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Saturday 22 November 2008

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Letters to the Editor

Letters

Wednesday, 24th October 2007

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Sir: Whilst I agree with Julian Brazier (Letters, 20 October) that human rights have a murky ‘Enlightenment’ provenance, his American Civil War example is inaccurate. Rights were not ‘trumpeted loudest by those supporting slavery’. It was the Abolitionist Federal North which framed its case in terms of rights, whereas the South asserted established law and the Constitution.
The legality of secession was privately acknowledged after the war, when the proposed prosecution of Jefferson Davis for treason was dropped after advice from the chief justice that secession had indeed been in line with the standard Constitutional theory that Davis had been taught at West Point.
This is not a matter of legal/historic pedantry. Human rights have since become the weapon of choice of ‘progressives’ when they cannot secure their objectives democratically. How else can unpopular measures such as abortion, exclusion of religion from schools or gay marriage be established in the USA if not via unelected judges?
A similar tension lies behind the current European debate, with constitutional ‘advances’ promoted by unelected officials of the Commission. We might profitably learn from history that human rights and federal ambitions have a poor record of respecting legislatures and the will of the majority — let alone ‘red lines’.

Martin Sewell
Gravesend, Kent

Potato head

Sir: Following the recent behaviour of the Prime Minister, should he not perhaps be known as ‘Hash Brown’?

J.M. Leggett
Wimborne, Dorset

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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.

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody

Tamzin Lightwater

Tamzin Lightwater's unique take on the week

Schoolboy errors

The Spectator on Deripaska-gate

Politics

James Forsyth

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics

Your chance to vote in the Spectator awards

James Forsyth

After a gripping week of political theatre in Manchester, James Forsyth invites readers to submit nominations for a new category in our Parliamentarian of the Year Awards: the prize for the Readers’ Representative