Features

Saturday

Toby Young

Bergman, Antonioni and the end of an error

Sixteen years ago I got together with a group of like-minded friends and started a magazine called The Modern Review. Its premise was that popular culture is as worthy of serious critical attention as high culture and, to that end, we commissioned intellectuals and academics to write about the likes of Madonna and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Believe it or not, this was a fairly radical idea back in 1991 — though not a wholly original one — and the magazine caused quite a stir. The previous generation of writers and critics attacked us on an almost weekly basis. Like many people who questioned the status quo in their youth, I now find myself in the uncomfortable position of being in the majority.

Ross Clark

The West is running a protectionist racket against the developing world

The West’s new greenness conceals a giant protectionist racket On 27 September, President George W. Bush will finally come in from the cold over global warming. On that day he will host a conference in Washington to be attended by what he has defined as the world’s 15 most polluting nations. He intends, for the first time, to commit the United States to slashing its carbon emissions. That, anyway, is the positive spin. Alternatively, one might put Bush’s multilateralist initiative like this: he is fed up with being depicted as the bad boy of climate change.

Harry Mount

The irony and the ecstasy of Lady Mary Clive

Deep in a remote valley on the edge of the Black Mountains sits one of the last great witnesses of the 20th century. Lady Mary Clive, who turns 100 on 23 August, shook Kitchener’s hand before the first world war, and heard first-hand accounts of the 1916 Dublin Easter Uprising hours after it happened. During the 1926 General Strike she served tea to lorry drivers in the same year that she was presented to George V as a debutante. In the 1930s she was a denizen of Fleet Street, one of Lord Beaverbrook’s favourite journalists. Memoirs and biographies streamed from her pen throughout the century. Last December her children’s book, Christmas with the Savages, was Radio 4’s Book of the Week.

Saturday

Matthew Dancona

On the road with Gordon in the search for hearts and minds

It was a gamble, more than Gordon Brown’s aides had cared to admit. It was a gamble, more than Gordon Brown’s aides had cared to admit. Every last detail of the new Prime Minister’s press conference at Camp David had been planned, from the tone of the Prime Minister’s voice to the colour of his tie. The President’s team had taken issue with a few passages of Mr Brown’s text, and amendments were made. But it was not the content of the text that mattered. It was — well — the whole damn thing.

Melanie Phillips

A major defeat in the war to defend the free world

Shortly after the release of Alan Johnston from Gaza the website of Conflicts Forum, a group advocating engagement with Islamists and which is run by the former MI6 officer Alastair Crooke, posted a fascinating transcript. Under the title ‘Hamas briefing’, it was a conversation between Michael Ancram, the former Tory Northern Ireland minister, and Osama Hamdan, a senior representative of Hamas, which took place secretly in Beirut in June while Johnston was still in captivity. Hamdan suggested Fatah was behind the kidnap — in particular, Fatah’s security minister Mohammed Dahlan — and said it had three times thwarted Hamas attempts to rescue Johnston.

Stephen Pollard

Why Europe may soon split along religious lines

Stephen Pollard says that if embryonic stem cell research is banned in some parts of Europe — as it might be under the new EU treaty — old hostilities will resurface I wouldn’t care to estimate how many words have been written so far on the draft EU reform treaty. If and when it becomes a legal document, the English language will have been near exhausted for new terms to express the fundamental theme of almost every comment — that it is the old constitution in another guise. But for all the words and all the assertions, almost everyone has ignored one of the most important elements of the treaty — unsurprisingly, given that it’s buried in a footnote.

Amelia Torode

Wired, retired and so hip it hurts

Oldies have taken to the digital age, says Amelia Torode, and so have their grandchildren. It’s the middle-aged professionals who fear and resent it Almost 200 years ago a grassroots movement began in Nottinghamshire close to Sherwood Forest — the Luddite movement. The Luddites wreaked havoc for a short but intense period of time in a vain attempt to hold back the tides of technological change. I’ve been thinking a lot about their 21st-century equivalents — the new Digital Luddites. It’s easy to assume that the older a person grows, the more reactionary they become; however, something interesting is taking place in digital space which is discounting that theory.

Rod Liddle

I don’t mean to sneer, but which is more important: equality or inclusion?

Like a good many of you, I imagine, I was worried that hosting the 2012 Olympic Games in London might send out the wrong sort of message, especially to our young people. The games have traditionally been an appallingly elitist and singularly competitive tournament of a somewhat exclusive nature. Certain people, unfairly selected on the shallow basis of their physical prowess, run, jump and throw things and the people who do best are rewarded while those who do poorly are labelled failures.

Saturday

Rod Liddle

The floods that really matter are composed of migrant labour

England’s habitually well-mannered and inoffensive chalk streams have been uncharacteristically full of themselves this last week or so — as you may have gathered from your television evening news programmes or, if you’re unlucky, your kitchen. PangbourneEngland’s habitually well-mannered and inoffensive chalk streams have been uncharacteristically full of themselves this last week or so — as you may have gathered from your television evening news programmes or, if you’re unlucky, your kitchen.The Pang in West Berkshire, for example, rarely bothers anybody. Scarcely 15 miles in length, its job is simply to adorn the Thames in agreeable manner, as if purchased from a sort of riparian Accessorize. Not this week, though.

Graham Lord

Is it, like, such a tough ask to speak proper English?

We all know that correct English is no longer taught in most of our schools, but now at last the government seems to agree.A few weeks ago it announced the introduction of new A-level grades to make it more difficult to achieve the highest ranking. From next year pupils will have to gain 80 per cent to be awarded an A-grade A-level and 90 per cent if they are to earn an A* — and they will not be allowed to sit the exam again to achieve a higher mark.A damning research programme has just found that there are fewer school-leavers in work or training now than there were when Tony Blair entered Downing Street ten years ago.

Tom Gallagher

The SNP is playing a deadly game with Islam

A civic reception will take place next month for the Glasgow airport workers and travellers whose courage on Saturday 30 June when bombers struck the terminal building may well have prevented horrific slaughter.John Smeaton, a 31-year-old baggage handler, became the emblematic figure for a day when God smiled on Glasgow. His comment that he was only doing his civic duty was indeed a boost for the battered concept of citizenship. He was affirming that, as well as rights, we also have duties that sometimes we are called upon to exercise in order to protect freedom and the rule of law. Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond will preside at the ceremony honouring Smeaton and the other heroes.

Harry Mount

‘Turkish students smell less than British ones’

It’s four in the afternoon in the Garrick Club and Norman Stone is steaming with rage. The steam is not alcohol-fuelled. Professor Stone — historically no flincher from the glass — is on the wagon at the moment but is feeling no undue withdrawal pangs. He is, though, longing for a cigarette, and his beloved Garrick has just outlawed smoking, in line with the new legislation. It’s four in the afternoon in the Garrick Club and Norman Stone is steaming with rage. The steam is not alcohol-fuelled. Professor Stone — historically no flincher from the glass — is on the wagon at the moment but is feeling no undue withdrawal pangs. He is, though, longing for a cigarette, and his beloved Garrick has just outlawed smoking, in line with the new legislation.

Clemency Burtonhill

I am proud to have been on Dave’s Rwanda trip

He was damned because he did, but he would have been equally damned if he hadn’t. David Cameron’s decision to come to Rwanda this week — which honours commitments he had made both to the country and members of his own party who are out here working on a two-week volunteering scheme called Project Umubano — appeared controversial because it was taken in the wake of terrible flooding in Britain and two thumping by-election defeats. Kigali He was damned because he did, but he would have been equally damned if he hadn’t.

Fraser Nelson

If not Dave, then who? The parlour game that might get serious

It is horrible to imagine. It would be a tragedy, for party and country. Even contemplating it seems lurid and, given recent events, deeply mischievous. It is certainly not something for loyal Tories to discuss in public. But, in their darker moments, few Conservative politicians will have not asked themselves the question in the past turbulent week: if David Cameron were to be run over by a bus tomorrow, who would lead the Conservative party?At Westminster, it is amazing how quickly today’s parlour game can become tomorrow’s leadership battle. For those who prepare properly (as the Blairites did in 1994) the rewards can be immense. In Mr Cameron’s case, what is striking is the fact that there is leadership speculation at all.

Saturday

Stanley Johnson

Some advice for Boris from a proud father

Stanley Johnson says that his son is no buffoon, that his ability to make people laugh doesn’t mean he’s a lightweight, and that he should not get bogged down in ‘consultation’ Boris was born in New York on 19 June 1964. I missed the birth since I had slipped outside for a moment to buy a pizza. When I first saw him he was bundled up in the hospital nursery with only the soles of his feet showing. These were completely black. This puzzled me. Had his mother, I wondered, somehow managed to give birth to the wrong baby? I later discovered that in New York, for reasons of security, newborn babies’ feet are dipped in black ink and an imprint taken for the record.

Toby Young

Boris defines the ‘new Conservatism’ by being a real human being

Toby Young, our campaign correspondent, says that the candidate’s prospects in the London mayoral election hinge on his appeal as a great communicator, and on the hysteria of the Left, which completely misunderstands him ‘Boris is going to be standing here,’ announced a member of his campaign staff, pointing at a red handbag that she had just placed on the ground in front of City Hall. This was on Monday, the day Boris formally announced he’d be running for Mayor, and the assembled hacks looked on in bemusement. Who was this woman? And what planet was she on? Didn’t she realise that the moment the Blond Bombshell appeared he’d be surrounded by a screaming mob of journalists, all clamouring for his attention?

James Forsyth

Brown’s stand on Russia is a welcome correction

When a British citizen is killed on British soil and a foreign government refuses to hand over the suspected killer for trial, then the British government must act. It was imperative that David Miliband demonstrated to the Russian government that their failure to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the suspected killer of Alexander Litvinenko, would have consequences. If Miliband had confined himself to the usual diplomatic mutterings, as his critics think he should, he would have been effectively declaring open season on British citizens; inviting KGB alumni to knock off any turbulent priests who’ve settled in London. Litvinenko’s murder late last year was designed to send the message that critics of the Russian security state were not safe anywhere.

Sarah Churchwell

Sex and the City has nothing on screwball comedy

You can learn a great deal about a culture from its fantasies. If Sex and the City is anything to go by, ours are pretty impoverished. The first film version of the HBO series is going into production and will be released next year, guaranteed to offer its trademark view that femininity today is defined by shoes, shopping and sex. I like all three as much as the next girl — unless the next girl is a character on Sex and the City — but my fantasies are rather more ambitious. They were formed years ago by a passionate devotion to the peerless romantic comedies of the 1930s, known as screwballs.

Saturday

Stephen Pollard

Campbell holds a mirror up to shallow Britain

Stephen Pollard, who as David Blunkett’s biographer longed to see Alastair Campbell’s journal, says it tells us as much about the nation as it does about New Labour Alastair Campbell may be no Chips Channon or Alan Clark, but his diaries are at least readable. Very readable. And that is not something one can take for granted with New Labour diarists. The last set, from David Blunkett, managed to turn one of the most melodramatic political stories of all time into a turgid cure for insomnia. The Campbell diaries’ importance lies not in any great revelations but as the final part of a New Labour Trilogy. More than just telling us about modern politics, however, they act as a guide to modern Britain. Two previous books have been essential reading about The Project.

Drew Westen

If you want power, be emotional, not rational

Drew Westen’s book on the political brain is the talk of Washington. Here, he explains why the path to electoral victory is not governed by reason In the last 40 years, only one Democrat has been elected and re-elected to the American presidency: Bill Clinton. And during the same period, only one Republican has failed to win re-election: George H.W. Bush. These are astounding facts, given that during those same years, whenever registered Democrats and Republicans were not in roughly equal numbers in the United States, Democrats were in the majority, as they are today. Democratic voters are confused and frustrated. What’s the matter with Kansas, they ask?