Society

Saturday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 24 September 2005

Even in successful parliamentary democracies there comes a time when no political party is confronting the questions which matter most, and so the voter feels cheated. The worst time for this in Britain was the 1930s. Conservative appeasement seemed more and more inadequate, but the Labour party, then in pacifist mood, did not offer a convincing alternative. It is similar today, only the other way round in party terms. The biggest problem facing the country is Islamist terrorism, not so much because of the security threat (grave though that is), but because of the cultural and political war that is behind it. An effort is being made, like the effort

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 24 September 2005

Our vanishing hospitals In 1909 my great-grandfather C.H.E. Croydon built and gave the Croydon Cottage Hospital to the people of Felixstowe. It consisted of ten beds and the population at that time was roughly 1,840. We now find that, with a population of nearly 33,000 and ever more need for hospital beds, it faces the possibility of closure (‘Fear in the community’, 17 September). The Bartlett Hospital, also in Felixstowe, is to close; this has already been decided by the PCT. They say that to have two hospitals in Felixstowe is unsustainable because of the large deficit position they are in. But when the buildings are sold and the money

Robert Stewart

Pinning down the king

While well-heeled, self-preserving lawyers of eminence and rank fled to London to avoid a perilous undertaking, John Cooke, a low-born Puritan of great courage, submitting himself to God’s purposes and remaining true to his Roundhead convictions, accepted the brief to prosecute Charles I in the High Court established by an act of parliament for the purpose. In telling his story Geoffrey Robertson has redeemed from obscurity an unsung hero of true greatness, a selfless champion of the poor and a law reformer of rare distinction. More important, he has shed invigorating light on the course of the English Civil War, especially on its legal aspects and consequences. Charles’ unshakable belief

The Spectator

Catastrophe in Basra

To understand the full scale of the catastrophe that might be about to enfold British forces in southern Iraq, it is important to be clear about what happened on Monday. When two SAS men were waved down at a police checkpoint, they did not stop. Why not? Because the Iraqi police force has become so densely infiltrated by terrorists and extremists that they believed their lives would have been at risk. In May this year Basra’s chief of police, Hassan al-Sade, admitted that he had lost control of 75 per cent of his 13,750-strong force, and that his men were mainly loyal to one Shiite faction or another. Faced with

Jaspistos

The honest truth

In Competition No. 2410 you were provided with opening and closing words and invited to write a story with the above title. The given words were supposed to be the opening and closing ones of a Maclaren Ross story with this title, but owing to a clerical error, in other words my own foolish blunder, the ending I gave you was the ending of a different story by the same author. The correct ending was ‘I felt I deserved it.’ No matter, you grappled well with the problem presented. I especially enjoyed Basil Ransome-Davies’s cheeky opening: ‘The clock on the street corner said six but it was really five centuries

Alasdair Palmer

Is torture always wrong?

The officers who pumped seven bullets into Jean Charles de Menezes as he sat in a Tube train in Stockwell station on 22 July believed he was a suicide-bomber about to detonate a bomb. They were wrong, and may now face trial for murder. Whether or not they are prosecuted, however, it is almost certain that the Metropolitan Police’s policy of killing people who its senior officers believe are about to detonate bombs will remain. Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Met, has said it will stay, and insists it has been approved by the Home Office, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Metropolitan Police Authority. Charles Clarke, the

Interconnect

RACE AND CULTURE: Whites need not apply

The ideology of multiculturalism is theoretically meant to build a more tolerant, inclusive Britain. But in practice it is a deeply racist concept, one that judges people by their ethnic origin and thereby promotes division in our society. The very basis of multiculturalism is a contradiction of the democratic principle that everyone should be treated equally, regardless of their background or skin colour. Through its obsession with racial identity, this pernicious creed actually encourages discrimination. The first anti-racism campaigners in Britain fought for equality, demanding government action to combat overt racial prejudice in employment and the provision of public services, especially housing. But since the early 1980s the agenda of

Interconnect

RACE AND CULTURE: ‘Schooling people to be strangers’

About halfway through our interview, Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, lets out a snort of exasperation. It had been building up for quite a while, I think; every time I quoted some good old leftie shibboleth about race relations I sensed a hidden snort or a stifled guffaw. Eventually the man could hold back no longer. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You can’t make people love people of other races. You just can’t. And you can’t have a law which says we have to love each other. That’s bonkers.’ Phillips is, to his many detractors (mostly on the Left), an unequivocal Blair toadie who has been rewarded

Friday

Joan Collins

Diary – 23 September 2005

I was asked, in January, if I would have dinner with the winner of a raffle in aid of the Conservative party. I gladly agreed. Months later Percy and I turned up a polite 20 minutes late at the Drones Club, only to find a near-empty room. The only people there were two Labour MPs who were so delighted that the Tories hadn’t shown that they jokingly offered to give us dinner. An hour later the raffle winner arrived with some tipsy mates and I found myself the only woman at a table of ten. Thank goodness Percy was there for moral support. I asked Mr Lucky why he was

Saturday

Dot Wordsworth

Mind Your Language | 17 September 2005

More on treacle, thanks to Mr Christopher Couchman of Bath, who sends a lovely recipe for Venice treacle, taken from the English Dispensatory of John Quincy (who died in 1722). My husband, before going off on some pharmaceutically funded freebie, said he remembered the book but hadn’t used it recently. I love strange lists, but have no room for all the contents of this ‘capital alexipharmic’. They include ‘Troches of Squills, Troches of Vipers, Long Pepper, Opium, Hedychroi, exungulated dry Red Roses, fragrant sclavonian Orrice, Juice of Liquorice, sweet Navew seeds, Tops of Schordium, Opobalsamum, Cinnamon, Agaric, Myrrh, sweet Coftus or Zedoary, Saffron, true Cassia Bark, Spikenard, Schoenanth, Male Frankincense,

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 17 September 2005

As the price of petrol rose above £1 per litre, a group of protesters calling itself the Fuel Lobby threatened to blockade motorways and oil refineries in protest against fuel duty. Many petrol stations ran out of fuel as motorists resorted to panic-buying. Loyalists rioted in Belfast for two nights, injuring 30 police officers, after the Orange Order was told by the Parades Commission to alter the route of one of its marches by 100 yards. The TUC gathered in Brighton for its annual conference and demanded a return of the right for secondary picketing. A team from Edinburgh University announced it had succeeded in creating a human embryo using

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 17 September 2005

When a disaster or a war happens, very large estimates of the number of dead quickly emerge in the media. These tend to be propagated by two groups — those seeking money to deal with the problem, and those wanting to blame somebody for it. Thus, on 11 September 2001, some early estimates spoke of up to 40,000 dead, and even the more serious ones referred to 5,000. The actual figure was about 2,800. In Iraq a report in the Lancet, using an extraordinary method of extrapolation from a tiny sample, came up with the figure of 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians; yet it seems that the true figure, though bad

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 17 September 2005

Pro-God, anti-religion Theo Hobson makes some interesting points in his article about ‘literary atheism’ (‘Writing God off’, 10 September) but his case is fatally flawed by his repeated tendency to assume that ‘religion’, ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ are somehow synonymous. They are not. It is, in fact, perfectly possible to reject religion without rejecting God; one can be anti-religion without being an atheist. In many minds, especially today, ‘religion’ has come to mean the kind of established and organised institutions, be they Christian, Jewish or Muslim, noted more for their intolerance of dissent — or much, much worse — than for anything positive. Condemning Martin Amis for being influenced by Mick

Simon Courtauld

Shark ascending

The first barracuda to be caught in British waters was landed at Newlyn, Cornwall four years ago. This summer giant fin whales have been spotted off the Pembrokeshire coast. The evidence of these alien visitors may be attributable to global warming, or to changes in the flow of ocean currents, but it makes one wonder if it may be only a matter of time before a fearsome great white shark moves up the Atlantic from its present killing grounds on the South African coast to the bathing beaches of north Cornwall (from where, watching a school of porpoises not being chased by a shark, I am writing this month). I

Robin Oakley

Donny style

‘A German joke,’ a former British ambassador once told me, ‘is no laughing matter.’ The Germans take their elections seriously, too. It has been no easy matter, in my day job for CNN, spraying an international audience with initials as I try to explain how the Red–Green coalition of the SPD and Joschka Fischer’s lot are trying to fight off the CDU and its sister party the CSU, who want to govern with the FDP but who, because of the intervention of the PDS plus some SPD rebels in the new Linkspartei, may be forced to govern in a ‘Grand Coalition’ with the aforesaid SPD…. had enough? Sorting out the

Frank Keating

Hail to the coach!

The Ashes cricket series was unimaginably compelling from first day to last. At Lord’s on 21 July England began their challenge by bowling out the world champion Australians for just 190 to kick-start the turbulent rollercoaster, and in the following 54 days of beguiling intensity and speculation the whole cricket world — and far beyond it — became engulfed in the flamboyant ride right up to the barmy damp-squib ‘bad-light’ ending. The best team deservedly won. The losers, surprised by such a sustained challenge, fought like cornered cats, then gave generous best. Cricket folk had to half-close moist eyes and summon thoughts of Jessop’s imperishable century on the very same

Mary Killen

Your Problems Solved | 17 September 2005

Q. I sympathise with B.M.F. (20 August). At a recent Proms concert, a superb performance of ‘Gerontius’ was ruined by a middle-aged woman continually fanning herself with her programme. It was not a hot night, and she was the only person in the hall doing so. She was very rude when someone tried to approach her about it in the interval. What do you suggest, Mary?J.McC., London W8 A. In these situations it is always easier to use a third person as a human buffer than to deal directly with a miscreant who may be defensive. You could have whispered to one of the people sitting next to the fanner

The Spectator

Feedback | 17 September 2005

Comments on The grim lessons of Katrina by Walter Ellis What a ridiculous negative article. We get hit by a level 5 hurricane. What do you know? There’s death and destruction. Mr Ellis notes the fact that there is a black underclass in New Orleans, which has been there for 200 years, and in other major American cities as well, which have been there for 150 years. If this is a measure of our inherent racialism what does he say about the growing black middle and upper class, the phenomenon of the browning of American society, the tremendous influx of Hispanics and Asians, all attracted by the relative political and

William Brett

Trapped in a shaming role

Racial shame looms large in this ‘imaginative reconstruction’ of the life of Bert Williams, the black American entertainer. Williams only began to achieve notable success after deciding, in 1895, to smear his face with burnt cork and widen his lips with make-up, in order to ‘play the coon’. He would shuffle his feet and boggle his eyes, thereby providing white audiences with a stereotype they could easily recognise. Performers can experience complex and ambiguous emotions when presenting characters for the benefit of audiences, and the adoption of ‘blackface’ by black performers is perhaps the most potent example of this phenomenon. It is for this reason that Caryl Phillips is entitled

Toby Young Toby Young

Yorkshire grit

The second half of Harvest, Richard Bean’s new play about four generations of a Yorkshire farming family, opens with the main character, William Harrison, sitting by himself and listening to the wireless. Suddenly, we hear the opening theme music of The Archers and, without hesitating, he leans over and switches it off. Harvest is full of amusing little touches like that. It’s a political play with some serious points to make about the plight of the small British farmer, but Bean is canny enough to leaven the mix with plenty of gags, a couple of romantic subplots, a handful of comic characters and — in the final scene, at least