The Spectator

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 9 June 2007

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

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

‘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

From our UK edition

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?

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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?

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

“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?

From our UK edition

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.

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Spinning down the Tube

From our UK edition

The other morning I came into work after one of those awful tube journeys that put you in the foulest of tempers. So it didn’t improve my mood to see a staged picture of Gordon travelling on a pleasantly full Tube train staring out at me from the papers. The Chancellor had, conveninently, found a Tube carriage in which it was perfectly possible to sit down and do some work. Iain Dale—who is a real must read, he broke the Coulson story the other day—has the scoop on just how cynical the whole thing was. One of the ‘passengers’ quoted in a news story about Brown’s trip is actually chair of the SOAS Labour Party and has previously been in one of Brown’s leadership videos.

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Channel 4’s crass sensationalism

From our UK edition

My first job was working for Index on Censorship, so I instinctively recoil from prior restraint of the media. Nonetheless, there is a difference between censorship and humane editing, and the defence of free speech ultimately depends upon society understanding the distinction. I can see absolutely no merit in Channel 4 broadcasting the photographs of the crash scene in tonight’s documentary about the death of Diana. True, the programme-makers are not showing the infamous paparazzi pictures of the dying princess herself. But – in exercising this minimal discretion  – they are seeking to have their sensationalist cake and eat it.

Tuesday

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Is Bush a good man?

From our UK edition

Politics in Washington can be an unpleasant affair. But the news that Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, has been sentenced to 30 months in jail for perjury and obstrucion of justice during the investigation into the outing of the CIA agent Valerie Plame is particularly sickening. This whole case has been an absurdity from start to finish. It is by no means clear that there was even a crime to lie about in the first place. Indeed, seeing as Libby had committed no crime—the source for her naming in the press was the then deputy Secretary of State Dick Armitage—Libby’s motivation for lying was not his own preservation but protecting his boss from political embarrassment.

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Song of the Dove

From our UK edition

A new opera is a major undertaking for any company and one of the challenges is that staff responsible for raising money, enticing audiences and selling tickets can't know exactly what they're dealing with in advance. No handy recording to listen to, no DVD of a previous production to slip into their laptops. The problem is pretty much solved when a composer is as obliging, skilled and entertaining as Jonathan Dove. Yesterday afternoon in Leeds he treated key members of the Opera North team to a bravura one-man show, playing and singing through the entire score of his new opera Pinocchio (with a brilliantly lucid and witty text by Alasdair Middleton).

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Sierra Leone’s tragedy

From our UK edition

I was depressed to learn yesterday that nineteen people died on a Paramount-operated helicopter in Sierra Leone on Sunday night. They had been travelling to Lunghi airport from Freetown after a football game. Unlike in Europe, where it is usually rich businessmen and football club chairmen who travel back after matches on helicopters, in Sierra Leone everyone has to do it. Lunghi is situated just over the bay from Freetown, so your options are: a car, which can take over six hours on appalling roads; a ferry, which can take longer, with few lifejackets or lifeboats; or the helicopter, which should take about seven minutes.

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PM and Becks

From our UK edition

Jonathan Freedland has a fun piece in The Guardian today on the similarities between Tony Blair and David Beckham. Both have wives with a taste for the finer things in life, both are going to take the Yankee dollar in semi-retirement and both revel in their celebrity. It remains to be seen, though, if the Labour party will be forced to recall Blair after dropping him. Freedland argues that the two men are the epitome of modern Britishness. That’s precisely what is wrong with the country, I hear your roar. But really, they are not bad role models. Both work phenomenally hard, neither are easily down-hearted and both have show an ability to keep going long after the experts have written them off. Anyway, I’d rather have Blair and Becks than Brown and McClaren.

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Putin’s power play

From our UK edition

Read this excellent piece on the Putin missile row in the DT by Anne Applebaum (a Contributing Editor at the Spectator, when she is not winning Pulitzer Prizes and writing for the Washington Post).