Back at Black
Sir: With one exception, Conrad Black’s article (‘I’ll be back’, 2 July) is a succession of inaccuracies and outright lies. Among the most blatant is his assertion that he received a payment of $6 million in compensation for libel from Richard Breeden and the Special Committee which investigated and reported the frauds which Black perpetuated and for which a Chicago jury found him guilty. Not only did Black not receive any apology or payment from Breeden, but Breeden and his committee issued a statement last week stating they adhere to their original conclusions. Indeed, all the American courts, including the Supreme court, upheld the jury’s verdict that Black is dishonest. However it is true that Black received some money from an insurance indemnity policy which he was entitled to as a Hollinger director to pay legal fees. To mislead your readers, he has confused the issues.
It is a reflection of Black’s character that he accuses Christopher Browne, the fund manager who in 2001 started the investigation of Black’s management of Hollinger which led to his ultimate conviction, of having ‘committed suicide by alcoholism’. That’s an outrageous libel. Browne, whose clients earned millions through his diligent investments, was a saintly man who enjoyed an occasional drink and for years suffered severe heart problems. He died of an aneurism after a stroke.
I sat through Black’s trial. The evidence against him was overwhelming, which is why he was too cowardly to testify in his own defence. All the emails between Black and David Radler, his lifelong partner, showed that Black was the mastermind of the fraudulent ‘non-compete’ fees, which Black himself had credited for enriching himself and Radler. All Hollinger’s directors testified that Black had lied to them to perpetuate the fraud and despite Black’s vigorous cross-examination, their evidence was believed by the jury.
Throughout his life, Black has been accused of dishonesty. Like all conmen, he insists there is only one truth — his own. That’s how his breed live to fight another day. However he is right that ‘Bower is next’. His libel writ in Toronto will be contested. Until now, despite issuing dozens of writs, Black has avoided ever going into the witness box to testify. As Richard Desmond discovered in 2009 in his failed case against me, the aggressive bluster of the rich and famous evaporates when confronted by the truth. I have no doubt that a Toronto jury will follow the example of the Chicago jury.
Tom Bower
London NW3
Article of faith
Sir: It might be better if Brendan O’Neill would heed his own advice and keep his thoughts to himself rather than letting them ‘all hang out’ (‘Confessional culture’, 2 July). I suspect, however, that he knows that good things can come out of truthful and courageous speech, especially when it has taken years to be able to be honest. He seems to imply that the conspiracy of silence that surrounded his subjects’ abuse should be prolonged simply because the topic is distasteful and grown men shouldn’t cry. I prefer to side with Wallace Stevens: ‘to speak humanly from the height or from the depth/ of human things, that is acutest speech./ We must remain articulate to the end…’
Mark Oakley
London EC4
Sir: I was pleased to read Brendan O’Neill’s article. Although I am not a Catholic, I was, for more than 20 years, architect to St Etheldreda’s, so got to know Fr Kit Cunningham well. It was a happy collaboration. I also came to know many of his staff and friends, who are now devastated by the BBC programme. What the Rosminians did was inexcusable, but to the secular BBC the concept of Christian forgiveness is not only absurd but irrelevant. This was prosecution by the media, without counsel for the defence.
John Gibberd
By email
Model misbehaviour
Sir: As a doctor, Theodore Dalrymple should be well versed in the ‘nurture versus nature’ argument. His polemic on British ‘yoof’ (‘Young Turks’, 2 July) seems to suggest that their crass behaviour is endemic; if so, they were either born that way, and thus it is not their fault, or brought up that way, and so it is the fault of the parents and older role models — viz. the generation to which Dr Dalrymple belongs. Boorish drunken behaviour is not merely the province of the young — we all turn every week to enjoy Jeremy Clarke’s tales of sore heads and lost memories. Perhaps it’s OK for journalists to behave that way, but not mere plebs!
Paul Samways
Methwold, Norfolk
League of nations
Sir: James Forsyth reports (Politics, 2 July) that Tory radicals believe that being the best in Europe is no longer good enough. Chance would be a fine thing. In the current EU, Britain ranks 11th in terms of per capita income; of the nine countries who were members after Britain joined in 1973, Britain ranks eighth. This is despite working longer hours, crowding the country with large numbers of immigrants and neglecting appalling social problems. Gordon Brown spent his years as Chancellor telling Europe that it just had to copy what he was doing: are the Conservatives now about to succumb to their own fantasies about the EU?
Richard Harrington
Manchester
North of south
Sir: Rod Liddle’s theory (‘How did I get it right on the euro?’, 2 July) that financial prodigality only exists south of an east-west line through the Pyrenees is charming but flawed. What about the Irish? They are as North European as the Germans. They had a booming and heavily subsidised (by us) economy and still managed to blow it to kingdom come. And what about the Scottish Presbyterian known on the ‘wanted’ posters as Gordon Brown? He was rarely seen dancing the night away, ouzo in hand, in the local taverna. But he still managed to destroy his country’s economy with a decade-long spendfest of near insane profligacy. There may be a linking thread between Bantry Bay, the Tagus estuary, Queensferry and the Parthenon, but I don’t think Rod has sussed it yet.
But on the euro he is quite right. It always was a design-flawed vessel destined to founder in the first Force Eight. But we had thousands of passionate devotees who are now strangely mute, and several maintained still by David Cameron in the highest offices. Our beloved country is still a place where it never hurts to be catastrophically wrong.
Frederick Forsyth
Buckinghamshire
Sir: Rod Liddle is accurate in his assessment that a vague ‘anti-racism’ was the unspoken motivation of the establishment in wanting to take us into the euro a few short years ago. Sadly it follows that, while every sane measure of our national interest (and of the interests of farmers in developing countries) demands a substantial slimming down of the entire eurostate project, if not our complete withdrawal, this is unlikely to happen. Not even a majority Conservative government, let alone a coalition shackled by headbanging Liberal Democrats, would dare offend the bien-pensants of Muswell Hill with such ‘racist’ policies. One can only dream of a future national government of Labour and Tory realists coming together finally to fix this wretched problem.
William Anderson
Old Knebworth, Hertfordshire
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