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The Spectator’s Notes

Charles Moore

Wednesday, 7th November 2007

Charles Moore's thoughts on the week

The same goes for the idea that Parliament should usurp the ‘Royal prerogative’, and decide whether or not the country goes to war. War cannot be fought according to the timetable of parliamentary business. The government has to be free, constitutionally, to order an attack without laying it before the House of Commons first. This does not undermine the Commons’ power over war and peace, because the political reality is that no government can sustain a war if it does not have the support of a majority in the Commons. All the prerogative does is permit the government some operational freedom, some capacity to surprise. The belief has got about that Parliament did not approve the Iraq war, and that this should not be allowed to happen again. But it is not the case. The war was debated, and Tony Blair — some say by hook and by crook — won. As with the school-leaving age, this reform creates the appearance of virtue, not virtue itself.

I have just been given a copy of Bloodsport, a new history of hunting in Britain since 1066 by Emma Griffin. On the cover is a 200-year-old print of men shooting. This confirms that there is now complete confusion about what the word ‘hunting’ means. In America, it means what we usually call ‘shooting’. This usage is now taking over here, so, even though Emma Griffin’s book mentions shooting only in passing, some picture researcher has plonked a shoot on the front cover. Is this good for real hunting, i.e. hunting with hounds, because it completely muddles what is legal (most forms of shooting) with what is not? Or is it bad, because it makes people think that any form of field sport is against the law? The new, magnificent edition of Baily’s Hunting Directory, I see, has a far more suitable cover. Its customary red is wrapped in black, in mourning because of the ban.

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J. Grieve

November 8th, 2007 8:35pm

Was Mr Moore at Sandringham when two shots were fired and the hen harriers fell out of the sky? If not, what makes him think that there was no crime? Is he suggesting that it was all a figment of the witness's imagination or that they were not hen harriers? If the Police are right and there was a crime is Mr Moore suggesting that the suspects must be one or more unidentified armed men who happened to be roaming around Sandringham very near Harry and his friends?