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The Spectator's Notes

Charles Moore

Wednesday, 9th July 2008

Charles Moore reflects on the week's events

Reporting from the David Davis by-election last week in the Guardian, Ian Jack noted two schools of thought contending: ‘On the one hand, an argument that says the state is becoming too powerful. On the other, a fear that it is increasingly weak.’ What about another possibility — that both are true? We have achieved an amazing double in which the state arrogates more power to itself but, despite this (or because of it?) gets weaker. A shocking picture in Tuesday’s Daily Telegraph showed an innocent, unarmed man being made to lie down on the platform of Bournemouth station by armed police, with their vile, yobbish baseball hats, pointing guns at his head. It was a case of mistaken identity, apparently. It is appalling how readily the police can now use guns, and how restricted private citizens are in our freedom to own them. On the other hand, we learn from a recent survey of police sergeants that they are too frightened of accusations of bullying to dare to tell their juniors to tuck their shirts in.

This column has strongly supported Max Mosley in his court fight against the News of the World. Mr Mosley alleges that the ‘Nazi’ element in the allegations about his sado-masochistic habits was made up in order to get a better story (Mr Mosley being the son of Sir Oswald). If a newspaper is up to the old trick of using a small foundation of truth to construct a larger edifice of lies, he will do well to expose it. What is puzzling about Mr Mosley, though, is the way he characterises his hobby of sado-masochism. ‘The level of violence is minimal’, he says, and ‘the pain involved... is very modest’. I find this surprising. Surely the point of the thing is that it hurts? Like clergy who do not believe in God or New Labour people who wanted to get rid of Clause Four, Mr Mosley seems to be such a modernising moderate that he threatens to undermine the fundamentals of his own creed. Doesn’t he risk a backlash, literally?

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JohnA

July 12th, 2008 2:19pm

A way to stop the Olympics? Simple - just negligently allow terrorists freely into the country, and give a large group of dissidents who have no loyalty to the country a secure base here to provide a safe haven for the terrorists and sympathy with their aims. Allow them all to speak a remote foreign dialect freely in public places, so the conspiracy can proceed unchecked. Bingo, bomb goes off, carnage and destruction, and the Games are then cancelled by the Olympic Committee.
Couldn't happen here, of course.

Diary

Rani Singh

I’ve just emerged from the gym, winding down after a day’s writing, when my son Sukhraj calls, alerting me to sudden news of explosions and fatalities in Mumbai.