In this week's Spectator
Fraser Nelson 5:27pm
The latest issue of the Spectator is out. Here, for the benefit of CoffeeHousers, is
a selection of five pieces from it.
1) How did David Cameron mutate into a hawk? The last few weeks have been like a political version of a Manimal* transformation sequence. Daniel McCarthy, editor of The American Conservative, looks at this in the current edition of the magazine – he’s sceptical about the operation underway (as were most CoffeeHousers when I last blogged on it) and argues that “Cameron’s interventionism would substitute the discredited example for a hopeful one”.
2) Blair always viewed foreign affairs as a welcome relief from the home front. Might Cameron’s passion be inspired by the sense of “controlled panic” in Whitehall? James Forsyth lists what’s going wrong, and why, in the cover story – I touched on this earlier on. It’s a great insight into the hopes and insecurities of the government, and helps make sense of a lot of things going on right now.
3) And how do we explain the hawkishness of Sarkozy? Janine di Giovanni sends a report from Paris that has some clues. France is worried about the influx of immigration from northern Africa, and the new National Front leader Marine Le Pen is doing very well and came top of a recent opinion poll – with Sarko third. Janine describes how well Le Pen manipulates fear of immigration – travelling to the Italian island of Lampeduse this week, where 8,500 Tunisian migrants have landed.
4) Fascism-lite may be doing well in France, but badly in Britain. Rod Liddle looks at how the BNP is doing appallingly, and asks if David Dimbleby and Question Time are to thank. “This should be a lesson to the left,” he says. “It’s not always the oxygen of publicity. Sometimes it’s the cyanide of publicity.”
5) The extraordinary events of Japan have been a mixed tale of tragedy, extraordinary courage (both of which reflected in a piece from Tokyo from Tanya Coke) but also the panic over nuclear fuel has already sent world energy costs soaring. The explosions we’ve seen so far are Level Four (out of seven) – one below the Three Mile Island blowup. That killed no one (and even Chernobyl’s casualty list is in the hundreds). But fear of what we can’t see (radiation) always trumps fear of what we can (water and mud) even if the latter has been the far deadlier of the two in Japan’s case. Our leading article calls for a sense of perspective, and says that the striking point about Japan’s nuclear power is that the two old bases held out so well.
AND MORE…. Alexander Chancellor, one of my many great predecessors as Spectator editor, comes back to write the diary – and remembers a 20-year-old motorcycling Rupert Murdoch. Carol Sarler looks at the “selfishness” of men like Donald Trelford, Des O’Conner and Rod Stewart who sire children in retirement age. Michael Henderson explains why that, if you don’t like Beethoven, it’s your fault – not his. “A person who fails to come to terms with Beethoven has, in some profound sense, failed to live a proper life” he says. The books section is superb this week, kicking off on a review of a Gulag anthology edited by Anne Applebaum.
All of the above is winging its way to our subscribers now (or available on the iPad). And to join our subscribers, from as little as £1 an issue, click here. It’s the best quid you’ll spend all week.
* For those unfamiliar with Manimal:
Previous
Noa.
March 18th, 2011 6:00pm Report this commentTransformation to a hawk? More like a feral pigeon, from which he will proceed to crap on the pavement and passers-by below, until a real hawk dispenses appropriate justice to this political bird brain.
yank
March 18th, 2011 6:05pm Report this commentWell, good of the Spectator chavs to find space for events in Japan, which the rest of the world are struggling with, unlike the Cameroons, who consider it nought of importance, least not as compared to BP's investments in Libya, obviously.
But, to counter the Spectator's quick cover stories for its pet Cameroons (and I do commend the rapidity of your quick cover), let's review events here in Libya.
Call Me Dave went the full monte, full regime change, absent a Monty or the means to support one. Clearly then, they were committed to regime change, through the grace of God and the United States' military, as this would be the only means to protect BP’s investments, once the reckless rhetoric was loosed and the shindig got into full swing.
But in doing so, the Cameroons ensured that absent full regime change, BP was finished in Libya. Previous to Dave’s empty blather, there remained a chance for reasonable settlement to protect at least some of BP’s interests. Now, BP is out of the picture. Finished. Their invoices now pass across Mr. Gates desk, if Khadaffi allows them to even get that far. Either way, they are processed into a circular file, excuse me, the recycling bin.
Of course, there’s always the UN oil-for-food dogpile, likely soon to come. After all the appropriate rakeoffs and payoffs, maybe BP will get a few pennies afterall. Maybe not, though. Depends on how Mr. Gates is feeling, or the tribal leaders who handcuffed 007 in the desert a couple weeks ago.
Such is the price of empty blather. The Cameroons are currently inflicting a long period of stagflation onto their nation, having accepted the status quo of their “opposition”, and failing to push through the fundamental changes required to foster other than that current stagflation. And now, a significant portion of the populace’s income and pension assets have been severely damaged, by the Camerloons’ recklessness and empty blather.
And so the Spectator chavs break out the “hawkish” pose in support of their mate? I suspect that will play out as always, over the longer term. Always amusing to watch, but sad, too.
Vulture
March 18th, 2011 6:09pm Report this commentAs a fellow avian, I can tell you what species Dave belongs to : he's a budgie. Forever looking at himself in the mirror, tinkling his bell and spilling his seed on dead ground.#
Who's a pretty boy then?
Rev I M Jolly
March 18th, 2011 6:40pm Report this commentI'm sure he wet his trousers at sending in the gunboats. Like father (Blair) like son.
Baron
March 18th, 2011 7:49pm Report this commentyank, would it help if BP were to furnish funds not only for the recovery of the states in the Gulf of Mexico, but the whole of your leaderless country? Would that be enough to make you shut up about the company?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/mar/04/bp-oil-spill-deepwater-horizon
to provide a diversion from the pain at home, the timing of the Libyan brawl could have hardly been bettered. That the head boy leached to it smartly shouldn’t surprise, he’s a politician. The little ask is where does the cash for the exercise come from? The international aid budget perhaps?
yank
March 18th, 2011 11:36pm Report this commentWell, Mr. Baron, the cash will be paid for by US taxpayers, similar to the cash that paid for the privilege of your making that post in English.
You're welcome.
2trueblue
March 18th, 2011 11:50pm Report this commentYank, your major oil company left a huge mess in South America, not to mention Bhopal, whose president retired to the USA and left his mess in Bhopal?
yank
March 19th, 2011 3:51am Report this commentWell, Mr. 2trueblue, maybe you and Call Me Dave should enact a no-fly-zone as punishment, and start bombing, then?
Oh, that's right... you couldn't if you wanted to... what was I thinking?
Weygand
March 20th, 2011 12:13am Report this commentPolls suggest that Sarkozy is despised by the French people; physically, morally, intellectually, he is without stature - even his Prime Minister could not hide a smirk on TV this week when told he was more popular with both party members and the public than his boss.
In France, this is all about internal politics, but then was not it the same for us with the Iraq war?
But if it is clear why the French are puffing out their chests as they take on an apparently easy target, after Iraq and Afghanistan surely we should know better.
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