The Spectator

The government decided to put off overhauling council tax by revaluing houses until after the next election. The National Health Service, despite unprecedented increases in government spending on it, went into the red for the first time in five years, with a deficit of £250 million, which Sir Nigel Crisp, its chief executive, pointed out was only 0.4 per cent of its £69.7 billion budget. Mr Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, proposed keeping suspected terrorists in jail for three months without charge; but he inadvertently sent out a letter that retained an earlier draft of his views, including the sentence, ‘I believe there is room for debate as to whether we should go as far as three months.

Our vanishing hospitals In 1909 my great-grandfather C.H.E. Croydon built and gave the Croydon Cottage Hospital to the people of Felixstowe. It consisted of ten beds and the population at that time was roughly 1,840. We now find that, with a population of nearly 33,000 and ever more need for hospital beds, it faces the possibility of closure (‘Fear in the community’, 17 September). The Bartlett Hospital, also in Felixstowe, is to close; this has already been decided by the PCT. They say that to have two hospitals in Felixstowe is unsustainable because of the large deficit position they are in. But when the buildings are sold and the money is gone, what will happen when ‘changing for the better’ proves to be a disaster and people’s lives are put at risk?

To understand the full scale of the catastrophe that might be about to enfold British forces in southern Iraq, it is important to be clear about what happened on Monday. When two SAS men were waved down at a police checkpoint, they did not stop. Why not? Because the Iraqi police force has become so densely infiltrated by terrorists and extremists that they believed their lives would have been at risk. In May this year Basra’s chief of police, Hassan al-Sade, admitted that he had lost control of 75 per cent of his 13,750-strong force, and that his men were mainly loyal to one Shiite faction or another.

Pro-God, anti-religion Theo Hobson makes some interesting points in his article about ‘literary atheism’ (‘Writing God off’, 10 September) but his case is fatally flawed by his repeated tendency to assume that ‘religion’, ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ are somehow synonymous. They are not. It is, in fact, perfectly possible to reject religion without rejecting God; one can be anti-religion without being an atheist. In many minds, especially today, ‘religion’ has come to mean the kind of established and organised institutions, be they Christian, Jewish or Muslim, noted more for their intolerance of dissent — or much, much worse — than for anything positive.

Comments on The grim lessons of Katrina by Walter Ellis What a ridiculous negative article. We get hit by a level 5 hurricane. What do you know? There's death and destruction. Mr Ellis notes the fact that there is a black underclass in New Orleans, which has been there for 200 years, and in other major American cities as well, which have been there for 150 years. If this is a measure of our inherent racialism what does he say about the growing black middle and upper class, the phenomenon of the browning of American society, the tremendous influx of Hispanics and Asians, all attracted by the relative political and economic and social freedom which exists in this country more than any other major country in the world, including his beloved Europe.

It is tempting to sympathise with the hoary mob of farmers and hauliers, collectively known as the Fuel Lobby, who as we go to press are threatening to blockade motorways and oil refineries in an attempt to force the government to cut the duty on petrol and diesel. As we have frequently argued in these pages, Gordon Brown’s eight-year programme of stealthy tax rises has raided our pockets, yet failed to produce any corresponding improvements in public services. Given that the farmers and hauliers have provided the most vociferous and powerful protest against Labour’s excessive taxation, it is easy to understand why ordinary motorists should be moved to toot in solidarity.

RSPCA is off target Simon Heffer was right to warn about the danger to shooting, and Charles Moore was equally right last week (The Spectator’s Notes, 3 September) to point to the real issues that shooters must address. But whatever its position on shooting, it is clear that the RSPCA has already utterly corrupted the public’s understanding of what constitutes real animal welfare. Their aggressive campaign to ban hunting seduced many members of the general public into thinking that fox-hunting is the worst form of animal cruelty imaginable. Many people now assume that they are ethical animal lovers just because they oppose hunting. At the same time they quite cheerfully keep their dogs locked away in tower blocks or buy battery chickens at £2.50 from Tesco.

Comments on Triumph of the poms by Michael Atherton Like Mike Atherton, I would like to see England win the Ashes. However, I would urge caution. The balance in the current Test series has shifted to England, but it is not all over yet and I cannot be totally confident that England will wrap up the series at the Oval next week. Despite having lost the first test at Lords (cause for Australian complacency perhaps?), England should have wrapped up the Headingley Test and not allowed the Old Trafford test to end as a draw with four overs remaining. At Trent Bridge, a mature team would have easily knocked off the required 129 runs without losing seven wickets, but England has not yet acquired that traditional Australian confidence and has not yet got the killer instinct.

The issue of how best to approach a friend who has badly let you down is one more commonly dealt with at the back of this magazine, by our agony aunt on etiquette, Mary Killen. But this week it is one that needs to be addressed here. Over the past years this magazine has been a staunch defender of Turkey and its right to join the European Union, negotiations for which begin on 3 October. We have praised its economy, its founder-membership of Nato, and condemned the many Turkophobes within the EU — most notably Frits Bolkestein, the EU internal market commissioner, who last year fatuously claimed that the liberation of Vienna from the Ottoman Turks in 1683 ‘would have been in vain’ were Turkey allowed to join the EU.

Strange customs Having suffered similar humiliation and over-zealous inanity at the hands of British immigration, I can only sympathise with James Hughes-Onslow’s friend (‘Hop off, you Aussies’, 27 August). However, I do have to point out that this is neither a new phenomenon following an increased threat level, nor is it specific to Australians. It happened to me in 1996. I was an American citizen, an 18-year resident of Switzerland, who as the child of a former diplomat had lived abroad my whole life, and had been travelling back and forth to Britain since I was a child. I simply wished to visit my British boyfriend for a couple of weeks.

Comments on The last days of the Tartan Raj by Andrew NeilI agree wholeheartedly with Andrew Neil's comments. The devolution settlement is an absolute disgrace.England has been left out in the cold. The West Lothian Question remains unanswered, and MPs representing English constituencies sit on their hands.May I suggest a follow-up article featuring the Campaign for an English Parliament, whom you will find very vocal in their demand for an English Parliament? They can be found at www.thecep.org.ukDerek Marshall Comment on lettersThree weeks ago I was sitting in a cell in a Pakistani military jail, after being rounded up with my film crew, while travelling from India to Afghanistan to make a documentary for British TV.It was a pretty grim experience - very thin on luxury.

The Conservative party talks about Europe so little these days that it is becoming unnatural, rather as if the Lib Dems had decided that the issue of PR was irrelevant. Ostensibly, this is because Europe is no longer a ‘live’ issue. It is no longer conceivable that we are going to join the euro, goes the argument, and the European constitution is dead. What, then, is there left to discuss? Eurosceptics can satisfy themselves that they can still stare longingly at the Queen every time they hand over a fiver; while the Tories’ pro-Europe wing can be grateful that the handbag-waving has come to an end. Conservatives, therefore, can call a truce and get on with fighting the government over what really matters: schools, hospitals and the like.