Society

Saturday

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

Benjamin Weggprosser

Fix your departure date now, Gordon, and give your legacy a chance

It is time for Gordon Brown to start contemplating leaving Downing Street. But he should only set a date well into the next decade. To get there he needs to consider now how he wants to be remembered. If he does not initiate discussions on his own legacy, he will suffer the fate of one of his two most recent predecessors, namely to be forced out prematurely or humiliated at the polls. The idea of Mr Brown focusing on what he has achieved in Downing Street after less than 12 months in residence could be dismissed as another sign of the government’s lack of a political compass. Yet in planning

Anna Blundy

Sorry, but apologies really are the work of the Devil

Saying ‘sorry’ is mostly wicked and usually irrelevant, says Anna Blundy. People should not be allowed to dump their inner shame so easily There is no end, of course, to all this human erring. And we know forgiveness is divine — look at Nelson Mandela. But, for the non-divine of us, genuine forgiveness is largely impossible. This is, in my view, because most apologies are so insincere and self-serving. And it is to the, frankly, Satanic act of apologising that I would like to turn my attention. ‘Oh, I slept with someone else. Sorry.’ ‘I hit my sister over the head with a cello bow. Sorry.’ ‘I embezzled the Christmas

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Shared Opinion | 31 May 2008

Every Sunday night for the past couple of months, I have been going back in time. I have been in the early 1960s. Sharp suits, womanly curves, and hair that went one way or went the other, and damn well left a line if it changed its mind. I’ve been watching the drama Mad Men on BBC4, and I’ve been gripped. Not so much by the plot. More by the general ambience. Don Draper and his crew are advertising men on Madison Avenue, and they ooze a certain style. They make you want to mix drinks at lunchtime and grab the secretary’s arse. Stick a hanky in your top pocket,

Theodore Dalrymple

Global Warning | 31 May 2008

Life has taught me very little, but one thing I have learned is that the only employee of local councils with a genuine vocation is the rat-catcher. He always loves his rats, eliminating them with the deepest respect, and is extremely knowledgeable and interesting about their habits — which are, indeed, very interesting. The last time I had to call a rat-catcher out, I smelt a rat under my dining room floorboards where it had died. The rat-catcher confirmed my diagnosis and told me that I had two choices: I could lift up the floorboards and remove the rat, or I could wait six weeks, after which the smell would

Bryan Forbes

Who decided that all motorists were criminals?

Bryan Forbes sees in the persecution of drivers a terrible metaphor for England’s decline: ministers hide in limousines while the police waste their time on minor road offences Do others like me wake every day angry that we are unwilling members of a persecuted majority? At the risk of becoming a serial whiner, it seems to me that the unholy trinity of the Treasury, local authorities and the police forces are intent on intimidating and fleecing anybody who has the effrontery to own and drive a car. So vindictive and petty are some of the laws framed specifically against motorists that I am resigned to the fact that any time

Robin Harris

De Gaulle understood that only nations are real

Few may celebrate the half-century since Charles de Gaulle’s triumphs of 1958, says Robin Harris, but this realist genius understood that, in geopolitics, the nation-state was all Almost exactly half a century ago, on 1 June 1958, Charles de Gaulle became the last Prime Minister of the French Fourth Republic and immediately began the construction of the Fifth. The Fourth Republic, be it said, was not as bad as it was painted, not least by de Gaulle. The economy had grown, the communists were kept out, and France took the first steps to becoming a nuclear power. But the system was incestuous and unstable, a small group of small men

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Whitehouse effect

‘Stupid old bat.’ That’s what my father always used to say when Mary Whitehouse appeared on the screen, and the older I grew the more I agreed with him. What right had this ghastly woman with her horn-rimmed specs and silly hats and Black Country accent to stand between me and ‘the torrents of filth’ I would happily have watched on TV all day and all night? But Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story (BBC2, Wednesday) wasn’t going to let us off so easily. It opened up in one of those picture-perfect villages from the past we’d all like to live in — the steepled church, the well-tended hedges, the working

Neil Barnett

Can Lord Bell’s PR skills combat the aroma of communism and cabbage?

Minsk is not a mecca for entrepreneurs or foreign investors, but it seems that the perpetual leader of Belarus, Aleksander Lukashenko, has decided to change that. The kolkhoz (collective farms) are not about to be broken up, and nor is the KGB ready to give up its paternalistic interest in business. But Lukashenko, Europe’s answer to Kim Jong-Il, needs cash and he needs it yesterday. The reason is that the cheap Russian gas that used to subsidise the economy is getting a lot more expensive: Gazprom has pushed the price up from a trifling $47 per 1,000 cubic metres in 2006 to $119 today. It’s still cheap compared to the

Philip Ziegler

Triumph of the polymaths

Books about London tend to be macrocosmic or microscopic in approach. The macrocosmic or Ackroydian study is vast, discursive and, in the case of Peter Ackroyd at least, jubilantly idiosyncratic. The micro- scopic concentrates on one small aspect of the whole — medieval drainage or Cheapside brothels in the time of Hogarth. James Hamilton and Leo Hollis, in these two curiously similar books, steer a course between the two which is sometimes uneasy but generally successful. Each author takes a period of London’s history: Hollis between the Restoration and the accession of Queen Anne, Hamilton from 1805 to the opening of the Great Exhibition in 1851. Each argues that their

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Was the Chinese army responsible for the 2003 New York blackout?

  National Journal has an eye-opening cover story this week on the extent of China’s e-espionage. The piece reveals that US intelligence officials believe that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army was probably responsible for the 2003 power cut that blacked out much of the east coast of the US. The whole piece is well worth reading to get an idea of the scale of the problem. Apparently, President Bush has spent more time on this cyber threat in the last year than he did in the first six years of his presidency combined. Hat Tip: Playbook  

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Pakistan’s failure to police its border is a threat to us all

The warning from the departing American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan General Dan K. McNeill that Pakistan is once more pursuing the failed strategy of trying to strike a deal with militants needs to be heeded. The consequences of the Pakistani approach can be seen in the fact that attacks in eastern Afghanistan were up 50 percent year on year in April. It also threatens to once more create a safe haven for al Qaeda, undoing much of the progress that has been made against the group in the last year or so.  

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

New Zealand Hookers

Meanwhile, there’s happier news from New Zealand. Actually, there quite often is. Despite its sleepy reputation, New Zealand is an interesting, even innovative place. Though this is more Will Wilkinson’s bailiwick than mine, NZ always scores well in measurements of global happiness and quality of life surveys. And, in part, I suppose, because of its isolated location, it’s been forced to take a flexible approach to public policy. Thus, New Zealand scrapped agricultural subsidies and implemented a school choice programme vastly more adventurous than anything attempted in the UK, let alone Scotland. Now, on the social front, comes interesting news about the consequences of decriminalising prostitution (which is more Kerry

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Drags on the ticket

The last couple of days have flagged up problems that are going to bedevil McCain and Obama respectively in the general election campaign. McCain is going to have to run in the shadow of an extremely unpopular president from his own party. At every opportunity, the Democrats are going to try and tell people that a vote for McCain is a vote for a Bush third term. But McCain can’t jettison the President entirely as he needs Bush’s help to raise money and rally sections of the base of the Republican party that McCain can’t reach. McCain’s dilemma was highlighted when he and Bush raised money last night. His campaign

James Forsyth James Forsyth

In the magazine this week

Fraser Nelson and Charles Moore report from Afghanistan. Rod Liddle explains how Britain can win Eurovision. Irwin Stelzer previews the US election and Bryan Forbes asks when did we start treating all motorists like criminals? In the books section, Magnus Linklater assesses Hugh Trevor-Roper’s posthumously published book on the invention of Scotland. Also do read Leo McKinstry’s review of Patrick Bishop’s first novel. At the back of the book, Deborah Ross gives her verdict on The Sex and the City movie and Stephen Pettitt celebrates a new wave of masterful British productions. 

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Not the headline the government wants right now

This is the story leading The Guardian web site: House prices: Nationwide reports fastest fall since 1991 Nationwide are reporting that house prices fell 2.5 percent month on month and the price of the average home has dropped 4.4 percent compared to last year. (To put that in perspective though, the average house price is still 10 higher percent than they were in 2005).

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

On Sale Soon…

Via Swampland, comes news of this exciting contest to design a new t-shirt for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Personally, I’d say it’s tough to beat the impact of a slogan such as “She was for universal health care before universal health care was cool” but then again, what the hell do I know? Then again, I do know that I wouldn’t have let this shirt be a finalist: What’s the problem? Well, as any fule kno, if you’re “counted out” you can’t then “refuse” to be “knocked out” for the simple reason that the referee has stopped the fight and, er, you’ve lost. By knock-out. Then again, perhaps failing to beat

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Department of Pretty Words

The Boston Globe: “Candidates Unite Against Darfur Genocide” Isn’t it a bit late for that? “Today, we wish to make clear to the Sudanese government that on this moral issue of tremendous importance, there is no divide between us,” the three candidates say. “We stand united and demand that the genocide and violence in Darfur be brought to an end and that the CPA be fully implemented. Even as we campaign for the presidency, we will use our standing as Senators to press for the steps needed to ensure that the United States honors, in practice and in deed, its commitment to the cause of peace and protection of Darfur’s

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The spokesman’s revenge

Scott McLellan was an awful White House press secretary. As you watched him get beaten up day after day by reporters you couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He was a Bush loyalist promoted way over his head. When McLellan stepped down in April 2006, few expected to hear much more from him. But his new memoir has rocked Washington. In it, he criticises the Iraq war, complains that Scooter Libby and Karl Rove worked out their stories together about the Valerie Plame leak, is scathing about Condi and suggests that President Bush did take cocaine as a young man. (The Politico has the full scoop) Many are speculating

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Bin Laden’s No. 2 believed he could secure political asylum in London for his supporters

Lawrence Wright’s essay in The New Yorker on the ideological divisions within the Islamic extremist movement from which al Qaeda emerged is essential reading. It really is long-form magazine journalism at its very best. One anecdote in it is particularly interesting from a British perspective. Zayyat reports that Zawahiri called him in March of [1997], when Zayyat arrived in London on business. “Why are you making the brothers angry?” Zawahiri asked him. Zayyat responded that jihad did not have to be restricted to an armed approach. Zawahiri urged Zayyat to change his mind, even promising that he could secure political asylum for him in London. “I politely rejected his offer,” Zayyat writes.