The Spectator’s Notes | 4 December 2010

Part of the pleasure of the WikiLeaks revelations is that they confirm the view now universally reviled as ‘neocon’.

Part of the pleasure of the WikiLeaks revelations is that they confirm the view now universally reviled as ‘neocon’. It emerges that whereas the public pronouncements of the Arab world all concentrate on Israel as the villain of everything, what really worries the Arabs is Iran. The Arab regimes share Israel’s view that Iran is an ‘existential threat’. They also turn instinctively to America to sort out the problem. While President Obama has tried unsuccessfully to pursue a doveish policy, real, live Muslims want Ahmedinejad’s nuclear ambitions stopped, if necessary by violence. The leaks expose clearly the way our media, most notably the BBC, ‘privilege’ the Palestinian question, failing to report countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and even Iran itself, in any depth. Of course, Palestine is important. It is a running sore. But it is not the key to the politics of the Middle East or the main explanation for Muslim rage. The situation is rather like the late Thirties, in which idealistic people expended their passion on the Spanish Civil War, and didn’t do nearly enough to stop Hitler.

Sir John Major is a subtle man. As he will surely have calculated, the suggestion contained in his recent lecture at Churchill College, Cambridge, that the coalition should, if possible, be prolonged beyond this Parliament, made the news. This meant that less attention was paid to the historical element of his remarks. Speaking of his early years as Prime Minister, he said, ‘As we returned to growth, I wished to exit the Exchange Rate Mechanism… It was time to leave.’ It is almost as if Margaret Thatcher were suddenly to reveal that she’d never thought much of the poll tax.