Crikey, this really will have to be another voice. Has The Spectator taken leave of its senses? I could hardly bring myself to take last week’s edition out of its see-through plastic wrapping when, pictured on the cover, I saw a huge cartoon bulldog being walked on by a Muslim terrorist, and beside it four bald statements in big blue capital letters with a scarlet tick placed against each:
• THIS IS WAR
• WE ARE LOSING
• WE NEED TOUGHER POLICIES
• WE WILL BE ATTACKED
and, underneath, ‘The view of the British: exclusive poll’.
To my certain knowledge this is not the view of the British. I understand my countrymen well enough, and they are neither as hawkish as some at The Spectator would like them to be, nor as dovish as I could wish. So far as the view of the British on terrorism can be summarised at all (I thought) that view is doubtful, nervous, and a little sceptical of the certainties and enthusiasms of either side.
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