Forty years ago this week, I became the editor of this paper. That is as long ago from now as was D-Day from then. It must seem as distant to today’s young as did the men on the Normandy beaches to my 27-year-old self. I can now see more clearly how much my generation enjoyed the freedom for which those men had fought. That freedom is trickling away.
Re-reading The Spectator’s Portrait of the Week (which I restored to the front of the paper as soon as I became editor), I find many aspects of the world in March 1984 echoing today. There was near-anarchy in Lebanon; American marines withdrew. Israel/Palestine peace plans were unsuccessfully touted. Sunnis and Shi’ites were killing one another in the Persian Gulf. An Assad ruled Syria. A Trudeau was prime minister of Canada. A Benn (Tony) was in parliament, fresh from victory in the Chesterfield by-election. Protesting French lorry drivers blocked roads.
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