Society

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The case for a Libyan No-Fly Zone is, at least in part, based on aesthetics.

I don’t know what we – that is Britain/NATO/the West/Whoever – should do about Libya. But while I think Brothers Korski and Nelson make many valid points I’m not sure that the case for any kind of military action has yet been made persuasively. That doesn’t mean one must be happy to see Gaddafi blitzing the Libyan rebels, merely that the calls to do something or anything seem long on justified emotion but desperately short on practical application. Andrew Rawnsley, for instance, asks “Are we content to let Colonel Gaddafi win?” But this is a false question. No, we are not content to let Gaddafi win but few, if any,

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Fired for Telling the Truth, That’s the Washington Way

Of course PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesman, had to go for his gaffe. That’s what happens when you tell an obvious truth in circumstances that embarrass and even shame your bosses: P.J. Crowley abruptly resigned Sunday as State Department spokesman over controversial comments he made about the Bradley Manning case. Sources close to the matter the resignation, first reported by CNN, came under pressure from the White House, where officials were furious about his suggestion that the Obama administration is mistreating Manning, the Army private who is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico, Virginia, under suspicion that he leaked highly classified State Department cables to the website Wikileaks.

Daniel Korski

The coming war with Libya

If the West is not ready to intervene decisively against Colonel Ghadaffi, it needs to get ready for a post-revolutionary Libya, where the dictator and his bloodthirsty family seek revenge on pro-democracy activists and countries like Britain. Think of Ghadaffi’s previous record: the Lockerbie bombing, targeted assassinations like in the 1970s, and attacks on US soldiers in Germany. Libya could in future represent a threat to Britain akin to al Qaeda. So, the British government needs to think how it will deal with Ghadaffi MK II. Its policy should draw on past examples of containment and isolation. Libya’s neighbours will have to be incentivised to bolster European – and especially Italian

Adrian Hilton

Everything but the inspiration

Whenever the BBC broadcast a major national celebration or royal event, they wheel out a Dimbleby to maintain the hereditary principle. If they want a probing political interview, they sacrifice the victim to the snarls of Paxman or the claws of Humphries. If they want election night gravitas, up pops the psephologically effervescent Peter Snow. They are all Auntie’s heavy hitters; sans pareil when it comes to pomp, circumstance, inquisition and exposition. The Corporation has never really nurtured a broadcasting aristocracy for the arts and culture. So perhaps it comes as no surprise that they poached Baron Bragg of Wigton (aka Melvyn) from ITV to present their flagship documentary to

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters | 12 March 2011

Funny idea of fairness Sir: Congratulations to Ed Howker and The Spectator (‘The alternative story’, 26 February) for lifting the lid on the Electoral Reform Society, an organisation that appears to thrive from a conflict of interests. It was our misfortune to encounter the ERS during a controversial campaign at the Royal Geographical Society in 2009, when the organisation was supposed to ensure fair conduct ahead of and during a special general meeting called to discuss the future of exploration. The RGS decided to include comments from the then president, Sir Gordon Conway, telling fellows how to vote on the back of the ballot paper. As Stanley Johnson reported in

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 12 March 2011

‘What,’ asked my husband, with a peculiarly annoying tone of archness in his voice, ‘is the highest kite that can fly?’ ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I replied. ‘What,’ asked my husband, with a peculiarly annoying tone of archness in his voice, ‘is the highest kite that can fly?’ ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I replied. ‘Imagination. Imagination is the highest kite that can fly, according to Lauren Bacall. It says so in the new Oxford Concise Dictionary of Quotations,’ he said, waving at me the book I had intended to look at after doing the washing-up. There may be much in what Miss Bacall says. The words

Peter Jones

Ancient and modern | 12 March 2011

As the governor of the Bank of England wades into the fray, it does not seem too much to ask of bankers to make it clear they are spending a portion of their bonuses on the Big Society. Those who already are must overcome their modesty and let us know about it. Euergesia — ‘benefaction, philanthropy’ — was a virtue of the well-born Greek. Many inscriptions and statues, erected by the euergetist to himself or by a grateful people, attest the practice. The culture spread to Rome. Over 11 years, Pliny the Younger spent two million sesterces on his home town in benefactions. Discussion about the theory of giving was

The Spectator

Barometer | 12 March 2011

The first bureaucrat David Cameron described bureaucrats in the Civil Service as ‘the enemy within’ and vowed to get their backs off business. It has been a very long battle. The term ‘bureaucracy’ was coined by the French economist Jean Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay (1712–1759). Son of a wealthy merchant in St Malo, Vincent spent many years as a bureaucrat himself, as intendent of commerce and honorary adviser to the grand conseil. It was in his work that he became appalled by the regulations concerning the sale of cloth, which ran to four volumes, and took new entrants to the trade several years to learn. State offices were not

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 12 March 2011

Q. Over the last 20 years four of my closest friends have moved abroad. The good thing is that they come to stay with me when they are in London. The bad thing is that invariably, when they are packing up to leave our house for their cheap flights, they find that they have somehow accumulated too much luggage during their stay, and ask to leave the overspill with me, to be collected when they next visit. The next time they come the same thing happens again. I do not want to be inhospitable but there are now 11 leftover bags. What should I do? — J.F., London SW12 A.

Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety: Like Prince Andrew, I stand by my dodgy mates

I find it hard not to feel sorry for the Duke of York. Being asked to denounce one’s friends, however unsavoury, can’t be much fun. It must be particularly galling when the politicians insisting on this act of obeisance were themselves hobnobbing with Hosni Mubarak, Zine-al-Abidine and Colonel Gaddafi until about a week ago. In the Duke’s defence, I don’t see why people in public life should be forced to hold their friends to a higher standard than the rest of us. Prince Andrew is no more responsible for the behaviour of Jeffrey Epstein than Boris Johnson is for Darius Guppy’s. I can pinpoint the exact moment Sean Langan became

Melissa Kite

Real life | 12 March 2011

Every time a man tells me he doesn’t want to marry me after all I buy a horse. This is getting very expensive, as you can imagine. Tara Lee appeared weeks after I inquired of a fiancé about the possibility of us having children. I can’t remember whose idea she was now, but she proved most effective. It is hard to hanker after babies when one is being hurled around the hunting field on the back of a mutinous mare who wants to be the first over every six foot hedge with a dirty great ditch in front of it. My maternal instincts were thus stifled. The next boyfriend played

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 12 March 2011

I woke in room 272 of the West Ham United Quality Hotel faced with the usual questions. What peculiar instinct had brought me safely back when I couldn’t even remember checking in? Were my phone, wallet and car keys still with me? Had I made an exhibition of myself? Committed a crime? I leapt out of the bed and checked my pockets. My clothes were draped over the chair in an amazingly orderly manner. My wallet and phone were there — thank God — but no keys. I tried to retrace my footsteps in my mind. It was a complete blank. Of the match I could remember nothing. The more

Taki

High life | 12 March 2011

Up to London to collect my PhD from the London School of Economics. It is Dr Taki from now on, and Jeremy Clarke can eat his heart out. If he’d stay out of pubs and do some research instead, he, too, might one day get a PhD. Like Dr Gaddafi and Dr Taki. Actually, my paper was on the environmentally friendly method of converting Gaddafis into waste. The ceremony did not last long. Less time than it took me to write my thesis on how to convert a Gaddafi into s***. Still, Professor David Held pronounced that I ‘cut an impressive figure, have a calm, articulate manner, and make many

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 12 March 2011

In common with, I suspect, many of those writing most censoriously about it all, I have no idea whether the Duke of York has done anything wrong. So far, the charges against him are that he is friendly with a convicted sex offender, and that he has met Saif Gaddafi and given lunch to the son-in-law of the then president of Tunisia. The first accusation proves nothing against him, but the newspapers are trying to hint, without stating evidence, that the Prince himself may have committed sexual offences. The other accusations prove even less: the Duke is this country’s informal trade ambassador, and he met people with whom the British

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 12 March 2011

Home Special forces accompanying British intelligence officers in a nocturnal visit by helicopter to territory near Benghazi were detained by the Libyan opposition before being taken off by the frigate Cumberland. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, told the Commons he had known of the mission but not of the operational details. George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the Government would set up new enterprise zones. Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, criticised bank bonuses and the concept of being ‘too big to fail’. Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, received a £6.5 million bonus. Northern Rock made an annual loss of £232 million. A

A A Gill

Food and Drink

Spectator Scoff – Spring 2011 View online version  |  View print version 9th April 2011 It’s been a long cold winter, but here we are at last in the blossom-laden, golden days of spring. There’s plenty of seasonal produce for food and wine lovers to enjoy within our pages, much to excite and inspire, and maybe even one or two things to annoy — if you run a supermarket. Spectator Scoff – Summer 2011 View online version  |  View print version 2nd July 2011 Maybe it’s the rising heat, but this season’s edition of Spectator Scoff has a rather more prickly, edgy feel to it – some beefy controversies to

Peter Hoskin

Balls sets Labour against Clegg (again)

It’s not just the protestors who are rallying against Nick Clegg today. Here’s what Ed Balls has to say about the Lib Dem leader, in interview with the Guardian: “‘Clegg looks an increasingly desperate, shrill and discredited politician, losing both public and party support. People think that if Clegg says something, it cannot be the truth. The Liberal Democrats need to have some real hard thinking about what they stand for’ He says it would be impossible for Labour to govern with Clegg after the election, arguing: ‘I don’t see how Nick Clegg could change direction again with any shred of credibility, or how he could work with Labour now,

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

What you pay for

The gulf between state education and independent schools grows wider every year, says Fraser Nelson – just look at the results Why choose private education? For years — including five long ones spent at boarding school — I was convinced there was no good answer to this question. For my family, it was an obvious choice: my father had been dispatched to work in Cyprus, and his employer, the RAF, would pay for my boarding school fees if I wanted to stay in Scotland. Even a 13-year-old could see the logic. But once there, it baffled me: why would parents who did have the choice spend so much money? Now,

Lucy Vickery

Competition: Misprint

Lucy Vickery presents this week’s competition In Competition No. 2687 you were invited to take a well-known poem, change one letter in the first line and continue the poem for up to a further 15 lines. Oh, for more space to do justice to a truly stellar postbag! It was agony whittling the entry down to just six. Deserving of a standing ovation at the very least are Robert Schechter, Gillian Ewing, John Whitworth, Iain Crawford, Chris O’Carroll, George Simmers, David Silverman and Martin Parker. The winners get £25 each, except Basil Ransome-Davies, who gets £30. She lied in the upstairs bedroom till she thought her tongue would bleed; he

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Enemies of the Crown

Prince Andrew’s follies have shown the royal family who its friends are To enemies of the monarchy, Prince Andrew presents the perfect target. He has an array of vices: a love of the high life, a weakness for unsavoury company, a painfully short list of achievements and a talent for finding his way into newspapers. His foreign trips have a reputation for misadventure, with diplomats sent to smooth the feathers he ruffles. To have the reputation of being rude is hardly fatal for a royal: the Duke of Edinburgh has almost made a virtue of it. But when convicted sex offenders, Kazakh billionaires and teenage masseurs were thrown into the