The Spectator

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.

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Just a reminder about latest feature on the site – Spectator Live.  You can access it via the ‘Live’ tab at the top of the page, or by going to new.spectator.co.uk/live.  It’s a roundup of all the latest blog posts from across Spectator.co.uk, and the best place to keep up-to-date with all the views and analysis from our writers. You don’t even need to visit the page to view the latest content on Spectator Live. If you have an RSS reader on your computer (see here for details), you can subscribe to Spectator Live’s RSS feed and have updates automatically delivered to you. You can subscribe to the Spectator Live RSS feed here.

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.

Over at Trading Floor, Michael Millar reports on the chief executive of Gazprom's prediction that oil prices will keep rising until they hit $250 per barrel.

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.