Charles Moore is a former editor of The Spectator and the Daily Telegraph. He became a non-affiliated peer in July 2020.
What a scramble for Africa. A full-page advertisement in Monday’s Guardian, rather cautiously worded, said that its signatories ‘supported the overall aims’ of those lobbying the G8 leaders and recognised ‘the complexities of the challenge in hand, but commit ourselves to asking our leaders to make positive and practical steps forward to help lift millions
The renewed interest in Our Island Story on its centenary takes me back to the first history book I read. It is called A Nursery History of England, by one Elizabeth O’Neill who was, I now see but did not notice at the time, covertly sympathetic to Catholicism (Mary, Queen of Scots was ‘not vain
Last week I went to hear Jung Chang and Jon Halliday talk about their new biography of Mao Tse-tung at a lecture in memory of the Great Helmsman of Moderation, Roy Jenkins. Almost every claim made in favour of Mao, they argued, is untrue — that peasant villages rose up in support of the Communists
What do we think of children? Boarding schools are out of fashion because they represent ‘delegated parenthood’ and we are taught to believe that we should be very ‘hands on’ with our children, and that everyone else’s hands are suspect. We are horribly mistrustful of Michael Jackson where our grandparents loved the equally strange J.M.
It is proverbial that the British press is disgusting and contemptible, but would we ever have got ourselves into the extraordinary situation of our Continental counterparts? In France, no national newspaper, except for the Communist L’Humanité, called for a ‘No’ vote in the referendum on the European constitution. The nearest any major Dutch paper came
I wish I could share the widespread joy at the great European ‘No’. Yes, the word ‘No’ is good. Yes, I feel the normal human pleasure at the discomfiture of the politicians. I have enjoyed seeing Peter Mandelson trying to worm round the result and Neil Kinnock raging against his former friends on the French
Turning on what I thought was the Today programme on Monday, I heard the voice of Kenneth Clarke, talking about Dizzy Gillespie. Another shameless plug by the BBC, I thought, for the man they are always trying to make Tory leader. Perhaps I was right, but the immediate cause was that there was no Today
The election has brought out the tension between Scotland and England (see last week’s Notes). The Conservatives won more votes than Labour in England and, as before, managed only one seat in Scotland. Labour has 41 seats in Scotland, without which it would lack an overall majority. England heavily subsidises Scotland, allowing, for instance, state-funded
Les événements in France have provoked self-congratulation here. Apparently, the French model of assimilation is bad. If they had our multiculturalism, the celebration of diversity and ethnic monitoring, everything would be much better, it is said. The French are 20 years behind us, etc. It seems but yesterday that I read praise of France for
Another week of this, and I think I would have ended up voting Labour. Ann Toward, the widow of Guardsman Anthony Wakefield, who was killed near Amarah, southern Iraq, on Monday, said that Tony Blair was to blame for her husband’s death. Although it is obviously true that if there had been no war in
Fascism is a bigger part of this election than most people realise. We know about the BNP already, but the growing force is Muslim extremism. The tactics are nasty. Look at the website of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) and you will see lists of MPs whom MPAC wishes to make the victims of
I sometimes wonder if the British media know anything at all about the Catholic Church, except that it disapproves of condoms. Every discussion of the late Pope’s reputation and of his successor, Cardinal Ratzinger, is brought back to this question. Obviously it is an important issue, but why does it dominate to the exclusion of
This is the first general election campaign since 1983 in which I have not been the editor of a publication (or, in 1992, the deputy editor). And in all previous campaigns since my birth I was vicariously involved because my father was always a Liberal candidate. My new detachment gives me the possibly illusory feeling
People sometimes say ‘Easter Saturday’ meaning the day before Easter. In fact, it is the Saturday after Easter, and this year it was the day the Pope died. The first reading in the Missal for that day is from the Acts of the Apostles (iv 13–21). It concerns the reaction of the elders and scribes
The attempt by the Pope to pronounce his Easter blessing on Sunday and his failure in that attempt were so moving. On the day which, of all days, affirms life, John Paul II must particularly have longed to speak. As he struggled to do so, he looked like a strong man drowning, in sight of
The Passion narrative, read in all churches this week, reminds one of exactly why Jesus was put to death. In Matthew’s account, it is based on the evidence of two false witnesses. They accuse Jesus of saying ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.’ Then the
Despite already knowing about the IRA’s involvement in the £26 million robbery of the Northern Bank, Paul Murphy, the Northern Ireland Secretary, last month approved a renewal of the exemption which allows Sinn Fein (and other political parties in the province) to raise money abroad. This privilege is denied to mainland parties which do not
Right-minded people are fighting to retain habeas corpus. We would have more popular success, I feel, if the public knew what habeas corpus meant. The trouble is that, even translated into English, it is still obscure. Habeas corpus means, of course, ‘you may have the body’. The IRA seem to have their own interpretation of
If you are a monarchist, this does not automatically make you an admirer of the royal family. But it does lead you to give members of that family the benefit of the doubt, particularly when so many others so viciously do the opposite. In general, too, our monarch has shown shrewdness in preserving the institution
Like thousands who met in the hunting field last Saturday, I was half-delighted, half-bewildered. Delighted because it was a gigantic show of defiance and the large number of foxes killed proved the absurdity of the ban. Bewildered because we seem to have moved into an era in which legislators happily pass laws which they know