Politics

Just as the English have inspired supreme artistry in male dress, symbolised by Savile Row and Beau Brummell, so they have also contributed a dissenting movement of genteel shabbiness or grand nonconformity. It is not dictated by lack of cash but by sup-erior indifference, meanness and what I call the Robinson Crusoe syndrome, a delight in creating do-it-yourself clothes. Men like, and women do not like, reading Crusoe for that reason. The propensity to take pleasure in wearing old and worn, second-hand and even inherited clothes is strongest in wartime but persists into peace. The fictional archetype of this kind of gentleman is Sunny Farebrother in Anthony Powell’s Music of

As the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery in this country approaches, Tony Blair expresses ‘deep sorrow’ for British involvement in the trade. As the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery in this country approaches, Tony Blair expresses ‘deep sorrow’ for British involvement in the trade. Extraordinary that he should feel the need to adopt such a tone when the act commemorated is something to be proud of. But his words are carefully chosen in order to avoid paying ‘reparations’ to descendants of slaves who think they deserve them. It is worth noting one thing about the reparations campaign. The campaign’s spokesman, Esther Cranford, speaks of the ‘so-called slave trade’.

While David Cameron was in Darfur, pointing out how Islamist leaders in Khartoum give evasive answers about the mass killings in the region, his shadow attorney-general, Dominic Grieve, was attending a rally in central London called to protest about ‘Islamophobia’. The publicity for the rally said this was manifested by a campaign of ‘physical attacks, firebombing and assaults on women… including an attempt to suppress the right of persons of all faiths to dress in accordance with their religious convictions’. It was organised by the British Muslim Initiative, an offshoot of Respect, the party represented in Parliament by George Galloway. Among those speaking were Ken Livingstone, Tony Benn and Muslims

Glaswegians are secretly proud of their new, four-lane bridge across the River Clyde, the first crossing to be built in over 30 years. Seen from either end, it looks like half of a McDonald’s ‘Golden Arches’ sign. The city’s spin-doctors insist on calling it the ‘Clyde Arc’ but locals have christened it the ‘Squinty Bridge’, because of the dizzying way the steel support crosses from one side of the road to the other. The Squinty Bridge is important because it marks a return to the city’s Clydeside roots. ‘The Clyde made Glasgow and Glasgow made the Clyde’, runs the old saying. But the city turned its back on the Clyde

‘Who’s the most impressive business leader you’ve ever met?’ ‘Who’s the most impressive business leader you’ve ever met?’ I asked a group of senior executives the other night. I confess I interjected the question (as I do here) to enable me to mention that I have just edited a book of business obituaries. But it provoked a lively debate about the qualities that make great entrepreneurs and industrialists. Among living candidates, no one voted for any of the current crop of buccaneers: Sir Philip Green in retailing, Michael O’Leary in the air, Michael Spencer in the City. Instead, there was strong support for 80-year-old Sir Ernest Harrison — visionary founder-chairman

‘It’s a milestone round his neck’, I heard a football manager saying on the Today programme. ‘It’s a milestone round his neck’, I heard a football manager saying on the Today programme. It was not what he meant to say, but it seems apposite to my own case, since I am writing this on my 50th birthday. This bittersweet event gives me an egocentric framework in which to consider Sir Nicholas Stern’s new report on climate change. I have no idea whether Sir Nicholas is right in his predictions about the level of global warming, or of the ill effects of that warming, or in his prescriptions for how to

There is a yet another plan to reform the House of Lords, getting rid of lots of life peers, proposing partial direct election and, as always with these ideas, the fuller representation of ethnic minorities. Commentators and politicians may be tempted to look at these plans ‘on their merits’ and go through them minutely. This is a waste of time. All Lords reform talk is mere displacement activity to avoid facing the far more serious parliamentary problem that the House of Commons does not work any more. No political party will address this, because all, once in office, prefer it that way. This column recently commented on the boredom and