Leo McKinstry | The Spectator columnists & writers

Two new measures, aimed at toughening the justice system, came into force last month. The first, known as Tony’s Law, enables the courts to impose a life sentence on anyone who causes or allows the death of a child or vulnerable adult in their care, while the maximum term for cruelty that leads to serious physical harm has been raised from ten to 14 years. The law’s title is a tribute to Tony Hudgell, a remarkably determined eight-year-old boy who, when he was a baby, was so badly abused by his parents, Jody Simpson and Tony Smith, that both his legs had to be amputated. Angry that these torturers were only sentenced to ten years each, the family who adopted Tony led the campaign for longer punishments and, partly due to Tony’s heroism, they achieved their goal.

A short history of political violence

The ugly attack on Iain Duncan Smith by five protestors at the Tory conference in Manchester has been widely seen as another illustration of how dangerously embittered British politics has become. We now live, it is often said, in a world of deepening friction, hate and intolerance. Angela Rayner’s now notorious rant about Tory ‘scum’ was also seen as a prime example of the spread of ‘cancel culture’, or the way Twitter rage has ruined civilised debate. Ditto the alarming story of Labour’s MP for Canterbury, who refused to attend her own party’s conference in Brighton last week after she received a number of threats. It’s all very unpleasant. Amid concerns about worsening discord and extremism, however, a sense of historical perspective is needed.

A short history of political violence

How corporations rebrand poverty

The other week, when I was shopping in Margate, I saw a number of posters from Boots urging support for its campaign against ‘hygiene poverty’. Barely aware of the term, I looked it up online and was soon presented by claims that much of Britain is gripped by a crisis of personal neglect because of penury. According to the charity In Kind Direct, more than a third of people have either had to cut down on their hygiene essentials or go without them completely due to lack of money. The same charity warns that 43 per cent of parents of primary schoolchildren have had to ‘forgo basic hygiene or cleaning products’ because of the cost. These figures sound terrifying but do they bear any relationship to the reality of modern life in our country? As someone who lives in Thanet, which has the second highest level of child poverty in the south of England, I am only too aware of real deprivation.

Judge Ollie Robinson on his cricket skills, not his tweets

Ollie Robinson, who made his Test debut for England at Lord’s last week against New Zealand, is an outstanding cricketer with both bat and ball. But that ability apparently counts for little. His performance was overshadowed by the discovery of some incendiary, tasteless tweets he had sent almost a decade ago as a teenage professional. An abject apology was not enough to save him. The England Cricket Board promptly banned Robinson from the next Test match, and a full inquiry has been launched into his conduct. Quite rightly, sports minister Oliver Dowden has called the penalty 'over the top'. But that intervention has not helped Robinson. This row marks a depressing moment for English cricket. It also raises a key question: is any player safe? Certainly not some of the players of yesterday.

Is awarding medals to Bomber Command heroes a wise idea?

Will the heroic members of Bomber Command, who played such a vital role for Britain during the Second World War, finally get the recognition they deserve? In recent years, there has been growing pressure on Whitehall to strike a campaign medal for the RAF crews who fought during the conflict, thereby giving them the special recognition they were denied in 1946. But even if it is done with the best of intentions, is a unique award for these men – who were undoubtedly heroes – really such a wise idea, or could it set a difficult precedent? The drive to award medals was given a new impetus last week when 99-year-old George ‘Johnny’ Johnson, the last surviving crewman from the legendary Dambusters raid of 1943, voiced his support for an award to remedy the slight done to him and his comrades.

Spectator Out Loud

Leo McKinstry, Emily Hill and Daisy Dunn

19 min listen

Spectator Out Loud

Leo McKinstry, Emily Hill and Daisy Dunn

19 min listen

On this week's episode, Leo McKinstry starts by arguing that having to sell the family home to pay for social care is not an injustice. (00:50) Then, Emily Hill reads her piece. She's not looking forward to the return of hugging. (08:00) Daisy Dunn finishes the podcast by examining the underappreciated art of asparagus. (12:30)

Selling the family home to pay for care is not an injustice

The sound of the well-off grumbling about their finances is always an unattractive one. But there is one gripe that has become particularly powerful, filling the airwaves and shaping public policy. This is the persistent, ever louder complaint from many households that they are required to sell the family home to pay the costs of care for a close relative. It is a practice widely seen as ‘a scandal’, where the state seizes private property because of its own failure to create a properly funded care system that meets the needs of the elderly. The flames of grievance are stoked by the press, pressure groups and politicians, who promote the belief that all social care should be free, or at least massively subsidised.

The Edition

The great pretender: Nicola Sturgeon’s independence bluff

31 min listen

The Edition

The great pretender: Nicola Sturgeon’s independence bluff

31 min listen

The Fire Brigades Union’s pandemic response has been a disgrace

From the vaccination programme to the NHS intensive care units, much of the British state has risen magnificently to the Covid challenge. But there is one element of the public realm that has lived down to the lowest expectations of its performance. The Fire Brigades Union, long a byword for militant intransigence in defence of outdated practices, has been at its self-serving, uncooperative worst during the crisis. In place of solidarity and dedication, it has displayed an ‘I’m all right Jack’ mentality as it discourages its members from undertaking humanitarian duties. The FBU embodies British trade unionism at its most obstructive. It hides behind safety concerns, clings to rigid job descriptions and wallows in labyrinthine bureaucracy.

The Edition

Holy Relic: What will be left of the Church after the pandemic?

34 min listen

The Edition

Holy Relic: What will be left of the Church after the pandemic?

34 min listen

In defence of Neville Chamberlain

Among the unorthodox enthusiasms of Lloyd George was an interest in phrenology, the pseudo-science that holds that an individual’s character can be revealed by the shape and size of the cranium. Of his first sighting of the rising politician Neville Chamberlain during the Great War, Lloyd George later wrote, ‘When I saw that pinhead, I said to myself, he won’t be of any use.’ That has tended to be the verdict of history. Few prime ministers have been more vilified than Chamberlain, who died from cancer on 9 November 1940, seven months after he had left Downing Street. His very name is synonymous with cowardice in the face of oppression. As the architect of the policy of appeasement, he is widely seen as the man who emboldened the Nazi regime and left our country ill-prepared for war.

Don’t create more rules, Priti – just enforce them

Setting out his nine principles of policing that underpinned the creation of the Metropolitan force in 1829, the home secretary Sir Robert Peel wrote that ‘the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them’. But those wise words are lost on today’s busy politicians who seem to measure their effectiveness by how many new burdens they impose on the justice system. In a culture where headline-grabbing gestures count for more than genuine accomplishments, the knee-jerk response to almost every major new criminal incident is to demand a change in the law. Priti Patel, the inheritor of Sir Robert’s mantle as home secretary, is the prime exemplar.

The caution that almost cost us the Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain, which began 80 years ago this week, occupies a unique place in our island story. Its epic moral quality, representing the triumph of freedom over tyranny, continues to resonate to this day. The RAF’s victory marked a crucial turning point in the war; it was the first time the Nazi machine had suffered a defeat. If the Luftwaffe had gained the mastery of the skies over southern England in September 1940, the Germans might well have been able to launch a vast, seaborne invasion across the Channel. Beaten in the West, the Reich had to turn eastwards, to Russia, with disastrous consequences. What makes the tale all the more gripping is the narrow margin of the RAF’s success. The Luftwaffe had overwhelming superiority in numbers, with an attacking force of more than 2,600 planes, including 1,200 bombers and 980 fighters.

Is Attlee really more worthy than Churchill?

As the toxic furore over statues continues, a number of left-wingers yearn to see the monument to Winston Churchill in Parliament Square replaced by one to Clement Attlee. In their eyes, the austere, long-serving Labour leader is far worthier of veneration than the cigar-chomping imperialist. To them, Attlee is the man who not only helped win the war by taking charge of the home front but also created the socialist New Jerusalem in its aftermath. 'Let’s have a statue to Attlee. He is the really great figure in our history,' tweets one enthusiast. 'He did more to build up the future of our country than Churchill,' says another. But this adulation is overblown. Contrary to progressive mythology, Attlee was no secular saint.

They took a lot of flak: the lives of the Lancaster bombers

Those of us who write occasionally about military aviation can only admire the compelling personal experience that John Nichol brings to his work. A heroic RAF navigator, he was shot down, captured and tortured by the Iraqis during the first Gulf War before his release at the end of the conflict. Since his retirement from the air force, he has become a successful author, writing five novels as well as an acclaimed, best-selling study of the Spitfire fighter.Now he turns his attention to a very different, but equally iconic, British plane: the Avro Lancaster bomber. Where the Spitfire was a dashing rapier, the Lancaster was a mighty broadsword. The Spitfire’s central role was to provide protection, the Lancaster’s to inflict destruction.

Coronavirus has forced militant firefighters to help the NHS

Even in the darkness of the pandemic, there is the occasional shaft of light. In its sweeping impact on our civic infrastructure, the coronavirus has achieved something that no recent governments have managed. It has forced a radical change in our outdated, under-occupied fire service by vastly enhancing the duties of firefighters. No longer will brigades just narrowly focused on attending fires. Instead, they will become a proper emergency service, complete with medical responsibilities. Under an agreement reached last week between employers, fire chiefs and the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), firefighters will embrace additional duties during this unprecedented emergency. These will include the delivery of essential items like food and medicine to vulnerable people, the retrieval of dead bodies in the event of mass casualties, and, above all, driving ambulances and assisting ambulance staff.

My Parkinson’s diagnosis has shown me how kind society really is

Like Ozzy Osbourne, I was last year diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, the degenerative condition that impairs the functioning of the body. In a series of recent interviews, Osbourne has spoken frankly about the impact of the neurological disorder. ‘That thing has knocked the shit out of me,’ he said, Brummie-style. I’m with Ozzy. It’s done the same to me. My difficulties began about 18 months ago, when my left leg developed an involuntary twitch, which soon extended to my other limbs. My gait became increasingly awkward, alternating between a strange quickstep and a longer, more laboured shuffle, complete with stoop and limp. The effect was like a cross between John Inman in Are You Being Served? and Ygor, the misshapen assistant played by Bela Lugosi in 1942 horror movie The Ghost of Frankenstein.

The road less travelled

I have never been an adventurous soul. As an infant in Belfast, I would lie motionless for hours on the kitchen table of our family home, devoid of any curiosity to wander. On one occasion an anxious neighbour, having spied my immobile pose through a window, knocked on the front door to express her concern. ‘Don’t worry. He’s often like that. He won’t be moving anywhere,’ replied my mother. I have carried that inertia into adulthood, reflected in my profound dislike of travel. There is not a shred of wanderlust within me. I never fantasise about visiting distant lands, never leaf longingly through the travel supplements. Most people yearn to explore the world they inhabit, but I could not care less if I never see a new place again.

The Trade Union Bill defends workers. No wonder Jeremy Corbyn hates it

The brothers are back. Few political groups have been more exhilarated by Jeremy Corbyn’s landslide victory than the trade unions. For years they have been regarded as the difficult relations of the Labour movement, useful mainly for their financial and organisational muscle but not much else. Blairite New Labour was openly hostile towards them, Ed Miliband equivocal. Indeed his decision to widen Labour’s voting membership, a move which dramatically assisted the Corbyn campaign, was a deliberate attempt to reduce the influence of the trade unions. But now Labour is led by someone who enthusiastically shares their anti-capitalist, anti-austerity, reform-blocking, high-taxing, state-expanding ideology. In Corbyn, they now have a political soulmate at the top of the party that most of them bankroll.

The Trade Union Bill must tie up Thatcher’s unfinished business

Out of the ashes | 10 September 2015

As a nation, we are learning to accept that our firemen are more and more redundant. The Fire Brigades Union fights austerity at every turn; its spokesmen say that every reduction in station numbers or jobs is a threat to public safety. One of their campaign posters even showed David Cameron and George Osborne alongside the words, ‘They slash. You burn.’ But the statistics undermine the union’s manipulative language of doom. The cuts have been matched by a continuing decline in dangerous fires. According to figures released at the end of last month, the fire brigades attended 495,000 incidents in the year 2014–15, a decrease of 42 per cent compared with ten years ago. But of these incidents, only 31 per cent were actual fires: 44 per cent were false alarms, with other operations like floods, road traffic and animal rescue making up the rest.

Counter-strike

The People’s Assembly, the self-appointed left-wing pressure group behind the recent anti-austerity demonstrations, portrays itself as the voice of the masses struggling under oppressive Tory rule. It claims that no fewer than 250,000 demonstrators went to its rally in central London last month (a figure dutifully regurgitated by broadcasters). But photographs of the event in London indicate no more than 25,000 attended. The bogusness does not stop there. Despite its demotic name, the People’s Assembly is no spontaneous uprising of the angry British public. On the contrary, the organisation, which counts the comedian Russell Brand and the Guardian columnist Owen Jones among its noisiest advocates, is bankrolled by the trade unions, those wealthy institutions that have been part of Britain’s political landscape since the 19th century.

The squeezed middle is a myth

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_14_August_2014_v4.mp3" title="Ed West and Ryan Bourne discuss the moaning middle class" startat=1402] Listen [/audioplayer]Almost from the moment the coalition came to power four years ago, a mood of deepening grievance has gripped parts of the middle class, fuelled by a sense that they have been the biggest losers from the government’s austerity programme. They see themselves as ‘the squeezed middle’, the ones cruelly punished by rising taxation and the loss of state support. What makes their anger all the greater is the feeling of betrayal. David Cameron should be on their side. This narrative of victimhood has become conventional wisdom. Only this week Radio 4’s Jenni Murray, the epitome of Middle England, wailed that she is ‘as cash-strapped as everyone else’.

If homophobia is a problem for bobsled, why is it OK for cricket?

Where are the threats of a boycott, the calls for isolation, the outraged letters to the Prime Minister? Where are the rainbow logos, the delegations of human rights activists, the declarations of solidarity? On 16 March Bangladesh is to host the T20 World Cup, one of the top limited overs tournaments in international cricket. All the top cricketing nations, including England, will participate. Yet the competition has not attracted so much as a bat squeak of protest from gay rights campaigners, despite the fact that Bangladesh has an appalling record of institutionalised discrimination against homosexuals. Indeed, same-sex activity remains a criminal offence in the country. Similarly, not a single objection has been made to India’s cricket tour of England this summer, which will involve five Test matches and six one-day internationals.

Vice is vanishing from Britain

In this week’s issue of the Spectator, Leo McKinstry argues that Britain is dropping all its most harmful habits. Here is an excerpt: 'According to the pessimistic narrative of national decline, Britain is now drowning in the effluence of moral collapse. We inhabit a country supposedly awash with vice and decadence. If we aren’t playing poker or bingo on our computer screens, then we are watching pornography. Our streets are said to be dominated by betting shops and lap-dancing clubs, by drug addicts and binge-drinkers. Yet for all its hold on the popular imagination, the idea of worsening degeneracy in modern Britain is not backed up by the evidence. Our society is becoming less disordered and depraved. What is falling out of fashion is not personal responsibility but the kind of destructive behaviour that used to worry the puritans.

Less alcohol, fewer drugs: how the British seem to be shedding their harmful habits

Gripped by his habitual despair, the French novelist Gustave Flaubert wrote to a friend in 1872, ‘I am appalled at the state of society. I’m filled with the sadness that must have affected the Romans of the 4th century. I feel irredeemable barbarism rising from the bowels of the earth.’ Warming to his bleak scatological theme, he continued, ‘I have always tried to live in an ivory tower, but a tide of shit is beating at its walls, threatening to undermine it.’ Many commentators would feel that exactly the same words could be applied to modern Britain. According to the pessimistic narrative of national decline, Britain is now drowning in the effluence of moral collapse. We inhabit a country supposedly awash with vice and decadence.

A mayor for Whitehall

Siobhan Benita’s sanctimonious and mystifying bid to run LondonKen Livingstone wept last week at the launch of his election broadcast, but when it comes to narcissistic self-pity, he’s been outdone by Siobhan Benita. Benita’s the other candidate in the London mayoral contest, the one who isn’t Boris or Ken or Brian or that Green woman. A former civil servant now running as an independent, she’s spent the last month wailing about lack of coverage. She claims she is the victim of a media ‘blackout’ — excluded from televised debates and banished from the airwaves. So great is her fury that she has even demanded a meeting with BBC executives. ‘I feel I am banging my head against a brick wall of institutions that are averse to change,’ she says.

Lack of appeal

Here we go again. Like a macabre version of Groundhog Day, mass murderer Jeremy Bamber is making yet another bid for freedom. This nasty legal saga has been dragging on for almost 26 years, ever since Bamber was first found guilty of the savage massacre at his family’s farmhouse in rural Essex. By a majority verdict, the jury at Chelmsford Crown Court decided that in the early hours of 7 August 1985, Bamber had shot dead his adoptive parents, Nevill and June, his sister Sheila Caffel, and her young twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas. No fewer than 25 rounds from an Anschutz .22 semi-automatic rifle had been fired at the victims, almost all from point-black range.After hearing the jury’s verdict, the judge described Bamber as ‘warped and evil beyond belief’ as he sentenced him to life imprisonment, and despite all his protestations of innocence, Bamber has consistently failed to sway the justice system.

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