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Letters | 28 February 2013
Healing the world Sir: We most warmly commend the courage of Professor Meirion Thomas (‘The next NHS scandal’, 23 February) in lifting the lid on the appalling abuse of the NHS by foreign visitors. It has been going on for years but has been covered up by the culture of fear that has pervaded that organisation. We stand ready to support the professor in parliament if that should prove necessary. Regrettably, the present position is even worse than he described. The relevant quango (the Primary Care Commissioning group) issued instructions last July that GPs must accept an application for registration from any foreign visitor who is here for more than 24 hours as well as from all illegal immigrants.
Portrait of the week | 28 February 2013
Home Moody’s reduced Britain’s credit rating from AAA to AA1. George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: ‘Far from weakening our resolve to deliver our economic recovery plan, this decision redoubles it.’ Sir Mervyn King, the governor of the bank of England, was outvoted on its Monetary Policy Committee when he proposed more quantitative easing in February. Paul Tucker, the deputy governor, said that negative interest rates should be considered. Irfan Naseer, 31, Irfan Khalid, 27, and Ashik Ali, 27, from Birmingham, were found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court of plotting to recruit a team of six or eight suicide bombers to carry out a spectacular bombing campaign.
Little Britain
The foreign news pages read increasingly like some terrible satire on western military decline. Two years ago French and British forces, with the help of the US Navy, managed to help Libyan rebels topple Colonel Gaddafi. This year, the French needed British support to go to war against some tribesmen in Mali. It was a successful operation, but the ‘Timbuktu Freed’ headline rather summed up the extent of European military power today. The French have only two drone aircraft (the Americans have hundreds) and had to drop concrete bombs on Tripoli when they ran low on real ones. As the foreign policy rhetoric of our media and political leadership grows, the contrast with the resources grows starker.
Barometer | 28 February 2013
Political joke The Five Star Movement, led by comedian Beppe Grillo, won 26% of the vote in the Italian general election. Comedian John O’Farrell competed as Labour’s candidate in the Eastleigh by-election. Some other comedians who have won office: — Jon Gnarr won Reykjavik’s mayoral election in 2010 with 35% of the vote, on a platform of free towels in swimming pools and putting polar bears in the city’s museum (instead of shooting them). He had previously played a Swedish Marxist in a TV comedy show. — Al Franken was elected to the US Senate for Minnesota in 2009, after a recount. He had previously been a writer for Saturday Night Live and a stand-up comedian.
Books and Arts – 28 February 2013
Dealing with ‘inappropriate behaviour’
How should you deal with lechery? In this week's Spectator, Rod Liddle and Hugo Rifkind detail two instances of 'inappropriate behaviour' they either watched or, in Hugo's case, personally encountered. Rod describes the vocal response of one BBC production assistant to the appearance of a 'well-lubricated' reporter's hand on her inner thigh.
Wednesday
Exclusive: Clegg ignored a sexual harassment complaint about a SECOND Lib Dem
In this week's Spectator, Julie Bindel explores the culture of 'inappropriate behaviour' in Parliament. Her piece, "Carry on Westminster", makes a number of revelations about the way parliamentarians behave towards women in the Westminster village, including the following: Nick Clegg was given a written complaint in March 2011 about Mike Hancock, Lib Dem MP for Portsmouth South. A constituent who told him that he 'cannot be trusted and is a liability to women, public, and your party'. Not only was there no investigation, but there was not even a reply. When the constituent took her complaint to the party, 'the Lib Dems did not want to know. If the police and Commons authorities had not acted, they told 'Annie' [not her real name], neither would they'.
Saturday
Pistorius trial: key facts on guns in South Africa
Oscar Pistorius has now been granted bail ahead of his trial in June. His case has raised many basic questions abroad, such as: is it normal for South Africans to have loaded guns on hand? And is it a defence to say that you killed someone because you thought they were someone else? There's a fair bit of soul-searching in South Africa about whether the Paralympian would have been granted bail had he not been so well-known and what this says about the justice system. But the case is also opening up a debate familiar to other countries too: on gun control. Here are some quick facts: There are 2.9 million firearms licensed to 1.5 million individuals at the last count in August 2011, although some estimates place true ownership much higher at 6 million.
