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The Spectator's Notes

Charles Moore

Wednesday, 28th November 2007

Charles Moore's thoughts on the events of the week

A campaign is on to persuade children that Shakespeare is not boring. The sage Alan Watkins is one of those who thinks that Shakespeare is boring, because people run onto the stage shouting the names of English counties — ‘Ho! Northumberland’, ‘Have at thee, Middlesex’. Others find the jokes on the nay-thy-hand-is-in-thy-placket-yet-marry-’tis-out-of-thy-placket lines highly tedious. But I feel that those of us who do enjoy Shakespeare are already losing the fight when we start asserting how unboring he is. Such an approach is itself boring. People who love football or chess or ornithology do not try to prove that their subject is interesting. They assume it. They teach people the skills required to discover the interest innate in the subject. But in academic study the lack of self-confidence is now so great that people cringe before ignorance and rework texts and curriculums to placate it. The true task is to get children to understand Shakespeare, which can be quite tough. Only when that has happened will they find it interesting.

As a member of the London Library, I have just received a long letter from Sir Tom Stoppard, our president. He is trying to answer the anger of members who find themselves presented by the trustees with an increase of the annual membership fee from £210 to £375. Sir Tom’s argument that it is much better to fit the overspilling books into neighbouring premises than to move site or reduce stock is surely right. Lots of money is needed for this. But it does seem extraordinary that an 80 per cent increase could have been presented with so little preparation. Price makes a huge difference to people — to their pockets, obviously, but also to their attitude to what they are being asked to pay for. A rise of this order looks like the result of incompetence or arrogance, even if it isn’t. The Stoppard letter says that 34 members have resigned. That is sad, but the serious change will come not from resignations on principle, but from members who just cannot afford to renew. Suppose, which is perfectly possible, that a quarter of the membership leaves. Is this intended, or unintended? Either way, it is bad.

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‘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.