Charles Moore

While generally resisting denunciations of George W. Bush, I do wonder what he has to contribute to peace in Northern Ireland. This week, the great reconciler asked David Cameron to intervene with the moderate Ulster Unionist Party, with whom the Tories now have an electoral pact, to get them to vote for the devolution of policing and justice powers to Northern Ireland. Mr Cameron rightly replied that although he supports that devolution, he cannot give orders to his allies. They voted against. But why did Mr Bush get involved in the first place? It is really all to do with our general election. The Northern Ireland Secretary, Shaun Woodward, spends rather little time in the province, and a lot in No. 10 Downing Street with Gordon Brown, working out political tactics.

Of all the buzz-phrases which New Labour invented, ‘the many, not the few’ remains the most effective. Of all the buzz-phrases which New Labour invented, ‘the many, not the few’ remains the most effective. Labour may, in fact, have failed the many, but they retain their rhetorical advantage over the Conservatives. Now the government wants to make inequality actually illegal, through its Equality Bill, and the Tories are frightened of being on the wrong side of this argument. Yet surely common experience shows that the many need the few.

One small sign of the approaching election is a renewed courting of the Muslim vote. Unfortunately, this seems to mean sucking up to the Muslim Council of Britain, even though that body’s ability to represent the real range of Muslim opinion is hotly contested (see Stephen Pollard, p20). Last year, the government suspended its dealings with the MCB after Daoud Abdullah, the MCB’s deputy general secretary, signed the Istanbul Declaration, which threatens those who impede the violent work of Hamas against Israel. At the time, our government said that the Istanbul Declaration ‘does call for attacks on foreign warships, potentially including the Royal Navy, and also advocates violence against Jewish people and their supporters around the world’.

At the turn of the year, William Hague, launching the new round of election campaigning, told an interviewer that David Cameron was the sanest party leader whom he had ever met. He has unintentionally put his finger on the only thing that is wrong with Mr Cameron. Most of us regard sanity as an unqualified benefit, and Mr Cameron certainly has that reassuring quality. His character seems rather like the snow in ‘Good King Wenceslas’ — deep and crisp and even. The problem, though, is that politics requires some sort of insanity, especially when there is a crisis, as there is now. The political leader’s belief that he or she (I’ll come to her) can save the nation is a form of madness, but a necessary form.

Like millions of listeners to the Today programme on New Year’s Eve, I rejoiced at P.D. James’s inquisition — the more deadly for its courtesy — of the BBC Director-General, Mark Thompson. Like millions of listeners to the Today programme on New Year’s Eve, I rejoiced at P.D. James’s inquisition — the more deadly for its courtesy — of the BBC Director-General, Mark Thompson. Mr Thompson is not a bad or stupid man, but his very locutions were typical of the modern bureaucrat. Where Lady James respectfully called him ‘Director-General’, he tried to ingratiate himself by calling her ‘Phyllis’.

Polls show a slight weakening in Tory support. This reflects my own anecdotal experience. Factors suggested include Conservative sternness about the state of the public finances and some Labour success in linking David Cameron on class grounds with the greed of bankers. I suspect there is a bit of truth in these explanations, but the refusal of the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is much more important. This is not only because a great many potential Tory voters feel strongly about Europe, and may now incline to Ukip, but also because the refusal goes against one of Mr Cameron’s greatest strengths. As an individual and in policy approach, he has the ability to identify with what economists call the consumer rather than the producer interest.

There is a great caterwauling among Conservatives, as James Forsyth reports on the opposite page, at the idea that Tony Blair might become ‘President of Europe’ if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified. There is a great caterwauling among Conservatives, as James Forsyth reports on the opposite page, at the idea that Tony Blair might become ‘President of Europe’ if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified. It certainly would confirm the suspicion one has that the Blair ‘project’ has all along been to create a political order in which British independence, parliamentary sovereignty and Tory culture are forbidden by law and Mr Blair can rule forever without having to bother with being elected.

When I was asked to write the foreword for the document which launched the Nothing British campaign this week, I hesitated. The campaign draws attention to the BNP’s abuse of military symbols and its attempts to recruit servicemen and their families. It is a good cause, but I am slightly suspicious of the easiness with which middle-class people parade their ‘courage’ in standing up to the BNP — ‘yielding to no one’ in their detestation of its ‘loathsome’ attitudes — when it actually requires no courage at all. If there is an establishment conspiracy to suppress the BNP, that can only feed the myth upon which it thrives. But I eventually agreed to help the campaign because of its specific focus on the armed services.

People are missing what is wrong with Sir Thomas Legg’s inquiry into MPs’ expenses. People are missing what is wrong with Sir Thomas Legg’s inquiry into MPs’ expenses. It is not so much that it is unfairly retrospective: after all, MPs were supposed to decide themselves what was appropriate in the discharge of their parliamentary duties, and so they should not now take refuge in what the Fees Office may have advised them. The problem is rather that, by decreeing a particular level for cleaning, gardening and so on, Sir Thomas is herding sheep and goats together, instead of separating them. People who claimed a bit more than the limit he has now invented may have been unwise, but they are in a different class from the cheats and profiteers.