19 May 2012
Rod Liddle
Was there a ‘racial’ or ‘cultural’ angle to the crimes committed by those nine exclusively Asian men from Rochdale sentenced to between four and 19 years in prison for sexually abusing young white girls? Or was it simply a weird coincidence that we should all promptly forget about? There are plenty of people in the public eye (although probably none who are not in the public eye) who pretend to cleave to the latter point of view. These include, oddly enough, the respected journalist Peter Oborne — who divested himself of such stammering inanities on the subject while appearing on...
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19 May 2012
Charles Moore
The RSPCA is supposed to be a charity, but it seems to be embarking on the modern form of political aggression known as ‘lawfare’. Islamists use this with the libel laws, though the Queen’s Speech has promised to ban it: the RSPCA is trying it on with the Hunting Act. It is launching a private prosecution with 52 charges against alleged breaches of the act. For the first time in hunting prosecutions, it is trying to use ‘body corporate’ arguments to catch officers of the hunt without any evidence of their involvement in the incidents alleged. It hopes by the...
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19 May 2012
Matthew Parris
Observing the fealties of football supporters, I’ve been struck by a contradiction that troubles any non-sporting mind. To a fan, which team you support is often a matter of chance. But once you’ve attached yourself to a team, the loyalty can be ferocious, and run deep. It can become part of who you are. So do we say that because your support becomes unshakeable your association with your team is a profound thing? Or do we say that, because you could quite easily have developed the same loyalties to a different team, the association is shallow?
The apparent contradiction can...
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19 May 2012
Peter Jones
The Royal Mint has just released some gold coins to celebrate the London Olympics. John Bergdahl, who designed them, explained the source of his ‘inspiration’ as ‘the first Olympic Games in ancient Greece, where the first athletes pledged their allegiance to the gods of Olympia.’
Really? That ‘gods of Olympia’ will have set the alarm bells ringing for most readers, because there were no ‘gods of Olympia’. There were gods of Mt Olympus, but it is unwise to stage events like chariot races on mountains, and Olympus was 140 miles from the place where the Games were actually held...
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19 May 2012
James Delingpole
If you’re at all worried about the current global financial situation, here’s what I advise: buy gold. Then buy some more gold. Then buy some gold coins to stash under your bed and in various hiding places known only to yourself. Sovereigns are good if you’re British because, being legal tender, they are not subject to capital gains tax. Oh, and if you’re investing in bullion — which you must — make sure it’s in a spread of locations: London, Hong Kong, Geneva, wherever. That’s because when the shit hits the fan (WTSHTF as we catastrophists fondly abbreviate it), no...
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19 May 2012
Dot Wordsworth
Pop Larkin from The Darling Buds of May won himself a place in the Oxford English Dictionary by saying things like: ‘Perfick wevver! You kids all right at the back there?’ So it was some surprise to find a couple of television advertisements mispronouncing perfect in quite a different way. They say the second syllable as though it were spelled fecked, as in the stressed syllable of effect. Perfect has a long and complicated history, and was never pronounced with the ‘c’ at all in the Middle Ages. The old pronunciation is preserved in the surname Parfitt (an occupational name,...
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