The Spectator

Tuesday

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Blair’s red lines

Mark Mardell has a handy guide to the negotiations on the EU Constitution. He identifies four red lines for Blair and Brown. • Calling it a constitution, or any mention of flags or anthems. That battle was won ages ago.• The idea that this is “a consolidating treaty” - Blair wants it to be "an amending treaty". This sounds technical but is politically vital because the government will argue that no Conservative government ever gave a referendum on treaties amending existing texts. • Losing the veto on proposals about policing and justice. Britain could win an opt-out on this. It already has a similar opt-out on migration policy.• The Charter of Fundamental Rights.

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Richard Rorty-one kind of Tory

Richard Rorty - who died last week - was a playful thinker and a serious philosopher. In his time he attracted attacks from the committed left - and the equally convinced right. Great big clunking fists came at him from both directions and on both sides of the Atlantic - so he must have been getting something right in his exposure of so many raw nerves. Academic philosophers were also very sniffy about him - thinking that he dissolved their subject by showing its connections with literature and the arts generally - styles of thinking and imagining which reflected their times rather than giving access to objective truth.

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For God’s sake

God has had a hard time of it lately, what with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens weighing in to see who can be the most aggressive Alpha Atheist. Then again, He has been coping pretty well with heavy duty theological attack for - well, since Adam and Eve. But I see no reason why God deserves to have Paris Hilton on his side. Let us hope that once the celebrity jailbird gets over prison, she leaves the Lord of Creation alone because, frankly, He has more than enough on his plate already.

Monday

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Brown’s mind is made up on Iraq

When you hear that Gordon Brown is engaged in “fact-finding”, you can assume with complete confidence that he has made his mind up on a subject – whatever it is – and is now holding a “review” to validate his conclusion. Ask poor Derek Wanless, who was hauled in to put intellectual flesh on Gordon’s decision not to meddle with NHS funding, or Adair Turner, who had the audacity to take issue with the Chancellor over pensions. So the news that the Prime Minister in waiting is in Iraq tells us something very important: that Brown has pretty much made his mind up on what to do about British strategy when Blair is gone.

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The Sarko revolution

History continues to be made in France following Nicolas Sarkozy’s election as president last month. Yesterday’s first round parliamentary elections were an absolute triumph for his centre-right UMP party, which annihilated the Socialists. Prior to Sarkozy’s election, the UMP party and government were deeply unpopular; the turnaround since has been truly remarkable and probably unprecedented in French politics. There is one fact to take home from these elections: this is the first time since 1978 that a French government has been re-elected (usually, the opposition always wins). In a country that de Gaulle famously described as ungovernable, this is a major achievement by Sarkozy. If he continues to deliver more such miracles, there may yet be hope for France.

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Debating life

The abortion debate continues, but with the continued absence of the key statistic. How many pregnancies in this country end in an abortion? In my experience, people guess at around 10% or lower. In fact it’s is one in four in England (26.1%) and one in three in London (33%). It’s hard to consider these statistics, from any perspective, without thinking something has gone badly wrong. The 1967 Act was intended to stop Vera Drake-style backstreet abortions, not provide a medical alternative to contraception. The extent of abortion is seldom understood because the data is couched in a way no one can understand (17.8 many terminations per 1,000 women, whatever that means).

Sunday

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Their rules

This primer in the New York Times on what jihadis consider to be the rules of war is fascinating. Seemingly the only restrictions are that, with the exception of Iraq, you can’t kill in the country where you live unless you were born there and that you have to get consent from your parents for your actions.  From a British perspective, what’s chilling about the article is how many militants with British connections are quoted in it. With one saying, “We have a voting system here in Britain, so anyone who is voting for Tony Blair is not a civilian and therefore would be a legitimate target.

Saturday

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Letters to the Editor | 9 June 2007

From our US edition

Malan is an anti-racist Sir: As a South African liberal, I regard both Rian Malan and Ken Owen with the highest affection and respect. However, Owen is completely wrong and Malan completely right in the matter of the South African government’s approach to Robert Mugabe. Owen is talking nonsense when (Letters, 2 June) he suggests opponent’s of Mbeki’s ‘quiet diplomacy’ towards Mugabe want an invasion of Zimbabwe such as ‘the Anglo-American intervention in Iraq’. What they actually want of the South African government is two things. First, when Mugabe rigs elections, please stop praising them as free and fair — as the South African government always does.

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Fond farewells | 9 June 2007

I caught the end of the Darcey Bussell farewell after an evening at the birthday party of Blair's departing head of communications, Ben Wegg-Prosser, an event attended by many of the ur-Blairites who were there from the very start in 1994. Watching the tearful ballerina dodging flowers thrown by the adoring fans, the curtain calls, and the onstage tributes, it was clear that this was what the Prime Minister had in mind when he planned his own farewell tour. No such luck: I turned over to Newsnight, and there was Bob Geldof declaring the G8 Summit to have been "bollocks". In the end, even in the hands of a master choreographer like Blair, politics is not ballet.

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Vlad the Blackmailer

‘We will have to get new targets in Europe,’ Vladimir Putin said in an interview last week. ‘Which weapons will be used ...ballistic missiles, cruise missiles or some completely new systems — that’s a technical matter.’ The apparent purpose of this outburst was geopolitical blackmail. Ostensibly at least, the Russian President was warning George W. Bush of terrible consequences should the US pursue its plan to station anti-missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. Not quite Khrushchev banging his shoe, but the closest that Mr Putin has come to such tactics. Speaking in advance of the G8 summit in Germany, President Bush parried with an attack on Mr Putin’s human rights record.

Friday

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Why the 7/7 bombers did it

This essay by Shiv Malik in Prospect about the lead 7/7 bomber Sidique Khan is an absolute must read, it is one of the best thing I’ve ever read on the whole subject of what radicalises young British Muslims. Do read the whole thing but this part of the conclusion gives you a taste of the argument: “Khan may have felt indignant about western foreign policy, as many anti-war campaigners do, but that wasn't the reason he led a cell of young men to kill themselves and 52 London commuters. At the heart of this tragedy is a conflict between the first and subsequent generations of British Pakistanis—with many young people using Islamism as a kind of liberation theology to assert their right to choose how to live.

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Why are we all so fascinated by Paris Hilton?

It is easy to denounce the media for the amount of attention that they devote to Paris Hilton’s antics, to rail against the cult of celebrity and the like. But what this doesn’t explain is why people who couldn’t pick a d-lister out of a Heat line-up and normally don't give two hoots about celebrity culture are so intrigued by her. Euegene Robinson comes close to explaining this anomaly in his Washington Post column today: “I don't go out of my way to follow the latest twists and turns in Paris Hilton's life. I don't feel as if I know her or even want to know her. I can't work up much outrage about the favoritism officials showed in releasing her from jail because I think it was a kind of anti-favoritism that got her locked up in the first place.

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Rivers of reality

I have yet to capitulate to this series of Big Brother, which is not to say that I won’t. But it does seem very striking to me that the reality TV show seems to have become the canvas upon which we observe the nation’s residual bigotries and (in the case of Shilpa’s victory) our desire to conquer them. Funnily enough, the politician who best understands the power of such shows is Gordon Brown, who has often said that we should ask what programmes such as The Apprentice and Pop Idol tell us about aspiration. Meanwhile, BB is once again KKK. Enoch to the Diary Room….

Thursday

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Top McCain man would rather quit than work against Obama

If you want a sense of how an Obama candidacy might shake up American politics, consider this: John McCain’s ad man, who was Bush’s media adviser, has reportedly told the campaign that he can’t work for it if Obama is the Democratic nominee. He wouldn’t want to destroy the hope that, he feels, Obama represents. What makes this all the more surprising is that Mark McKinnon is a firm believer in Iraq, which is why he’s working for McCain, and Obama is the one serious candidate in the race who was against it from the off. So despite disagreeing with him on such a key issue, he won’t campaign against him.

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Big Brother’s standards

A truculent, argumentative blonde drama student called Emily has just been kicked off Big Brother for saying to the even more truculent and argumentative black WAG wannabe Charley – as they danced - "Are you pushing it out, you n***er?" Emily protests that it was a joke, Charley - who has been known to use it of herself - was unoffended, and it wasn’t even broadcast, but – fearful of Ofcom and the cops - the big girls’ blouses of Channel 4 panicked and Emily was evicted.  There were, of course, no rebukes after seven young women tried to debag the solitary male contestant in an excess of what he labels ‘girlie-bollocks’.

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Am I the only person who hated Glastonbury?

Reading James Delingpole’s fine piece about ‘the best music festival in the universe’ brought it all flooding back. Twenty years ago, buoyed by rave reviews such as James’s, I headed for Glastonbury full of starry-eyed hope and excitement. What followed were three days of  unremitting misery, memories of which haunt me to this day. Torrential rain, swamp-like conditions, a pathetically inadequate tent, perpetually damp clothes, greasy burgers of dubious  provenance, some ‘colourful’, frankly scary characters and   unspeakable loos all conspired to make it an experience I vowed never to repeat. Even watching the Cure against a backdrop of forked lighting-scarred skies failed to numb the pain.

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Throw a hoodie

My book of the moment is Mark Law’s brilliant exploration of judo, The Pyjama Game (Aurum). A specialist book on a marginal sport? Not at all. There is something about the “gentle art” (in which I used to dabble a little) – throws, hold-downs, strangles, and arm-locks - which absorbs and changes people. Vladimir Putin, William Hague, Guy Ritchie: they all do it. And, as my former sensei, Simon Hicks (now sadly departed) explains in the book, it is a sport that teaches hopeless young people self-respect and respect for others. I can vouch for this having been amazed as a private school boy competing around the country never once to have had the slightest aggro even from the toughest nuts. I hope Mark is sending a copy of The Pyjama Game to David Cameron.

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How Bandar operates

Prince Bandar, the Saudi royal whom the BBC is alleging received huge sums from BAE during an arms deal, was a phenomenal Washington operator when he was Saudi ambassador there. Part of his success was that he was never afraid to be generous as this anecdote illustrates: “A few nights after he resigned his post as secretary of state two years ago, Colin Powell answered a ring at his front door. Standing outside was Bandar, then Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, with a 1995 Jaguar. Powell's wife, Alma, once had mentioned that she missed the 1995 Jaguar that she and her husband had traded in a while back. Bandar had filed that information away, and presented the Powells that night an identical, 10-year-old model.

Wednesday

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No deal on C02 emissions

“You wanna translate?” said President Bush as he concluded his remarks standing beside the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. No need: it was quite clear from Dubya’s repeated bland thanks to Merkel for her “leadership”  that the message had already been passed over. No specific deal on carbon emissions, at least not this time.  Merkel had hoped to seal a G8 deal for a 50 per cent cut by 2050, but no dice from Bush. As Tony Blair made abundantly clear in his interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson the game in Heiligendamm is about tone and trajectory, not specific statistical goals.

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Is it our patriotic duty to support Estonia tonight?

If you think that England will never win a major trophy under Steve McClaren, and everyone pretty much accepts this, then shouldn’t we all be hoping England lose tonight? An England defeat would see the manager out of a job. But then again knowing the FA they’d probably find someone even worse to replace him and the thought of Sam Allardyce as England manager is enough to make one nostalgic for McClaren. Then again as a Newcastle fan, I can see one major upside to the appointment.