Society Archives

Saturday

24 Oct 2009

Iran’s secret nuclear plant

With the recession and Afghanistan, Iran often drops off the new agenda but the nuclear issue hasn’t gone away. The Washington Post’s article today about the recently revealed nuclear facility at Qom shows that the plant was almost certainly part of a nuclear weapons programme. The paper reports that communication intercepts revealed that Iran only planned to place 3,000 centrifuges in the plant. It would take that number of centrifuges twenty years to produce enough low-enriched uranium for a civilian power plant. But 3,000 centrifuges would produce enough weapons-grade uranium for two to three bombs a year. Qom is due to be inspected by UN inspectors on Sunday and now that

Alex Massie

The Future of Policing

PC Heckler and PC Koch prepare for life on the beat. Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images. Let us concede that there may be problems in Brixton, Haringey and Tottenham that demand new approaches from the police. Let us further accept that perhaps there really are “no-go” areas in some of the estates in these boroughs. But even if one takes the police at their word, I think one may still be worried by the news that, for the first time on the British mainland, police officers on routine patrols in parts of London will be armed. Because will it stop there? How long before there are calls for all police to

Rory Sutherland

The Wiki Man | 24 October 2009

Judging by my fellow passengers on trains or planes, I am in a minority in being more addicted to words than music. While perfectly fond of music, on long journeys I am slightly unnerved by the many people in headphones who can sit for three hours at a stretch staring vacantly into space. I could easily survive that long without an iPod, but would start foaming at the mouth if I had to last 20 minutes without anything to read. I also admire wordsmiths more than tunesmiths. Until his verbal assault on his brother (‘He’s the angriest man you’ll ever meet. He’s like a man with a fork in a

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 24 October 2009

In Competition No. 2618 you were invited to submit a sequel to Betjeman’s ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song’. As a native of the home counties — born in Aldershot, raised in Camberley — I have a soft spot for Betjeman’s muse, who imparted a touch of glamour to this unlovely part of the world. The real Joan Hunter Dunn, white-coated goddess of the catering dept ardently admired by Betjeman from afar at the Ministry of Information in the early 1940s, was tracked down by a journalist 20 years later. And her life was, it turns out, a continuation of the poem. There was euonymus in her garden in Headley, Hants, and

David Coates

City Life | 24 October 2009

The eight feet of rain brought by Typhoon Morakot washed away a good proportion of President Ma Ying-jeou’s remaining popularity. Forecasters failed to predict the force of the August storm and evacuation measures were inadequate. More than 700 mountain villagers in southern Taiwan were buried alive by mudslides or swept away. Ma made penitential visits to comfort survivors but had to endure awkward moments as villagers harangued him in front of the television cameras. Another item on the charge sheet was his remark that the army’s prime role in future would be disaster relief — rather than putting up enough resistance to an attack from the mainland to allow the

Matthew Parris

Another Voice | 24 October 2009

If you’re me, one of the ways you know that broadcasters are getting desperate for a ‘balancing’ voice to counter a popular point of view is that large numbers of them start telephoning you. You realise they must be scraping the barrel. Never more so, of course, than when what’s sought is that elusive beast, an articulate right-winger who isn’t totally Neanderthal. I generally tell them (always good advice in a tight corner) to try Peter Hitchens or Janet Daley. But unless (perfectly possible) I’ve missed their broadcast interventions, neither these, nor any of the rest of the small stable of stalwarts on the media right upon whom Britain has

Rod Liddle

Dancing on graves is what journalists do

There’s no need for Jan Moir to apologise for speculating about the death of the boy-band singer Stephen Gately says Rod Liddle. Why have we become so censorious and hysterical? I have to say that I don’t particularly like newspaper and magazine columnists, as people. Smug, not terribly bright, usually cowardly, lazy, always self-obsessed, self-important and narcissistic — forever brimming with themselves, a collection of mass-produced ornamental thimbles overflowing with foaming vomit. I don’t excuse myself from most of these character traits, by the way, so I suppose you can add self-loathing to the list as well. I don’t really have any friends who are columnists (except for James Delingpole, who

Kate Chisholm

The quick and the dead

His two sons, his grandsons and a family friend all gathered at the mortuary to wash him thoroughly, before his body, simply covered in a shroud, was laid in the ground. His head was turned towards Mecca and wooden boards laid over him to protect him from the clods of earth that would be sprinkled into the grave by those who mourned him. He was an 82-year-old Muslim with a long white beard who had died the previous evening. Tim Gardam, principal of St Anne’s College, Oxford, took us behind the scenes to witness the rituals of a Muslim funeral. We could hear the splashes of water and squeezing of

Friday

23 Oct 2009

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody – 23 October 2009

Monday Bit of a problem with the TV election debates. We want one debate. Mr Clegg wants three. Gordon wants 56 — two a day for four weeks of the campaign involving all our front-bench spokesmen. And he says he wants a special extended three-hour debate between Gids and Mr Darling with a ‘maths bee’, where they are made to do sums before a live studio audience. He sent Dave a note saying: ‘No calculators, just pencils without rubbers on the end.’ How silly. Dave did not reply of course. He does not do threatening ultimatums — it’s beneath him. We let Mr Boles deal with it. He sent a

James Forsyth

Weekend listening

If you have any time spare this weekend, do listen to Peter Oborne’s ‘Conserving what?’ series on Conservatism for Radio 4. It is exceptionally good and this week’s episode, based around an interview with David Cameron, is absolutely fascinating for anyone interested in Conservative philosophy. It also gives some intriguing glimpses at what kind of Conservative David Cameron is and how he might govern as Prime Minister.

Theo Hobson

Liberalism is good, beautiful and true

Most of the media responses to Griffin have been a bit complacent. He was exposed as a dodgy idiot, the vast majority say. I thought he came across pretty well, considering the wrongness of his views. I was uncomfortably reminded that the message of an extreme reactionary is always surprisingly seductive, tempting. The essential appeal is the promise that life can be radically simpler. This strikes a chord in the vast majority of us. We are burdened by complexity, anxiety, a sense that the contemporary world is alienating, chaotic. A vision of our culture being purged of its cultural complexity and working more effectively and more simply is, alas, beguiling.

Rod Liddle

The curse of Liddle

Ah, hell, it’s the curse of Liddle. No sooner have I sat down and written a stirring defence of the Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir, who had been vilified for suggesting there was something “sleazy” about the death of Stephen Gateley, than the bloody woman apologises. Or, at least, sort of apologises. I don’t see why she should have even genuflected in the general direction of an apology; her article was not homophobic. I suppose she could have watched her back by putting in some qualifying adjectives here or there – but then, hell, I’m hardly one to lecture on that issue. Anyway, my piece is in this week’s Spectator.

Thursday

22 Oct 2009

Fraser Nelson

Debating Aids

Is it legitimate to discuss the strength of the link between HIV and Aids? It’s one of these hugely emotive subjects, with a fairly strong and vociferous lobby saying that any open discussion is deplorable and tantamount to Aids denialism. Whenever any debate hits this level, I get deeply suspicious. Which is why the below clip – from a documentary which The Spectator Events division is screening next week, called House of Numbers – aroused my interest. The film picked up awards at various American film festivals, but has since been denounced as backing Aids denialism. Yet the footage shows Luc Montagnier – who won a Nobel prize last year

James Forsyth

Why did the BBC let this be Griffin Time not Question Time?

We can debate the rights and wrongs of the BBC’s decision to invite Nick Griffin on Question Time. But having invited him on the BBC shouldn’t have devoted almost entirely the whole programme to the BNP’s agenda. This must have been the first Question Time ever where there was no discussion of the economy, health or education. Rather than a question on postal strike, we got a navel gazing one on whether Question Time was right to have Griffin on. The other thing that struck me as bizarre was that at 10.30 at night and on a programme with someone as vile as Nick Griffin on, the BBC felt obliged

Peter Hoskin

The laughter will have hurt Griffin

There’s only one question that counts now that Question Time has been shown: did it do Nick Griffin and the BNP any good? It’s a tough one to answer. To my eyes, at least, Griffin embarrassed himself in front of the cameras – he was given scant opportunity to gloss over his more unsavoury views; he looked terribly uncomfortable whenever the debate ran away from him; and the other panellists scored most of the major points. But we largely expected that anyway. Griffin was always going to come under heavy questioning, and he was never going to have many friends in the audience. Like Fraser, I fear that much of

The Spectator

In this week’s Spectator

The latest issue of the Spectator is released today. If you are a subscriber you can view it here. If you have not subscribed, but would like to view this week’s content, you can subscribe online now. Five articles from the latest issue are available for free online to all website users: The unions are on the rise again. The Royal Mail dispute illustrates that concerted union action could frustrate the Tories’ reform agenda in the future. James Forsyth reveals how the Tories plan to tame the unions. The BNP are using the public’s real fear of Islamism to attract support for their racist movement, says Melanie Phillips. If the

Peter Hoskin

The case for cutting middle class benefits

Great work by my former colleagues at the think tank Reform today. In their latest report, they’ve figured out that the cost of “middle class benefits” to the Exchequer is some £31 billion. In other words, £31 billion worth of maternity pay, child benefits, fuel allowance and other transfers are dished out to middle income earners each year – that’s around a quarter of all spending on benefits. Writing in the Times, Andrew Haldenby says that these middle class benefits should be an obvious candidate for cuts. It’s hard to disagree. If we’re all in this together, then it seems slightly perverse that money is being given out to people

Wednesday

21 Oct 2009

David Blackburn

They did it their way

One argument against Sir Thomas Legg’s repayment requests is that many are founded on inaccurate information. Norman Baker was charged for gardening expenses despite not having claimed any. Today, Sir Thomas has had to apologise for overcharging Ken Clarke by more than £4,000, and he has had to state that John Mann MP will not have to repay any money. It’s all a bit of a muddle. First, there was the retrospective repayments fiasco. Then the Leader of the House made it quite clear that she had no idea what would happen to MPs who did not repay their expenses. And now there is this godsend for the anti-Leggites. MPs

Peter Hoskin

Back pain, the unions and social-networking

So how do you explain the postal strike when it makes little-to-no business sense whatsoever? That’s the question which Danny Finkelstein sets about tackling in his superb column today. I won’t set out his full answer here – you should read the full article for that – but suffice to say that it involves back pain in East Germany and the latest research into social-networking. Overall, it makes a very persuasive case, and one which has clear implications for policymakers. As Danny concludes: “If the Royal Mail dispute were about individual postal workers and their economic interest, it would be easy enough to solve. It could be ended in a

Neil Collins

For whom the tolls mean tax-free profits

The M6 Toll is a moneyspinner for its offshore owners but unloved by motorists, says Neil Collins. Is it really the best model for road-building without taxpayers’ money? Drive south down the M6 towards the Midlands and you pass an illuminated sign at junction 15. If you’re lucky, it will display the following message: ‘To J8 for M5, 34 miles, 34 minutes’. A couple of junctions further on, you can’t miss a similar sign with the message: ‘M6 Toll clear’. Ah, you say to yourself, that’s all very fine, but I’m not a boy racer looking to do a ton and get away with it. The earlier sign effectively tells