Columns

Saturday

Paul Mason

From bailout to bailout

After covering the Spanish bailout, I fly from Madrid to Athens. In the taxi rank at Athens airport, iPhone wedged between ear and shoulder, I realise I have crossed both borders without showing my passport. Welcome to Schengenland — how long will it last? Reuters has just published a leak of EU contingency plans for a Greek exit: they involve suspending free movement under the Schengen Agreement, as well as imposing limits on ATM ­withdrawals and controls on cross-border movement of cash. Somebody texts me: ‘This is irresponsible — it could start a panic in Greece.’ But the Greeks are not flustered. Most of the hot money is long gone from the Greek system.

Hugo Rifkind

An encounter with the God of niceness and biscuits

I write this freshly back from a reactionary weekend in the Scottish Borders, where I was made a godfather in a christening and did not have to renounce Satan. Which was a relief. It’s not that I have any objection to renouncing Satan per se. It’s not like we’re on speaking terms. It’s just that whenever I’ve heard new godparents do just that, in church, I wonder at the point. Surely Satan would be okay with you just lying about it. Isn’t that rather the point of Satan? ‘I can’t believe you fibbed in a church!’ the Prince of Lies would not say. You know? It just doesn’t seem like much of a failsafe. Still, no Satanic renunciations for me.

Rod Liddle

Is it me, or has Lord Leveson proved his critics dead right

I suppose we shall have to take Lord Leveson’s word for it that he didn’t threaten to resign from his exciting inquiry. He says he didn’t, and that will have to be good enough for the likes of me. If I was an old school journalist worth his salt, I’d have hacked his lordship’s phone to find out exactly what he said to the Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood. It was reported at the weekend, by the Mail on Sunday, that back in February Leveson threatened to shut up shop and take his big briefcase home with him, so annoyed was he at comments made about his inquiry by the Education Secretary, Michael Gove. This was later denied.

Saturday

James Delingpole

In a restaurant this perfect-seeming,there has to be something fishy

‘God, you are going to love this place — it is absolutely perfect!’ I report back after my recce. ‘It’s completely ramshackle, kind of a beach-hut arrangement, almost. They don’t speak a word of English. It’s in this gorgeous position bang next to the sea. And they’re open for lunch tomorrow.’ ‘Sounds brilliant,’ says the Fawn. ‘Oh it really is. I think this is going to be it. The one. You know, one of those throwbacks to the days of Elizabeth David, like they just don’t make any more.’ ‘Great!

Matthew Parris

The idea that the Fraser Brown story should have been suppressed is extraordinary

In the week past, Gordon Brown has been involved in a sad dispute with the Sun about whether that newspaper did or did not have his and his wife’s approval for publishing news of the then prime minister’s baby son Fraser’s cystic fibrosis.  The Sun (in the form of Rebekah Brooks) has claimed the couple consented to publication. The Browns claim they did not but, believing nothing could stop the report, tried to negotiate with the Sun about the manner in which the story came out, in order ‘to minimise the damage’, as Mr Brown put it.  Those two accounts are reconcilable. There is much in life to which we’re obliged to ‘consent’: the word can be used in different ways. But this argument is a mirage.

James Forsyth

The Tories who are hoping Greece will go

There’s a new and growing faction in the Tory party. It includes several members of the Cabinet, various senior backbenchers and many of the brightest members of the 2010 intake. They are the Syriza Tories, united in their belief that the best thing for Britain and the government would be for the anti-bailout Syriza party to triumph in the Greek elections on Sunday. Syriza, a party of the radical left, is hardly a natural bedfellow for the Tory right. But these ministers and MPs have come to the conclusion that the eurozone crisis must be brought to a head, and a Syriza victory would do exactly that.

Rod Liddle

Ukraine’s prejudices – and ours

‘The more Ukrainians that play in the national league, the more examples for the young generation — let them learn from Shevchenko or Blokhin and not some Zumba-Bumba they took off a tree, gave him two bananas and now he plays in the Ukrainian league.’  — Ukraine coach Oleg Blokhin, 2006 There you are, you see, Dr King — other people have dreams, too. Oleg Blokhin’s dream is a different sort of dream to the famous one you had. A less palatable dream, maybe. Oleg, 59, is the coach of the Ukraine national football team, and Ukraine is a joint host of the current Euro 2012 football tournament, along with its occasional historical enemy, Poland.

Saturday

James Forsyth

After the celebrations, a summer of discontent

The next few days will see David Cameron doing what he does best: looking the part. Whether it is the Jubilee celebrations or the Olympic torch relay, Cameron can be relied upon to know — or look as if he knows — what is expected of him as Prime Minister. Cameron’s natural ease is his greatest asset. It is why Downing Street aides are convinced that this summer’s events will help restore his reputation. Combine this with the anticipated national feel-good factor and it is easy to see why so many expect that the Jubilee and the Games will ease the government to calmer waters. Despite the lightness with which he bears the burden of command, however, Cameron is under a pressure which no other postwar Prime Minister has experienced: he is running a coalition.

Rod Liddle

Anti-Semitism is an evil that still requires examination

Can you explain, briefly, why some people are prejudiced against Jews? It’s an interesting question. My late mum was a bit anti-Semitic, and I always found her mild animus incomprehensible and indeed weird, as did my father. It surfaced during the Yom Kippur War, when I was 13: my dad and I were urging on the Israelis — in a slightly detached way, as if it were, say, Leeds playing Chelsea in a football match and through default one found oneself supporting the lesser of two evils, i.e. Chelsea. Mum was cheering on the Arabs because, she admitted, she wasn’t ‘keen on’ Jews. We were both surprised, my Dad and I.

Matthew Parris

I hope our Jubilee Queen, unlike the last, outlives a hopeless foreign war

War in South Africa — the second Boer war — was already brewing by Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Two years later it began. By the end of the century Britain was bogged down and struggling. On the Queen’s death in 1901 the unholy mess continued. In 1902 we were finally able to declare victory; but bloodied, shocked, shamed and considerably cut down to size. The whole campaign had been an ill-conceived, over-confident and grisly blunder. Even Kipling hated it. How could the numerical superiority and technical might of Britain’s armed forces be fought to cruel draw by a smaller band of ill-equipped zealots, as light on their feet as the modern-day terrorist? It was humiliating.

Hugo Rifkind

Once you’ve seen Eurovision, London 2012 looks like a noble last stand

Jetlagged in the small-hour darkness of Santa Monica last week, and perusing various write-ups of the previous evening’s Eurovision Song Contest in Azerbaijan, I had a sudden epiphany as to why America holds all these sporting contests with ‘world’ in the title which don’t involve anybody else. It’s because everybody else is dreadful. Eurovision has been dreadful for so long that this has almost become the point, and any act these days which doesn’t feature a singer who looks like the mistress of a warlord who can only visit the same countries as Roman Polanski doesn’t have a hope.

James Delingpole

How I learned to stop worrying and love being hated

Girl: Dad, why do people want to punch your face in? Me: Er, I’m not sure that they do, darling. Where did you get that idea? Girl: It’s on YouTube. Look, here: ‘When Delingpole does that “air quotes” thing with his fingers I just want to punch him. Actually, I’d quite like to punch him anyway.’ Me: Ah, well, darling, you mustn’t worry about that. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing. It means Daddy’s famous.   Actually what I should have said was ‘infamous’. I’d first noticed this a couple of days earlier, at the Caprice, when I stopped by at the table of Daily Mail diarist Richard Kay.

Saturday

Rod Liddle

Radio 4’s Goldie Jubilee

At last, BBC Radio 4 has reconciled itself to the great importance of the graffiti artist and music performer Goldie. He has been named as one of the station’s ‘New Elizabethans’, alongside the likes of Sir Edmund Hillary, Graham Greene, Margaret Thatcher and the Queen. The qualification for admission to this gilded list is as follows: they must be ‘men and women whose actions during the reign of Elizabeth II have had a significant impact on lives in these islands and given the age its character, for better or worse.’ I think Goldie qualifies for that, don’t you? But then, I was always ahead of my time.

Hugo Rifkind

Woe to all politicians who put their children in the limelight

Newsnight called the other day to ask if I fancied coming on to talk about David Cameron’s new idea of parenting classes. They stood me down in favour of Kirstie Allsopp in the end, which was understandable, particularly as I couldn’t figure out whether Cameron’s idea is a good one or not. I just kept thinking about how he’d exploit it come the next election. He’d be there with his kids, wouldn’t he? With a big frown on his shiny red face, as he pretended to learn about CBeebies and the naughty step. Awful. I am not balanced about this stuff. I’m just not. Florence Rose Endellion Cameron is doubtless an adorable baby, and I’m sure she sicks up that glutinous white stuff onto her father’s shoulder most prettily.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Politics: Don’t bet on Ed Miliband to win it for the Tories

In the past few difficult months, the Cameroons have taken comfort from their belief that Ed Miliband will never be prime minister. After the local elections earlier this month, when Labour took far more Tory seats than expected, the silver lining for the government was the thought that Ed Miliband would now stay on as Labour leader until 2015. When asked to justify their conviction that Miliband will never make it to Downing Street, the Cameroons offer three reasons. First, they reckon that the public just can’t see him as PM material. Second, they expect that the next election will be fought on the economy, the area where Labour is weakest.

Rod Liddle

You can’t fight racism by ignoring facts

Was there a ‘racial’ or ‘cultural’ angle to the crimes committed by those nine exclusively Asian men from Rochdale sentenced to between four and 19 years in prison for sexually abusing young white girls? Or was it simply a weird coincidence that we should all promptly forget about? There are plenty of people in the public eye (although probably none who are not in the public eye) who pretend to cleave to the latter point of view.

Matthew Parris

The football fan theory of nationalism

Observing the fealties of football supporters, I’ve been struck by a contradiction that troubles any non-sporting mind. To a fan, which team you support is often a matter of chance. But once you’ve attached yourself to a team, the loyalty can be ferocious, and run deep. It can become part of who you are. So do we say that because your support becomes unshakeable your association with your team is a profound thing? Or do we say that, because you could quite easily have developed the same loyalties to a different team, the association is shallow? The apparent contradiction can best be explained in terms of the instinct for the pack by which the human hunter and warrior is driven.

James Delingpole

How I became a 24-carat goldbug

If you’re at all worried about the current global financial situation, here’s what I advise: buy gold. Then buy some more gold. Then buy some gold coins to stash under your bed and in various hiding places known only to yourself. Sovereigns are good if you’re British because, being legal tender, they are not subject to capital gains tax. Oh, and if you’re investing in bullion — which you must — make sure it’s in a spread of locations: London, Hong Kong, ­Geneva, wherever. That’s because when the shit hits the fan (WTSHTF as we catastrophists fondly abbreviate it), no one has any idea which regimes will be safe and which will be punitively confiscatory as, for example, was dear old F.D.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Politics: Why a European referendum is now almost certain

The Romford Pledge might not have the same ring to it as the Tamworth Manifesto. But Boris Johnson’s decision while campaigning last month to sign up to the campaign for an in/out referendum on EU membership could be a key moment in the history of the Conservative party — the moment when the party’s balance of power tipped decisively in favour of a referendum. As with so many of Boris’s actions, it is hard to know whether his pledge was spontaneous or a calculated move. Certainly, the Mayor hesitated before signing. Then, according to those present, the seat’s Eurosceptic Tory MP, Andrew Rosindell, told him it wasn’t party policy to sign — and that appeared to make up his mind.

Rod Liddle

What really makes the Tories toxic

So, who is to blame for the Conservative party’s supposedly appalling showing in last week’s council elections? The party leaders seem to have concluded that the loss of Birmingham and Southampton councils and more than 400 councillors nationwide is somehow down to the poofs, and their incessant clamouring to be allowed to marry one another. Perhaps the party sources who suggested, the morning after the elections, that out of contrition the government would ‘backtrack’ on the commitment to legalise gay marriage are right; it was this commitment which, through some complex psychological process, possibly rooted in Freud, turned the voters against the government.