If only the assassination attempted 60 years ago last Tuesday had succeeded, we have heard all this week. But what was the conspirators’ idea of success? In particular, what did the awesome man whose sonorous name we have heard this week really believe? Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg was of his time and his
Whenever a new newspaper launches in any part of the world, a little voice inside one’s head cheers. Naturally that voice is all the louder when the paper is in one’s own country. So I rejoiced when I heard that a new daily title is under consideration in Northern Ireland. My enthusiasm was somewhat tempered,
Ever since he became editor of The Spectator, which must be about five years ago, Boris Johnson has been urging me to write a column about the Financial Times. It is a subject which seems to drive him towards apoplexy. As Boris sees it, the FT is run by leftist énarques whose hearts are very
Unlike British newspapers, the New York Times enjoys beating its breast. It recently published a lengthy ‘editor’s note’ which acknowledged that its coverage in the months before the invasion of Iraq ‘was not as rigorous as it should have been’. The paper conceded that ‘articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent
The government wants to find ways of helping us to lose weight. It could start by ceasing to shower farmers with subsidies to grow sugar. Remarkably, given the public money that is spent on telling us not to eat fattening foods, the EU gave European sugar producers 819 million euros worth of subsidy last year,
Ronald Reagan fascinated me from the moment he became governor of California in 1966. He was a right-winger who had won office. In those days right-wingers never won anything. Every office-holder or potential office-holder in every democracy — Labour, Tory, Democrat, Republican — seemed to be a liberal or a centrist. All the authorities said
At last: France is making a commitment to free trade. Unfortunately, it involves selling arms to China. President Chirac has ordered a review of the ban on arm sales to China imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. This would enable France to grab a share of the £2 billion-a-year market for military equipment
According to the Hollywood film The Day After Tomorrow, the failure of the world to confront global warming is going to result in the royal family being freeze-dried at the breakfast table at Balmoral and our cities drowned in raging tornadoes. Never mind that this scenario — based on the global-warming lobby’s latest hobby-horse, the
The sacking of Piers Morgan as editor of the Daily Mirror has been greeted with ululation from media commentators, former and existing editors and several newspapers. Piers, we are told by no less an authority than the legendary Harry Evans, was a great tabloid editor. My esteemed colleague Professor Roy Greenslade can barely be consoled.
The forthcoming referendum on the proposed EU constitution has led some to suggest that Britain gives up EU membership and returns to the European Free Trade Association (Efta), of which it was a member between 1960 and 1972 and which is still maintained by Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Get out of nannying, protectionist Europe,
Last weekend the Observer media page published a photograph of the Daily Telegraph news conference. It looks to me a pretty standard affair. The camera shows the back of the editor, Martin Newland, who is hunched over his desk and appears energetic and keen. There are eight other senior executives in the room, all of
The European Union’s social chapter has been so successful in suppressing economic growth in Europe that it is no surprise to find the US presidential candidate John Kerry seeking to emulate it. Not that he intends to saddle American businesses with more red tape, mind: he wants to try to strangle the booming Chinese economy
Are the Daily Mirror’s torture pictures fakes? Most of my friends, whether anti-war or pro-war, think that they probably are. Such is my own inclination. But let us for a moment try to see things from the point of view of Piers Morgan, the Mirror’s editor. Whatever fine words Nicholas Soames may declaim in the
Ten new members join the European Union on Saturday and thousands of economic migrants are queueing up at the borders, raring to go. I refer, of course, to Western European property investors hoping to make a killing on property markets in the East. While we have heard a lot of grim warnings in the press
Bob Woodward of Watergate fame has just published an account of the background to the Iraq war called Plan of Attack. It has attracted a good deal of publicity in this country, particularly for its assertion, which has not been denied, that President George W. Bush told Tony Blair shortly before hostilities began that there
It is becoming a commonplace that the ‘tabloid wars’ between broadsheet titles are transforming the newspaper market. There is a widespread belief that in producing tabloid editions the Independent and, to a lesser extent, the Times have stolen a brilliant march on their rivals. The Guardian is accused of having fallen asleep on the job,
Slaves transported from Africa to the New World in the 18th century had a wretched time, but does the same apply to their distant descendants? It does according to Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, who with seven other descendants of slaves this week filed a lawsuit demanding $1 billion in damages from Lloyd’s of London, FleetBoston and the
Michael Grade’s appointment as the new chairman of the BBC has won universal praise from every quarter. Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, and Julie Kirkbride, her Tory shadow, both like him. The editors of the Daily Express and the Financial Times think he is fine. Columnists and profile-writers sing his praises. Even the Daily Mail,
After the Hutton inquiry all fair-minded people should rally to the BBC. It is true that over the years the Corporation has sometimes displayed a bias in favour of New Labour. I remember, for example, how after Peter Mandelson was ejected from the Cabinet for a second time, BBC2’s Newsnight brought together various New Labour
New citizens of the United Kingdom may soon have to undergo a citizenship test, pledging their allegiance to the Queen, demonstrating their knowledge of English language and culture and quite possibly promising to cheer on the England cricket team. What they needn’t bother to do, on the other hand, is to take too much notice