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Alex's post on the passing of Irving Kristol does a very good job of capturing the strengths and weaknesses of neoconservatism. As a lapsed convert, I'd add this quote from the old man himself, taken from his Sixties essay "The Politics of Stylish Frustration" and reproduced in the primer "The Neoconservative Imagination":
It requires strength of character to act upon one's ideas; it requires no less strength of character to resist being seduced by them.
Music alert... The final chapter of Gareth Malone's odyssey goes out on BBC2 tomorrow. Definitely not to be missed. (This performance comes from the second programme in the series, set on a housing estate with more than its share of social problems.) It all goes to show how a little bit of enthusiasm, and a good teacher, can transform people's lives. I assume a Bafta award will be on the way at some point.
I've only just caught up with the brouhaha over James Macintryre's broadside in the New Statesman. Having read Hannan's post twice, I still don't understand why Macintrye chose to use the R-word. In this case, Iain Dale is right: I don't buy Iain's distinction between political correspondents (good) and political commentators (bad), but that's another matter.
There's plenty of racism, overt and disguised, floating around in the conservative blogosphere, and it's depressing to see some respected journalists pandering to the bigots who spend their waking hours haunting comment sections and singing the praises of Enoch Powell. (I imagine that somewhere there's even a site devoted to the wit and wisdom of the late Tory grandee who's the subject of the post below.) Yet, as far as I can see, Hannan was making a reasonable observation about the opposition to Obama. Little Green Footballs has supplied photographic...
One of the most perceptive assessments comes from his Oxford tutor:
I found him a man of many prejudices and little energy ... Instead of thinking, he tries to grasp at any generalisation that is extreme enough to be indefensible. Then he need only reiterate instead of having to defend it.Edwina Currie notes that:
He kept a signed photograph of Hitler in the Saltwood safe and would consult it in moments of stress.And Dominic Lawson [via Daniel Finkelstein] reminds us of this incident:
In 1981 his diary records: "I told Frank Johnson that I was a Nazi; I really believed it to be the ideal system, and that it was a disaster for the Anglo-Saxon races and for the world that it was extinguished." Johnson, who was then on the staff of The Times, gulps and tells Clark that he...
Nine year-old Anish Ramakrishnan attempts to move pieces on a giant chessboard which has gone on display in Trafalgar Square as part of the London Design Festival. The set - consisting of two-metre high ceramic pieces on a mosaic glass surface - is the work of the Spanish artist Jaime Hayon. [Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images]
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