Society

Saturday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

What you won’t read about terrorism in Britain

I have some advice for CoffeeHousers hungry for the latest evidence about the guy who tried to blow up the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight: go to the American press and their websites.  They are 100% free to pursue these stories: the press in Britain isn’t. Not any more. The suspect suffering second degree burns in hospital, named by the US authorities as a Nigerian called Farouk Abdul Mutallab, may have been living in London. This is, alas, no surprise. It fits with Britain’s reputation as Europe’s no1 incubator of terrorists  – let’s remember that the 7/7 bombers were home-grown. And it raises huge questions which a free press should be pursuing. But

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Happy Christmas!

So, dear and gentle reader*, here’s wishing you a splendid and very merry Christmas. Thanks for being here this year and for all your comments and contributions to this blog. It’s not the same without you. Anyway, here are Shane and Kirsty performing one of the few Christmas songs worth a damn.   *Not actually a description that fits all of you but, hey, season of goodwill to all men and all that…

Wednesday

The Spectator

Happy Christmas | 23 December 2009

Barring major political catastrophe, Coffee House will be falling silent over the next few days as we all celebrate Christmas.  Many thanks to CoffeeHousers for your contributions over the past year.  We hope you enjoy a happy holiday. If you’re looking to fill your time, then Paul Johnson’s and Lloyd Evans’ pieces from the Christmas issue of the magazine are well worth a read.  We’ll be uploading more magazine content over the next week.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Identifying Brown’s culpability in Iraq

The Tories have missed a trick in responding to the predictable news that Gordon Brown won’t be giving evidence to the Iraq Inquiry until after the election. William Hague has just said that it stinks. He should have followed up by listing the questions Brown should be asked – highlighting the extent of his personal culpability in our defeat in Basra and treatment of the troops: 1) Did you ever ask yourself why Britain came to be fighting two wars on a peacetime budget? 2) During the 2007 Tory Patrty conference you went to Iraq and said that 500 troops would be home by Christmas. This decision stunned the Ministry

Peter Hoskin

Those split stories just won’t go away…

A hefty one-two punch in the continuing “Have Gordon and Peter fallen out?” story, this morning.  The Telegraph has quotes suggesting that Mandelson is “upset” and feels “disposed of” by Brown.  And Sue Cameron of the FT details a specific rift between the pair, ending with the observation: “I hear Lord M is not happy, telling friends that he does not have the influence he was promised.”  For his part, Mandelson has since dismissed the reports as “complete tosh”. Problem is, for Downing Street, the truth of the stories is almost immaterial.  After a relatively stable few months, Brown is once again mired in rumour and speculation concerning his own

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Christmas Quiz!

It’s that time of year. There’ll be only a little blogging here until Christmas is done for one more time. So here, as the season demands, is a wee quiz to keep you occupied. You could, I suppose, google some of the answers but where’s the fun or satisfaction in that? So don’t google. No prizes save the glory I’m afraid: It’s Just For Fun. But if you feel like emailing me your answers that would be fine. Otherwise, tough as this must seem, you’ll have to wait until the New Year before the answers are published. Have at it… 1.  What’s the connection between Dartford, St Pancras North, Beaconsfield

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Can’t Go On. Not for Twenty Years Now. No.

Just realised that today is the twentieth anniversary of Samuel Beckett’s death. Only twenty years! Seems like it should be longer, somehow, since the finest cricketer to have won the Nobel prize for literature finally gave in to the temptation of not going on. Then again, most of the old boy’s best work did belong to a much earlier age… Here’s a clip of John Hurt as Krapp. The subtitles are in Finnish.

The Spectator

Apologies | 22 December 2009

We’ve been experiencing a few technical difficulties on Spectator.co.uk today, which means some of you may not have been able to access the site. We hope that things will be fully fixed shortly.

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why Ken is talking up a Mandelson challenge

Ken Livingstone has added fuel to the fire that Fraser started with his News of the World column revealing that Peter Mandelson was being talked about as a possible Labour candidate for Mayor of London by saying that he had been warned to expect a challenge from Mandelson. But it strikes me that Livingstone might be engaged in a typically cunning spin operation.   Mandelson is the ideal opponent for Livingstone. He is an establishment figure and so allows Ken to run as an outsider. At the same time, Mandelson doesn’t have the support or connections in the London Labour party that Ken has. In any primary contest against Mandelson,

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall 21 December – 27 December

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – providing your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there’s no need to stay ‘on topic’ – which means you’ll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There’s also no constraint on the length of what you write – so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything’s fair game – from political stories in your local

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

A brave, principled and decent man

Balochistan grabbed your attention this week? I thought not. It’s in Pakistan and the ethnic Balochs – especially pro-secessionists – suffer the most appalling persecution from the Pakistani government and military. I know about this only because I received one of my regular emails from the Peter Tatchell Human Rights Watch organization (which is basically Tatchell and a few friends). He’s been campaigning on their behalf for years, much as he’s been campaigning for the persecuted in Iran. And, indeed, all over the world – especially the Muslim world. Last week Tatchell announced that he was standing down as Green Party candidate for the constituency of Oxford East, where some

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown’s PR dilemma

Gordon Brown is in an odd position when it comes to PR. As a Labour tribalist he hates it. But he knows that it could be very useful to him as he attempts to save his job. There was huge pressure from within the Labour party on Brown announce a referendum on PR for polling day. The tactical aim was to put Cameron on the ‘wrong’ side of reform at a time when faith in politics is at rock-bottom. The strategic goal was to ensure the Tories would find it very hard to win an overall majority again under the new system. But Brown bottled out of that decision; instead

Daniel Korski

I blame Bono for the Copenhagen failure

So who or what is to blame for the failure of the Copenhagen gathering to achieve what most people hoped for? Polly Toynbee says that the nature of politics is to blame. Personally I blame U2’s Bono. I don’t blame him for the failure of world leaders to agree a legally-binding agreement, of course. But I do blame him for the unrealistic expectations that were raised in the run-up to the meeting. Issue-based campaigning, of which the climate change movement is the latest example, came into its own with the debt-relief campaign of Jubilee 2000, which the Irish singer spearheaded. Since then, every global issue has been approached in much

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Hypocrites, all of ’em

I’m not sure what is worse. The two-and-a-half year prison sentence handed down to homeowner Munir Hussain for hammering a robber over the head with a cricket bat (and the fact that the man who robbed him and tortured his family got off with a supervision order), or the profusion of impeccably middle class libtard cretins lining up to express disquiet over the case. These articles of hypocritical, handwringing dross have been appearing all week. Here’s one of ‘em and here’s another. I wouldn’t read them, frankly; it will only encourage them. They all make the point that while it might be pushing it a bit to club someone over

Saturday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 19 December 2009

Once again Mary has invited some of her most distinguished readers to submit Christmas queries. From: Sir Norman Rosenthal Q. I have an old friend who for some years has run an art gallery near Bond Street. I must have said something bad about him to somebody. It clearly got back to him and after a very unpleasant letter he has crossed me off his invitation and party list. This makes me very sad, as I now never get to see his artists who are all friends of mine. I am also very close to the gallery owner’s mother-in-law. She is well into her nineties, but very active, and we

Toby Young Toby Young

What do you buy your child for Christmas when he wants a life-size moon rocket?

Shame has descended on the Young household this Christmas. When my wife picked up our four-year-old from school last week she was intercepted by his teacher who wanted a quiet word. ‘Oh no,’ she thought. ‘What’s Ludo done now?’ In fact, it was more a case of what I’d done — or failed to do. The teacher explained that she’d asked the children to write letters to Santa, saying what they wanted for Christmas. At the top of his list Ludo had written: ‘Lite bulb’. When the teacher asked him why he’d chosen such an unusual present he told her that the bulb in his bedroom had stopped working months

Melissa Kite

Festive basket case

Putting a letter through the slot of a rubbish bin and pointing your car key at the front door of your house are fairly good indicators of stress, I think it is fair to say. I found myself doing both these things this week as I floundered around in the Christmas rush, trying to reorder every single aspect of my life in time for 25 December. Why is this? Why do we have to ‘get everything done before Christmas’? I don’t mean buy a turkey and send some cards to friends and family, which would be a pleasure. I mean, do every single job we’ve been meaning to do all

Jeremy Clarke

After the flood

I set off in a rainstorm. Whether it is, or isn’t, caused by CO2 emissions triggering global warming, I’ve never seen an English monsoon season like this one. From our house, there’s a five-mile-long, single-track lane to negotiate before you can get anywhere. Normally in heavy downpours the water pours into the lane off the fields and lays in one or two low-lying dips. But in this new, more concentrated type of precipitation we’ve been getting, the lane itself is a live torrent. At least the tempest and early darkness have kept other people indoors by their fires. I meet no other cars. A section of the lane where I’ve

The Spectator

Letters | 19 December 2009

Selective quoting Sir: In her diary (5 December) Melanie Phillips accused me of bigotry, quoting from a newspaper article about the Iraq inquiry in which I had pointed out that two of the five members of the panel, Sir Martin Gilbert and Sir Lawrence Freedman, are Jewish and that Gilbert at least has a record of active support for Zionism. She did not mention that I went on to comment that these two men had outstanding reputations and records, but it was a pity that, if and when the inquiry was accused of a whitewash (and indeed it already has been) such handy ammunition would be available. Membership, I wrote,

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 19 December 2009

A word nudging its way into the finals for the most pointless cliché of the year is granular. A word nudging its way into the finals for the most pointless cliché of the year is granular. It appeals to those who adopt the languages of public policy and business management. An article in the Daily Telegraph about the FSA (the Financial Services Authority, not the Food Standards Agency) said: ‘The regulator would like to see reporting that is sufficiently granular to allow exposures on high-risk instruments.’ As this example suggests, granular often means ‘detailed’. Sometimes it seems not to mean anything. An article in the Guardian about local news said: