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Thursday 4 December 2008

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Letters

Wednesday, 2nd July 2008

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

The understandable and generally wise Conservative leadership policy of making no spending promises before achieving power must give way in the case of defence spending. The leadership must now promise adequate defence funding when it regains power — waiting is unacceptable — and meanwhile harass the government remorselessly to increase expenditure.

Allen Sykes
Leatherhead, Surrey

The point about Russia

Sir: Charlotte Hobson (Books, 28 June) obviously does not know Russia very well and does not like it. She did not read Jonathan Dimbleby’s book with due attention as she fails to understand its central point, which the author expresses with such brilliance: the mentality and the way of life of Russia were mutilated by Stalinist repression.

Hobson uses a lot of old-fashioned stereotypes. For example, she writes about Russia’s sense of insecurity born of invasions, an old communist propaganda thesis. But ask yourself who invaded Poland six times, three times in the 20th century alone? Who kept half of Europe under its heel for half a century?

Oleg Gordievsky
London WC1

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P McNeill

July 3rd, 2008 4:59pm

With regard to Mr. Cummins' remarks about Muslims, it is a sad day when the free world has to listen to tirades that totally counter the pursuit of peace and understanding by people who are obviously more educated on the subject than himself.

Keith Bryer

July 4th, 2008 3:59pm

Chris Doyle's view of the Crusades is bent heavily in favour of the Muslims who invaded the middle east in 700 AD changing it over the next 300 years from a Hellenistic/Roman area into a Muslim one. That was what Pope Urban wanted to reverse by calling for a Crusade. So too did the Byzantine Emperor whose empire had been snatched from his dynasty by newly-enthused Muslim warriors. Cummins was not wrong -- at least on this point.

Letters

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Brown bets the farm

The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Pre-Budget Report (PBR) was one of the most arresting political events of modern times.

Diary

Hardeep Singh Kohli

Social networking: surely that has to be a tautology?

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody

Tamzin Lightwater

Tamzin Lightwater's unique take on the week

The Spectator's Notes

Charles Moore

In his speech announcing his Pre-Budget Report, Alistair Darling said that he was going to put up the top rate of income tax to 45 per cent from 2011, because he wanted the burden to be borne by ‘those who have done best out of the growth of the past decade’.

Diary

Anne Robinson

The daughter and I spent the last few days before the American election in Arizona.

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.

Letters

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

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.