Home > The Magazine > The Week

Saturday 22 November 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Click here for exclusive articles, offers, tasting notes and discussion

Letters to the Editor

Wednesday, 26th September 2007

Thank you for Peter Oborne’s ruthlessly accurate exposé of the Political Class (‘The Establishment is dead’, 15 September).

Sir: Mark Penn’s observation that ‘radicalisation of illegal migrants could determine the outcome of the next US election’ (‘Tips for Gordon’, 22 September) could be equally relevant over here. At least one in three of the 600,000 legal migrants who have entered the UK on the watch of this government have indicated that they would like to stay, and the psephological evidence is clear that the existing, settled ethnic minorities overwhelmingly vote either Lib Dem or Labour. The recent Southall by-election was surely testament to the failure of the Conservative party to make progress in such constituencies. Is Labour’s policy of mass immigration a covert attempt at political gerrymandering on an unprecedented scale?

Paul Farrow
Waddington, Lincoln

Explosive issue

Sir: James Delingpole should have paid more attention to the science lessons at school. In his review of the Hindenburg disaster (Television, 22 September) he refers to the time when ‘leaked helium gas ...was ignited by static electricity’.
Helium is not flammable. Hindenburg (and the later R101) were filled with highly flammable hydrogen. Green proponents of hydrogen-cell technology should take note.
David Barron
Southampton

Sir: James Delingpole is quite wrong in describing our armed forces as ‘ruthless killers’. Any fool can kill, as is all too evident from the streets of London and other cities. What they are trained to do is to keep each other alive. That is why they create such strong bonds. If it was not clear to the reviewer, then the director is to be found wanting.

Jeremy M.J. Havard
London W8

Previous page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

A child of our time

From the economic and psychological bedlam of the global downturn has emerged a particularly dangerous false dichotomy: namely, that there is somehow a choice for ministers over the next few years between economic reconstruction and the repair of Britain’s broken society, and that the government (whether Labour or Conservative) must prioritise the former at the expense of the latter.

Diary

Anne Robinson

The daughter and I spent the last few days before the American election in Arizona.

Politics

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson reviews the week in politics

The Spectator's Notes

Charles Moore

‘A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman’s famous “helicopter drop” of money.’ So said Ben Bernanke, now the chairman of the Fed, in a speech about how to ward off the ‘extremely small’ chance of deflation, which he delivered in 2002.