Columns

Saturday

Hugo Rifkind

Did Saif Gaddafi learn his lines from EastEnders?

Spare a thought for the sons of dictators. Not a nice thought — that would be overkill. Still, spare one all the same. The dictators themselves are somehow easier to understand. Start out as a freedom fighter, get carried away, end up as a murderous tyrant dressed in a beret and a full-body lampshade. Fine. But the sons? What’s going on there? Saif Gaddafi’s appearance on Libyan TV at the start of the week was something pretty special. Arabic is a language which I suspect we’re culturally programmed to find vaguely intimidating even when it’s being used to whisper a lullaby, but his body language said more than the subtitles. Beyond Scorsese, more the full Mario Puzo.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Politics: Cameron is betting it all on BS

Those who hoped they had heard the last of ‘the big society’ should look away now. Those who hoped they had heard the last of ‘the big society’ should look away now. A fightback has begun. Normally, power shifts within No. 10 are visible only to those who read between the lines of prime-ministerial speeches. But since Andy Coulson departed, the influence of the big society’s biggest champion, Steve Hilton, can be seen in headlines. This week there was even a ‘big society’ Cabinet meeting — with the Prime Minister and seven Cabinet ministers in attendance — before the normal meeting. Hilton, Cameron’s closest advisor, is now free to pursue his belief that the big society should define his boss.

Matthew Parris

Sharp wit and soppy endings – it’s the American way

Here’s something that continues to perplex me. Here’s something that continues to perplex me. How is it that the best of American cinema and theatre is so often simultaneously sharp, sophisticated — and trite? I’ve just been to see a tremendous new play at the Almeida in Islington, whose run ends this week. Becky Shaw has been a hit on Broadway and has enjoyed instant appeal in London too. It certainly appealed to me. Gina Gionfriddo has written a mordant, mostly cruel comedy of modern American manners, and the action and the repartee rattle along, intense, quickfire and merciless, with a brutality that leaves you breathless.

James Delingpole

If homeopathy is just water and sugar pills, why do doctors get so upset about it?

Just because you’re a hypochondriac doesn’t mean you’re not suffering from an obscure and terrible disease which is going to kill you very horribly. Just because you’re a hypochondriac doesn’t mean you’re not suffering from an obscure and terrible disease which is going to kill you very horribly. That’s why, high on the long list of osteopaths, chiropractors, acupuncturists and other alternative practitioners I spend fortunes on every year, is a miracle worker called Fiona Gross. In another age, Fiona would surely have been burned as a witch: the things she does with her array of potions baint natural. Just recently, for example, she cured a woman (a successful author) of a mysterious respiratory illness acquired on holiday in Greece.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Politics: Does Cameron actually oppose AV? He should

Referendums are a very un-British device. Referendums are a very un-British device. They are, as Clement Attlee said, ‘alien to all our traditions’ of parliamentary democracy. Yet in 12 weeks’ time, we are to have the second nationwide plebiscite in our history. Unlike the 1975 vote on whether Britain should stay in the European Economic Community, this one will not exercise the nation. This year’s referendum will be on the alternative vote, a subject that only excites politics lecturers. But the AV vote could have just as profound an effect on our politics as the EEC referendum. If the people chose alternative voting, Britain will be heading for an era of lowest-common-denominator politics. Parties will shy away from bold leaders who divide opinion.

Hugo Rifkind

Why on earth aren’t we more shocked by the scandal of Al Megrahi?

My favourite document in the cache released by the Cabinet Office this week is the one that starts ‘Dear Muammar’ and ends ‘yours sincerely, Gordon Brown’. My favourite document in the cache released by the Cabinet Office this week is the one that starts ‘Dear Muammar’ and ends ‘yours sincerely, Gordon Brown’. Have you seen it? In the first sentence, our former prime minister reminds the Libyan despot that they recently met at a G8 summit. Pretty bleak, that. It is as though Brown felt close enough to the freakout dayglo bampot of the Middle East to address him by his first name, but not so close that he was confident Gaddafi would actually remember who he was.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Politics: In times such as these, a government needs a proper strategic foreign policy

The coalition’s approach to foreign policy is not to have a foreign policy. The coalition’s approach to foreign policy is not to have a foreign policy. There is no Cameron doctrine. As events unfold in Egypt, the government does not even know what it wants to happen. Alistair Burt, the Middle East minister, summed up this position rather brilliantly when he said ‘the tide is turning very strongly. It’s not for us to sit here in London and work out where that tide is going to go.’ History had reached a turning point but the coalition wasn’t sure which way it wanted it to turn. It is strange to think that in 2005 David Cameron ran for the Tory leadership as the neoconservative candidate.

Matthew Parris

The death of the private conversation

‘Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading the newspapers,’ said the American writer Ben Hecht, ‘is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.’ This is as true of commentary as of news, and presents a Fleet Street commentator with a dilemma. ‘Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading the newspapers,’ said the American writer Ben Hecht, ‘is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.’ This is as true of commentary as of news, and presents a Fleet Street commentator with a dilemma. Useful commentary needs perspective. Perspective is gained by standing back. A good way to stand back is to wait until the hullabaloo has died down.

James Delingpole

I thought I was having a Nobel laureate for tea. Instead, the BBC had me for lunch

Last week I was stitched up like a kipper by the BBC. Perhaps you saw the programme — a Horizon documentary called Science Under Attack. Perhaps you were even among the dozens whom it inspired to send me hate emails along the lines of, ‘Ha ha. Think you know more about science than a Nobel prizewinner do you? Idiot!’ Perhaps it’s time I set the record straight. Last week I was stitched up like a kipper by the BBC. Perhaps you saw the programme — a Horizon documentary called Science Under Attack. Perhaps you were even among the dozens whom it inspired to send me hate emails along the lines of, ‘Ha ha. Think you know more about science than a Nobel prizewinner do you? Idiot!’ Perhaps it’s time I set the record straight.

Saturday

James Forsyth

No time for pleasantries. Get ready for Osborne v. Balls

The night Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party, his advisers sent him to bed before midnight and confiscated his mobile phone. The night Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party, his advisers sent him to bed before midnight and confiscated his mobile phone. Half a mile away from where the new leader was sleeping, Ed Balls was holding a wake with his closely knit, leadership campaign team. Here, no one was going to tell him what to do. He was going to sing, sup and speechify for as long as he wanted. In the wee small hours of the morning, Balls kept rallying his troops. His wife Yvette Cooper, her voice shot from the evening’s karaoke, had retreated to the couple’s room at the conference hotel hours earlier. But Balls just carried on.

Hugo Rifkind

People who scream on buses need looking after – but not by me

Where does the Big Society stand on the screamers on the bus? We had one the other day. It was during the rush hour, and I was late to pick up my daughter from the nursery. It was a big lady, heavily upholstered in beige, dragging a trolley almost the same size which was upholstered in tartan. The bus jolted, she almost fell, and we all rushed to help her, like David Cameron surely reckons we’re supposed to. That should have been that. The next time the bus stopped, though, she was off up the aisle, trolley battering through plenty of people older and fatter than her, to shriek at the driver. Leave it, love, said some. It’s busy, he didn’t mean it, no harm done, we all want to get home. But she was a screamer. Poor woman. None of us had realised.

Saturday

Rod Liddle

From the land of the risk assessment, everywhere looks as dangerous as Beirut

There was a stupid woman on the television news the other night, interviewed the day after she and her family had arrived for their holiday in — yes — Tunisia. There was a stupid woman on the television news the other night, interviewed the day after she and her family had arrived for their holiday in — yes — Tunisia. The rioting had been going on for the best part of a week by the time she showed up, but this fact had entirely escaped her notice. She told the reporter that upon arrival she saw some holiday-makers milling in the hotel lobby and approached one to ask cheerfully if they were going on one of the set excursions, perhaps to a local souk. ‘No, you fantastically silly bitch. There are no excursions.

Matthew Parris

The terror of being on Any Questions without any easy answers

I enjoy BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions and feel privileged when I am asked to join Jonathan Dimbleby’s panel. I enjoy BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions and feel privileged when I am asked to join Jonathan Dimbleby’s panel. But like (I suspect) any other panellist when the On Air light goes on, I’m conscious of a temptation to play to the gallery and adjust my opinions and the force with which I express them to maximise either cheers or boos — or at least elicit a strong reaction. The reaction one most fears is the bored or baffled silence that may follow too nuanced or uncertain an answer. This is not a modern tendency, or the peculiar influence of Any Questions. It’s the way an open democracy pushes those who seek public approval.

James Delingpole

Sometimes, freedom requires doing your homework

‘Have you heard about the vast Libertarian conspiracy? We’re going to take over the government — and then leave you alone!’ This is the kind of joke that makes me proud to be libertarian, as a lot of the wisest, funniest and best people are these days, from Kelsey Grammer to Clint Eastwood to Trey Parker from South Park. ‘Have you heard about the vast Libertarian conspiracy? We’re going to take over the government — and then leave you alone!’ This is the kind of joke that makes me proud to be libertarian, as a lot of the wisest, funniest and best people are these days, from Kelsey Grammer to Clint Eastwood to Trey Parker from South Park.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Politics: Westminster just isn’t built for coalitions

The Liberal Democrats’ current problems can be traced back to 28 October 1943. The Liberal Democrats’ current problems can be traced back to 28 October 1943. On that day, the House of Commons decided that the bombed Commons chamber should be rebuilt and its oblong structure preserved. This ensured that the British tradition of confrontational politics — and with it the pull towards a two-party system — would continue into the post-war era. Winston Churchill understood what was at stake in the debate. He knew that ‘we shape our buildings, and our buildings shape us’. As he told the House, the chamber’s shape ‘is a very potent factor in our political life’.

Rod Liddle

Let’s look this pair of gift pandas in the mouth

The Chinese are doing their panda thing again, buying international goodwill by depositing one of these doomed and slightly sinister creatures with any country which might otherwise have an objection to their foreign or domestic policy. Worried about human rights and prisoners of conscience? ‘Ere you go, mate, have a panda and shut your gob. Top-quality panda this is, ten years old, one previous owner, runs on bamboo, very eco-friendly. Shove it in a zoo and watch the kiddies pour in. We do a sideline in panda mugs and panda toys — all manufactured by kiddies, as it happens — and we’ll bung you some of them too for a pony.

Hugo Rifkind

Why I’m terrified of Ed Miliband

I’ve been trying quite hard to come up with some imagery for just how bad Ed Miliband is at being in charge of the Labour party. I’ve been trying quite hard to come up with some imagery for just how bad Ed Miliband is at being in charge of the Labour party. My best suggestion so far is that he’s leading as though he’s falling out of a building, desperately issuing responses and policy announcements before he hits the ground. It’s not perfect, I know. You’d want him to pass backwards through a hedge on the way down, ideally, and he’d also have to fall with petulance, which is quite tricky to visualise. My point being, anyway, it’s not going well.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Politics: From Red Ed to Steady Eddie

Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are locked in a political duel, and only one of them can survive. Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are locked in a political duel, and only one of them can survive. In the new politics, what helps Clegg hurts Miliband and vice versa. This unusual dynamic makes next week’s by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth especially important: it is, in effect, the first electoral clash between the two men. The result will determine which leader spends the first part of the year fending off questions about their future. It is coalition politics that has created this clash between Miliband and Clegg.

Rod Liddle

‘Direct government’ will offer the public a say only on the most boring issues

Last time I looked, my online petition was not generating the support I had expected. You can find it on Facebook and it is entitled ‘Everybody Should Be Sacked or Killed.’ Only 38 people have so far pledged their support for this laudable proposition, which is way short of the number that would enable my bill to be debated in parliament. The problem, I think, is not the substance of the proposal, but my own technological inadequacies. I do not know how to download an image, a feat which is required if I am to advertise my proposition to the millions of people who use Facebook (worth £50 billion apparently) — so the only people who know that the petition is out there are those few who were Facebook friends of mine in March last year, about 150 decent souls in all.

Matthew Parris

A new page in an old friendship

Before we sit an exam, we revise. Before we appear on Any Questions we get ourselves up to speed on the latest news. Before we dine with some grand personage previously unknown to us, we find out about them in Who’s Who. But before we go to stay with a friend we’ve known for more than 20 years, would we expect to read a book on them? A curious assignment; but that has been my task in the first few days of 2011 — and it has proved a moving one. I first met Allegra Huston in about 1988, when she was an editor at the publishers Weidenfeld & Nicolson.