Letters

Hastings’s battle Sir: Max Hastings, one of the shrewdest and well-informed writers about defence, is right (‘The military’s last stand’, 16 January). There is a good case for increasing the defence budget, but no British government is likely to do so unless there is a dramatic deterioration in the international situation. Budgets are likely to be cut, but our defence forces can and should continue to be important for our country’s security, reputation and influence. The forces are crying out for a Strategic Defence Review and the longer one is delayed the more will be the uncertainty and wasted defence money.

Gangster paradise Sir: Owen Matthews’s article (‘Something rotten in the state of Russia’, 9 January) brilliantly encapsulates and explains the condition of Russia today. But he omits to mention that the subversion of the judicial system and pervasive corruption have been in evidence for a long time, which does raise the question of whether Hermitage capital should have been in this European country at all. The murder of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 and the refusal of the Russians to extradite the chief suspect constituted — unless you are wilfully blind — a good reason to suspect that Russia is run by crooks.

Freedom fights fanaticism Sir: John Deverell (Letters, 19 December) is right to draw attention to the precarious position of Christians in the Middle East: though the implication seems to be that if we keep quiet about the Islamification of Europe, the Islamists penetrate further into Europe; while if we speak out, the Islamists tighten their grip on the Middle East. The deeper issue is the lack of religious freedom in the Muslim world. Christians, Zoroastrians, animists and Hindus are forced either to emigrate or to endure humiliating persecution. The apostasy law imprisons Muslims in Islam as surely as any Berlin Wall; while the laws against the defamation of Islam prevent Muslims from hearing any rational criticism of their religion.

In the wrong hands Sir: It simply will not do for Ed Balls to dismiss the loathsome pamphlet written by Farah Ahmed, head teacher of the Hizb ut Tahrir-linked school he supports and funds, on the grounds that it is ‘not evidence of extremist views actually being taught in the classroom’ (Letters, 12 December). In fact, what should ‘actually be taught in the classroom’ was precisely the subject Mrs Ahmed was writing about. And the school’s curriculum, which I also mentioned in my article, displays striking parallels between what Hizb teaches its recruits and Mrs Ahmed teaches her pupils.

Selective quoting Sir: In her diary (5 December) Melanie Phillips accused me of bigotry, quoting from a newspaper article about the Iraq inquiry in which I had pointed out that two of the five members of the panel, Sir Martin Gilbert and Sir Lawrence Freedman, are Jewish and that Gilbert at least has a record of active support for Zionism. She did not mention that I went on to comment that these two men had outstanding reputations and records, but it was a pity that, if and when the inquiry was accused of a whitewash (and indeed it already has been) such handy ammunition would be available. Membership, I wrote, should not only be balanced; it should be seen to be balanced.

Balls to Gilligan Sir: As Andrew Gilligan well knows, I abhor the anti-semitic and anti-democratic views ascribed to Hizb ut Tahrir and I take any accusations of extremist views being taught in schools very seriously (‘Minister for Hizb ut Tahrir’, 5 December). That is why when allegations about links between Hizb ut Tahrir and the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation were first raised in 2007, I asked Ofsted to investigate both the independent schools run by the foundation. No evidence of anti-semitic or anti-Western values being taught was found — either then or in subsequent investigations. The pamphlet which Mr Gilligan quoted from was written by one of the head teachers six years ago.

Shooting, moi? Sir: We act for Cherie Blair. We are instructed with regard to an article... The Spectator’s Notes by Charles Moore (28 November). It alleged that our client attended a shooting party at Lord Rothschild’s house in Buckinghamshire with ‘Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the Libyan dictator, and the man who escorted the Lockerbie bomber, Al Megrahi, home to a hero’s welcome in Libya in August.

Not so special Sir: The only ‘disrespect’ Obama can really be accused of is a degree of indifference to the British delusion of a ‘special relationship’ with the USA (‘A special form of disrespect’, 21 November). One would have thought that after the con-trick of Lend-lease, the wholesale vacuuming-up of British nuclear and aviation technology, Roosevelt’s barely concealed desire to see the British empire dismantled and the Suez fiasco, scales might have dropped from post-Churchillian Britain’s eyes. Despite General McChrystal referring to two British Generals as ‘Jacko’ and ‘Lamby’, there is not and never has been a special relationship unless it suited Washington.

Eliot’s anti-Semitism Sir: I yield to none in my love of T.S. Eliot’s work, and have even managed to defend to myself the iffy passages about Jews in his poetry. But the letters that Craig Raine quotes in his review (Books, 14 November) are so blatantly, even honestly, anti-Semitic that they leave no room for doubt; except, it seems, at Faber & Faber. Mr Raine’s attempts to argue the anti-Semitism away present a hilarious and painful spectacle. For example, Eliot writes that Jews are inclined to Bolshevism — a classic Nazi belief. Mr Raine asserts, desperately, that this is a tribute to Jewish iconoclasm. It isn’t; it’s racism. The question is, why does Mr Raine go through such contortions to protect his hero when the evidence is so plain?

Good relations Sir: Timothy Garton Ash writes (‘I was the man from Spekta’, 7 November) that Britain had a good name in central Europe. Perhaps the British Council played some small part in that. Uniquely in communist countries, the Council in Poland worked independently of the embassy, and with the encouragement of many Polish academics and others and — for all the compromises that had to be made — helped to keep alight the flame of independent cultural relations which are intolerable to totalitarian government. Poles were also grateful to Margaret Thatcher for creating the Know-How Fund. The Council was well placed to help quick and widespread progress to be made with that.

Self-destructive policies Sir: Congratulations to Melanie Phillips (‘The clash of uncivilisations’, 24 October) for exposing the hypocrisy and appeasement at the heart of the out-of-touch, politically correct liberal establishment, particularly among the media and mainstream politicians. New Labour’s self-destructive policies of open borders and multiculturalism are an explosive cocktail, which seem designed to undermine British culture, and have driven frustrated voters into the arms of parties such as Ukip and the odious BNP. Having recently retired from 20 years working in the Middle East, I can verify that the liberal Muslim governments are much more vigorous in pursuing Islamic extremists and are baffled by our weakness.

Squeezing out democracy Sir: Melanie Phillips did a first-rate job in pinning down the Islamofascist ‘elephant in the room’ (‘The clash of uncivilisations’, 24 October). There was, however, one area not touched on: how the Islamists and the BNP are really two sides of the same coin. I live six miles from the BNP heartland of Burnley and stood as a Labour council candidate in a nearby borough last year. Trudging through council estates, I made it my business to ignore instructions from the party to knock only on the doors of former Labour voters.

Race is still an issue Sir: I do not share Samir Shah’s flawed assumption that Britain is no longer a racist society (10 October). How many people of ethnic minorities are members of the current cabinet? How many vice-chancellors are non-whites? Would it be possible, in the current climate of religious prejudice, racial discrimination and Islamophobia, for a person of any ethnic minority group to become prime minister? Are ethnic minorities fairly represented in the house of lords and house of commons? Yes, Britain is more racially tolerant than it was ten years ago, but it still has a long way to go before it can break down social, cultural and racial barriers, and be unshackled from its centuries-old white supremacy and slavery mindset.

No Sants-culotte Sir: I was disheartened but, in these days of sloppy journalism, hardly surprised to read Charles Moore’s snide remarks (The Spectator’s Notes, 10 October) about Hector Sants’s apparently palatial house in Oxford. I have no particular opinion as to whether, as chief executive of the Financial Services Authority, Mr Sants should be paid more, the same or less than the Prime Minister. What I do know is that prior to joining the FSA, Sants had spent many years as a very senior, successful and presumably handsomely rewarded executive at Credit Suisse. Before that he held a similar position at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette, which was acquired by Credit Suisse on very generous terms in 2000, and he would also have benefited from this.

Invest in the state Sir: David Cameron will never be a revolutionary if he follows your advice and concentrates only on government spending (‘Is Cameron a revolutionary?’, 3 October). He needs to completely rethink taxation, too. You say that taxes must rise. But putting up taxes now, as conventional wisdom suggests, will increase the government deficit, not reduce it. Cameron should make massive cuts in taxes on personal incomes, savings and capital. Suppose he reduces taxes and at the same time allows individuals wishing to set up new schools to issue ‘education convertible bonds’ underwritten for the first ten years by the government? As long as these are made attractive to savers, individuals will have a reason to buy them.

The task ahead Sir: Am I alone in finding the Tories’ pre-election triumphalism nauseating (Finkelstein et al, 26 September)? When I last walked past my local constituency association, the grubby frontage still had the old logo. Tony Blair at least built a modern political party. David Cameron hasn’t even begun to build a dynamic political organisation. If I were still a Tory, my feeling would not be swaggering confidence but intense trepidation at the scale of the task ahead. Brian Jenner Bournemouth Sir: David Selborne tells us that in 1997 Labour ‘gained office but lost its sense of direction’ (‘How can Labour save itself?’, 26 September). The Tories should learn from their example.

Money down the Tube Sir: Andrew Gilligan’s assessment (‘Chucking millions down the Tube’, 19 September) that for much of the public sector ‘the spending of money has become an end in itself’ is a timely one. Increased investment in public services is both the No. 1 thing Gordon Brown believes he can offer the country and the No. 1 thing he claims to have achieved. As Sir Humphrey put it in Yes, Minister, the Treasury does not work out what it needs and then think how to raise the money. It pitches for as much as it can get away with and then thinks how to spend it. Politicians selling themselves in elections need a way to quantify unquantifiable things, like how good our schools are, or how well our hospitals work, and billion-pound figures sound impressive.

Clever culling Sir: As the chairman from 1995 to 2000 of the government’s biggest and most worthwhile quango, the Environment Agency for England and Wales, I would like to make two comments on Dennis Sewell’s article (‘Cameron must cull the quangos’, 5 September). Sewell seems to think that the Nolan Principles introduced by John Major’s Conservatives have banished cronyism in public appointments. I am afraid that exactly the opposite is the case. The shortlist review which is passed to the minister is so general that it positively invites the use of patronage and personal preference. When I and my independent colleagues tried to order our shortlist from one to three, we were told that wasn’t necessary.

Don’t bank on Osborne Sir: Reinforcing your article on City doubts about Osborne’s economic credentials (Politics, 5 September), a City contact of mine, technically expert in a matter of finance and taxation of central interest to any Chancellor, had a meeting with Osborne a few months back. He found Osborne not only badly briefed and largely ignorant, but disengaged and uninterested in the subject. Neither was he the first, I believe, to have found Osborne arrogant and barely civil. Apart from a very evident need to bone up on economic and City matters, someone in CCHQ clearly needs to make him a present of Dale Carnegie’s famous little book.

For evil to triumph Sir: As screenwriter of the recent film Good, I was interested by the references to it in Kate Williams’s thought-provoking piece (‘We are forgetting great evils’, 22 August). For my part I think the recent spate of films about Nazi Germany has less to do with an ‘obsession with Hitler’ or a desire to ‘excuse those who committed the atrocities’, as Williams would have it, and more to do with events in America during the first decade of this century.