The Spectator

Saturday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 4 February 2006

From our US edition

The government was twice defeated in the Commons in votes on the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, making its provisions less broad. The government produced a form with a box to tick for people who wanted to prevent life-saving treatment being given them in future; this was according to the Mental Capacity Act, 2004, which comes into effect in 2007. A White Paper on health proposed treating more people outside large hospitals; but a question of funding remained. Mr David Blunkett, the disgraced former Cabinet minister, said his ‘sense is that there is a new understanding’ between Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and Mr Gordon Brown about the latter replacing the former; ‘So good on them,’ Mr Blunkett said.

The Spectator

Trust democracy

The success of Hamas in the elections for the Palestinian Authority has provided a joyous opportunity for that small but sizeable body of opinion in the West which considers the Arab world unfit for democracy. The sight of the terrorist leaders celebrating their election win tempts some otherwise sober people to sympathise with those malcontents on Oxbridge high tables who mutter longingly about the days when the world was ruled by kings and princes; by friendly, if not always benign, dictatorships. It is beyond question that the events of the past week have proved a huge embarrassment for the neoconservative project, and for President Bush in particular.

Saturday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 28 January 2006

From our US edition

Mr Mark Oaten withdrew his candidacy for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats and then resigned as its Home Affairs spokesman after the News of the World publicised repeated visits to a 23-year-old rent boy. Mr Sven-Goran Eriksson agreed with the Football Association to resign as the England football manager after the World Cup, and to take a £2.5 million pay-off. The News of the World reported that he had said to a journalist in disguise in Dubai that he was considering his future after the World Cup; Mr Eriksson also had talks with the FA’s so-called compliance unit because the paper had said he had named three unnamed premiership clubs as being involved in corruption.

The Spectator

Letters to the editor | 28 January 2006

Too much, too young From Judith HerefordSir: I agree with Leo McKinstry (‘Hate, hypocrisy and hysteria’, 21 January). To read the newspapers, you’d think that Ruth Kelly was singlehandedly responsible for all the outbreaks of paedophilia in Britain, when in fact it’s the fault of our debased culture. But let’s not forget that as Education Secretary Kelly contributes to that culture, especially with regard to the government’s sex education policy. If school teachers talk to children as young as seven about sex, telling them anything goes, why should they worry when another adult, in another place, broaches the same subject?

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Mother knows best

‘All new rights,’ said Gordon Brown in one of his more memorable utterances, ‘will be matched by new responsibilities.’ It would come across as a more honourable principle if the government were prepared to apply it in reverse. Yet as far as the parents of wayward children are concerned it seems that new responsibilities are to be accompanied by a diminution in rights. Last week, the Prime Minister unveiled his ‘Respect’ agenda, within which is the proposal to make parents more culpable for the misbehaviour of young children. In spite of our misgivings over Asbos, which it seems are now to be given to children as young as ten, we sympathise with the assertion that parents bear responsibility for the conduct of their young offspring. Of course they do.

Saturday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 21 January 2006

From our US edition

Miss Ruth Kelly resisted pressure to resign as the Secretary of State for Education after it was learnt that a minister had approved the employment in a school of a man who had been put on the sex offenders register after being cautioned by police for gaining access to child pornography on the internet. Other examples emerged, and it became clear that the categorisation of offenders and the clearing of them for work in schools was complicated and uneven. One man, aged 59, who was allowed to teach at a boys’ school by Miss Kelly, had been convicted for the indecent assault of a 15-year-old girl in 1980; he said, ‘I am not a paedophile. I am not a risk to children.

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Way to go, Mr Cameron

This week a new expression enters the lexicon of Conservative thought: social justice. According to David Cameron, the Conservative party now offers ‘a forward-looking vision which recognises that social justice will only be delivered by empowering people to fulfil their potential’. The party even now has a ‘social justice poverty group’ led by the former leader Iain Duncan Smith. Many Conservatives will be appalled; for them ‘social justice’ will represent the very worst of Blairite gobbledegook: two words stitched together, without real meaning, just because they cause a faint glow of warmth when uttered to members of focus groups.

Saturday

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Letters to the editor | 14 January 2006

From our US edition

Our successful railways From Adrian LyonsSir: Your leading article (7 January) suggested that railway operators are a cartel bent on exploiting their customers, but this is grossly unfair. Fares have risen, but an overall increase of 3 per cent above inflation since 1995 hardly constitutes ‘steeply rising prices’. Furthermore, a tremendous range of fares and journey options is on offer. Your leader quoted one London–Manchester rail fare without giving the bigger picture. This morning I could have bought a return for travel today for less than £60. Nor do I believe that railway operators would consider the industry to be risk-free.

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 14 January 2006

From our US edition

Mr Charles Kennedy, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, called a press conference and said, ‘Over the past 18 months, I’ve been coming to terms with, and seeking to cope with, a drinking problem.... I’ve not had a drink for the past two months and I don’t intend to in the future.’ He invited rivals to stand against him for the leadership in an election by the party’s 73,000 members. But two days later, after 25 MPs had said they would not serve with him, he resigned, and Sir Menzies Campbell, 64, rapidly put his name forward, to be followed by Mr Mark Oaten, 41, while Mr Simon Hughes, 54, hesitated. The results will be known by 2 March.

The Spectator

Disrespect

The Prime Minister is right about one thing: ‘The liberty of the law-abiding citizen to be safe from fear comes first.’ It is indeed the first duty of the state to ensure that its citizens can live peacefully and go about their lawful business without fearing that they will be attacked or have their property stolen or destroyed by others. Mr Blair is also right to note that ‘the criminal justice system [is] failing people’, because it is failing to ensure that they can live without that fear. His intention to try to do something to improve that situation is laudable. Unfortunately, his latest set of proposals — which go under the unlovely title of ‘The Respect Action Plan’ — is unlikely to have the desired effect.

Saturday

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Portrait of the Week – 7 January 2006

From our US edition

The cost of domestic gas and electricity was expected to rise by 15 per cent in the spring, an increase of 50 per cent in three years. Among the New Year’s honours, knighthoods went to Tom Jones, the singer; John Dankworth, the jazz musician; Arnold Wesker, the playwright; and Lord Coe, the Olympics organiser; damehoods went to Vivienne Westwood, the fashion designer; Liz Forgan, of the Heritage Lottery Fund; Susie Leather, of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The whole of the England cricket squad involved in the Ashes series and the Beverley Sisters — Babs, Joy and Teddie — were appointed MBE.

The Spectator

Letters to the editor | 7 January 2006

From our US edition

More women MPs, please From Amber RuddSir: Rod Liddle’s article on women candidates in the Conservative party contains an irritating and often repeated inaccuracy. (‘Let’s not forget the weirdos and halfwits’, 17/24 December). He refers to ‘the refusal of women to put themselves forward as potential candidates’. No such refusal has taken place. Women are putting themselves forward. As one of the women on this list, I know many of the others and know them to be just as talented and capable as their male colleagues. In fact the candidates’ list, from which the target seats will be selecting next year, is currently 25 per cent women. Please do not credit us with ‘plain good sense’ and therefore no interest in active politics.

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The wrong track

Unlike the jubilant Polly Toynbee, we are not convinced that David Cameron’s recent pronouncements on big business and the redistribution of wealth quite amount to a repudiation of capitalism, nor even, as she puts it, that the Conservative leader has ‘put a stake through Mrs Thatcher’s legacy’. Mr Cameron has yet to announce any firm policy at all, and it is a fair bet that when he does so it will not involve nationalisation of the means of production nor lead to droves of big businessmen being led off to jail on charges of ‘corporate irresponsibility’. But when the time does come to prepare the next Conservative manifesto there is one big business which will need to be tackled, involving an admission of an earlier misjudgment by the Tories.

Saturday

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Letters to the editor | 31 December 2005

From our US edition

Apathy rulesPeter Oborne’s article ‘The Triumph of Tradition’ (10 December) is badly mistaken in its electoral analysis. New Labour has never had and cannot rely on the goodwill of over 40 per cent of the electorate. In Blair’s 1997 victory his 13.5 million votes comprised 30.8 per cent of the electorate. This year he was down to 21.5 per cent. It was not always like that for Labour. Clement Attlee scored 40 per cent in 1951 — and was defeated by Churchill. Nor is it true that the ‘Lib Dems were the only real movers’. Nor did they ‘steadily gain ground’ at the expense of the Conservatives and ‘towards the 2005 general election, of New Labour’. In 1983 the Alliance had 18.5 per cent support; in 1987 16.9 per cent.

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Portrait of 2006

JANUARY In Iraq Sunni insurgents targeted the politically dominant Shiites; Iranians were accused of supporting Shiite militants. Austria, taking up the EU presidency, accused Britain of being the ‘Sick Man of Europe’. Labour floundered over its Education Bill. FEBRUARY Dr Rowan Williams announced his retirement to a monastery in Anatolia after the greater part of the Anglican Communion, led by Nigeria, broke away from Canterbury over the consecration of a lesbian bishop in Canada. Sir David Frost was prosecuted under anti-terrorist legislation for his involvement with the new al-Jazeera international television channel.

The Spectator

What Cameron must do now

The arrival of a prominent new figure in national life is always greeted with a period of experiment among the nation’s political cartoonists. It is not yet clear quite how David Cameron will come to be depicted, though the image that is emerging is of a slightly cherubic fellow with full cheeks and round eyes. Perhaps that does not quite do him justice. Mr Cameron’s political countenance, meanwhile, is likewise a work in progress. Greatly though his success is to be welcomed, not least in the opinion polls, the fact is that he has taken up his new position with a less clear political identity than perhaps any leader of a main political party in modern times. We know that he would, quite rightly, like to see more women Tory MPs and want to talk more to the inner cities.

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters to the editor | 17 December 2005

From our US edition

Apathy rulesPeter Oborne’s article ‘The Triumph of Tradition’ (10 December) is badly mistaken in its electoral analysis. New Labour has never had and cannot rely on the goodwill of over 40 per cent of the electorate. In Blair’s 1997 victory his 13.5 million votes comprised 30.8 per cent of the electorate. This year he was down to 21.5 per cent. It was not always like that for Labour. Clement Attlee scored 40 per cent in 1951 — and was defeated by Churchill. Nor is it true that the ‘Lib Dems were the only real movers’. Nor did they ‘steadily gain ground’ at the expense of the Conservatives and ‘towards the 2005 general election, of New Labour’. In 1983 the Alliance had 18.5 per cent support; in 1987 16.9 per cent.

The Spectator

Portrait of the Year

JANUARY Mr Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said it was all right to kill burglars ‘honestly and instinctively’. Iraq held elections. Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, the al-Qa’eda leader in Iraq, said, ‘We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy.’ The numbers killed by the deadly wave that devastated the fringes of the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day 2004 was put at 178,000. Mrs Adriana Iliescu, aged 67, gave birth to a baby girl in Bucharest. China decided to measure Mount Everest, amid reports that it had shrunk by four feet. FEBRUARY Members of the IRA murdered Robert McCartney, a Catholic, at a Belfast pub, provoking demonstrations by hundreds after his sisters protested.

The Spectator

The audit of war

Following the example of progressive local authorities, this magazine will not, on this page this year, be celebrating Christmas but an alternative festival of light in which Muslims can share too. It is called the elections for a permanent government in Iraq. As we go to press, the polling booths are being prepared to enable the people of Iraq, for the second time in a year and only the second time in their history, freely to elect their own leaders: this time for a four-year term. Like ‘winterval’, the secular, multicultural festival concocted by the City of Birmingham, nobody is quite sure what it all means. Does it mark the beginning of better times, or will civil war be inevitable anyway?

Saturday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 10 December 2005

From our US edition

Mr David Cameron was elected leader of the Conservative party in a ballot of members, beating Mr David Davis by 134,446 votes to 64,398. Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his pre-Budget report astonished investors planning self-invested personal pensions by announcing that they ‘will be prohibited from obtaining tax advantages when investing in residential property and certain other assets such as fine wines’. He also enraged North Sea oil producers by increasing corporation tax on their profits, from 40 per cent to 50 per cent. Mr Brown hoped to get an extra £2.3 billion from the oil taxes and another £700 million from other corporate taxes, in order to shore up public finances. Last March he had predicted economic growth of 3.