The Spectator

If there is a posture that will be indelibly associated with the Chancellorship of Alistair Darling — brief though it may turn out to be — it is that of a man forced into retreat under a hail of ridicule. Last month he backed away from ill-thought-out proposals to reform capital gains tax in the face of howls of rage from business owners. In the battle to recoup the massive exposures to Northern Rock to which, in panic, he committed the taxpayer, there has never been a moment when he has looked in full command, and retreat has taken the unusual form of digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole.

The Spectator announced its eleventh consecutive growth in sales this week and with its success in mind we will be launching a new title, The Spectator Business. These are exciting times ahead for us as we begin to expand our current coverage of news analysis and comment through our new monthly title, The Spectator Business, edited by Martin Vander Weyer. The new title will be produced in addition to our weekly magazine The Spectator. We’ll keep you posted with further developments.

Yesterday, we posted a letter by Wajid Shamsul Hasan, the former Pakistan High Commissioner to London, in which he took issue with a Coffee House post by Rani Singh.  Here, Rani responds to his points: Dear Wajid, Thank you for your comments of yesterday. I wrote in a recent blog post that Musharraf has been “doing cuddly”.  In response, you suggested that “things are far from cuddly” for those living under Musharraf’s regime. I agree with you.  Far from indicating that I was under the spell of Musharraf’s “well-oiled PR machine”, my words (“doing cuddly”) were intended to imply that it is all an act by Musharraf.  I even referred to his “televisual PR assault”.

Coffee House was recently sent the following letter from Wajid Shamsul Hasan, the former Pakistan High Commissioner to London: Sir, Your report by Rani Singh made quite a jolly read, referring to Musharraf's ‘feminine side’, his liking for the arts’ and, as you put it, doing cuddly’.  Does one detect the influence of Musharraf’s well-oiled PR machine at work here? But for those of us who live with the reality of Musharraf’s regime, things are far from cuddly.  He is quite right to say Pakistan ‘needs a softer image, based around heritage, culture and sport rather than guns and violence’, but it’s a bit rich coming from him.

Nip terror in the bud Sir: Correlli Barnett would have us believe Con Coughlin is suffering from paranoia and describes George Bush’s ‘war on terror’ as stale rhetoric (Letters, 2 February). One wonders what ailment Correlli Barnett suffers from — perhaps ‘paranoiac denial’ is a fair diagnosis. Could he inform us which countries, if any, with sizeable Muslim minorities are free of religious conflict? The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya, Thailand, India, the Middle East, Western Europe, all are in turmoil to a greater or lesser degree. As he says, in Britain there have so far been only ‘occasional acts of terrorism’.

We’ve just posted an important piece by Martin Vander Weyer on the sub prime hurricane passing through the financial markets, you can read it here.

Phoney war Sir: I was sorry to see that Con Coughlin (‘Agent Brown’s new plan to smash terror’, 26 January) has now joined the likes of poor William Shawcross on the pottier side of paranoia in asserting that the occasional acts of Islamist terrorism in the United Kingdom over recent years mean that ‘we are a nation at war’. Coughlin even justifies George W. Bush’s now stale rhetoric about ‘the war on terror’, and reckons that Gordon Brown ‘is not a man who fits easily or naturally into the role of a wartime leader’. All this goes to demonstrate a dangerous loss of proportion.

John McCain has won Florida and is now the overwhelming favourite to win the Republican nomination. McCain has been further boosted by the news that Rudy Giuliani will likely endorse him in the next day or two. More on McCain's victory at Americano.

Have a heart Sir: I was longing to disagree with Rod Liddle that organ donation should continue to depend upon a positive act to opt into the programme (‘Hands off my organs’, 19 January). However, Mr Brown’s plans include New Labour’s usual targets and tick-boxes. This means that hospitals would be allocated funding according to the number of organs that they harvest, making life-and-death decisions the property of accountants and commissioners.

Last night, The Spectator and Intelligence Squared hosted a debate on whether it would be better to bomb Iran than let it develop nuclear weapons. The speakers for the motion included the former CIA Middle East specialist Reuel Marc Gerecht and the political scientists Emanuele Ottolenghi and Bruno Tertrais. Sir Richard Dalton, the former British ambassador to Iran, Ali Ansari, a leading academic expert on Iran and Simon Jenkins, the columnist and former editor, opposed the motion. You can listen to the whole debate here. Last night, The Spectator and Intelligence Squared hosted a debate on whether it would be better to bomb Iran than let it develop nuclear weapons.

Too cosy with the KGB Sir: Denis MacShane (‘Welcome to the Vlad and Dave show’, 12 January) is right to imply that the attitude of the Conservative party to the Russian KGB state is reminiscent of the attitude of the same party to Germany in 1938. Only about a year ago the Russian services brought illegally a forceful radioactive material to this country, and then killed a British citizen. I can’t remember the Conservative party actively protesting against it in the European and other international bodies, particularly in the Nato. With such foreign policy, that party will never shine on the international arena.

Forgotten Army Syndrome Sir: Boris Johnson is to be praised for his intention to honour the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan (‘How, as mayor, I would help our brave troops’, 15–29 December). Unfortunately, I believe he is up against Forgotten Army Syndrome. Burma, during the second world war, was an undeserved victim of this syndrome as well. It took 50 years before at last a fitting tribute was paid to the 14th Army Burma Veterans: at the VJ Day parade at Buckingham Palace and St James’s Park on Saturday 19 August 1995. It was tremendous and moving for the veterans, most of whom were by then in their seventies and eighties, to at last march past the Queen and great crowds of cheering, clapping people, including many children, all shouting, ‘Well done!