The Spectator

It is now a week since Alan Milburn seriously inconvenienced his patron, Tony Blair, and threw the reshuffle into chaos by announcing that he was quitting the Cabinet to spend more time with his children. In the interval, the entire resources of Fleet Street have been deployed to uncover the truth behind this extraordinary move. Spend more time with his children! That was what Norman Fowler said when he left the Home Office, when he really ended up spending more time with a lucrative series of directorships. What on earth, we have asked ourselves, can have actuated the quiffed and plausible Milburn, a man until last week talked of as a successor to Mr Blair?

Comment on The noble feat of Nike by Johan Norberg (07/06/2003) Though I would not describe myself being anti-globalisation, I do think some qualification of Johan Norberg's article (the noble feat of Nike) is required. Admittedly, I have no information on the conditions in the Vietnam factory that Norberg refers to, but such conditions are far from universal. If, as he says, workers are so desperate to work for Nike factories, why were 300 striking workers beaten by police in riot gear outside the Kuk Dong factory in Atlixco, Mexico in January 2001? Apparently because they wanted to form a union for better wages and food. In the same country, workers in the Puma factory Matamoros Garment in Puebla, Mexico had not been paid for three weeks, and went on a one-day strike.

Any day now, you can expect Downing Street to announce that there will be a public inquiry into the Third Crusade. Did Richard the Lionheart exaggerate the threat posed by Saladin? Was unreasonable force used at Acre, and what benefit was there to England in any case, when Richard's time could have been better spent attending to outbreaks of scrofula at home? It may seem far-fetched, but an inquiry into the crusades is slightly more likely than Tony Blair announcing a public inquiry into the publication of the 'dodgy dossier' which foreshadowed the House of Commons' vote on war in Iraq. During his six years in office, the Prime Minister has perfected the use of the public inquiry as a political tool.

Comment on Television creates terrorists by Patrick Sookhdeo (31/05/2003) Dr Patrick Sookhdeo is the second Spectator contributor in the past few weeks to express the view that the world should hear and see a good deal less about the world than he thinks is right. What we can do about the stuff that concerns Dr Patrick Sookhdeo isn't all that clear: bomb the TV broadcasters he disapproves of? Already done in Belgrade and Iraq and Kabul, and we must be running out of nations that have little choice but to grit their teeth ad take it. Qatar, which your correspondent correctly names as the home of Al-jazeera, is a "friendly" nation used as general headquarters for the recent unpleasantness in Iraq.

Jeffrey Archer, the disgraced peer, should be let out of prison as soon as he would be if he were Joe Bloggs, the disgraced dustman. In July 2001 Archer was given a four-year sentence for perjury and perverting the course of justice, so in a few weeks' time he will become eligible for parole. It could be said it is absurd that prisoners should be eligible for release after serving only half their sentences, but the fact that prison has become a devalued currency cannot reasonably be blamed on Archer. If he satisfies the Parole Board's conditions for early release, he should be set free. Within the past few days a rather odd story has appeared in the press.

Comment on Are whites cleverer than blacks? by Sean Thomas (24/05/2003) Sean Thomas is right to condemn left-wingers for dishonestly shouting down discussion of IQ and race (article, 24 May 2003), but despite their bad faith, 'The Left' has a point. I studied at several institutions where we all had high IQs, and the more kinds of intelligence I see in life, the less sure I get. The appearance of creativity tests in corporate recruitment in the 1960s showed that many in the private sector (never mind politically correct socialists) were already dissatisfied forty years ago with what IQ tests test.

When the European Union drafted its Charter of Fundamental Rights at Nice three years ago, it wasn't immediately obvious that among the first beneficiaries would be testosterone-charged male drivers bullying their way along the autobahn. But it is they, conclude lawyers working for British insurers, who have the most reason to celebrate the new diktats on sexual equality. A proposed European directive will, it seems, outlaw differential pricing of insurance policies according to sex. Women, in other words, will be denied the lower premiums they have long enjoyed in Britain and, in effect, be forced to subsidise male drivers.

Comment on The reek of injustice by Emma Williams (17/05/2003) Whilst I commend Emma Williams' for painting a graphic picture of the hardships endured by the Palestinian population, she is wrong to suggest that Israelis are deluded over this fact. Unlike that of its neighbours, Israel's media is diverse and objective allowing a clear perspective of the conflict. I myself have watched numerous documentaries on Israeli television chronicling the suffering of the Palestinians. Far from being deluded, Israelis view the current quagmire in terms of a trade-off, for as harsh as the reality is, the IDF's tactics have (to a measure) succeeded in bringing the Intifada under control.

Anyone organising a protest against fat-cat pay should bear in mind the experience of a group of gas customers who recently attempted to take a 40-stone sow called Winnie to the AGM of energy company Centrica in Birmingham. She was to sit on the pavement before the press cameras and be fed a bucket of swill to symbolise the supposed corporate greed which has pushed up gas prices by 12 per cent in two years. What the organisers had failed to take into account was the bureaucracy now involved in handling a pig. First, the protesters were made to apply for an animal-movement licence. That hurdle overcome, it then transpired that they also required something called an 'animal-welfare licence'.

Comment on Your Problems Solved by Mary Killen (10/05/2003) I see that a couple of unidentified actors have asked Mary Killen if she can tell them - 1) Is it a Brazilian custom to go to the loo for half an hour at a time? and2) How they can tactfully tell their Brazilian help that they wouldappreciate his doing his business in his own home before coming to them? Mary Killen has, as usual, offered an ingenious solution to the supposed problem, but I cannot understand why the enquirers would expect Brazilians to spend less time in the loo than do English people, nor can I understand how the enquirers can imagine that a Brazilian, unlike the English, is capable of effectively using the loo at whatever time his employer, and not his own constitution, deems appropriate.