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Charles Moore

Wednesday, 10th October 2007

Charles Moore on the events of the week

In fact, Labour is nowadays so ready to steal any policy which the Conservatives put forward that they must feel tempted to propose reactionary ideas as a tease, to see if there is anything too extreme to be picked up. What about the creation of new hereditary dukes (the title of York is taken, Mr Brown), or the restoration of the stocks on village greens? But at the same time as being copied by Labour, Tory policies are also excoriated by them, so the Conservatives need to be ready with a second barrel in each proposal. In the case of inheritance tax, it would be good to make the arrangements more philanthropic. Could you, for example, accumulate an inheritance tax exemption by giving to charity in your lifetime, piling up points for your giving from which your heirs would eventually benefit? People like doing well by doing good.

I had thought the phrase was ‘bottling out’, not ‘bottling it’, but either way, it derives, according to the experts, from rhyming slang. ‘Bottle and glass’ is a part of the body. The phrase ‘losing your bottle’ has, in the careful expression of the dictionary, ‘the connotation of temporary incontinence associated with fear’. Perhaps if anyone had known this, the BBC would have banned the words on air.

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Joe Sobey

October 22nd, 2007 6:18pm

Was the night of the great storm a Friday? Can't think why I went into work the morning after if it was!

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.

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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.