Selective quoting
Sir: In her diary (5 December) Melanie Phillips accused me of bigotry, quoting from a newspaper article about the Iraq inquiry in which I had pointed out that two of the five members of the panel, Sir Martin Gilbert and Sir Lawrence Freedman, are Jewish and that Gilbert at least has a record of active support for Zionism.
She did not mention that I went on to comment that these two men had outstanding reputations and records, but it was a pity that, if and when the inquiry was accused of a whitewash (and indeed it already has been) such handy ammunition would be available. Membership, I wrote, should not only be balanced; it should be seen to be balanced.
Ms Phillips accuses me of the Prejudice That Can No Longer Be Named, but in a blog posted last week she named it as anti-Jewish racial prejudice, adding that ‘it is a baleful comment on the state of the British public discourse that this man felt able to say this so openly’. I believe on the contrary that it is important to speak the truth, and not to be deterred by taboos and the prospect of abuse. Knowing that my comments would be criticised, I chose my words carefully. It is sad that some of those who disagree with me should so readily proclaim that I am motivated by anti-Semitism. I am not.
Oliver Miles
(Former British ambassador to Libya)
Oxford
Warming to his theme
Sir: Three cheers for The Spectator and its common sense regarding man-made global warming (5 December). In addition to the excellent points made in your supplement there were two others which I wish had been present:
1) If man-made-warming hysteria is based on figures taken largely from computer modelling, isn’t it important to establish whether computer modelling is a dependable and accurate method for predicting future events? Everything I have learned about the subject suggests otherwise and that the use of computers in trying to estimate future climate change (which has been going on since time immemorial) is just as seriously affected by the GIGO rule — Garbage In, Garbage Out — as any other area of activity.
2) If we are to pay attention to those urging us to pay trillions of dollars and pounds ‘just to be on the safe side’, they must stop feeding misleadingly selective figures to the public. One example: we have been told repeatedly that global warming will result in thousands more deaths each summer — ‘Just look at the figures in France a couple of years ago.’ What the man-made-warming fundamentalists never add is that, even if such global warming did occur, the reduction in winter-time deaths thanks to the rise in temperatures would greatly outweigh any summer-time increase.
More power to your elbow.
Christopher Dunkley
Middlesex
Sir: I was so glad to read Hugo Rifkind’s article on climate change deniers (Shared opinion, 28 November), though I would advise him not to adopt any particular belief himself. For too long have I sat in pubs, restaurants and parties listening to arguments in which people throw facts and statistics at each other that they neither understand nor know the full details of. Jeremy Clarkson is just as guilty.
I doubt many people who read these pages have done full scientific research into the matter. I refuse to take a stance on the climate change argument as I am not a scientist.
Joshua Turnbull
Loughborough University
The bridal bed
Sir: Among the errors perpetrated by Mrs Ahmed, the headmistress who is the subject of Andrew Gilligan’s article on the dangers inherent in Muslim fundamentalist education (‘Minister for Hizb ut Tahrir’, 5 December), is the claim that Romeo and Juliet ‘advocates pre-marital intercourse’. This common but ignorant error, which Mr Gilligan fails specifically to denounce, needs its hash settled. Romeo and Juliet advocates no such thing: before they have sex, the lovers have taken pains to meet Friar Lawrence at his cell, and have been properly and legally married. Their intercourse, in the context of their time and that of the play, when there was no legal ‘age of consent’ nor any absolute requirement for parental permission to marry, could not have been more proper and respectable. Pre-marital? Pah — fiddlesticks!
Michael Grosvenor Myer
Cambridge
Moving targets
Sir: I hope Rachel Johnson, before she overcomes boredom by shooting with the lads (‘Come on girls, have a crack!’, 5 December), would first distinguish the shooter in The Day of the Jackal, who uses a rifle on a sitting target, from a gun at a pheasant shoot, who uses a shotgun on a moving target.
Sir David Tang
Hong Kong
Don’t call us dull
Sir: James Delingpole has, sadly, incorrectly researched his piece (You know it makes sense, 28 November) about Topsham and in doing so has not endeared himself to the locals. It is a town by charter granted by Edward I in August 1300. Anyone who is heard referring to Topsham as a dull village is likely to be summarily dealt with. Its inhabitants are comfortable in their skins and do not need to show that they have ‘arrived’. Maybe Mr Delingpole is confusing quiet confidence with dullness. When we came here in 1991, it is true that the population of the Exeter area was predominantly white but if he refers to the city council’s demographic data he would see that there is now a substantial ethnic mix.
J.M. Smithson
Topsham, Devon
In defence of PRs
Sir: It was unfair of Matthew Parris to condemn all PRs (Another voice, 5 December) because the intrusions of a few have disturbed the intimacy of his interviews. Being interviewed is a nerve-wracking experience for all but the most experienced or self-confident subjects, and the modest role of a PR person is to provide moral support.
Although no contributor to The Spectator would fall into this category, interviewers have sometimes been known to misquote, misrepresent or otherwise traduce their subjects. In these circumstances the PR person who, unlike the interviewee, is a professional, is there to keep things honest.
The unintended consequence of Mr Parris’s proposal — a ban on PR people’s presence — would, I suggest, be a dearth of volunteers for interview.
Adrian Wheeler
Agincourt Communications, London SW1
Careful for the Christians
Sir: Rod Liddle (5 December) applauds public reactions against the growing Islamification of Europe. But he — and we — should be aware of the knock-on effect on Christian minorities in Muslim countries.
I have just spent 15 months living and working in the West Bank and got to know a number of Palestinian Christians very well. They regard themselves as living under a ‘double occupation’ of both Jews and Muslims. After the arrival of Islam in the Holy Land in ad 638, the Christians were given protection by the new Muslim rulers in exchange for forfeiting their political rights. This ‘protected minority’ status is very fragile. Most Christians have left the area, seeking a less pressurised life elsewhere. As a result only about 2 per cent of the combined population of Israel and the Palestinian Territories remains Christian. Going back in history, Christian Arabs were apprehensive of the Islamic backlash following the advent of the Crusaders. They were again justifiably fearful of the local backlash in the aftermath of the US reaction to 9/11. In essence, the minority Christian populations of Syria, Iraq, the Holy Land and Egypt will suffer if we collectively become less tolerant of Muslims in Europe. We should be more aware of the delicate networks of Christian faith elsewhere in the world before jumping on the Rod Liddle bandwagon.
John Deverell
London SW11
Martian tactics
Sir: I concur with much of Andrew Gilligan’s report and analysis (‘Yanks are from Mars’, 28 November), in particular the British naivety in our dealings with the postwar environment in Iraq, and that the Martians’ use of threatened and real force was better suited to the situation. However, I believe the root of much of what developed there, ending in the ignominious retreat of the British from Basra, lies with the unrealistic, indeed naive belief of British politicians and, sadly, the military that with less than 10 per cent of total forces we had an equal voice at the table. We did not.
The parallels in Afghanistan are self-evident. The further 500 British troops added to the 5,000+ already on the ground will be sidelined by the 40,000 Americans already in place and the 30,000 more that were announced recently, just as our troops were sidelined in Iraq. We will see a repetition of our experiences in Basra in our eventual departure from Afghanistan.
Nicholas K.C. Whalley
Surrey
Glads tidings
Sir: It has been 62 years since I studied Latin but I seem to recall that ‘gladiolus’ is a fourth (not second) declension noun. Ergo when Matthew Parris (Another voice, 24 October) attempted to ski naked down the slopes of Mont Blanc it must have been with a bunch of gladiolus (not gladioli) stuck up his bottom.
Dr Ashley Krisman
Vancouver, BC
The Phoenicians and the cape
Sir: Further to your correspondence about the Phoenicians circumnavigating Africa (28 November), one of the anatomy lecturers at the Royal Veterinary College was certain it was true. His reasoning was that a Roman name for Africa was ‘libya’. This he believed was derived from the Semitic word for the heart, ‘al-lubh’. Although not a Mills & Boon-shaped heart, there is an anatomical similarity. After all, ancient sailors were coast-huggers. Africa would not have presented too many problems to a well-provisioned vessel.
Anthony Kaye
Bristol
Scotty dogs
Sir: In his article on British dogs (‘Dog days for British breeds’, 28 November) Matthew Dennison suggests that the diminishing number of Dandie Dinmonts may be due to the decline in Sir Walter Scott’s popularity. They have, he says, become as rare as ‘well-thumbed copies of Quentin Durward on Polzeath beach’. I would like to point out that I had six puppies in July, and all were named after Scott’s novels, including Quentin Durward.
Cloverwood Painted Lady (Meg)
Berwick, East Sussex
Suited to Afghanistan?
Sir: Have our soldiers been adequately trained in guerrilla warfare? For rooting out tribes from deep desert dugouts and inaccessible mountain eyries? In the 1830s Tsar Nicholas I embarked on his disastrous plan to Russianise the Caucasus. His deployment of the cream of St Petersburg’s youth went on for some 20 years. The soldiers had not been schooled in deadly ambush and tribal tactics. I suggest that our Gurkhas are fast deployed to Sandhurst.
Penelope Craig
London NW1
Taki’s thick skin
Sir: It must have been such a great shock for one of nature’s gentlemen like Taki to discover that commenting on a lady’s appearance can cause such hysteria (High life, 28 November). I have just viewed a picture of Taki on the internet and to my eyes he looks like a neckless, perma-tanned idiot who dresses like a pox doctor’s clerk. However, I am sure that if I ever met him and told him this, he would accept my opinion of him with a cheery laugh and recognise that I was only using humour to open his eyes to his own failings.
Danny Harvey
Dagenham
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