The Spectator

Bloody rude Sir: Michael Portillo (‘The view from Basra’, 28 March) accuses the British army of arrogance and, effectively, of incompetence. He says we’ve been humiliated. This may accord with his new television persona, but it is still disingenuous, apart from being bloody rude. It is his own political class that has been shown up — shamed, shown treacherous and craven — by reducing the British army again and again, until it could fit into Wembley stadium, but still expecting it to undertake counter-insurgency work. The army has always maintained, in its advice to the politicians, that counter-insurgency in Basra would require a full infantry division.

No progressive Sir: David Cameron’s article last week (‘It is not enough for Labour to lose this election’) mentioned the post-bureaucratic age ten times. Mr Cameron loves this phrase because it was coined by a progressive — Al Gore’s former speechwriter Andrei Cherney. And as the April date for Mr Cameron’s proposed £5 billion cuts to welfare, skills and charities draws near, he’s clearly hoping that endless use of nice slogans will keep his progressive credentials in check. The slogans however mask the reality. The Conservatives continue to advocate for unregulated markets in public services when no one is even arguing for them any more in the private sector.

Art for money’s sake Sir: It is hardly surprising that Olivia Cole (‘How to put children off art’, 14 March) found so many schoolchildren in the National Gallery and that they seemed to be learning little about art from their visits. The Gallery, like other public bodies, has a funding agreement with its sponsor department, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. The agreement for the current financial year is not on the Gallery’s website but for 2007/8 it was set a target for the number of children aged 15 and under visiting the Gallery in ‘organised educational sessions’, of 105,000, which it exceeded. There is no target for the benefit that the children gain from these visits.

Here are some of the posts made during the past week on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson responds to the latest issue of the New Statesman, and thinks David Cameron got the better of Gordon Brown in PMQS. James Forsyth reports on the government's debt worries, and says that the Tories are in the same position as Labour were nine months before the 1997 landslide. Peter Hoskin picks up on Brown's non-apology, and thinks the Tories are ramping up their spending cut rhetoric. Martin Bright watches Whistleblowers United in action. Clive Davis wonders whether bloggers can actually write. Alex Massie tracks the debate between the traditionalists and reformers over the future of the GOP. Melanie Phillips gives her take on the AJC Durban II controversy.