Poor countries need tariffs
Contrary to your leading article (‘Full marks to Blair’, 19 November), ActionAid is absolutely correct to challenge Tony Blair’s commitment to forcing free trade in manufactured goods in the WTO ‘Doha round’ of global trade talks.
Labour’s general election manifesto promised no forced liberalisation, and the ‘Doha round’ is about development, not just market access.
Rather than lead to more jobs and less poverty, our research shows that the current proposals for deep tariff cuts in developing countries could bring massive job losses, bankruptcies and factory closures — a development disaster.
Virtually all of today’s developed countries built up their economies using tariffs, subsidies and other forms of government intervention throughout the 19th and most of the 20th century. Evidence shows that it is practically impossible for poor countries to develop without trade protection.
Paul Collins
ActionAid UK, London N19
To encourage the others
Bruce Anderson (‘Conduct unbecoming’, 19 November) might be interested to know that about ten years ago History Today magazine published a detailed and fully documented account of the infamous conviction and execution of the innocent Lieutenant Leigh, after the battle of the Somme in 1916. Mutiny was threatened as soldiers were being shot for cowardice, but officers were not. A clear order came from the High Command: ‘An officer must be charged and shot.’ Lieutenant Leigh got lost in fog, slept in a ditch, and found his way back to his unit next morning, having been absent less than 24 hours. He was court-martialled and shot, the conviction of an officer being widely publicised throughout the army.
After the war a captain of the staff told the whole story, and written orders in the archives were not denied. It was officially stated that the risk of mutiny was so ser-ious that at least one officer had to be shot to demonstrate that officers were subject to military law as well as other ranks. The article in History Today seems highly relevant to present policy on officers’ responsibility.
E. Derek Smith
Oxford
Eirenic Islam
I imagine many people, when confronted by the choice of Tory v. Labour, run into the same emotional conflict as I do. We have a basic and practical sympathy for the social and economic views of the Conservatives, but have a terrible suspicion that, lurking under the skin of the reasonable Tory, there is a racist, intolerant bigot — the kind of fellow-traveller who passively elected the Nazis in the early 1930s.
Your issue of 12 November is a confirmation that our caution is justified. Take, for example, the article by Patrick Sookhdeo, ‘Will London burn too?’ In all the years I have studied and discussed Islam I have never even remotely heard of the ‘doctrine of sacred space’. (Just think about it — if Muslims really believed it they would be angrily laying claim to Spain, Austria, chunks of China, most of the Balkans and the 800-million-strong Hindu population of India.
‘Dar al-Islam’ means the land of peace, meant to contrast with ‘Dar al-Harb’, the land of war. In the ideal of the former, people of the Book (Christians, Jews and Muslims) live in harmony. There is no implication at all that Muslims have to wage war to convert one to the other — the very idea is an oxymoron.
John Goodman
Mumbai, India
Why communism collapsed
Peregrine Worsthorne (Books, 19 November) claims that, ideologically, there were reduced dangers from post-Stalinist communism, ‘Yet under Reagan and Thatcher, instead of cooling down, there was a hotting up.’ It is true that in
the 1970s the philosophical attraction of
communism disappeared (though even now some bodies, like the universities, the BBC and the Guardian, are clearly missing intellectual guidance from the
ideological department of the Central Committee).
However, in truth, Reagan and Thatcher were not afraid of communism as a teaching. They felt nervous about the rapidly growing nuclear threat from the USSR. In the 1970s the Kremlin started to achieve nuclear superiority over the USA, having 12,000 intercontinental ballistic missiles. In Eastern Europe it deployed 330 medium- range SS-20 missiles with three nuclear warheads, each targeting Western Europe. Only eight warheads were needed to annihilate Great Britain.
Reagan (and later Bush senior) and Thatcher took extraordinary political measures to protect the West from that threat. As a result, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Oleg Gordievsky
London WC1
Lichfield lives on
Your readers may have wondered about the bizarre timing that, on the day that Patrick Lichfield died, The Spectator hit their doormats with a Mandarin Oriental advertisement featuring the photogenic photographer. As the executive responsible for the ‘He’s a fan’ campaign (for which he shot over 30 ads, most of which have appeared in these pages), when I first saw it I was horrified, even though it was pure synchronicity. However, recalling Patrick’s playful nature I quickly realised that he is probably looking down, rubbing his hands with glee at the coincidence, and also at the amazing reaction from so many quarters to his passing. In one obituary, when asked by a journalist about his legacy, his reply was, ‘There will always be the pictures.’ Great pictures, a great man and a great loss to us all.
Michael Moszynski
Chief executive officer, M&C Saatchi, London W1
Our improving railways
It is rather sad that the only journalism which Andrew Gilligan believes has any validity is that which is remorselessly negative (‘The silence of the lambs of the BBC’, 12 November). This to such an extent that a relatively neutral piece on the railways on the BBC’s website is denounced by him as a ‘sell-out’ to big business. I did not dupe the BBC reporter into writing a pro-rail piece — by most measures Britain’s railways are improving and in this context any balanced and fair report would reflect this. Moreover, passengers and taxpayers were given free rein to voice their opinions via messages posted under the piece.
Adrian Lyons
Director-general, The Railway Forum, London SW1
Dave and the dinosaurs
I thought the whole essence of David Cameron’s leadership campaign was the idea of change. If, as Peter Oborne suggests (Politics, 19 November), he will involve Douglas Hurd and Chris Patten in his administration, nothing could demonstrate more that things would be exactly the same.
Sheila Donaldson
Bromley, Kent
Big Bang is a fact
Paul Johnson (‘And another thing, 12 November) betrays a certain naivety in his understanding of theoretical physics and the scientific method. He tells us that ‘the Big Bang is only a theory’ and that ‘a hundred years ago nobody had heard of the Big Bang’. But then Einstein’s relativity was unknown 101 years ago, as were Newton’s laws 400 years ago. Their theories, too, are ‘only theories’. When did theory become a derogatory term?
Science develops with our changing understanding of nature, and no theory will ever be ‘proven fact’. However, Big Bang cosmology is supported by a wealth of observational evidence, which Mr Johnson is welcome to investigate.
Our understanding of the physics of a ‘Big Bang’ itself is still in its infancy, but certainly theoretical physicists are interested in the deep questions raised by the observed universe. Making progress is hard work, both mathematically and experimentally, but Mr Johnson seems to take a short cut in answering these questions. His ill-defined assertions about God , human souls and their respective interactions with the observed universe are a poor substitute for the scientific method.
Taking Stephen Hawking’s quotation out of context isn’t the best way to understand modern theoretical physics. Perhaps Mr Johnson should spend some time with real, working ‘boffins’ to learn more about the subject and the kind of questions people are trying to answer.
James O’Dwyer
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics,
Trinity College, Cambridge
No such Council
In criticising my theology (‘Letters, 19 November) Michael Dummett cites as his authority ‘the Council of Constantinople of AD 543’. There were in fact three Councils of Constantinople, in 381, in 553 and in 680–1. There was no such council in 543.
Paul Johnson
London W2
Nicotine lovers
I agree with the general thrust of Guy Adams’s argument (‘Bullying for charity’, 12 November) but he is wrong about smoking in pubs. The Republic of Ireland introduced its ban last year and the effects have been entirely positive. Non-smokers enjoy the cleaner atmosphere but smokers, too, come out ahead. The smokers have a sense, literally, of togetherness. I know of one couple, now married, who met for the first time as they smoked outside their local.
Jim Dunne
Dublin
Waugh’s PC Christmas
‘The Spectator’s Notes’ (12 November) finds a fictional parallel in Narnia to the suppression of the custom of Christmas under the Blair terror. There is a more striking one in Evelyn Waugh’s Love Among the Ruins, a novella now neglected, possibly on account of the heroine’s long corn-gold beard. It is set in a socialist dystopia, and Waugh’s highly intelligent satire was rather prescient.
Christmas has been replaced by Santa-Claus-Tide, and festive Goodwill Trees decorate the blotched and dingy houses. The arsonist hero, Miles Plastic, tries to construe a nativity play: ‘Food Production Workers seemed to declare a sudden strike, left their sheep, and ran off at the bidding of a sort of shop-steward in fantastic dress.’ Mr Plastic’s reclamation by the Ministry of Corrective Treatment is hailed by the minister as proof that ‘in the New Britain which we are building there are no criminals. There are only the victims of inadequate social services.’
Matthew Leeming
Old Alresford, Hampshire
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