Listing page content here
Mosley is no EU hero
From David Meikle
Sir: In his review of Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism by Stephen Dorril (Books, 6 May), David Pryce-Jones makes the disgusting suggestion that those who support the European Union, like Kenneth Clarke MP, are somehow continuing the work of the fascist Oswald Mosley. To try to make a link between the EU (and those who support the idea) and the ugly ideology of fascism is plain ridiculous.
European nations came together, after the horrors of Nazism nearly conquered and destroyed Europe, to form an organisation that would ensure we would never go to war with one another again. Instead the great Western European nations would co-operate to ensure that the peoples of Europe lived in peace and prosperity. Today, Eastern European countries are clamouring to join the EU because they share the values that it represents. The United Kingdom should never turn its back on such values.
David Meikle
Glasgow
Very hunted, Norfolk
From James Wells
Sir: Charles Moore (for whom I have the greatest respect) is sadly mistaken in stating that there is no hunting in large parts of Suffolk and most of Norfolk (The Spectator’s Notes, 22 April).
If he had checked on a map showing all packs that hunt in East Anglia rather than one that showed merely the new-fangled and often slow form of venery known as fox-hunting, he would see that there are four packs of mounted harriers still hunting in Suffolk and Norfolk, namely the Easton, Dunston, North Norfolk and Waveney Harriers. Between them and the appropriate fox-hound packs, their country covers all of Suffolk and most of Norfolk. They all show considerable sport, despite the restrictions of the current ridiculous legislation. In addition, there are some excellent foot packs (including the East Anglian Mink Hounds, the Norfolk Mink Hounds Hunting Club and the Stour Valley Beagles). I have been lucky enough to have hunted with all these packs and can vouch for the quality and enjoyment of their sport.
James Wells
Woodbridge, Suffolk
Third degree at JFK
From Bill Troop
Sir: Peter Phillips, in his article on the problems musicians face when visiting the United States, doesn’t know the half of it (Arts, 6 May). When Krystian Zimerman, who travels with his piano, came through JFK a few weeks ago, his Steinway was seized as a suspected terrorist device and held for five days before it was returned with several keys broken. Many decades before, Frank Sinatra’s son was trying his luck as a crooner. When he was kidnapped, Oscar Levant remarked that it must have been done by music critics. One doubts, however, that the officials who interfered with Zimerman’s instrument were musically inclined.
Bill Troop
Berkeley, California, USA
Dogberry wouldn’t do
From David Jones
Sir: In Martin Vander Weyer’s article subheaded ‘I am an ass’ (Any other business, 6 May), the author shares with the reader his forthcoming thespian adventure as Constable Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing. However, contrary to the suggestion that Dogberry could carve out a career at the Serious Fraud Office, I say he could not. If Dogberry could not make charges stick, he’d certainly flounder in an organisation that has convicted seven out of ten defendants in the country’s most complex fraud cases; a fact that speaks for itself. Perhaps one can assume that Dogberry erred because he didn’t research the evidence. But fortunately Dogberry is only fiction.
David Jones
Head of Communications, Serious Fraud Office,
London WC1
Turban vs biretta
From Osman Streater
Sir: ‘This doesn’t pretend to be more than a useful focus exhibition,’ writes Andrew Lambirth of the ‘Bellini and the East’ exhibition at the National Gallery (Arts, 6 May). A pity, then, that his apparently automatic anti-Turkish and pro-Venetian bias makes his review so unfocused.
Of the conquest of Constantinople in May 1453, he writes that ‘Istanbul, as it was henceforth known, was swiftly de-Christianised and rendered unambiguously Muslim’. Really? Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror attended the installation of Gennadius as Orthodox Patriarch in January 1454, personally handing him his pectoral cross. How ‘unambiguously Muslim’ was that? The Patriarchate, the worldwide headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Church, remains in Istanbul to this day.
Art historians assume that because Venice produced wonderful painters, it must also have produced wonderfully civilised colonial rulers. Not so. The Orthodox had ample cause to associate Venice with brutally intolerant Catholic rule. As the Byzantine Megadux or Commander-in-Chief Lucas Notaras put it when he resigned himself to defeat in May 1453, ‘Better the Sultan’s turban than the Cardinal’s biretta.’ Oh, and the official Turkish name for the city remained Constantinople until 1914. Check any Ottoman coin for proof.
Osman Streater
London NW3
Constitutionally wrong
From John Klein
Sir: Enough is enough. The right of the people to pursue happiness is promoted not in the US Constitution, as Charlotte Moore thinks (Books, 22 April), but in our Declaration of Independence. This error is repeated in British publications over and over, but I expect better from The Spectator. The purpose of the Constitution, if you care, is to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
John Klein
Jupiter, Florida, USA
Comments