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Thursday 4 December 2008

The Spectator’s Notes

Charles Moore's reflections on the week

The battle over the evaded referendum on the Lisbon treaty seems to be following the pattern of all European arguments in this country. The pro-integrationists have used the favourite tactic of claiming that it is all a fuss about nothing. The treaty, they say, is technical, too boring to be worth discussing (although also, mysteriously, essential to pass), let alone asking the people to vote on. This has encouraged large parts of the media to ignore it. At the time of writing, it looks as if, in terms of parliamentary arithmetic, the tactic has worked, with the added bonus of making the new Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, appear foolish. But the Eurosceptics have won the battle of public opinion. By organising local referendums with a surprisingly high degree of public participation, they have placed themselves on the side of democracy. Now the Bill goes to the Lords and one hopes that they will feel free to place themselves on that side too. The Salisbury Convention which insists that peers do not block manifesto commitments should surely be made to apply in reverse: peers should punish governments that go back on those commitments.

It was painful to pay £1.53 for a loaf of brown bread in our local shop last week. But the interesting thing about the huge price increases is how little attention they are getting. In past ages, a 50 per cent rise in the price of wheat in a year would have produced riots in the streets, even, in some countries, revolution. It shows what a rich society we have become if we no longer regard bread as a staple, and therefore do not protest. Perhaps there will be a gradual shift of perception by which bread will be regarded as a luxury. Instead of serving it ‘free’ to accompany other food, restaurants will make it into a special, swanky course, like dishes cooked with white truffles. People will assume that the bread and wine Jesus offered up at the Last Supper were symbols of kingly luxury rather than the basics of life. And the ‘breadwinner’ of the household will be not the daily earner, but the lottery-winner, the person who struck it rich. Yet I cannot help thinking that the end of the era which environmentalists like Prince Charles disparage as ‘our obsession with cheap food’ will quite soon stir up public anger. Green prohibitions on GM crops will come to seem as oppressive as the Corn Laws.

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