Clarity? New Labour?
Sir: I read with growing disbelief your leader ‘Lost Labour’ (14 May), but I now realise that it must have been intended as joke. ‘The tragedy of the Labour years was that so many good ideas were mooted…’; ‘The New Labour years can now be regarded as… a moment of clarity…’ You can’t be serious.
Blair did indeed talk fervently about welfare reform. He talked fervently about many things, such as fictitious WMDs capable of striking within 45 minutes or the elimination of poverty not only in this country but in Africa and indeed everywhere. One of his favourite fervent words was ‘reform’, which for him meant to wreck what is in place and working. Thus he ‘reformed’ our constitutional arrangements by creating a House of Lords that is partisan and now has about 150 more members than the elected House of Commons; and we now have different voting systems for Westminster, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the European Parliament. He turned the creation of new laws into a major industry as part of the governmental PR machine. He handed to Brown the authority to bring the country to the verge of bankruptcy. So much for ‘good ideas’ and for ‘clarity’.
And in the fields to which you specifically refer — welfare reform; education and the health system — do you really believe that the great increase in the number of those in dependency on the state; or the devaluation of public examinations or the appointment of many more bureaucrats than health professionals within the NHS were manifestations of clarity of purpose and excellence in execution?
Lucky Cameron? With a legacy like the one he inherited from Blair, he certainly needs a lot of luck. And so do we all.
C.J. Wright
London SW1
Decorative greenery
Sir: One hopes those running our affairs will take note of the points in Matt Ridley’s article (‘A green dark age’, 21 May) and perform a complete U-turn on such crazy, ineffectual ‘greenery’. We ought to be a very prosperous nation, but have been almost ruined by grotesque governmental overspending and borrowing. Yet own goals continue, such as foreign ‘aid’, including most of the EU subscription, and avoidable warmongering and unnecessary military hardware.
Today’s politicians, unlike those of the last decade or more, must use an indebted-household analogy in determining expenditures, recalling that ‘other people’s’ money includes their own. Will any of our present politicians come to accept such an object lesson?
Charles Wardrop
Perth
The Queen’s visit
Sir: If you will permit me just a short coda to my Ireland notebook last week, so that future historians using the Spectator archives may be aware of the sequel to the Queen’s visit: there was indeed such a ring of steel around the occasion that ordinary people, who longed to see the Queen, could not greet and meet her. This was a major frustration for the huge numbers who wanted to give the Queen a warm Irish welcome. Yet the visit was a remarkable success, and everyone who encountered the Queen and Prince Philip was so impressed by their professionalism, kindness and grace. She spoke in Irish at the President’s banquet, and her Gaelic accent was faultless. At Cork, she herself broke away from the security cordon to greet people, and the friendliness was palpable. The wish was widely expressed that now the ice has been broken, there will be other visits by the Queen to the Irish Republic, where so many of her horses also await.
Mary Kenny
Dublin and Deal
Scotland’s representation
Sir: How can Helen Bovey believe that Scotland ‘does not have representation in important international bodies’ (Letters, 21 May)? Has she not noticed that we are currently enjoying our third Scottish prime minister in a row? To say nothing of our half-Scottish head of state. If what she means is that Scotland does not have separate representation, she might like to consider how much attention the world pays to the sovereign representatives of, say, Latvia, and ask herself whether Scotland would get (or deserve) more than them.
Ken Bishop
Liverpool
Female predators
Sir: Your piece on political predators in Westminster (‘Welcome to the jungle’, 21 May) was a right rollicking read. I’m struggling to categorise John Major though; certainly not in the gorilla camp, that’s for sure. So perhaps we should be considering female predators too? Currie doesn’t fit the cougar mould but iguanas regularly prey on grey parrots. Food for thought, I dare say.
Will Holt
Edinburgh
A friendly fox
Sir: Charles Spencer’s column (Olden but golden, 21 May) is wonderfully evocative in his dream for a proper library, ordered books, open fire, polished wood floors and dog lying faithfully at his feet. This morning, as I wrote in something like his ideal, a fox cub came in and sat on my grandfather’s chair. The terrier slept on in the desk well and my summer friend left in peace a few minutes later.
Rory Knight Bruce
Crediton, Devon
Tiger in the wrong tank
Sir: Hoping not to be judged too much of a geek, I respectfully point out to Taki a mistake in his eloquent, thought-provoking reminiscences of Gunter Sachs (High life, 14 May): it was Esso which ‘put a tiger in your tank’, and not Shell, which simply stated, ‘Go well, go shell.’
Christopher Mckay
London W14
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