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1828 and All That

Wednesday, 2nd January 2008

In the first days of 2008, we survey a domestic scene overshadowed by economic storm clouds and drained of energy by Gordon Brown’s decision not to hold an election. Labour’s task is to prove that it has a mission other than to cling to power for as long as possible, in the ignominious tradition of John Major. David Cameron’s challenge is to transform his strong 40 per cent position in the polls into a regular 45 per cent, and to match likeability with the aura of robust competence: he has to look like a prime minister in waiting, a leader capable of taming and reforming the public sector, putting police officers back on the beat and keeping prisoners behind bars, and restoring control of Britain’s borders. Mr Cameron does not have to unveil too many detailed policies — but he should never forget the stunning impact that George Osborne’s proposals for inheritance tax cuts had upon the political landscape. That landscape is shifting, and the Tories must shift with it.

The political event of the year will be the US presidential elections, as open a race as any in recent memory. It is to be hoped that John McCain stays in the running in the initial primaries, as his vision of America’s role in the world is precisely what America and the world now need. McCain’s awesome record of honour and courage as a serviceman in Vietnam underpins his determination that the US must finish what it started in the war on terror, but also his insistence that the West must reclaim the moral high ground if it is to prevail: no more Guantanamos, or Abu Ghraibs. A McCain-Obama race would offer a tantalising battle between two quite different strategies for change presented by two generations. But the twists and turns of the US primary system make it quite impossible to predict at this stage whose names will be on the ballot papers on 4 November.

The departure of George W. Bush from the White House a little more than a year hence will lay to rest one of the most intellectually contemptible delusions of our time: that Islamist terror is somehow a reflex response to the provocations of the President and Tony Blair. Of course, chronology alone proves what nonsense this is. When the World Trade Center was first bombed in 1993, Mr Blair was not yet opposition leader, and Mr Bush had not yet been elected Governor of Texas.

No matter: the traumas of Iraq have given comfort to those who argue, ludicrously, that atrocities such as the 7/7 bombings would not have happened without the removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003. We are told repeatedly that the Iraq conflict has been a ‘recruiting sergeant’ to militant Islam. That may be so. The trouble is that everything is a ‘recruiting sergeant’ to militant Islam, from the continued existence of the state of Israel, to the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924, to the length of skirts worn by women in Western countries.

Indeed, the first days of 2008 are overshadowed by a tragedy that shows how deeply rooted and complex the threat truly is. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto on 27 December revealed, once again, the absolute resolve of Islamic fundamentalists to destroy anyone and anything that obstructs their murderous objectives.

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David Watkins

January 5th, 2008 12:47am

>...those who argue, ludicrously, that atrocities such as the 7/7 bombings would not have happened without the removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003. This argument may, just possibly, be mistaken. But ludicrous? It is backed by the posthumous, tape-recorded testimony testimony of the 7/7 bombers. Presumably they knew their reasons better than anyone, and since they knew that they were going to their deaths they had no obvious motive for lying. I have purchased the Spectator for over forty years. Very often I have sharply disagreed with its editorial opinions. This is, I think, the first time a Spectator editorial has grossly insulted my intelligence.

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.