The Spectator
20 January 2018
The great plastic panic
Packaging from petrochemicals is bad but what if the alternatives are worse?

Features
Revealed – the truth about plastic
Yes, packaging’s bad, but what if the alternatives are worse?
What do proper communists really think of Corbyn?
The revolution is not coming anytime soon, but the twenty-somethings are in it for the long haul
Amazing grace
In the darkest corners of the world, Christian missionaries are still saving lives
Real men bathe together
You can’t beat a session of naked kneading and flailing at a hammam
The curious star appeal of Jordan Peterson
Why are young Brits flocking to hear a psychology professor talk about morality?
Parole is unfair and unworkable. Let’s abolish it
Offenders should be locked up for what they have done, not for what they might do
Why the sleepy old CoE is just a greedy, moneygrubbing property tycoon
The church has always been hard-nosed about the land it owns
Padel power! But will this crazy new sport ever be a hit?
More aerobic than tennis but easier on the joints, it’s a sport for our times
The Week
Jeremy Corbyn’s takeover is complete – and the Tories are terrified
The ‘harmless crank’ has seen his left-wing agenda go mainstream
Carillion crashes owing £1.5 billion: directors’ conduct is probed
Also in Portrait of the Week: Hawaii’s nuclear alert; Ukip leader dumps his girlfriend over racist messages
Justin Webb: the day I was forced to hide from John Humphrys
Also: my green-ink Twitter hecklers and the replies I don’t post
Which UK employer pays men 80 per cent less than women?
Also in Barometer: Britain’s biggest corporate failures; rough-sleeping blackspots; forests of statistics
Army recruiters should follow the Roman example
Just who do they think they will attract with this new touchy-feely approach?
Letters: the truth about UK farming by Sir James Dyson
Also: Rod Liddle’s vocabulary, superslow broadband and child screen addicts
Columnists
Why I won’t see The Darkest Hour
Also: the BBC made no mention of the communion ceremony during its Coronation documentary
You can’t beat Corbyn with Miliband – but the Tories are trying to anyway
Fiddling around with university fees isn’t going to make the Conservatives suddenly competitive
I recycle – then lie to myself that I’m saving the planet
So much of what we carefully separate just ends up wasting energy
Women’s pay could bankrupt the BBC
It has dug itself a very deep hole and is calling for more shovels to finish the job
How the Rat sniffed out £15,000 down the back of my virtual sofa
Not being cursed with any of my genetic make-up, he possesses certain special qualities that I lack
Outsourcing is a good thing, regardless of the Carillion crash
Also in Any Other Business: Why Vince Cable is wrong about the GKN takeover
Books
Culinary cold war at the White House
The revolting food served by Eleanor Roosevelt not only depressed her husband but scandalised all Washington, according to Laura Shapiro
Leeches, bats and toxic sap in Borneo’s Eden
We bled so much when the tiger leeches dropped off us, the camp looked like a bombsite’, says the explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison
An 80th birthday party causes no end of trouble in Barney Norris’s latest novel
Both Ireland’s Troubles and the anxieties of a 25-year-old anorexic unfold over a single day in Turning for Home
Ethnic cleansing and the horrors of Buczacz
The bloodbath involving former friends and neighbours in the East European border town in 1941 makes this atrocity especially shocking, says Omer Bartov
Mary Shelley’s monstrous creation close up
Fiona Sampson traces Mary’s life from unmarried teenage mother to the author of one of the most enduring of all horror stories
Getting women on board: the history of the WRNS
Though women had for centuries nursed and cooked for British sailors, it wasn’t until 1917 that they were officially recruited by the Royal Navy
Jenny Erpenbeck finds a novel way to tackle the migrant problem
Her thoughtful Go Went Gone sees the plight of refugees through the imaginative eyes of a retired academic in Berlin
Arts
Life
Taki: In praise of French women
Catherine Deneuve has expressed some badly needed truths about this crazy witch hunt
Jeremy Clarke: The power of ‘Bonjour’
Since I started bonjouring and bonsoiring one and all, I am everybody’s friend
Why I’ll chain myself to an earthmover at Kempton Park
If the course didn’t exist, the Jockey Club would invent it. So why sell it off?
Wine Club 20 January
Well, I don’t know about you but I found the recent festivities somewhat challenging. I didn’t draw a sober breath…
Willing to wound
‘Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike,’ wrote Alexander Pope about Atticus. Those lines more or less describe the…
no. 489
White to play. This position is from O. Howell-Pickersgill, Hastings 2017/18. White now terminated proceedings abruptly. What was the key move?…
Rude food
In Competition No. 3031 you were invited to provide a review by a restaurant critic that is tediously loaded with…
2342: Decorative
Two unclued lights are terms for the same style. One, consisting of two words, forms a cryptic indication of each…
solution
A beastly business The quote is 1A/92/18D from the poem ‘A Visit from St Nicholas’. The theme was the names…
Why my pet dog Leo had to go
It was nothing too serious, just a little nip. But the man from Ocado was understandably upset
A nice, cuddly NHS would be bad for us
We can have an efficient health service or one no one complains about. We can’t have both
Mary solves your problems: How can I get over my smartphone separation anxiety?
Also: How to hide a housekeeper’s hideous cushions and how to keep friends as a birthday looms
Is the great vintage of 2015 retreating into itself
Some wines may turn out to have too much fruit, making harmony impossible
Where does Donald Trump’s new favourite word come from?
In Polite Conversation, Jonathan Swift presents dialogues made up of clichés, banalities and catchphrases. When Miss Notable makes a remark…