The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 2 July 2015

From our UK edition

How to fix Detroit Sir: When I last flew over my native Detroit five years ago, vast tracts of it still resembled Machu Picchu. From the ground, it was little better; in what had been a prosperous Italian-American neighbourhood when I lived there in 1964, there were only five houses left standing. Stephen Bayley (Arts, 27 June) marvels that ‘You could buy an entire house for $10,000’ — but in truth the taxes needed to support Detroit’s notoriously corrupt governments are so high that you can’t give them away unless they are in one of the few islands colonised by the middle classes. Indeed, the city filed for bankruptcy in 2013, with debts estimated at around $20 billion. I have no problem with gentrification, and I’ve done a fair bit of it myself.

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Barometer | 2 July 2015

From our UK edition

Bank job Should we buy shares in companies which print banknotes in expectation of one getting to print millions of drachma notes? — In May, according to the ECB, there were a total of 17.6bn euro notes in circulation. Given that Greece accounts for approximately 2.5% of the GDP of the eurozone, 441m of these were Greek, and might need replacing with drachma notes in the event the country leaves the euro. — However, there is already a good business in printing replacement euro notes. In May, 2.76bn notes were taken out of circulation and 2.88bn new ones were put into circulation.

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Fracking Lancashire

From our UK edition

That democracy is a superior form of government to any other goes without saying. But in order to function, it has to be conducted in such a way and on such a scale as to ensure that the people or their elected representatives are making decisions based on genuine alternatives. With this week’s decision by Lancashire County Council to reject a second application for fracking on a site near Blackpool, something has gone seriously wrong. An important national issue has been allowed to be settled according to purely local concerns.

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Portrait of the week | 2 July 2015

From our UK edition

Home At least 30 British people were among 38 shot dead at a beach resort at Sousse in Tunisia by Seifeddine Rezgui, aged 23, a Tunisian acting for the Islamic State and said to have been trained in Libya. Soldiers, emergency services and 1,000 police took part in a two-day exercise in London simulating a terrorist attack. A statutory obligation became binding on public bodies, including schools, to prevent people being drawn towards terrorism. Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, said that schools should look out for ‘homophobia’ as a symptom of Islamist jihadism.

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The Spectator at war: Masters of the field

From our UK edition

From ‘Bogy-Mongering’, The Spectator, 3 July 1915: Of late there have been all sorts of dark hints and rumours as to wonderful new German devices by air, land, and water. No doubt such devices will be tried, and no doubt they will give us some anxious moments, just as did the poison-gas. It is not, however, by such sensational devices that battles are won. The shell, the bayonet, and the rifle still remain masters of the field. Once again, the danger for us is not in fancy inventions or in the bogy schemes we have described. It is in want of preparation, want of activity, want of men and munitions. It is to procuring these that we must bend our minds and our energies.

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Secret weapons

From our UK edition

From ‘Bogy-Mongering’, The Spectator, 3 July 1915: Of late there have been all sorts of dark hints and rumours as to wonderful new German devices by air, land, and water. No doubt such devices will be tried, and no doubt they will give us some anxious moments, just as did the poison-gas. It is not, however, by such sensational devices that battles are won. The shell, the bayonet, and the rifle still remain masters of the field. Once again, the danger for us is not in fancy inventions… It is in want of preparation, want of activity, want of men and munitions. It is to procuring these that we must bend our minds and our energies.

Wednesday

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Podcast special: The case for Heathrow expansion

From our UK edition

After three years and £20m, Sir Howard Davies’ Airports Commission has made its recommendation: Heathrow should have a third runway, and Gatwick expansion should not be ruled out either. But that doesn’t mean shovels will soon be tearing up the ground in West London: David Cameron needs to face up to making a decision, and face down both interest groups and parts of the Conservative party. The questions of where and why we need to build airport capacity remain urgent ones. In this special View from 22 podcast, recorded before the announcement, The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson asks how Britain can best maintain its connectivity to the world.

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The Spectator at war: Registering against conscription

From our UK edition

From ‘Arraying the Nation’, The Spectator, 3 July 1915: The voluntary system has no doubt certain advantages, but under a great strain it becomes the refuge of the slacker—of the lazy man, the selfish man, and the cowardly man, It is a system which reserves all the blows for the willing horse, and allows the unwilling to trot along in cynical security. But though this is our view, and we should not be candid if we did not set it forth, there is no reason per se why the advocate of the voluntary system should be against a National Register.

Tuesday

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The Spectator at war: The value of thrift

From our UK edition

From ‘Thrift and the War Loan’, The Spectator, 3 July 1915: There can be little doubt that tens of thousands of people who would never think about the War Loan merely as an investment can readily be persuaded to put their money into it on the ground that it is a patriotic duty so to do. But if every- body is to subscribe, everybody must save money, and part of the object of the campaign which Mr. Asquith and Mr. Bonar Law have inaugurated is the advocacy of thrift. This advocacy must of necessity be directed to all classes in the community. To single out any particular class and urge upon it alone the duty of thrift would be nothing less than an insult. The duty is incumbent upon all citizens, and the only pity is that it was not urged upon the nation at an earlier date.

Monday

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The Spectator at war: The privilege of an Englishman

From our UK edition

From ‘The Privilege of an Englishman’, The Spectator, 3 July 1915: [TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR] Sir,—There is one privilege which an Englishman has which is not shared by any other European nation. That privilege is neither asked for nor desired by other nations in Europe, for they are more democratic than we are. The privilege I refer to is the right which an Englishman has to refuse to defend his country. Some journals and some people seem to think that this right is the most priceless and precious privilege of all. They think the right of the individual rises superior to the need of the State.

Sunday

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The Spectator at war: Night riding

From our UK edition

From 'Dawn on Box Hill', The Spectator, 26 June 1915: AS we rode down the gentle eastern slope of Ranmore Common we noticed that we could see our horses' ears. The statement seems commonplace, but for the last two hours we had mostly taken not only our horses' ears but our horses' heads on trust. In the wooded bridle-ways on the summit of the North Downs it is pitch dark even on the night before the summer solstice. We had had two hours of such bridle' paths, with only an occasional" bald" piece of Down where the stars and the open vault of sky made it poseible to see the man in front and the man behind in the column. We left Ranmore Church a few minutes past 1.30, and by twenty minutes to two there was no mistake as to the coming of the dawn.

Saturday

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The Spectator at war: Self denying ordinance

From our UK edition

From ‘Food and Drink’, The Spectator, 26 June 1915: The Government have been completely beaten by the trade in their attempts at prohibition. But are they justified at the present time in allowing this great waste of food to continue ? Even if in this the trade is strong enough to beat them, as it probably is, the people of the country can do what the Government cannot do to check this abuse. They are unable to face the question of compensation, but if every loyal citizen followed the example of the King and refrained from alcohol during the progress of the war, the compensation question would be answered in a way eminently satisfactory to the nation, however unsatisfactory to the trade. The writer has never been an advocate of prohibition.

Friday

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The Spectator at war: Cold-blooded goodness

From our UK edition

From 'Cold-blooded Goodness', The Spectator, 26 June 1915: A young person of either sex who is wholly without sentimentality has not as a rule much heart. On the other hand, where practicality so overruns the character as to destroy all the finest feelings, it may still leave the capacity for sympathy not uninjured, but certainly undestroyed. No good child ever lived who did not wish for approbation, but certain good people do grow out of it. Indifference to it is a cold, unlovable virtue; but some quite kind and lovable people are indifferent to the opinion even of those they really like. It goes, we think, with an overweening desire for independence, a quality always unsocial and rather inhuman.

Thursday