The Spectator

Saturday

The Spectator

What Cameron must do now

From our UK edition

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

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

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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

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.

The Spectator

Letters to the editor | 10 December 2005

Austria and the JewsIn Austria it is illegal publicly to deny the Holocaust (‘Let Irving speak’, 3 December). ‘Words are deeds,’ said Sigmund Freud, and in Austria we are aware of this connection. ‘There is no more anti-Semitic nation in Western Europe than Austria’? Neither the report on ‘Manifestations of anti-Semitism in the EU, 2002–2003’ by the EU Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, nor the recent study by the Anti-Defamation League on ‘Attitudes towards Jews in 12 European countries’ corroborates this claim. It is true and shameful that many Austrians participated in the Holocaust. Was this guilt ‘extraordinary’?

The Spectator

Fresh air

From our UK edition

It has become a cliché in recent days to contrast the gloomy jowls of Gordon Brown, performing emergency surgery to his spending plans in the Commons, with the beaming countenance of David Cameron, radiating hope and happiness throughout the nation. To make too much of this contrast is, of course, to underestimate the task that faces the Conservatives in winning the next election; unlike Labour at Tony Blair’s election as leader in 1994, the Tories are still some way behind Labour in the polls. But like all good clichés, there is considerable truth in the assertion that there has been a change in the political mood of Britain.

Saturday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 3 December 2005

Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, was forced by the presence of protesters to have a cup of tea instead of delivering a speech in Islington on nuclear energy. After his cup of tea he said that energy policy was ‘back on the agenda with a vengeance’ while ‘round the world you can hear the heavy sound of feverish rethinking’. The government is expected to produce a preliminary White Paper on the matter next spring. Even before it was published, a report on pensions by a commission headed by Lord Turner was discounted by Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a leaked letter.

The Spectator

Letters to the editor

From our UK edition

Birth of the internet Martin Vander Weyer’s excellent piece (‘The UN and the internet’, 26 November) should also have pointed out that the internet was a US defence project. In the 1960s military analysts saw the potential for a fault-tolerant command-and-control network in the event of all-out nuclear war. In collaboration with major universities (including UCL in London) the US Defense Department funded MILNET, which in the late 1970s became the internet. It is therefore jolly kind of them to let us use it in all its derived forms without any royalty, in spite of what it cost the US taxpayer. Likewise, it is kind of them to let us use GPS (Global Positioning System) royalty-free — another US military project.

The Spectator

No surrender | 3 December 2005

From our UK edition

A fortnight ago this magazine praised the Prime Minister for a statesmanlike speech in which he made the case for abolishing agricultural subsidies and dismantling tariff barriers on food from the developing world. We repeat our assertion that if Mr Blair achieves this, it will be a legacy well worthy of honour. Unfortunately, however, he appears to be wimping out at the first hurdle. It is reported from within Whitehall that, in spite of having promised not to surrender the British rebate unless there is significant reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the Prime Minister is preparing a fudge. The rebate will be split into two, part of which will be given up and part of which will be retained.

Saturday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 26 November 2005

Downing Street let it be known that Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, was sympathetic to plans to build new nuclear power stations; but then government ministers announced he had not made up his mind after all. The wholesale price of gas reached five times its cost at the beginning of November. Because of increased rail freight traffic (from 15.1 billion tonne-kilometres in 1996 to 20.7 billion in 2004), chiefly in imported coal, new goods-lines might be built in Britain, according to Mr Iain Coucher, the deputy chief executive of Network Rail. Two probationer policewomen were shot, one fatally, when they were called to a travel agency in Bradford that was being raided.

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 26 November 2005

Poor countries need tariffs Contrary to your leading article (‘Full marks to Blair’, 19 November), ActionAid is absolutely correct to challenge Tony Blair’s commitment to forcing free trade in manufactured goods in the WTO ‘Doha round’ of global trade talks. Labour’s general election manifesto promised no forced liberalisation, and the ‘Doha round’ is about development, not just market access. Rather than lead to more jobs and less poverty, our research shows that the current proposals for deep tariff cuts in developing countries could bring massive job losses, bankruptcies and factory closures — a development disaster.

The Spectator

Books of the Year II | 26 November 2005

From our UK edition

Robert Salisbury It is difficult to look beyond three biographies this year: Jung Chang and Jon Halliday’s Mao (Cape, £25), William Hague’s Pitt the Younger (HarperCollins, £8.99) and Max Egremont’s Siegfried Sassoon (Picador, £25). Mao is a standing indictment not only of Mao himself but also of the self-hating Left of the Sixties and Seventies who bought his Little Red Book and worshipped at his feet. William Hague on Pitt is elegant, readable and, with admirable clarity and concision, brings a politician’s understanding of the world of Whitehall and Westminster to the service of his scholarship. His return to the Conservative front bench is long overdue. It is risky to puff the work of one’s close relations.

The Spectator

Produce the memo

From our UK edition

A front-page exclusive in the Daily Mirror is normally something to be treated with great scepticism. Until, that is, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, offers his full stamp of approval by invoking the Official Secrets Act. Fantasies and hoaxes — unless they are fantasies and hoaxes propagated by HM government — by definition lie outside the scope of the Official Secrets Act. All of which convinces us that there must be some truth in the Mirror’s claim that in April last year President Bush, in the company of Tony Blair, discussed bombing the headquarters of the Arab television station al-Jazeera, in Doha, Qatar, and that the Prime Minister talked him out of such an attack.

Saturday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 19 November 2005

There was much speculation about the import of the government’s defeat, its first since it came to office in 1997, on a vote on the Terrorism Bill by 322 votes to 291, despite the jetting back from Israel of Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had only got as far in his visit as Tel Aviv airport. Some 49 Labour MPs voted against the provision to allow 90 days’ detention without trial; an amendment was then passed limiting detention to 28 days. Some commentators saw the defeat as a straw in the wind for the last days of Mr Tony Blair as Prime Minister; others wondered how he’d get on with his reforms of the health and education systems.

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 19 November 2005

Why children need usIn attacking charities such as the NSPCC, the RSPCA and Cancer Research UK (‘Bullying for charity’, 12 November) Guy Adams also harms the beneficiaries. Both larger and smaller charities have a vital role to play in the voluntary sector. Each has its strengths and they complement one another. It is also wrong to assume that because the NSPCC is a national charity, it is not ‘local’. We have 177 projects across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands, all with strong links to the local community. Some of these projects work to help children rebuild their lives after abuse, and some work to prevent cruelty in the first place. Campaigning and lobbying are a key part of preventing cruelty.

The Spectator

Books of the Year | 19 November 2005

From our UK edition

A selection of the best and worst books of the year, chosen by some of our regular contributors Jonathan SumptionNiall Ferguson’s Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (Allen Lane, £25) is a marvel of objective iconoclasm, much better than the associated TV series, which presents one of the world’s great liberal empires without the usual overtones of Pecksniffian disapproval.

The Spectator

Full marks to Blair

From our UK edition

Over the past fortnight it has been necessary for this magazine to side with those who would like to bury Tony Blair. This week it is our solemn duty to praise him. No amount of disquiet over his illiberal — and happily failed — scheme to subject terror suspects to 90 days’ detention without charge will stop us from recognising that the Prime Minister’s foreign- policy speech at Guildhall on Monday was an impressive piece of statesmanship. In a month’s time members of the World Trade Organisation will gather in Hong Kong to continue the so-called ‘Doha round’ of negotiations over the liberalisation of world trade.

Saturday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 12 November 2005

From our UK edition

Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, insisted on pressing ahead with a Bill to allow police to hold anyone suspected of a terrorist offence for 90 days without charge. The government prepared legislation to allow terrorists who had fled Northern Ireland before the Good Friday Agreement to return to the province without prosecution. Six men were arrested in connection with the £26.5 million Northern Bank robbery in Belfast last December, and two were released without charge. The High Court heard a case for compensation by more than 5,000 serving and former officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (now the Police Service of Northern Ireland), which they said had failed those who suffered lasting effects from traumas in dealing with terrorism.

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 12 November 2005

Proud without prejudiceI am extremely glad to know that The Spectator watches BBC News 24 (5 November). However, I fear that your leader writer must have momentarily allowed his attention to wander as he watched our coverage of the resignation of Mr David Blunkett. At no time was I ‘dismissive’ about the significance of the event. At no time did I say that the Prime Minister would ‘emerge stronger’ from the resignation. Such a suggestion, as your leader writer asserted with his usual verve, would indeed be preposterous. I merely speculated that Tony Blair might use Mr Blunkett’s departure as an opportunity to have a wider reshuffle.