Lessons for the GOP?
Sir: In Charles Moore’s notes (9 October), he writes that ‘unusually in modern political history… American politics could learn from Britain something to its advantage’. He seems to support his ‘old friend’ David Frum, who says that the Republican party should follow the David Cameron model and detoxify their party brand.
I can’t understand why. Cameron Conservatism can hardly be considered an exemplary success. The Tory leader couldn’t even win an election against an immensely unpopular prime minister who had ruined the country. Republicans, on the other hand, for all their unpopularity across the world, look increasingly certain to win back Congress next month in the US mid-term elections. One day, of course, Cameron might emerge as an inspirational Tory leader, a postmodern Thatcher. For now, however, the only lesson that Republicans can learn from David Cameron is that there are no lessons to be learned from David Cameron.
Eliza Ascott
Washington, DC
Political classes
Sir: I wonder if Oxford University’s plan to open a new school of governance and diplomacy will do anything other than strengthen the ‘New Establishment’ that you identified in last week’s magazine (‘Gangs of Westminster’, 9 October).
Toby Young rightly observes that the values and interests of a modern politician are too often dictated by ‘political expediency’. This problem is all but certain to be exacerbated by a new elite institution designed to launch ambitious young men and women into the political class. I’m sure Mr Young would agree that a 2:1 (or even a 2:2) in philosophy would be a much more desirable qualification in a prime minister than a first in career politics.
Grant Wishart
Cornwall
Look who’s talking
Sir: To be accused by Sam Leith (Books 9 October) of writing too much takes one well beyond pots and kettles into surrealism. But why, in his otherwise friendly review, does he call me an ‘old brute’? Age I confess to; but what brutality does he have in mind? Perhaps the answer will come in his review of my next week’s book (actually next January): Fifty Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know, Quercus, £9.99. Unless, of course, like the tiger in Ms Bannerman’s tale, Little White Sam, in his current furious round of reviewing everywhere all the time, has dissolved into a puddle of ghee. Or Marmite, perhaps. It spreads thinner.
John Sutherland
By email
The worst hit
Sir: I refute Andro Linklater’s contention in his review (Book, 9 October) that my book The Blitz: The British Under Attack has a ‘metropolitan bias’. The Blitz started and ended with raids on London and London had more raids than anywhere else in the country, suffered more casualties and more material damage, so it is inevitable that the capital features prominently. But I also devote several chapters to the bombing of Merseyside, Clydeside, Birmingham, Hull, Plymouth, Southampton, Portsmouth, Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea, etc. As for ‘the bombing of Chelsea getting more space than that of Coventry’, I can only think that Mr Linklater must have been reading a defective copy. There is an entire 17-page chapter devoted solely to Coventry, plus 22 other references: Chelsea — nine references plus five pages recounting the raid on 16/17 April 1941, one of the heaviest in the entire Blitz. Indeed Chelsea figures third in the grim taxonomy of Blitz casualties after Westminster and Bermondsey.
Juliet Gardiner
London E8
10:10 foolery
Sir: Mr Reid (Diary, 9 October) may feel it is all a little infra-dig to get upset by the 10:10 climate campaign’s film of blowing up kiddies who aren’t convinced by their fears. It is a joke, after all, he says. Well — yes and no. What is a joke is that large corporations such as O2 feel they can involve themselves in such campaigns to provide a spurious ‘greenwash’ to their activities. It doesn’t wash and they should drop their support of this organisation forthwith.
Gawain Towler
London SE11
Eire of sorrows
Sir: Allister Heath may be right that Ireland experienced lower interest rates over the last ten years than was beneficial as a result of euro membership (‘The Irish problem’, 9 October), but it is not true that the Irish property market inevitably boomed and crashed as a result. There is much more to regulating the housing market than just setting interest rates. For instance, common sense went completely out of the window when it came to granting planning permission. At its peak, Ireland was building 81,000 new houses a year. Who would buy all of them? In the UK, a country with 13 times the population, the number was only 185,000.
In Ireland today, the best estimate is that housing supply exceeds demand by 25 per cent — 300,000 houses lie empty. That’s not because of the euro, but because domestic policymakers took their eye off the road. Joining the euro does not remove from politicians the obligation to follow wise policies. The root cause of the Irish problem is that some of them thought it did. And remember that we have had a similar boom and crash experience here, and you can’t blame euro membership for that.
Richard Laming
London NW6
Free rides
Sir: I am most grateful that people who earn less than me pay for my journeys to and from work because I happen to be over 60, but I don’t understand why they should. Could someone explain?
Patrick Pender-Cudlip
Somerset
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