Spectator readers respond to recent articles
Thought crime, style crime
Sir: I welcome the new presentation of The Spectator, along with the continuing commitment to ‘elegance of expression and originality of thought’, and providing ‘a refuge from an
often censorious and humourless world’. These are the reasons why I subscribe, and I am seldom let down.
Yet I see with disappointment that Melanie Phillips has been quick to exercise her right to oppose Spectator doctrine (‘I think, therefore I’m guilty’, 18 September). While I
agree with the thrust of her argument, a less elegant, more censorious and humourless way of expressing it is difficult to imagine. Isn’t style crime just as bad as thought crime?
Ian Bentley
Essex
Sir: Can I congratulate you on a thoroughly helpful issue of the magazine this week (‘Don’t even think it!’). I particularly appreciated the article by Melanie Phillips on the new
intolerance. As someone who fits all her categories of being a ‘traditional white Christian male sceptical about global warming’, I imagine it will not be long before I meet the boys in
blue.
Revd Richard Fothergill
Bath
A writer’s evolution
Sir: Christopher Booker continues to go down in my estimation. His contribution to your latest issue (‘Scientists in hiding’, 18 September) annoyed and depressed me.
All the ‘gaps’ he talks about in the evolutionary record are not gaps at all. There are no inter-species fossils because of the way scientists categorise species — not because
there are no intermediate fossils. ‘Intermediate’ is a mischief word employed by creationists to throw doubt on the irrevocable, cast-iron evidence of evolution because they can’t
bear to admit that the nonsense they read in childhood isn’t true.
I used to be 100 per cent behind Booker on Europe. I was still with him on global warming. Now I am doubting all my faith in him, which I know could be a mistake. People can be right on one thing
and wrong on another — but his egregious writing on subjects in which he can’t possibly be an expert is deeply worrying.
R. Lewin
Bath
Art crime
Sir: The ‘crucifixion’ depicting a cross and a woman wearing a bikini is grossly offensive (Raquel Welch by Terry O’Neill, Contents, 18 September). Moreover, it is an image which
you would not dare to repeat with an Islamic context, and sits ill with your unctuous leader about the visit of the Pope.
Roger McCormick
By email
Hope and the Pope
Sir: Does Pope Benedict really ‘bring hope’ (Leading article, 18 September)? Many Christians, including some Catholics, would say that his ‘hard teachings’ on artificial
birth control and abortion — let alone the sex or marital status of priests — are no part of the deposit of faith, whatever previous popes may have ‘set in stone’.
Tim Hudson
Chichester
Sir: Now that the Pope has returned home, it is a good time to assess Peter Hitchens’s assertion (‘The Prayer Book manifesto’, 11 September) that the Church of England is a better
bulwark against secularism in this country than that of Rome. It is being whispered that Pope Benedict’s visit was more successful, and more important, than that of his predecessor in 1982
because of the seriousness and urgency of his message. Like most Protestants, Mr Hitchens forgets that the point of the papacy is to uphold, and maintain unspoilt, the teaching of the Church down
the centuries. It is far more likely that the Anglican Church will fail in future to object to and resist Britain’s anti-life, anti-family culture. That is precisely what has happened these
past 50 years.
The militant secularists and atheists are right in one regard: their philosophy is universal and they know that their adversary is too. Anglicans can chose to come over or ally with Rome, but
sitting on the fence is not an option.
Michael Booth
By email
Tamburlaine emasculated
Sir: Charles Moore asks what would happen if any of our theatres dared to perform Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, on account of a scene in which the Koran is burned (Notes, 18 September).
Unfortunately, we already know.
The play was staged just a few years ago at London’s Barbican Centre by the Bristol Old Vic, and audiences were spared the Koran-burning and Mahomet-cursing episodes. They did not hear
Tamburlaine say that the Prophet was ‘not worthy to be worshipped’ or that he ‘remains in hell’. The artistic director, Simon Reade, said that such phrases ‘would have
unnecessarily raised the hackles of a significant proportion of one of the world’s great religions’.
This great text was bowdlerised, essentially on ‘health and safety’ grounds.
Adrian Hilton
Buckinghamshire
Drinking for England
Sir: Well said, Brendan O’Neill (‘Drunk and orderly’, 18 September). When we moved to England in 1998, our then 14-year-old son was able to be part of the pub culture. Being able
to ‘legally’ get drunk on occasion at such an early age, he learned that alcohol was not such a big deal. When he went back to America, he could handle his drink far more maturely than
his peers, who would have to get drunk at the beach or elsewhere as they were barred from bars until age 21. So the pub was a good teacher.
M.E. McLoughlin
London
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