Features

Saturday

Leah McLaren

Brush up your Shakespeare

‘William Shakespeare was the most influential person who ever lived,’ is the audacious opening line of Canadian writer Stephen Marche’s recently published book, How Shakespeare Changed Everything. It’s the sort of bold claim that makes you immediately think of other contenders: Jesus? Muhammed? Newton? Freud? Oprah? And while we’re at it, how exactly should influence be measured? Is it counted in literary references and Google hits — or is it something less tangible, more magical than that? Marche suggests the latter but conveniently skips over the criteria for determining his thesis.

Saturday

Sherard Cowpercoles

Breaking rank

Nearly five years ago, a friend in the diplomatic service was hovering outside the permanent under-secretary’s room in the Foreign Office. Through the open door, he overheard the senior official telling ‘Jock’ not to worry, the FO would be sending a ‘big hitter’ as ambassador to Kabul. They would make sure that the surge of British military forces into Helmand was matched by a diplomatic surge into Kabul. ‘Jock’ was the then chief of the defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, and the ‘big hitter’ was — though I didn’t yet know it — me, sitting in blissful ignorance in Riyadh, starting my final year as ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Ross Clark

Care home syndrome

It is, as David Cameron says, a time to pause, listen and reflect: reflect that for every granny starving and dehydrating on an NHS ward there is quite possibly a patient in a private hospital being pulled screaming into a cold shower. If it wasn’t already obvious that private provision is no panacea for public services, it should be to anyone who watched last week’s Panorama film about Winterbourne View, a care home for people with learning disabilities run by Teesdale-based Castlebeck Care. For £3,500 a week, taxpayers have been funding a regime every bit as horrible as the state-run institutions which private care homes have largely replaced.

Philip Stephens

Nobodies in charge

The EU’s president and foreign minister are both duds. Eurosceptics should rejoice What puzzles me is that my Eurosceptic friends are not dancing in the streets outside the Brussels Berlaymont. Those of us who still think that, for all its undoubted irritations, the European Union is fundamentally a good thing have been weeping into our Gueuze. The sceptics have won. Why aren’t they popping the champagne? A couple of years ago sceptics feared (and Europhiles more ardent than I hoped) that the Lisbon Treaty would prove a slipway to federalism. After all, the Union would get a president and foreign minister. Brussels would throw open its doors in capitals across the world. The redoubtable Bill Cash had denounced the treaty as a constitution in all but name.

Rod Liddle

We don’t need a march to tell us that rape is wrong

Our womenfolk are taking to the streets again in an attempt to convince us that they should be allowed to be called sluts without men thinking they might be ‘sluts’. Our womenfolk are taking to the streets again in an attempt to convince us that they should be allowed to be called sluts without men thinking they might be ‘sluts’. There is a ‘slut walk’ about to take place in London and there have been similar events in India, Canada and the USA. In them, lots of feminists march up and down wearing skimpy and supposedly provocative attire; clothes which I might add, perhaps unchivalrously, do not always suit them.

Con Coughlin

The cruellest spring

Al-Qa’eda has begun to harness the Arab revolts Since the movement was launched by the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor, I have been a sceptic about this Arab Spring and its promise of delivering economic prosperity for all. When it comes to democratic institutions and the rule of law, the Middle East has been locked in a permafrost of repression since most of its states first proclaimed their independence. Which is why no one should be surprised that for all the commitment and sacrifices made by pro-democracy demonstrators in such disparate states such as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, their chances of achieving their goals are fading by the day. Take Yemen, a country that is already riven with half a dozen civil wars.

John Sutherland

Among the ghosts

Does it matter who actually wrote a novel – or a political speech? What’s the most distinguished ghost-written book? John F. Kennedy, while still a postgraduate student, put his name to a book that went on to win the Pulitzer. Decades after his assassination it emerged that it was substantially ghosted. Should not the keepers of the records, as with sportsmen caught out doing their great things on steroids, affix an asterisk to his name? After his death in 2002 the Nobel Prize-winning Spaniard Camilo José Cela was accused of using the services of two (also now dead) ghostwriters. The jury remains out, but another asterisk may be hovering. Two asterisks, perhaps, since Cela is also under suspicion of having been a plagiarist.

Robert Gray

Orwell vs God

No one will be amazed that George Orwell disliked Roman Catholicism; it is odd, though, that he seemed unable to leave the subject alone. Even his left-wing cronies found this obsession tedious. The Marxist journalist Jon Kimche, who shared a flat with him in the mid-1930s, complained that his conversation amounted to little more than a series of diatribes against Rome. In print, Orwell might show some forbearance towards socially concerned Catholics such as Jacques Maritain and Georges Bernanos, or towards an apologist such as Frank Sheed, whom he considered exceptionally fair-minded. Even this tolerance, however, was in notably short supply. Clearly, by all the canons of amateur psychology, the fellow did protest too much.

Saturday

Andrew Gilligan

Lost in Libya

Tripoli ‘We have some civilian martyrs for you,’ said the Libyan government minder, with the triumphant look of a Soviet housewife who has just found a bottle of Scotch in the state-controlled supermarket. He pulled aside a blanket to reveal a charred, twisted corpse, blackened arms fixed stiffly upwards, skin seared away to reveal the tendons. It was the kind of thing that stays in the memory — but mainly because that body, and another one next to it, were the first two that any western reporter in Tripoli had seen in weeks.

Sinclair McKay

Junk Bonds

Writing a James Bond novel? What could possibly be simpler? Surely all one needs is an arch, semi-meaningless title — something like ‘Never Kiss Death Goodbye’ — then a villain with a camply sinister name, a heroine with an even camper double-entendre for a name, a seasoning of sadism and you are away. But it’s not that easy at all. If it is, then why have the writers who picked up Ian Fleming’s mantle got it so wrong? Even the class acts who have come closest to nailing the authentic 007 style — Kingsley Amis, John Pearson and Sebastian Faulks — have missed something small but crucial, as I shall explain. It’s an odd thing, 007’s literary afterlife. No one would dream of taking P.G.

Rod Liddle

Fifa is exactly the governing body that the sport of football deserves

It is a matter of great comfort to me, as a football fan, that all the allegations made against the various Fifa delegates have been shown to be utter fabrications. I had been a little worried. We know now, though, that they are utter fabrications because the boss of Fifa, Sepp Blatter, a man of unimpeachable honesty and integrity, has said they are — and that’s good enough for me. It had been alleged that one Fifa delegate, the Paraguyan-born Nicolas Leoz, had demanded a knighthood in return for supporting England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup. But Fifa instigated a rigorous investigation which seems to have consisted of asking Leoz if these allegations were true or not, and the allegations have been proved to be unfounded.

Brendan O’Neill

The men who killed New York

If you had to think of one city on earth where the rulers should not try to impose a standard of ‘good behaviour’, it would surely be New York. Who in their right mind would seek to sanitise this concrete jungle, to sedate the city that never sleeps, to demand conformism and obedience from the inhabitants of a place which, in the words of a popular tourist T-shirt, is known as ‘New York F**kin’ City’? You’d be surprised. New York is currently governed by a gaggle of health-obsessed bigwigs who believe they have a duty to grab New Yorkers by the scruffs of their outsized necks and drag them towards lives of bicycle-riding, non-smoking, booze-avoiding, fruit-snacking conformity.

Mark Mason

A touch of clarse

There aren’t many things on which John Humphrys is undecided, but one of them shows itself nearly every time he presents the Today programme. It’s a trait shared by many broadcasters, and indeed people from all walks of life, and constitutes one of the great social barometers of our time. It’s the inability to decide whether your ‘a’s should be long or short. If your upbringing conditions you to pronounce ‘grass’ to rhyme with ‘ass’ rather than ‘arse’ — if, in short, you’re a non-posh non-Southerner — there is a temptation, on moving to London, to lengthen your ‘a’s in order to fit in.

Charlotte Eagar

Meeting Mladic

I once became obsessed with a huge boil on the back of General Mladic’s neck. We were in Pale — the Bosnian Serb ski-resort turned capital — at a meeting of their parliament, in the summer of ’94. I was there as the Balkans correspondent of the Observer and had, by that time, met Ratko Mladic several times. He was holding court, surrounded by henchmen, at the centre of the awestruck MPs; a menacing, enormous man with bulging arms and shoulders, like an inflatable killing doll. But it was the Butcher of Bosnia’s enormous boil that struck me. It must have caused him immense pain. Knowing what he had done, and what he went on to do, I’m glad about that.

Paul Johnson

The power of a pocket

In 1951, Winston Churchill, then leader of the opposition and aged 77, scored a humiliating Commons victory over the new chancellor of the exchequer, Hugh Gaitskell. Not for nothing did Aneurin Bevan call Gaitskell ‘a desiccated calculating machine’. His dry Wykehamist tone made his financial statements seem interminable, and this one soon had the House restless. Churchill made a diversion. He began to search his pockets. First the two side-pockets of his trousers. Then the two at the back. The top jacket pocket followed. The House gradually lost interest in Gaitskell and followed Churchill’s investigations as he moved to the inner and the side-pockets of his coat and then his six waistcoat pockets.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Is Cameron headed for a fall?

David Cameron exudes a worrying confidence these days. He strolls through the corridors of the Palace of Westminster with the air of a man already thinking of victory at the next election. His head is tilted slightly skywards, as if already enjoying the sunlit uplands of victory in 2015. But this confidence is misguided, even dangerous, as some of those closest to him are well aware. They, by contrast, do not look relaxed at all. They look anxious, pained, bundles of nervous energy. Their fear is that the Prime Minister is on the brink of making mistakes that could endanger his premiership: that he is about to sabotage his own reform agenda. The story of Cameron’s leadership to date has been one of laidback calm interrupted by periods of productive anxiety.

Angela Huth

How does it feel?

A couple of years ago I was walking across a ploughed field when I was struck by such a searing pain in my left foot that I fell to the ground, moaning in harmony with the rooks above me. After half an hour of massaging my toes I was able to hobble the half-mile home. As this seemed to be no ordinary pain, I went to the doctor, who had no exact explanation, but referred me to the hospital. ‘A damaged nerve,’ they said. ‘Needs to be scanned.’ But three appointments were cancelled, and the foot attacks came frequently, so with reluctance I went privately to an orthopaedic consultant in Oxford. He immediately diagnosed a neuroma — a benign tumour on a nerve between two bones. I looked at the enlarged nerve on his ultrasound machine, some 6mm instead of 3mm.

Helen Wood

Diary of a call girl

It emerged today that Helen Wood is going to set to appear on the next series of Big Brother, which begins this evening. Here’s her Spectator Diary from 2011, in which she explains how the daughter of a university lecturer ended up as a call girl.  A few years ago I was offered £450,000 to tell the world that Wayne Rooney had paid to sleep with me, but I didn’t take it. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. Whatever impression Rooney and his sort give, escort girls are usually very discreet. A good reputation is invaluable. In my case, I knew that both my work and my home life would suffer if I kissed and told. My family and friends didn’t know I what I did (although some had suspicions) and if word got out, I would forever be thought of as a prostitute.

Rod Liddle

Is there anything more sickening than the red-top press swathed in moral indignation?

At last we crusaders for truth can reveal exactly what happened when a famous footballer who is married met the former Big Brother contestant, Imogen Thomas. I suppose you could guess what happened, but it’s better to know for sure, isn’t it? Don’t worry, we’ll use phrases like ‘asked her to perform a sex act’ rather than crudely spelling it out, so there’ll be nothing to disquiet the kiddies.

Christina Lamb

Trapped in the palace

When Barack Obama and David Cameron met in London this week, one problem would have been foremost in their minds. It’s more than six weeks since they penned their joint article with Nicolas Sarkozy demanding that ‘Gaddafi must go’. It’s more than two months since they started airstrikes in Libya. Yet Gaddafi is stubbornly refusing to be toppled. He is not alone. In Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh has reneged on two deals to step down and, at the last minute, refused to sign a third — despite an American promise of immunity. In Syria, Bashar Assad seems determined to stay on through sheer bloody force, unmoved by US and EU sanctions. In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe has announced that he will run for president again this year at the age of 87.