Lift sanctions on Iran
Sir: The resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis is breathtakingly simple, were sanity to prevail (‘Iran will be next’, 8 September). Iran does not need an atom bomb to attain the status of a regional superpower: the size of her population and territory, her vast natural resources, her access to the Caspian Sea and dominance of the Persian Gulf confer that status upon her. If the sanctions imposed by the Americans and the Security Council were to be lifted and, simultaneously, Iran agreed to an international inspection of her nuclear installations, Iran’s moribund economy would be revived at the same time that fears about her nuclear military ambitions would be assuaged.
The alternatives are too terrifying to contemplate.
Parviz C. Radji
By email
Critical mass
Sir: Damian Thompson, in his excellent article (8 September) on the Pope’s motu proprio, which has restored the right to celebrate and attend the liturgical form previously known as the ‘Old’ or ‘Tridentine’ Mass, comments that ‘it is an exciting time to be Catholic’. He is absolutely right, for more than one reason. Firstly, as he says, because by his action the Pope ‘has indicated that the entire worship of the Church — which had become tired and dreary since the Second Vatican council — is on the brink of reformation’. The next stage in this process for us will be the promulgation of the more faithful, and less dogmatically banal, translation of the English version of the ‘new mass’ which has now been completed.
But there is an even more fundamental reason to be thankful for the motu proprio: that it sweeps away what the Pope has called the ‘hermeneutic of rupture and discontinuity’, a way of interpreting the Second Vatican Council as an event which destroyed the entire preconciliar Catholic tradition. By insisting that the ‘old rite’ and the ‘new rite’ are simply different forms of the same liturgy, the Pope has done much to re-establish the essential continuity of the Catholic tradition, and with it the necessary condition for the growth of unity between the growing number of young ‘traditionalists’ in the Catholic Church, and the now ageing ‘liberals’ who have dominated it in recent years.
William Oddie
Oxford
We knew him as Emily
Sir: I read with interest the meeting between Mary Wakefield and Clarissa Dickson Wright (‘A pin-up for Scottish pensioners’, 8 September) and was touched by her appeal to Spectator readers who might know more about the ‘Miranda’ legend.
Alas, I was not at the Bar with Mr Blair, so cannot vouch for the truth concerning his nickname and the reason behind it. However, I was at Fettes at about the same time as one Tony Blair, albeit a few years older than him. I can remember him as a rather obsequious junior and even then, in the mid- to late Sixties, he had acquired a similar nickname to the one that was to be bestowed upon him at the Bar. His Fettes nickname was Emily.
Cameron Lees
Stirling
TV tricks
Sir: I was pleased to see from Rod Liddle’s piece that David Kermode at Channel 5 is banning a string of ‘hackneyed TV news tricks’ (Liddle Britain, 8 September). Would he please add to his list the irritating reporter as driver? This procedure involves the reporter/journalist addressing his audience while driving a car. The camera is on the seat beside him and from time to time he turns to face the viewer. Of course, all this could be a clever and pointless fake. In the absence of trickery, however, to describe it as driving without due care and attention seems an understatement!
F.G. Lane
Chislehurst, Kent
Running with the ball
Sir: Rod Liddle’s put-down of rugby in favour of football (‘A game devoid of skill’, 8 September) reminds me of the old adage that rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen whereas football is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans.
Ronald Macdonell
Dingwall, Ross-shire
Silver, not gold
Sir: Paul Johnson asserts that the Maria Theresa thaler (‘still circulating as a currency in East Africa when I first went there in the 1950s’) was a gold coin (And another thing, 8 September). But it isn’t gold, as anybody who has spent time in Africa or the Levant knows. It is a silver coin, first minted in 1740 when the Empress succeeded her father, Charles VI of Hungary. Since 1780, the year of the Empress’s death, the coin was always dated with that year. I believe that the last minting was in Vienna in 2002.
Anthony Weale
Wellow, nr Bath
Arms race
Sir: Without wishing to comment on the content of Matthew Lynn’s article on Britain’s arms industry (Business, 25 August), it is a shame that someone chose to illustrate it with a picture of a M-113 — an American armoured vehicle.
Lt-Col N.J. Ridout
British Embassy, Tbilisi
The right Wainwright
Sir: Can I make clear, which my diary last week (8 September) did not, that Martin Wainwright is both the Guardian’s northern editor and the author of a fine new biography of the Lake District guru, Alfred Wainwright.
Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP
London SW1
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