Society

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

It should be clear where the blame for last night’s violence lies

The behaviour of those protesting the booze ban on the Tube last night was disgraceful. Those who assaulted Tube staff and police officers should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. The reaction of the RMT, though, is bizarre. Rather than pinning the blame on the perpetrators, it has decided that it was the Mayor’s fault for banning alcohol on public transport in the first place.   This mindset which always blames the supposed provocation rather than those actually responsible for the actions is one of the great ills of our time. The moral responsibility for last night’s disgraceful scenes lies squarely with its perpetrators. 

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A month of real progress in Iraq

This May saw fewer US military casualties in Iraq, 18, than any previous month in the war. It also saw the Iraqi government take significant steps to becoming a truly national government; successfully taking on the Shi’ite militias in Basra and Sadr City. As The Washington Post writes in its lead editorial this morning:  “Iraq passed a turning point last fall when the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign launched in early 2007 produced a dramatic drop in violence and quelled the incipient sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites. Now, another tipping point may be near, one that sees the Iraqi government and army restoring order in almost all of the country, dispersing

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters | 31 May 2008

Seek the reason why Sir: I greatly enjoyed Peter Jones’s excellent article on Ancient Roman globalisation (‘For real globalisation, look at Ancient Rome’, 24 May). I respectfully disagree with one paragraph, however, in which he describes Greek philosophers as having ‘proceeded from hypotheses, which they never tested’. It is true, of course, that the Greeks were incapable of testing certain things, such as the nature of the elemental constituents of matter. Nevertheless, in what was within their power to observe, they often proceeded, not from hypotheses, but from the empirical study of natures. The pre-eminent example of this approach is the extant work of Aristotle. About 25 per cent of

Alex James

Conduct becoming | 31 May 2008

That’s a lot of violins, I thought. Then I realised they were violas. The violins were to the left, smaller. Always smaller than I expect, violins — maybe because I wrestled with one as a child and it beat me: Tiny, pretty little things they are, with all the fleeting glamour and tyranny of a whole crowd of Hollywood starlets. Those always come up small, too. The cellos were in their nest to the right of the violas. I don’t think there’s an instrument more beautiful to look at than the cello, all balancing curves and arches, setting off the perfect parallels and perpendiculars of the strings. The more I

Jeremy Clarke

Homer’s cure

This morning, when I woke up, I reached out and pressed the button on my bedside radio and the first word that came out of it was the word ‘tolerance’. The radio was tuned to the Today programme. It isn’t the first time that the first word I’ve heard has been ‘tolerance’. For the past few weeks I’ve been keeping a mental record. I’ve heard ‘tolerance’ three times as I’ve pressed the button, ‘Muslim’ three times and ‘community’ twice. Then I came downstairs and looked at the newspaper. Starving millions, an overheating planet, polluted skies and oceans, scarcities, extinctions, wars, rumours of wars — it was grim reading. And that

Taki

Accidental empires

‘Is democracy on the march or is it in retreat?’ screams a headline in the Washington Times. The question was put to Condoleezza Rice last week, and I must say, for a little-to-show-for-it secretary of state, she answered very well: ‘Freedom does not advance on a steady trajectory — setbacks and detours should be expected…’ Americans seem to be obsessed with democracy, now even more so than during the Cold War. We (ancient) Greeks take credit for it, but don’t really consider it for others, only for ourselves. Athens became a democratic city-state in various stages. The poorest were eventually made eligible for the magistracies, but the generalship always remained

Robin Oakley

The Turf | 31 May 2008

The Irish show enough enthusiasm for the ‘jumping Olympics’ at Cheltenham in March. Horses, trainers and punters come over in their hordes. For this year’s Epsom Derby it is a different matter. Two of Ireland’s leading trainers are effectively boycotting Epsom with horses which, if they were to run, would be vying for favouritism. Jim Bolger, trainer of New Approach, who has finished second in the English and Irish 2000 Guineas and who was the winter favourite for the race, says the horse will go for the Irish Derby at The Curragh rather than running at Epsom. Dermot Weld, trainer of Casual Conquest, the impressive six-length winner of the Derrinstown

Sarah Standing

Diary – 31 May 2008

I co-own a rather jolly children’s shop on Ebury Street and my stock has recently expanded to include a Romanian tramp. I discovered him sleeping on my doorstep after returning to collect a laptop charger I’d left behind. As it was physically impossible to get into the shop without first crushing him, I found myself in the frankly ludicrous position of waking him up and asking his permission to enter my own premises. After this initial nocturnal ‘lady and the tramp’ encounter our paths have crossed several times. Some mornings when I arrive at work I discover he’s succumbed to a lie-in. I feel strangely awkward waking him up, so

Peter Jones

Ancient and Modern – 31 May 2008

Hamid Karzai’s government is said to control a mere 30 per cent of Afghanistan. The rest is in the control of tribal leaders and the Taleban. As David Miliband says, we will ‘win’ only by diplomacy. The long-term stability of the Roman empire depended on the Romans’ ability to rule through local elites. That was fine where the culture was largely urbanised i.e. with administrative structures conducive to governance and taxation, as it was in the Mediterranean and the Greek East where Alexander had been.  But tribal north-west Europe was generally different. True, where tribes were centralised and hierarchical, as in southern England, Romans could get to work. But where

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 31 May 2008

Outside the Joint Support Unit HQ here stands a cross rising from a mound of cobbles. On each of the four sides of the mound is set a brass plate for the names of those British soldiers who have died in Afghanistan. The second of the four plates is almost full. At the precise moment that we walk past it, the Union flag is being adjusted to half-mast — the 96th man has just died, killed by a mine. The CO has told us that the camp will take from seven to ten years to complete. So, at the present rate of death, by then the memorial will need at

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 31 May 2008

Monday Another superb by-election victory party at HQ with lashings of Pol Roger! The vibe v much: ‘Humility and workmanlike determination to get on with the job of serving the British people.’ Jed made a fantastic speech about how jubilation should ring out throughout the land as Our Great Leader Dave basks in this his finest hour. ‘Let all of Britain dance on New Labour’s grave and stick two fingers up to the Great Clunking Disaster that is Gordon Brown! But above all, let not a hint of triumphalism pass our lips! Oh no. The people of this nation will not hear us Tories rubbing Labour’s nose in it, or

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 31 May 2008

Q. Later this summer my boyfriend and I are flying out to the Aegean. Our hostess emailed to say we can get a lift from the airport with another couple who are coming for the same week on the same flight and who have already booked a hire car. She says she only needs one extra car to transport everyone around during the week and so we should not hire another for ourselves as this would be un-eco. We only barely know the other couple but we do know they will have booked the most expensive car available. What is the etiquette? Should we offer to pay half the cost

Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety | 31 May 2008

In order to tell you the following story I’m going to have to make an embarrassing admission: I LexisNexis myself every day. That is to say, I plug my own name into LexisNexis, the online cuttings service, to see if any stories have appeared about me in the past 24 hours. In terms of vanity, it is one up from Googling yourself since it includes sources — like the Evening Standard’s Londoner’s Diary — that are not picked up by Google. However, unlike Google, it is not free. Conducting a search does not cost anything, but if you want to read any of the ‘results’ you have to pay a

Dot Wordsworth

Mind Your Language | 31 May 2008

Queens’ College, Cambridge or Queens’ College, Cambridge I was interested by a note on the website of Queens’ College, Cambridge, because the use of the apostrophe in English is governed by such simple rules that it is hard to see how there can be much dispute about it. The college says that everyone is told to spell it Queens’ College because it was founded by two Queens of England: Margaret of Anjou, the wife of Henry VI, in 1448, and Elizabeth Woodville, the wife Edward IV, in 1465. But the college adds quite correctly that an apostrophe to indicate the possessive is ‘of no great antiquity’. (It is much more

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Score one to Obama

On Tuesday night after the last vote in the Democratic primaries has been cast, Obama will speak in the very hall in which John McCain will accept the Republican nomination in September. It is a smart move by his campaign as it pushes the general election story-line front and centre, relegating Hillary Clinton to the third paragraph of the article. It also sets up an inevitable comparison between Obama’s speech and McCain’s convention address—a comparison that is unlikely to be favourable to McCain who is not in the same league as Obama as a set-piece orator. The other thing which Obama’s choice of venue suggests is that he might have

The Skimmer

“Madrassa Guardian”

Time was when the Guardian was the favourite British newspaper of the Indian elite because of its historic support for Indian independence and its generally liberal-left collectivist outlook, which coincided with the ideology of India’s post-colonial governing classes until only recently (then they ditched socialist planning and the Indian economy is now growing at an unprecedented 9% a year as a result).   But the Guardian, it seems, is no longer the apple of New Delhi’s eye. Consider this from the venerable Times of India on Saturday: “The Guardian is far to the Left of not just the Tories but also of New Labour, the paper’s constituency seemingly that of

Simon Hoggart

June Spectator Mini-Bar Offer

The Loire produces wonderful wines for summer. Perhaps it’s holidays in July and August, driving from château to château, past the slow reaches of the river and green meadows almost yellow from the sun. Baguettes and pâté under the willow trees…. Actually that may be a figment of my unreliable memory. But the wines really are crisp, refreshing and lively, as well as having plenty of body. Lay in supplies so that your al fresco meals will be even more delightful. And less expensive too. The Loire had the same crummy summer we did last year, but, like us, they did get sun in spring and autumn. Most — though

Lucy Vickery

Mix and match

No. 2549: New word order The journalist Peter Lubin coined the word ‘sesquilingualist’ to describe people who have a smattering of a foreign language. You are invited to find a gap in the language and plug it, explaining the etymology of your coinage (150 words maximum). Entries to ‘Competition 2549’ by 12 June or email lucy@spectator.co.uk. In Competition No. 2546 you were invited to submit a dialogue between unlikely pairs from real life or fiction who happen to share the same surname. I would pay good money to eavesdrop on an exchange between the truculent Fall frontman Mark E. Smith and the father of economics, Adam Smith; or guardian of

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The Wiki Man | 31 May 2008

‘Linda works miracles in the kitchen while Trevor is ubiquitous with the cup that cheers.’ This sentence has haunted me for 15 years. It’s from a parody of the typical reader’s review in The Good Food Guide, probably by Craig Brown. I still quote it gnomically when asked whether some restaurant or other is any good. These reviews were usually written by the kind of people who preferred to purchase from an emporium than to buy from a shop. The word ‘peruse’ was always a clue. ‘Reluctant to entrust navigation to my lady wife, I chose to peruse the atlas myself, necessitating the removal of my driving gloves.’ Later, ‘ensconced

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

‘Touch wood,’ Karzai said to me. You hear it all the time

There is something oddly soothing about going to sleep to the sound of gunfire in Kandahar airbase. The shots are fired by British troops, honing the night combat skills which achieved such success over the Taleban last winter. The fighting season was due to start four weeks ago, when the poppy harvest ended — but so far, nothing. British commanders are quietly optimistic that the Taleban has counted its 6,000 dead, learned it cannot win firefights and switched to guerrilla tactics instead. Only in Afghanistan could the rockets being fired into the Kandahar airbase be seen as a sign of progress. Much as the prospect may terrify visitors, the soldiers