Society

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

69 Balls

Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar of England walk off after securing the draw in the 1st Ashes Test Match between England and Australia at Sophia Gardens. Photo: Hamish Blair/Getty Images. Look at Monty Panesar’s face there. The poor lad looks punch-drunk and spent, drained by the scale of the drama in which he’s played such a part. Jimmy Anderson, on the other hand, bounces off with a sly, even cheeky, grin that simulataneously acknowledges how close England came to disaster and tries to persuade you that you should have expected this and that England’s survival was never in doubt ‘cos it was just all part of an honest day’s work.

Daniel Korski

Who watches the watchmen?

In the US, a storm is brewing over Dick Cheney’s alleged role in concealing an intelligence programme from Congress. Whatever the details of the alleged offence, it raises an interesting question: should oversight of the intelligence community intrinsically be different from other kinds of parliamentary oversight? Over in the States, Legislators were content to delegate the management of intelligence agencies to the executive until a series of abuses was revealed in the early 1970s, and the House and Senate Committees on Intelligence were set up in 1977. In Britain, however, Parliament has only had scant role in overseeing the intelligence community. Only nine parliamentarians have the legal authority to pry

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 13 July – 19 July

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

Peter Hoskin

Equality overdrive (continued)

Oh dear.  I fear Harriet Harman may be going way beyond the edge of sanity in her quest for positive discrimination:  “Harriet Harman is drawing up plans to stamp out discrimination against Scousers, Geordies and people from Yorkshire.  Labour’s deputy leader wants to get more people from the regions on to the boards of major public bodies. Ms Harman is planning to impose special quotas to boost numbers – just as she has done for women, gay people and ethnic minorities. She fears too many organisations are run by executives from London and the South East.”   The problem for the government is what this says about the New Labour project. 

Peter Hoskin

Public opinion of the Afghanistan conflict

Of course, one poll doesn’t make a watertight case, but the results of today’s ICM/Guardian poll on the Afghanistan conflict are still worth noting down.  Perhaps counterintuitively, support for the war has actually risen since the last ICM poll on the issue in 2006.  47 percent of people now support the war (up 15 from 2006), against 46 percent who oppose it (down 6).  While 42 percent of respondents want British troops to return this year, against 36 percent who think that they should stay in Afghanistan until they are no longer needed.  And only 6 percent of people say they have “no idea” why British troops are in the

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

A framework for shelving tax cuts

So, the News of the World claims that the Tories are planning to shelve some of their tax-cutting proposals – including the inheritance tax cut and tax breaks for married couples – to help combat the fiscal crisis.  Guido suspects that the news came direct from the Blackberry of Andy Coulson, but the Tories have told Tim Montgomerie to “treat the story with a ton of salt”. Either way, I do – like Tim – have some sympathy for the idea that commitments will have to be sidelined to overcome Brown’s debt mountain.  The longer those terrible deficits remain, the more future generations will be burdened by the Dear Leader’s

Saturday

Alex James

Slow Life | 11 July 2009

‘I wish I could be inside your head,’ she said, ‘on Sunday at Glastonbury. How must it feel to play to so many people?’ She wasn’t just saying it either. She really meant it, longed to know how it feels. Thinking about it now, I’m wondering whether the first bit is an appropriate thing for a married man to consider, but I am flattered and really, since I’ve been playing with Blur again, that’s what everyone wants to know more than anything else — not ‘How do you do that?’ but ‘How does it feel?’ So I will try to explain. Playing music triggers just the same feelings as those

Jeremy Clarke

Low Life | 11 July 2009

Once a year I turn out for Peter Oborne’s cricket team, the White City All-Stars, for their annual cricket weekend at Horningsham, a ludicrously pretty village next to Longleat House in Wiltshire. I can’t bowl, I’m hopeless with a bat, I can’t catch or throw. I try to make myself useful, however, by offering around cigarettes, helping to look for the ball when it’s been smashed into the long grass, pouring the teas and clapping when required. But I always come away afterwards with an uncomfortable feeling that, even in the game of cricket, conscientiousness and conviviality will never quite atone for ignorance of the rules and uselessness on the

Taki

High Life | 11 July 2009

So farewell, then, to probably the best Wimbledon fortnight ever, certainly the sunniest that I can remember. Andy Roddick now joins Gottfried von Cramm and Ken Rosewall as a three-times-losing finalist, coming within a whisker of winning the greatest trophy in tennis, but turning into a tragic hero instead. Still, unlike the elegant German baron and the great Aussie, Andy might still do it, although I wouldn’t bet on it. But not to worry, Andy old chap, you’ve got by far the prettiest wife of all the players, and you exhibited more fight and good sportsmanship than the rest of the field combined. Roddick should be made an honorary member

The Spectator

The bear necessities

The world does not hold its breath during US-Russia summits as it did in the days of Kennedy and Khrushchev or Reagan and Gorbachev. But they are still important moments of (mostly choreographed) dialogue. Without Moscow’s co-operation, Barack Obama will find it far harder to make progress in Afghanistan or in his diplomatic strategy to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. On top of this, Russia still has the capacity to create huge problems in Eastern Europe and Central Asia for the United States. It must be prevented from becoming a more chauvinist and aggressive power — otherwise Washington will be forced to choose between conflict and breaking its promises to

Peter Oborne

Diary – 11 July 2009

The shadow chancellor George Osborne has been lunching privately with the textiles magnate Richard Caring, the Labour-supporting businessman who got caught up in the cash for peerages investigation. It is less than a year since Osborne demonstrated a catastrophic failure of judgment by being lured onto a yacht owned by the disreputable Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. After the Deripaska episode Osborne promised to have nothing more to do with political funding. Yet here he is consorting with another party donor. What on earth does the shadow chancellor think he is doing? To Northamptonshire for cricket against my friend William Sitwell. I ask his mother for a guided tour of the

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 11 July 2009

As the Conservatives try to make themselves fiscally responsible against spendthrift Gordon Brown, there are now only two departmental programmes which they will ‘ring-fence’ against cuts — health and international development. As the Conservatives try to make themselves fiscally responsible against spendthrift Gordon Brown, there are now only two departmental programmes which they will ‘ring-fence’ against cuts — health and international development. The politics of this is clear: both subjects are areas in which the Tories are seeking to ‘decontaminate the brand’. They are frightened of being depicted as heartless penny-pinchers. But there are plenty of reasons why one might suspect waste and misspending in both these departments. The problems

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 11 July 2009

Monday How dare Gordon and Sarah hold lasagne suppers! It is absolutely outrageous. It just shows the breathtaking arrogance of this Prime Minister that he thinks he can steal a groundbreaking idea like that and get away with it. Of course we are seeking legal advice. Dave definitely holds the patent, morally speaking, it’s just whether it’s enforceable. Jed says Sarah can bake as many lasagnes as she wants, but she’ll never get the exact same pasta-maker Sam uses because they had it commissioned specially from a company in Italy that’s stopped making them now. Also, does Sarah use organic minced beef from Daylesford? Is the salad from Pimlico Road

The Spectator

Letters | 11 July 2009

Moore’s TV dinner Sir: While I have been generally supportive of Charles Moore’s quest to impose a degree of financial proportionality on what the BBC pays Jonathan Ross, and of his ‘scheme’ to withhold payment for his TV licence until the matter is satisfactorily addressed, I am dismayed to read that he is doing so at my expense (The Spectator’s Notes, 4 July). If he wishes to dine with the corporation’s director-general in order to discuss his ‘project’, could he not do so at his own expense instead of that of the taxpayer? Or should I now withhold payment of my TV licence until such gorging ceases? Adrian Hilton Farnham

Dot Wordsworth

Mind Your Language | 11 July 2009

Like the flying ants that swarm at this time of year, certain tricks of speech seethe in sudden outbursts. I heard the word testament used by mistake for testimony twice during From Our Own Correspondent last week, from different contributors. I was too kind about this usage four years ago when I mentioned it here. My husband, the plump canary in the coal-damp of misused language, has practically pegged out in response to the erroneous use of testament. In 2005, I noted that it had been misused in precisely the modern way 550 years ago, by someone called Sir Gilbert Hay. This only shows that in the 15th century people

Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety | 11 July 2009

As funny as Bruno undoubtedly is, Baron-Cohen’s film is fundamentally dishonest One of the funniest scenes in Bruno is when Sacha Baron-Cohen, playing the gay Austrian television presenter, appears on a talk show in Texas called The Richard Bey Show. The African-American audience is none too impressed when he tells them he’s looking for a black male partner to help him raise his African baby — and is even more outraged when the baby is brought out wearing a ‘Gayby’ T-shirt. ‘He’s a real dick magnet,’ Bruno explains. The audience is then shown a picture of the child in a hot tub with four other men, two of whom are

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 11 July 2009

Q. I was persuaded by my son to attend a lecture on astronomy. I was out of my depth within five minutes. Should I have interrupted the speaker, Mary, and asked for elucidation? I did not want to embarrass my son but through not so doing, the whole rest of the lecture went over my head and, I would imagine, the heads of a large proportion of the audience. Secondly, a question-and-answer session followed in which those in the audience who had understood the talk posed questions. Can you explain why so many apparently able-bodied scientists seem to speak in staccato tones as though they were imitating Stephen Hawking? J.M.,

Peter Hoskin

Darling speaks his mind

You’ve got to hand it to Alistair Darling: he really does seem to be making the most of his post-reshuffle security.  His interview with the Telegraph’s Ben Brogan today is a case in point.  Once again, he goes against the Brown/Mandelson claim that there won’t be a spending review before the next election.  But it’s this passage which jumped out at me: “In another departure from Mr Brown, he even talks about reversing tax increases, including the planned rise in the top rate to 50p on those earning more than £150,000. ‘Looking into the future I would like to be able to reduce tax. Raising the top rate is something

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Not a patch on our scandals

Inspired, perhaps, by The Spectator’s list of the top 50  political scandals, Bloomberg has run a list of the ten best American ones. I have to say, these prudish Americans just don’t do scandal like us. The list has a common theme: moralising politician caught having an affair! Please. Where are the Russian spies, the society whoremongers, the russian oligarchs, the Corfu taverns? Okay, I’ll accept that the boy Clinton did them proud – but the rest of the list makes you think either America is squeaky clean or that its political class get away with far too much. Anyway, here are Bloomberg’s choices, with my comments: 10 ‘Family Values’. Spitzer was

Alan Dershowitz

A reply to Melanie Phillips

Melanie Phillips is nothing if not prolific and fast. Even before Spectator readers could access my reply to her earlier criticism of me, she had written and posted her own reply, “He Still Doesn’t Get It.” In it, she selectively quotes from my article.  The quotes do not do justice to the thrust of my argument.  Accordingly, my article is being published in full here. American Support For Israel Must Remain Bipartisan: A Reply to Melanie Phillips Melanie Phillips has written a critique of me because I remain a Democrat and continue to support President Barack Obama, despite his recent statements regarding expansion of Israeli settlements and other matters relating