Bill’s legacy
From John O’Byrne
Sir: Toby Harnden (‘Clinton: Tony and Gordon just have to work this out’, 16 September) states that the former president ‘feels he was cheated of the chance to prove himself while president; so he is anxious to cement his legacy’. What legacy? Bill Clinton is among the most overrated presidents ever. In his eight years in the White House he had plenty of time to ‘prove himself’ but achieved nothing spectacular. For example, his policy of cutting defence-spending left America exposed to terrorist attack (the bill was left to his successor). He had a chance to catch Osama bin Laden after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993; instead he preferred to use the Justice Department to, for example, kidnap a six-year-old boy and deport him to Cuba. His second term was spent fending off impeachment, the underlying problem being an unwillingness to accept responsibility for his bad behaviour, with lots of denials and dissembling (‘It depends what the meaning of “is” is’).
John O’Byrne
Durban, South Africa
Offended? Call the police
From John Duffield
Sir: Rod Liddle’s account (‘Arrested for quoting from the Bible’, 16 September) of the prosecution of Stephen Green illustrates a major change in national mores. The country used to work on the basis of trying not to take offence at anything said, but the current rules work on the idea of not giving offence. This works to the detriment of me (certainly), Stephen Green (probably) and also, I suspect, Rod Liddle. When we hear something offensive, we shrug our shoulders and quote Voltaire, but when the situation is reversed, we are liable to end up in court. Our opponents, on the other hand, are in the happy position of being able to give offence as much as they like but to run to the police when they are upset. I am not sure what the solution is. Do I have to become similarly narrow-minded?
John Duffield
Loughton, Essex
Irrelevance of the EU
From Professor Stephen Bush
Sir: Your contributor David Rennie (‘It’s funny what you can pick up in Iceland’, 16 September) greatly overcomplicates the basic issues surrounding Britain’s possible withdrawal from the EU with his talk of rejoining the European Free Trade Area (Efta). What most long-term opponents of Britain’s membership of the EU actually wish is for the UK to be in the same relationship with the EU for economic purposes as are the USA, Canada and Australia, whose aggregate trade with the EU is about the same as Britain’s, and for which they pay the EU absolutely nothing. The constant reiteration of the phrase ‘access to the Single Market’ as the benefit for which Britain pays about £10 billion gross is thus totally misleading. The EU’s external trade is regulated by its membership of the World Trade Organisation in which, after withdrawal from the EU, the UK would resume its place as a fully independent member. World trade in goods is in any case practically tariff-free, while since 1995 the WTO has systematically extended transparency to the trade in services.
From a global trade policy and regulation point of view the EU, like Efta, is now to all intents and purposes irrelevant.
Stephen Bush
Poynton, Cheshire
Lancastrian catfight
From Paul Johnson
Sir: I am sorry you did not publish the letter I sent you correcting some misprints in my article on Lancashire (9 September). Instead you found space for a diatribe from Michael Henderson, in sharp contrast to the many appreciative letters I have received from other Lancastrians. I don’t accept many of his strictures. Indeed I find it hard to believe he comes from my home county. For two of the characteristics of Lancashire people are warm-heartedness and a sense of humour, neither of which, on the evidence of his letter, he possesses.
Paul Johnson
London W2
Aga’s twin roles
From Elisabeth Howard
Sir: It would seem that Sandra Howard has not yet discovered that in addition to all the other qualities she mentions, her Aga can also save lives (Style and Travel, 16 September). On several occasions we have brought into the kitchen an almost lifeless, cold, wet, newborn lamb, which has been successfully revived after an hour or so wrapped in a towel and carefully placed in the entrance of the open bottom door of our Aga. At such moments we have to try very hard indeed to dismiss from our minds the thought that in a few months’ time it will almost inevitably make a second visit to the Aga, but on that occasion probably in instalments, and to the top oven.
Elisabeth Howard
Cadnam, Southampton
Google, the historian
From Kevin McGrath
Sir: Charles Moore hits on an interesting definer of history: Google (The Spectator’s Notes, 9 September). If you Google ‘English military defeats’ and hit ‘I’m feeling lucky’, you get an English victory at Solway Moss. If you Google ‘failure’ and hit ‘I’m feeling lucky’, you get a résumé of George Bush. This must tell us more about Google than about history!
Kevin McGrath
Singapore
Basilisk Jack
From Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC
Sir: Frank Johnson is right (Shared opinion, 2 September). The government wants to make the House of Lords ‘democratically answerable’ but without challenging the supremacy of the House of Commons. On the joint committee on conventions between the two Houses, I asked the Rt Hon. Jack Straw, Leader of the Commons, if that was not precisely the mistake Charles I had made. All I got was a death stare.
Peter Fraser
House of Lords, London SW1
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