Letters

A child’s purpose Sir: Rachel Johnson (‘When did you last see your children?’, 14 June) paints a thoroughly depressing picture of modern parenting. I urge anyone contemplating breeding to bear in mind these few simple truths. First, having a child is the biggest responsibility you ever undertake and should be the most rewarding one. Second, the most precious thing you can give your child is time: time doing simple things like baking, gardening, walking in the park, playing cards, doing jigsaws, where conversation flows naturally, provided, of course, you have turned off all the intrusive gadgets reminding you of the other pressures in your life. Third, parents have a huge task to educate their children with a set of moral and cultural values.

42 days Sir: Thank goodness for Matthew d’Ancona’s clarity of mind on 42-day detention (‘Jacqui Smith’s vote of confidence’, 7 June). People who want to be provoked will always find an excuse. If they are subtle, they will manufacture a grievance based on an issue about which their sworn enemies disagree — and then exploit the difference. Critics who claim that increasing pre-charge detention will be a ‘recruiting sergeant’ for terrorism have fallen into this terrorist trap. Such critics acquired their views in the age of Trotskyism, when the Trots were trying to provoke the establishment into violence in the belief that it would speed up the revolution by exposing the ‘mailed fist behind the velvet glove’ of capitalism.

Poppy appeal Sir: Fraser Nelson’s article accurately outlines the urgent need to implement an alternative counter-narcotics policy in Afghanistan (‘The precarious peace in Helmand’, 28 May). Helmand province now cultivates half of Afghanistan’s opium in a country which accounts for 93 per cent of the global illegal opium market. A significant element of the current approach to countering burgeoning opium production levels — forced poppy crop eradication — has proven disastrous. Instead of providing economic stability, heavy-handed policies analogous to the US-sponsored ‘War on Drugs’ approach in Colombia have undermined reconstruction efforts and failed to re-engage with local communities.

Seek the reason why Sir: I greatly enjoyed Peter Jones’s excellent article on Ancient Roman globalisation (‘For real globalisation, look at Ancient Rome’, 24 May). I respectfully disagree with one paragraph, however, in which he describes Greek philosophers as having ‘proceeded from hypotheses, which they never tested’. It is true, of course, that the Greeks were incapable of testing certain things, such as the nature of the elemental constituents of matter. Nevertheless, in what was within their power to observe, they often proceeded, not from hypotheses, but from the empirical study of natures. The pre-eminent example of this approach is the extant work of Aristotle.

Thatcher’s champion Sir: The Spectator may have been Margaret Thatcher’s first press champion as Fraser Nelson notes (‘Labour’s best hope’, 17 May), but its support was not unwavering. At the end of 1974 it was unduly impressed by the efforts of Heath’s allies to brand her a food-hoarder when she sensibly encouraged pensioners to stock up with tinned food at a time of rising inflation. On 7 December 1974 it opined: ‘for the milk-snatcher to become the food-hoarder shows precisely the same political ineptitude as Sir Keith Joseph and it is likely to have the same political consequence’. Her defiance of the Tory critics swiftly silenced the editor’s doubts.

Transports of delight Sir: I would have taken Andrew Neil’s criticism of our transport system (‘Our transport system is a joke’, 10 May) more seriously had it not been so disingenuous. I understand the frustrations faced by rail passengers when events beyond their control conspire to delay or cancel planned journeys, but it is wrong to assume that a bad experience — particularly on a Sunday — is typical of the modern British railways. To make an objective judgment of the railways’ success, it is necessary to leave behind old assumptions that ignore how much the railways have improved. Performance is higher today than for the last seven years. We have one of the youngest train fleets in Europe.

Israel and Palestine Sir: Melanie Phillips (‘Happy 60th birthday, Israel’, 3 May) denies Israel one of its greatest successes over the last 60 years by deliberately ignoring its status as a regional military and economic superpower. The image of Israel as a David to an Arab Goliath is massively outdated. Arab states have long since given up any notion of trying to defeat a US-backed, nuclear-armed Israel, but have offered Israel a full withdrawal for full peace option. Another blind spot is Phillips’s routine denial of Palestinian identity. This is as idiotic as denying an Israeli identity. Even Israel’s leaders have begrudgingly accepted this.

Call that a crisis? Sir: Ian Hay Davison (‘How to rescue a bank’, 19 April) is right that the Northern Rock episode was far from unprecedented. But there is much more to say. The difficulties of a number of relatively minor institutions in the early 1990s, including National Mortgage Bank (to which he refers), were small beer compared with the crisis of the mid-1970s. The classic account was given by Margaret Reid in her 1982 book, The Secondary Banking Crisis, 1973–75. Using banking industry sources, she suggests that the total amount of finance exceptionally provided to support banks in trouble was three billion pounds. In the end all the loans were repaid and all depositors got their money back.

United State of Europe Sir: Your musings (‘England Rides Again’, 19 April) upon the complexity of being English, Scottish or British have, I fear, the relevance of the archangels upon the proverbial pinhead. This is because we are all being ineluctibly subsumed into the coming United State of Europe. This process will accelerate impressively after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, aka the EU Constitution. That is the whole point of the exercise; if you do not believe me, read the text. The rise and rise of the European State must be matched by the decline and decline of its natural and deadly foe, the Nation State; whether that be called Britain, England or Scotland.

Ad libs Sir: Rory Sutherland provides at least one reason why admen shouldn’t be allowed to run the show (‘Mad Men are taking over the world’, 12 April): they believe too strongly that all behaviour boils down to choice and not constraint. They work in contexts where the choices of people are flexible, trivial and differ little in terms of personal cost, such as buying a bag of oven chips. This is not the norm in policy questions. Most people cannot choose the time they go to work or drop their children off at school, so trying to persuade them to drive an hour later is rather naive. Economists are better at recognising that people make choices under constraints, so perhaps there is a role for them yet in policy-making.

Crowded isle Sir: You spell out the complexities of the immigration issue clearly in your leading article of 5 April, but the overriding problem, the nettle that simply has to be grasped, is its effect on the overall size of our island’s population. At more than 60 million it is already uncomfortably large, but a projection of its present growth trend puts it at more than 85 million by 2081! So where on earth is it going to end? Courageous decisions will have to be made by those political leaders whose love of this country is genuine.

A child’s needs Sir: I doubt the suggestion in your leading article (29 March) that clause 14(2)(b) of the government’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is a moral disgrace. The Bill breaks new ground in allowing two people of the same sex to be registered as the sole parents of a baby born through IVF. With female joint parents this raised the question of what was to be done about the provision in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 which requires that a woman shall not be provided with IVF treatment unless account is taken of the welfare of any resulting child. A parenthesis adds ‘(including the need of that child for a father)’.

Not black and white Sir: Marian L. Tupy deserves thanks for his excellent article (‘Mugabe is the Mobutu of our time’, 22 March), despite one seeming inaccuracy and an omission. Tupy says, ‘It was 1980 and Zimbabwe had just gained independence from Britain... the first ever multiracial election gave Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union a majority.’ To the contrary, a universal franchise election in 1978 brought a coalition of Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front and Bishop Muzorewa’s Democrats into office. Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo had been invited to take part but refused.

Key question Sir: Debt, debt everywhere. Britain really is in trouble if — as Fraser Nelson suggests (Politics, 15 March) — the Conservative opposition is shying away from the ‘obvious strategy’ of proposing to freeze public spending or cut taxes. There is a sensible ‘bottom up’ approach for our leaders to take, namely to start budgeting from a base of zero expenditure. Then prioritise and add the spending that really must be made (schools, hospitals, defence and the like), while checking value for money at every step. The key question is, ‘What is essential for Britain?’ rather than, ‘What is in the current budget?’ or ‘What did Gordon promise on the Andrew Marr Show?

Martial virtues Sir: In his article about his film of the Haditha killings (‘The burden of guilt at Haditha’, 8 March), Nick Broomfield subscribes to the tired cliché that, in war, ‘everyone is a victim’. This has been the prevailing assumption of film-makers since at least the 1970s, and I had hoped a Spectator article might take a less lazy view. Mr Broomfield’s article adds a new dimension to these prejudices only by suggesting that participation in the making of a motion picture helps to heal the scars of war. I do not wish to make light of the serious problems faced by veterans of combat, nor question the healing power of the Anglo-American film industry, but it is mischievous of Mr Broomfield to suggest that this is the whole story.

Education revolution Sir: Fraser Nelson (‘Made in Sweden’, 1 March) is right to highlight the importance of Sweden’s independent state schools for the debate on school choice and diversity. The successful Swedish experience strongly influenced New Labour reformers as we sought to introduce independent state-funded schools into England. However, it doesn’t need the Conservatives to ‘bring the Swedish education revolution to Britain’. The revolution has arrived already in the shape of the academies programme, which enables schools to be set up and managed on an independent basis by promoters outside the local authority system.

Rip up Blairism by the roots Sir: Michael Gove (Politics, 23 February) gives a eulogy to Tony Blair, ‘I admired Tony Blair. I knew Tony Blair’. I had hoped that David Cameron’s claim to be ‘the heir to Blair’ was just a silly mistake springing from inexperience. It is more worrying to find that Blair worship is now the doctrine of modern compassionate Conservatism. No wonder 40 per cent of electors are unwilling to vote; nor that, when asked which party could best meet any challenge facing Britain, those saying ‘neither’ regularly exceed those naming either party.

This turbulent priest Sir: Seeing that it was I who wrote the article in The Spectator five and a half years ago advancing the case for choosing Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury the week before he was actually shortlisted for the job, I have something of an obligation to ask myself whether I got it right (‘Just a posh version of Prescott’, 16 February). The answer, I think, is yes. Let’s remember, amid all the kerfuffle, that Jesus himself also prevaricated on the tricky issues of the day, included the excluded and overrode doctrine. How enraging it all was to the righteous, to those fearful for their identity and their own moral fences!

Pause for tort Sir: Reading Sir David Tang’s diary last week, in which he recounts the story of me ‘Googling’ him on a train, made me reflect on how recollections of events can differ between honest witnesses. My own diary for that day read as follows: ‘Am sitting on the train trying to work when a businessman in a tweed jacket arrives with a substantial retinue. This man is clearly important. He sits opposite me and discusses the day’s pheasant shooting with his companions. It sounds extraordinarily productive (unless you are a pheasant). I gather that he has slept in Lord Lambton’s bed (minus Lord Lambton, it becomes clear). His plane has broken down. He lives in Hong Kong.

Nip terror in the bud Sir: Correlli Barnett would have us believe Con Coughlin is suffering from paranoia and describes George Bush’s ‘war on terror’ as stale rhetoric (Letters, 2 February). One wonders what ailment Correlli Barnett suffers from — perhaps ‘paranoiac denial’ is a fair diagnosis. Could he inform us which countries, if any, with sizeable Muslim minorities are free of religious conflict? The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya, Thailand, India, the Middle East, Western Europe, all are in turmoil to a greater or lesser degree. As he says, in Britain there have so far been only ‘occasional acts of terrorism’.