The Spectator

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.

Comment on with friends like these . . . by Simon Heffer (03/05/2003) Could you please inform Simon Heffer, the next time you speak to him, that the French banned British beef as a result of the British Christmas time ban of French turkey a few years previously. If he cares to research the matter more thoroughly, he may find more reasons for France's actions towards its neighbour, rather than a presupposed Inferiority complex that is surely an alien concept to anyone but Mr Heffer.Simon Woodhouse. 'Dieu et mon droit', and 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' are two of the sacred mottoes of the British state, but wait, they're French! So is the emblem of three lions on the England cricket team's cap or the British Lions jersey, these are lions of the Dukes of Anjou!

Tony Blair turned 50 this week. The milestone has been celebrated with a special exhibition by the staff of No. 10. In an impressive display of their talents, the spin doctors of Downing Street have boggled or bullied the media into presenting the Prime Minister as a sort of composite prime minister of 1945: Churchill transmogrified into Attlee. The war leader, having settled his foreign enemy, will now deal with the axis of domestic evil in similarly short order. We are given to understand that the famous five giants of social distress – all stubbornly unslain nearly 60 years after the foundation of the welfare state – will now receive the attention of the government.

Comment on Why I nearly resigned by Mark Steyn (26/04/2003) I have only recently come across Mark Steyn and have been impressed by both his insight and wit - I'm delighted that he has decided to stay on at the Spectator. Reading the archives, his predictions post 9-11 have proven almost prophetic on the UN topic. On the latest article I agree with the argument that the UN lacks any sort of coherent vision and is incapable of decisive action, either in war or post-war. However I do understand, if not agree with, the psychological steps taken by people who say that now is the time to attend to the rifts that have emerged in the West.

Of all British exports, it is a tragedy that paranoia should be currently the most successful. If only the integrity of our armed forces and our distaste for corruption had proved as influential upon foreigners as our culture for total safety, the world would indeed be a happy place. Touch down in some distant international airport and Britons will at once recognise the state of paralysis that gripped their own country during the foot-and-mouth crisis and after the Hatfield rail disaster. Most social life and much business activity in China has been suspended. In Hong Kong, few dare take to the streets, and those who do so insist on dressing as if for an excursion to the Planet Zog. The world's pizza takeaways are doing roaring business as diners shun Chinese restaurants and takeaways.

Comment on The dawning of a new Europe by Tim Congdon (19/04/2003) What an excellent article by Tim Congdon. It is so good to see a coherently argued case for UK withdrawal from the EU. I agree entirely that the case must be made in a way that is not narrow and jingoistic so that its advocates are seen to be forward looking and positive. However I do not agree with Professor Congdon that the UK can keep its Treaty of Rome obligations as a matter of "good form". The Treaty of Rome makes UK law subsidiary to EU law and hence impinges upon the sovereignty of Parliament. The UK should withdraw from the Treaty of Rome too. It would be good to see many more articles in The Spectator making the respectable case for withdrawal.

There is no task more difficult than that of educating British children. To the natural indiscipline of youth has now been added the indiscipline of parents, many of whom interpret any reports of wrongdoing in school on the part of their offspring as a personal affront, or as the manifestation of the malice of teachers. The teachers themselves have changed out of all recognition in the past few decades, thanks to the long march through the institutions by indoctrinating, and indoctrinated, intellectuals bearing pernicious gimcrack radical ideas.

Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, in a statement to Parliament about the war in Iraq, said, 'There is upon us a heavy responsibility to make the peace worth the war. We shall do so ...with a fixed and steady resolve that the cause was just, the victory right, and the future for us to make in a way that will stand the judgment of history.' Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said during a stop in Kuwait: 'There is much evidence of co-operation between the Syrian government and the Saddam regime in recent months.' But in a press conference in Bahrain he said, 'We have made it clear that there are no plans for Syria to be next on the list.' And Iran was a 'different case', he told the BBC in Bahrain. 'We've been developing better diplomatic relations with Iran.