Convenience Big Store: Why Billy Connolly loves the upper class 🍾

27 July, 2021

In the headlines

The government has launched an "anti-crime push" that proposes putting GPS tags on burglars released from prison, says BBC News. Labour, reversing Tony Blair's old slogan, says the Tories are "soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime". The telephone hotline between North and South Korea has been restored today, in a sign of improving relations between the two nations. Last June the North stopped picking up the phone after activists from the South dropped propaganda pamphlets by hot-air balloon. British swimmers Tom Dean and Duncan Scott took gold and silver in the men's 200 metres freestyle in Tokyo this morning. Covid cases in England have fallen for the sixth day in a row, although hospital admissions are on the rise.

Comment of the day

A London judge has ruled that Autonomy founder Mike Lynch can face trial in the US. Simon Dawson/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Our extradition laws are a disgrace

It's outrageous that Britons can be seized from their homes and imprisoned in a foreign country at the whim of that country's lawyers, says David Davis in The Mail on Sunday. But that's what's happening. The UK is more prepared than almost any other nation to "surrender" its citizens to overseas courts. It doesn't even insist on reciprocity: in recent years, 10 times as many Britons have been extradited to the US as Americans to Britain. The most egregious example is Washington's refusal to allow intelligence official Anne Sacoolas to face justice here, even though she has been charged with killing a teenager by dangerous driving. Last week, however, a London judge agreed to extradite one of our most successful entrepreneurs, Mike Lynch, to the US.

A decade ago Lynch sold his software firm, Autonomy, to US giant Hewlett-Packard for £8bn. The deal went sour and US authorities now want Lynch to stand trial for fraudulently inflating the company's value, which he "strongly denies". Surely the least Lynch deserves is a fair trial in the UK, especially given that his firm was based in Britain and the "ferocious" American legal system, in which prosecutors set the sentences, has a 97% conviction rate. A British judge, however, has ruled that it is in "the interests of justice" to send him to the US. Our current extradition system, rushed in by Tony Blair to tackle terrorism after 9/11, is a travesty. Home Secretary Priti Patel must not submit to this "grotesque and unjust process".

Why it matters

Lynch is not the first Brit to be treated like this. In 2006 three Natwest employees were extradited to the US over alleged dodgy dealings with Enron. One, Giles Darby, ended up in solitary confinement. And Gary McKinnon was accused by US prosecutors of carrying out "the biggest military computer hack of all time". He faced a possible 70-year prison sentence until then Home Secretary Theresa May stepped in to block his extradition in 2012.

Why Billy Connolly loves the upper class

Glorious Goodwood kicks off today, and the racing festival illustrates "one of the great curiosities of English life", says Ed West in UnHerd. Many social trends are "popular with the toffs at the top and the plebs at the bottom, with not much interest in between". Having big families and giving children silly names such as "Prince, Rara or Zenia" is rife among the working and upper classes, as is joining the army. The Regency-era Westminster dog pit, "where hounds would rip various other animals to pieces", was a hit with both the urban poor and Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia. More recently, Burberry went from being the brand of choice for Sloane rangers to one "ubiquitous among football hooligans".

Aristocrats and the poor can dress the same way and do the same stuff partly because they're so socially distant. The middle classes in between are perpetually anxious about those just above or below them. They're also far bigger sticklers for rules and morals, the things that built their class in the first place. It can mean they just spoil everyone else's fun. As Billy Connolly once said: "The proper serious upper class are all f***ing nuts and they are a great laugh. The working class are all f***ing nuts and they are a great laugh. It's just the middle that sucks."

Sport

Japanese skateboarder Momiji Nishiya has become the second youngest gold medallist in Olympic history. The 13-year-old won yesterday's street skateboarding competition. Judging by the podium, the sport is for sprogs. In second place was Brazilian Rayssa Leal, who's 13 and has braces, while the bronze went to 16-year-old Japanese schoolgirl Funa Nakayama. That's the youngest podium the event has ever seen.

Inside politics

What's Angela Merkel going to do when she retires this year, wonders Katja Hoyer in The Spectator. Konrad Adenauer, West Germany's first chancellor, spent his post-1963 retirement building an "immaculate rose garden" that's still in bloom today. Otto von Bismarck, who unified Germany in the 19th century, spent his twilight years "writing furious commentary" on the politics he no longer masterminded. Merkel has only suggested reading and napping as future hobbies. After 16 years in the top job, she might find it hard to stop worrying about Germany's in-tray. But as she told American reporters recently: "I will remember very quickly that things get done by others now. I think I will like that."

Snapshot

Noted

JK Rowling was once visiting a department store with her son when she found herself in the Harry Potter section, which was rammed with young fans. As the author attempted a quiet exit, she told poet Simon Armitage on Radio 4, her son tugged her arm and said: "How much will you pay me to stop me shouting, 'She's here! JK Rowling's here'?"

Snapshot answer

It's a violin-shaped boat that plays Vivaldi while it sails. The motorised vessel is 40ft long and was designed by Italian sculptor Livio De Marchi, who plans to sail it around Venice. It's a symbol of art surviving the pandemic, he told Italy24News. "As Noah put the animals on board the Ark to save them, we will spread the art through music on this violin."