Back to Black
Sir: Taki (High Life, 16 May) exaggerated the ineptitude of my counsel in Chicago, and in this I am happy to agree with Tom Bower (Letters, 23 May), but they were not my counsel of choice, whom I was prevented from retaining by an asset seizure that was subsequently judged by the jury to be improper. Nor is this a tough prison. It is low security, not divided into cells, and without violence, but Taki is correct that the judge and probation officer recommended minimal security, for which I am technically not eligible as a non-American.
Bower is completely mistaken in everything else he wrote in his letter. There has never been any amount remotely approaching $50 million of mortgages on my Toronto and Palm Beach houses and certainly is not now. None of the defendants in our case testified, because voluntary appearances by accused people in the US opens up a very wide range of new subjects for prosecutors to explore with interrogatory techniques that would not be acceptable in Britain; and we all thought we had won the case. We did win about 90 per cent of it and are hopeful of justice being done on the remaining counts.
Then I will move on to my libel suits, including the one against Mr Bower.
Conrad Black
Coleman, Florida
Three PMs
Sir: Your leading article of 6 June states: ‘If there is to be a third Prime Minister during a parliamentary term — something that has not happened in the modern era…’. But the 1935-45 parliamentary term had three prime ministers: Baldwin, Chamberlain and Churchill. Admittedly this term was prolonged because of the war, but the three prime ministers held office in the first five years.
Whether the period 1935-45 was in the modern era may depend on one’s age: I was born in the first half of that period. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that perhaps the most notable administration of the 20th century was headed by a prime minister who was ‘unelected’.
J. Alan Smith
Epping, Essex
Cheney’s disdain
Sir: Daniel Collings’s interview with Dick Cheney (‘Apologise for torture? “That’s not appropriate”’, 6 June) is an inglorious reminder of exactly why the Bush-Cheney era was such a scar on the history of the United States. He is both arrogantly disdainful of Britain as the US’s leading ally, and contemptuous of the very founding principles that made the United States great. His policies stimulated precisely the outrage, anger and despair that al-Qa’eda and associated groups had hoped for, that will ensure that both the security of the United States and Britain will be undermined for the next quarter of a century.
All the signs are that Obama’s more skilful diplomacy and attempts to engage with the Islamic world are seen to pose a far greater threat to al-Qa’eda’s brand than torture and bombing. If such extremists commit disgraceful acts of violence, it will largely be because they are scared that Obama’s approach endangers their interests, and intended to force him to change course. The challenge for Obama is to turn words into action while never losing sight of the principles he has rightly espoused.
Chris Doyle
Director, Council for Arab-British Understanding, London, EC4
Lea’s careless error
Sir: You published last week (Letters, 6 June) a letter from Lord Lea attacking me for what he describes as blatant falsehoods in my article (‘Why I’m voting Ukip’, 23 May). I shall pay his Lordship the compliment of assuming he was being grossly careless rather than grossly dishonest. I neither said nor implied that our net contribution to the EU budget was £120 billion. Our contribution to that budget, while higher than it should be, is a tiny fraction of the cost to us of our membership of the EU, which is, as I said, calculated by the highly respected TaxPayers’ Alliance, to be £120 billion.
Stuart Wheeler
London W1
Council of imperfection
Sir: I wholeheartedly agree with Martin Vander Weyer’s anger about council tax rates (Any Other Business, 30 May). However, I find it less easy to support his praise for my local council, Hammersmith and Fulham. For my very modest three-bedroom house, I pay almost £2,000 a year in council tax. In return for this extraordinary sum, I am supplied with schools I wouldn’t send any child to, police who take 45 minutes to find the King’s Road (yes, the King’s Road), bureaucrats who write letters saying I cannot put my rubbish out until after 9 p.m. at night (seriously), an additional £400 annual bill to park my car outside my house, chaotic and idiotic traffic systems that leave the Fulham Road largely deserted and the parallel King’s Road gridlocked, and a vast organisational structure delivering little but saying a lot. I could go on, but it’s simply too depressing. I wonder whether Mr Vander Weyer actually lives in the borough, or has he just bought into their expensively prepared PR?
Alan Page
London SW6
Greater majority
Sir: As our MPs puzzle as to how they find themselves in such a mess in regard to their expenses, they might do well to remember the words of George Bernard Shaw: ‘The only sanction known to ethics is the assent of the majority.’ If the majority of the Members think it’s ok, then it’s ok. Pity for them that the great majority, the British public, don’t think it’s ok.
John Saunders
Clitheroe, Lancashire
Bursts of creativity
Sir: In your last Christmas survey (20-27 December, 2008), Hazel Blears gave some ‘reasons to be cheerful’: ‘in tough times people come together and discover things about themselves and each other. We will see some really ingenious ways to beat the downturn: new business, inventions and bursts of creativity’. How right she was.
Roger Sampson
Exeter, Devon
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