow classmates beat her up and she would go home covered in bruises. She soon refused to go to school. Depressed she went to the clinic, but this didn’t help. Lisa’s mother continued to control her, she began to suffer from back problems, IBS and had constant anxiety attacks. It seemed like there was no escape for her. Lisa’s story is appalling. But it is not unique. Many of the homeless young…

Europe remained in a state of high alert this week following the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris and the thwarting last Thursday of an apparent plot to massacre police officers in Belgium. Two suspects, who had recently returned from Syria, were shot dead by police in the town of Verviers, in the east of the country. French, German and Irish police also made a series of terror-related arrests (see page 7). With the security services warning that an attack on Britain was “highly likely”, ministers were accused of stoking Islamophobia by urging imams to do more to root out the “men of hate” who preach extremism. Eric Pickles, the minister for local government and communities, wrote to more than 1,000 imams last Friday asking them to explain to Muslims how…

Hollywood, California Oscars lack diversity: The Oscar nominations were unveiled last week – and immediately prompted accusations of racism and sexism in The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Critics pointed to the fact that all 20 nominees in the acting categories were white, and that no female writers or directors had been nominated. In particular, they cited the case of Selma, about Martin Luther King Jr. It has been given a nod for Best Picture, but its director – Ava DuVernay, who is black and female – has been overlooked, as has its star, David Oyelowo. The Academy’s president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the first African American in the role, said it was making “strides” towards greater diversity in its membership, and that she hoped to see greater diversity…

It should be compulsory to vote Tim Montgomerie The Times I don’t care if David Cameron refuses to speak in the TV debates, says Tim Montgomerie. A US import, they simply entrench our increasingly “image-driven” politics. If we really want the parties to reconnect with voters, we should import – from Australia, say, or Brazil – a far more important innovation: compulsory voting. Obliging people to cast a ballot may sound illiberal: but it has the huge advantage of forcing political parties “to reach beyond their comfort zone”. Labour could no longer seek to win elections by “wooing public sector, welfare-dependent and unionised voters”, or the Tories by wooing “the propertied, wealthy and rural”. It would also put an end to the favouritism shown to older voters. That 76% of…

An unlikely friendship has sprung up between Werner Herzog and Mike Tyson. At a talk in London this week, the German arthouse director revealed that the former world heavyweight champion shares his love of Renaissance literature. Once, Tyson was shown a first edition of Machiavelli’s The Prince at the New York Public Library. “I think there’s an earlier edition,” he corrected the incredulous librarian. Tyson is also fascinated by Renaissance kings. When Herzog asked him why, the boxer replied: “Those guy really know how to kill!” James Blunt is usually sanguine about criticism. On Twitter, the singer is celebrated for his goodhumoured responses to trolls. But last week – when he was cited by Chris Bryant, the shadow culture minister, as an example of the “privileged” people now dominating the…

It used to be the case that when judges made comments that were “really dumb”, you could be fairly sure they’d be old and male, said Eleanor Mills in The Sunday Times. So when one declared in 1982, for example, that a teenage rape victim had been guilty of “contributory negligence” because she’d been hitchhiking in a short skirt, we could at least console ourselves that these dinosaurs were heading for extinction. But it’s now 2015, and such attitudes are still with us. Last week, a QC – newly elevated to the bench, and female to boot – decided not to jail a teacher who’d been found guilty of having sex with one of his pupils, arguing that the girl had “stalked” him. “If grooming is the right word to…

Fear of ridicule To The Times If Pope Francis can throw a punch, others can justify using a Kalashnikov. Satire or insults hurt only when they reveal a truth that others wish to hide, be it rogue rabbis, paedophile priests or horrible humanists. When it is offensive without cause, it falls flat and just reflects badly on the source. After all, religious satire originates in the Bible, when Elijah tells the prophets of Baal that the reason their God is not answering their prayers is that he has fallen asleep or gone to the loo, and so they should shout louder to get his attention (I Kings 18.27). Religious groups – or anyone else – need fear ridicule only when they are being ridiculous; in all other cases, the old…

Whiplash Dir: Damien Chazelle 1hr 46mins (15) The agony of a jazz drummer ★★★★ Nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, this American art-house film is so good it “deserves a drum roll” to announce it, said Kate Muir in The Times. And as it happens, drum rolls – and how they should be performed – is just what this film is about. Miles Teller plays a gifted young jazz drummer at an elite New York music school, forced by his terrifying teacher to practise until his fingers bleed. As the mentor from hell, J.K. Simmons – with head shaved and biceps bulging – is mesmerising: little wonder he has earned the film another Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor. Simmons “makes Vin Diesel seem like a flower arranger”, agreed Nigel…

“On the day another cartoonist victim was buried at Père Lachaise cemetery, the Pope came as near as dammit to suggesting that Charlie Hebdo had it coming,” said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. Not long after the magazine published its post-massacre edition – with a front-page cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed holding a “Je suis Charlie” placard – Pope Francis declared that if someone “says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others.” How odd, said Toynbee, to hear the Pope using “the wife beater’s defence”. And, actually, you can insult the faith of others. Francis, like much of the Muslim world, seems to be proposing “a special, anti-Voltairean status of protection for religious ideas”.…

Nicholson’s lonely old age After a lifetime of womanising, Jack Nicholson has finally ground to a halt. The 77-yearold actor – whose last serious relationship was with the Twin Peaks actress Lara Flynn Boyle, 33 years his junior – now lives alone in Hollywood. He spends his days playing golf, taking long naps and watching films with friends. “I have had everything a man could ask for, but no one could say I’m successful with affairs of the heart,” he told Closer magazine. “I would love that one last romance. But I’m not very realistic about it happening. What I can’t deny is my yearning.” Nicholson’s romantic history – he cheated constantly on his long-term girlfriend, Anjelica Huston, before leaving her for Rebecca Broussard, the mother of his son and…

A black Labrador that takes itself to the park on the bus has become a local celebrity in the US city of Seattle. Owner Jeff Young used to ride with Eclipse. But one day the bus drew up while he was still smoking a cigarette – and Eclipse got on without him. Now, she routinely boards the bus alone, leaping over other passengers to get a window seat, before meeting up with Young at the park later. “She’s been urbanised,” he said. “She’s a bus-riding, sidewalk-walking dog.” A sheriff’s office in Florida is selling the rug from its lobby after noticing that it bears the motto “In Dog We Trust”. The green rug – which was supposed to read “In God We Trust”, the official motto of the United States…

“I was one of the lucky ones,” said Paul Clements in The Daily Telegraph. Back in my schooldays in the 1980s, nobody knew I was gay and I never suffered any bullying – aside from the odd “snide comment about my fondness for the Pet Shops Boys”. Others are less fortunate. “These days, in the era of over-sharing on one’s Facebook page, the average age for a teenager to come out is 15” – and many of them do suffer as a result. A Stonewall/YouGov report last year suggested that homophobic bullying in primary and secondary schools affects more than 150,000 gay pupils. Last week, a Manchester charity came up with a novel answer to this problem. It is planning to open a specialist secondary school devoted to lesbian, gay,…

“This is the terrifying paradox of zealotry: no one hates humanity more than those who believe they know what’s best for it.” Howard Jacobson in The Independent “The harder you try the luckier you get.” Gerald Ford, quoted on Forbes.com “People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis. You can’t trust people.” Line from Peep Show, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Mike Tyson, quoted in The Sunday Times “Honesty may be the best policy, but, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.” George Carlin, quoted on The Browser “When ideas fail, words come in very handy.” Goethe, quoted on Forbes.com “Men learn to love the women they are attracted to. Women learn to become attracted to the man they…

Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society, 1915-2015 Whitechapel Gallery, London E1 (020-7522 7888, www.whitechapelgallery.org). Until 6 April “It is now a century since Kazimir Malevich painted the starkest abstraction in the history of art,” said Martin Gayford in The Spectator. By abandoning the depiction of recognisable reality, Malevich’s iconic geometric painting Black Square (1915) “stood for the future”. It was an invitation to do “away with the clutter of the past”: a new vision of the world that offered simplicity, order and reason. In its turn, it has “for good or for ill” inspired everyone from Carl Andre to Bridget Riley to the architects and planners behind the modernist buildings that characterised so much 20th century social housing. This new show at the Whitechapel Gallery aims to…

The Goring 15 Beeston Place, London SW1 (020-7396 9000) The Goring is one of those hotels that doesn’t “pretend to take much interest in what happens in the outside world”, says Marina O’Loughlin in The Guardian. Catering to “vast, upholstered grandees and the odd woman with unmoving hair”, it provides a sense of “out-of-time Edwardian serenity, perfect for visiting Americans who reckon England is a giant Downton”. In the restaurant, however, a canny new chef, Shay Cooper, is managing to marry tradition with innovation, producing “modern British” food that is still familiar enough not “to terrify regulars”. Sticky pigs cheeks are served with fermented turnip, crackly curls of puffed pork skin and a “sharp smack of malt vinegar”; and the “world’s largest partridge breast”, with wintry roast vegetables, has daringly raw…

Philanthropist who lived abroad, but loved Britain Sir Jack Hayward 1923-2015 Sir Jack Hayward was a millionaire businessman who spent nearly all of his adult life living in the US and the Bahamas – while remaining almost eccentrically devoted to the country of his birth, said The Daily Telegraph. Dubbed “Union Jack”, he drank from a Union Jack teapot, imported London taxis and buses to his Caribbean island home, gave free dinners to visiting Royal Navy seamen, and donated vast sums to “British causes” – he bought Lundy Island for the National Trust, funded the England women’s cricket team, gave £1m to the families of soldiers killed in the Falklands War, paid for the restoration of Brunel’s steamship Great Britain, and lavished millions on his beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers. His generosity…

The warning bell in Chinese markets Peter Thal Larsen Reuters Breakingviews.com Chinese investors who bet on a continuation of the “near vertical rise” of the Shanghai stock market have had a nasty shock, says Peter Thal Larsen. The market suffered its biggest one-session fall in six years this week after regulators launched a crackdown on margin trading (borrowing to invest). The authorities have every reason to be concerned. “Chinese investors have borrowed heavily to finance their share-buying”: margin loans against Shanghailisted shares have soared by 80% to ¥778bn ($124bn) in the past three months. Inter-company loans, which may have fuelled the speculation, are at their highest level in history. That kind of leverage could turn a stock market rout into a nasty “economic blow”. Whether this sell-off is “a setback…

The week’s best buys Booker Group The Times The cash and carry group is seeing like-for-like sales growth, and the turnaround at Makro (loss-making when bought in 2012) continues. Shares are highly rated, but growth looks solid and the forward yield is 4.5%. Buy. 155.75p. Rentokil Initial Shares Having sold underperforming assets and restructured, the pest control specialist is a well-run, “high-quality, market-leading business”. Poised to pursue new growth avenues. Buy. 121p. Shoe Zone Investors Chronicle Profits at this value chain more than doubled last year, thanks to cost-cutting and store portfolio changes. And the low oil price is keeping shipping costs down. Cash-rich, cash-generative and set for generous dividends. Buy. 234p. Supergroup The Times The fashion retailer’s shares have fallen a long way, and the profits multiple now looks…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 937 An Ettinger card case and two Connell Guides will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 2 February. Send it to: The Week Crossword 937, 2nd floor, 32 Queensway, London W2 3RX, or email the answers to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Set by Tim Moorey (www.timmoorey.info) This week’s crossword winner will receive an Ettinger (www.ettinger.co.uk) visiting card case for business cards or to use as a mini wallet, and two Connell Guides (www.connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Perhaps sole complaint of hotel state is in error (8,4) 10 Gospel put forward in, for example, novelist's central piece (7) 11 Mother's inside seen working in a group (2,5) 12 Old and New Testament used in Mass by…