Phoney war
Sir: I was sorry to see that Con Coughlin (‘Agent Brown’s new plan to smash terror’, 26 January) has now joined the likes of poor William Shawcross on the pottier side of paranoia in asserting that the occasional acts of Islamist terrorism in the United Kingdom over recent years mean that ‘we are a nation at war’. Coughlin even justifies George W. Bush’s now stale rhetoric about ‘the war on terror’, and reckons that Gordon Brown ‘is not a man who fits easily or naturally into the role of a wartime leader’.
All this goes to demonstrate a dangerous loss of proportion. The last time the United Kingdom was engaged in a real war in defence of her sovereign independence was in 1939–1945, and the enemy then was not a scattering of bedsit plotters with homemade bombs, but the formidable armed forces of Nazi Germany. Islamist outrages such as those in London in 2005, however appalling in themselves and their impact on victims and their families, simply cannot be compared to the 1940–1941 ‘Blitz’ on London and other British cities, or the 1944–1945 bombardment by flying bombs and V-2 rockets.
Similarly, it is ludicrous for Coughlin to claim that the British army in Iraq and Afghanistan is waging ‘war on terror’. The current Iraqi insurgency is the direct product of the Bush–Blair invasion of Iraq five years ago. Saddam Hussein himself was a secular dictator and the sworn enemy of Islamic extremism. Left in place, he could have served as our tacit ally against Osama bin Laden and al-Qa’eda. As for Afghanistan, we have President Karzai’s own testimony that the Anglo-American occupation forces are now serving to exacerbate the country’s internal tensions rather than foster a solution.
Correlli Barnett
Norwich
Tax return
Sir: Anthony J. Burnet makes two interesting points in his comment on my ‘Economics of Mr Brown’ (Letters, 26 January). The first is that my questioning of the proposed new taxes on the worldwide income of non-domiciled foreigners should have been ‘tempered’ with a recognition of the fact that the US does just that: taxes the worldwide income of foreigners resident in America. He is quite right, and can’t be held responsible for not having read my fuller discussion of the issue in the Daily Telegraph (9 January), in which I explicitly recognised that fact. But I added that this disparity might well be offset by the fact that foreigners in the UK pay a sales tax, known as VAT, of 17.5 per cent, while Brits residing in America generally pay 8 per cent or less. If the goal is equality of tax treatment, both countries would have to rip up their tax codes and start over.
Equally important, Mr Burnet claims that foreigners living in America receive ‘no recognition of their charitable donations unless they happen to be to US-based charities.’ True, but only in so far as it goes. Most UK educational and cultural institutions, as well as others, have US branches, known as ‘American Friends of . . .’ For example, my wife is president of American Friends of Wigmore Hall; we regularly contribute to it and other UK-based institutions by writing cheques to the American Friends of this or that organisation, something Brits living in the US can easily do — and deduct those contributions from taxable income.
Irwin Stelzer
London WC2
Target practice
Sir: Pauline Holroyd’s experience regarding choice in NHS referrals (Letters, 19 January) becomes even more frustrating when government targets interfere. I was referred in much the same way last November and made an appointment with the only realistically available hospital clinic on the list offered. A few days before the appointment on 8 January the hospital called to cancel it owing to the clinic not operating on that day. (No other explanation.) I rebooked for the next available date: 23 January.
I was then offered an important job interview on that very day and called to change the appointment. I was refused a new one as it would take me over the target of seeing me within 18 weeks from the date of the referral. I was told that if I cancelled, I was to contact my GP for a new referral so that the next appointment would be within a new 18-week target period. In this way, clearly the NHS can show it never misses the target.
Stephen Saunders
West Sussex
Wing and a prayer
Sir: Atatürk banned the call to prayer in Arabic throughout Turkey as long ago as 1932 (The Spectator’s Notes, 12 January). He decreed that it could henceforth only be in Turkish, Arabic being an alien language incomprehensible to Turks. He also banned the use of loudspeakers, microphones and recordings, and decreed that the person issuing the call to prayer should climb to the top of the minaret in order to do so — a considerably more strenuous task in the tall, elegant style of Turkish mosque architecture than in the squat Pakistani style adopted in Britain.
Osman Streater
London NW3
Top tip
Sir: I was reminded by Martin Vander Weyer’s footnote of Hugh Massingberd’s huge appetite and of his extraordinary generosity (Any other business, 26 January). Hugh and I trundled round the UK giving his compilation from the diaries of James Lees-Milne — ‘Ancestral Voices’ — in country houses. We were often put up for a single night. Hugh always left £20 on the dressing table with a note of thanks.
Moray Watson
London SW13
Mind the gaps
Sir: Matthew Parris’s article on the ‘surprising gaps’ the English language has in its vocabulary (Another voice, 19 January), reminds me of all the times I have asked British friends to give me the equivalent of a modern Greek word by describing to them what it means. To my surprise their answer has often been that such a word does not exist. There’s no noun in English specific to the sound waves make on rocks; no word reserved to describe the feeling of being in love. Isn’t it sad that in England the sun just sets? In Greece when it does so, it reigns as a king.
Theodore Papadakis
London N6
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