Feedback | 23 August 2003
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The Spectator
Saturday
The common enemy
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The murderous attack on the United Nations in Baghdad has brought some clarity to the situation. It has exposed the essential community of interest between the UN and the United States. Those two entities often disagree so radically about methods that the fundamental similarity of their aims is easily overlooked. In Iraq, they are engaged
Saturday
Portrait of the Week – 16 August 2003
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Lord Hutton began his inquiry into the events leading to the death of Dr David Kelly, the expert on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Mr Andrew Gilligan, who had used Dr Kelly as his source for a report on the BBC about the ‘sexing up’ of the government’s September dossier on Iraq, made available notes
Feedback | 16 August 2003
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Bring back failure
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It has become customary to preface any comment on the government’s policy on school examinations with a glowing tribute to schoolchildren who have worked hard for their grades. The school standards minister David Miliband goes so far as to cite the hard work of school pupils as an excuse for avoiding debate on the issue
Saturday
Portrait of the Week – 9 August 2003
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Lord Hutton began his inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence expert on Iraqi weapons, by disclosing part of a letter by the scientist to his superior, in which he said that, judging from the report by the BBC’s Andrew Gilligan about the government’s September dossier on Iraq, ‘I can
Feedback | 9 August 2003
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Comment on Pre-emptive force (02/08/2003) Perhaps it is the accent and perfect diction, but the British often appear to Americans to be of superior intelligence. That is, until we learn of some curious incident which quells such thought instantly. Take the Tony Martin case, for example. We always thought the phrase “a man’s home is
The new ice age
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By the time The Spectator goes to press, the record for the highest-ever authenticated measurement of air temperature in the British Isles may or may not have been broken. The only certainties are that the railway industry will have dreamed up yet more reasons why trains may only run at 20mph, that there will scarcely
Saturday
Portrait of the Week – 2 August 2003
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Mr Alastair Campbell was expected to resign as the director of communications and strategy at the Prime Minister’s office before the Labour party conference at the end of September. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, let it be known through friends including Lord Falconer of Thoroton that he intends to complete a third term. The
Feedback | 2 August 2003
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Comment on Sword of honour by Paul Robinson (26/07/2003) National honour is a valid reason to go to war, but in the current case, there is also the principle of self-defence. When someone announces he’s going to do you serious or fatal harm, it is not required to give him one free blow before initiating
Pre-emptive force
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It is a sad sign of the times that a man who shot a burglar dead and wounded another should have become a national hero. The frustration that millions of householders feel about the inability or unwillingness of the British state to perform its one indispensable function – namely to protect the person and property
Saturday
Portrait of the Week – 26 July 2003
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Dr David Kelly, a Ministry of Defence scientific expert on Iraqi weapons, was found dead near his home in Oxfordshire with a cut wrist and a container of pain-killers. Hours earlier he had appeared before the Commons foreign affairs select committee and, when asked if he was the main source for an article by Mr
Feedback | 26 July 2003
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Comment on No flies on Bush by Mark Steyn (19/07/2003) I read Mark Steyn’s article on the harmlessness of the lies told by the USA and the UK on the world stage and tried to be reassured by his joviality. After all, I thought, what’s a few thousand dead people when, as your poll showed,
The enemies of truth
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Not since the end of the war, and the flight of Saddam Hussein, have the skies of Baghdad been so illuminated with gunfire. Uday and Qusay, the tyrant’s princes, have at last been found, and the heavens themselves tell forth their death. The Iraqis are jubilant, and no wonder. In their sadism, egomania, luxury and
Saturday
Portrait of the Week – 19 July 2003
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Miss Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, said the government would build thousands of offshore wind turbines to supply up to a sixth of homes with electricity by 2010; the sites are in the Thames estuary, the Wash, and off the north-west coast between the Solway Firth and Rhyl. A government
Feedback | 19 July 2003
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Comment on Girls just want to have funds by Rachel Royce (12/07/2003) Rachel Royce gives women a bad name when she accuses men of greed yet expects a return of between 200% and 800% on her “investment”. Simple logic will tell her that it is not men, but elementary maths that make a pyramid scheme
Iraqi common sense
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We all know what we think. Week in, week out, we hear what the British view of the war in Iraq is, and the polls tell us that we are becoming ever more sceptical. We know what the Americans think. We know what the French think of it all (not a lot). Now, for the
Saturday
Portrait of the Week – 12 July 2003
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Tony Blair insisted that weapons of mass destruction will still be found in Iraq, even though none has been discovered yet. A committee of MPs acquitted Mr Blair’s right-hand man, Alastair Campbell, of ‘sexing up’ a dossier about such weapons published in September 2002, but the committee said the claim that the weapons could be
Feedback | 12 July 2003
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Comment on Tomorrow he’ll be yesterday’s man by Mark Steyn (05/07/2003) Howard Dean has been propelled to a leading role in the Democratic race because millions of Americans realize that George W Bush took America into an ill-considered war. Howard Dean, for all his faults has opposed the Iraq War, and his campaign gives Americans
Should Scots rule England?
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The interests of Englishmen are not threatened with impunity: and the danger of molesting them does not disclose itself till the threat has been uttered, and their enmity has been irrevocably incurred. They have a habit of sleeping up to the very moment of danger, which is equally embarrassing to their champions and their assailants.