Hastings’s battle
Sir: Max Hastings, one of the shrewdest and well-informed writers about defence, is right (‘The military’s last stand’, 16 January). There is a good case for increasing the defence budget, but no British government is likely to do so unless there is a dramatic deterioration in the international situation. Budgets are likely to be cut, but our defence forces can and should continue to be important for our country’s security, reputation and influence. The forces are crying out for a Strategic Defence Review and the longer one is delayed the more will be the uncertainty and wasted defence money. A radical approach is required and a move away from some of the long-accepted beliefs that, for instance, all three services are of equal importance and that their budgets should continue to roughly reflect this. Risks have to be taken by defence policy planners and programmers as we cannot afford always to be ready for every eventuality. The coming Review presents the opportunity to shape our forces so that they are more appropriate for the times in which we live. It will not be easy, as vested interests and emotion abound, but we are already in a parlous state and unless brave and unpopular decisions are taken we will end up being good at nothing.
General Lord Guthrie
London SW1
Sir: I am surprised that Max Hastings, with his extensive knowledge of military history, should think that major defence cuts and the cancellation of major programmes are the way forward for the armed forces. At the moment we are helping to fight a ground war in Afghanistan, but who knows what the conflicts of the next 20-30 years will be like, and where they will be fought? Britain has global financial interests — not least due to our natural resource companies (BP, Rio Tinto etc) and needs a global reach. Mr Hastings may scoff at our ability to defend, say, actual and potential oilfields (and other resources) in the Gulf of Mexico (as BP has) or around the Falklands, but potential aggressors always assess the strength and resolution of opponents beforehand. Defence expenditure needs to be put in context. Cancelling the two aircraft carriers, for example, will save around the same amount that has been spent on the abortive NHS computerisation project so far, or less than one year’s welfare expenditure on ‘social exclusion’ — and what do we see in return for those sums? I would suggest that if we are seeking cuts, we start with the fripperies accumulated by governments over the last 30 years, rather than the muscle of the armed forces.
Richard Price
Hereford
Rhymes with Paul
Sir: Paul Johnson’s unsurprisingly entertaining hymn to Magdalen College (‘Egregious dons’, 16 January) bungles a quotation from (surprisingly) Hilaire Belloc. Those regal dons did not ‘Shout the absolute across the hall’. ‘Shout’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘hall’. Bawl does.
Richard Dawkins
Oxford
Rastafarian roots
Sir: Matthew Parris’s reference to Rastafarians and Ethiopia (Another voice, 16 January) does not fully explain the relationship between the West Indian cult and that country. It had its origins in the 1920s when independence-minded West Indians noted there was one African country ruled by an indigenous leader, Ethiopia, or Abyssinia as it was usually then known. He was the Regent, Ras Teferi Makonen, regent because his mother, the Empress, was still alive. Ras is an Ethiopian title roughly equivalent to the British Duke. So they amalgamated this with his given name, Teferi, to produce Rastafarian. (Ethiopians have a given name followed by their father’s given name.) When I lived in Ethiopia at the end of the 1960s still under Emperor Haile Selassie I, King of Kings, Lion of Judah, Elect of God, as Ras Teferi became when crowned in 1930, no notice was taken of the Rastafarian movement which the orthodox christian emperor seemed to regard with disdain. He certainly did not consider he had any divinity, as they claim. Nor do I recall ever seeing an Ethiopian with dreadlocks.
Rodney Bennett
Richmond
Teachers’ lesson
Sir: A few years back, a Tory government in Ontario, Canada, tried to kill an equally blobby Blob (‘Michael Gove vs the Blob’, 16 January.) But angry teachers’ unions struck back and helped to kill the Tory government instead. Beware the Blob!
Larry Hamelin
Toronto, Canada
Montaigne’s point
Sir: Even if Montaigne had ‘surprisingly little to say about religion’ (Books, 9 January), what he did say was to the point: ‘L’homme est bien insensé. Il ne saurait forger un ciron, et forge des dieux à douzaines.’
Iain Innes Burgess
Middlesex
Give Eton a chance
Sir: Oh dear, must one appear in Old Queen Street brandishing a horsewhip to stop Spectator writers attacking David Cameron in every edition? Cameron may have his faults, but he and his Tories are the best option for poor old Britain. Or maybe The Spectator wants more years of scoundrels like Brown and Blair. For God’s sake give Eton a chance. Britain was governed by Etonians for a century or so, before middle-class snobbery made going to Eton infra dig. Do we want Britain to dissolve into a fourth-class, beer-bellied, sub-educated liberals’ paradise? Back Cameron, Spectator, don’t deride and despise him.
Jeremy Taylor
By email
Here’s to you, Rod
Sir: I had become rather worried as from time to time I found myself agreeing with Rod Liddle. However, the anger I felt today at his nasty article ‘Here’s to you, Mrs Robinson’ (16 January) has reassured me that I am not yet a twisted old bigot.
Laura Garratt
Middlesex
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