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Friday 18 July 2008

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What a boring royal blackmail story

The royal blackmail story is remarkable for the absence of outrage

Rod Liddle

Wednesday, 31st October 2007

The gay sex and drugs allegations were met with a huge shrug

I suppose there must be someone left in Britain who is surprised or shocked that a minor member of the royal family has alleged homosexual tendencies and is partial to the odd snort of cocaine. Lord Charteris of Amisfield, for example — formerly the Queen’s private secretary — would at least have pretended to be appalled, but he’s been dead for seven long years. Frankly, I suspect most British people would shrug their shoulders with resignation and boredom even if it were reported that a fairly important royal had been photographed mainlining anthrax spores while fellating a pine marten. The newspapers, denied the right to inform their readers of the identity of the blackmail victim, instead directed them to a whole bunch of websites which had blithely ignored the injunction. ‘Yesterday the name of the person was only a click of a mouse and a ten-second internet trawl away,’ the Daily Mail said in a forlorn attempt at breathlessness on Tuesday this week. I bet very few people took up the invitation.

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Imagine the terror of the Chinese officials

David Tang

David Tang reflects on his visits to Beijing in the run-up to the Games, where Western expertise has been harnessed to the ruthless efficiency of China’s government machine

Nudge, nudge: meet the Cameroons’ new guru

James Forsyth

The economist Richard Thaler — a favourite of the Cameron and Obama camps — talks to James Forsyth about the power of ‘nudging’: small transformative acts of persuasion

The cross-party consensus on welfare reform echoes the Gingrich–Clinton revolution

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson on the coming political week

The Falun Gong show that meek can be provocative

Lloyd Evans

Lloyd Evans joins the dissident movement in a ritual exercise near the Chinese Embassy. He is unsettled to find himself understanding why China’s rulers get so paranoid about them

Big Brother versus YouTube: let the Beijing Games commence

Mark Leonard

Mark Leonard, Britain’s pre-eminent analyst of modern China, says the Olympic genie is out of the bottle. The prospect of global scrutiny has actually increased repression as the authorities try to stamp out dissent. But digital technology is impossible to police

Cosmic codes

Melissa Kite

Melissa Kite leads a Real Life

Cameron gets ready for No. 10 — and Boris must wait his turn

Fraser Nelson

David Cameron talks to Fraser Nelson about his local election triumphs, admits that he is not going to ‘agree on everything’ with the new Mayor of London, and says Boris should join the queue to become PM after him