Society

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

What price oil?

As Morus writes in an excellent post over at Political Betting, the escalation of the conflict in Georgia will cause more than a few headaches for Western policymakers.  Most of their worries will centre around the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline – a pipeline which carries oil from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, from where it is shipped out to Western Europe and the US.  Problem is, that pipeline runs through Georgia – at points, it’s only 55km away from the South Ossetia region where much of the fighting is concentrated.  The Russians are certainly bombing in its vicinity, and the Georgians are claiming that the pipeline has been deliberately targeted, although not yet hit. But the main worry isn’t that the pipeline might

Daniel Kawczynski

WEB EXCLUSIVE: An apology to Melanie Phillips

Daniel Kawcyznski MP apologises to Spectator contributor Melanie Phillips I am glad to have this opportunity to respond to Melanie Phillips’s criticism of my involvement in the International Development Committee’s report on “The Humanitarian and Development Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” I’d like to apologise to her for my reaction and explain to her and her readers why I responded so passionately to her assertion, “shame on all of them.” It is one of the ironies of our age that as more and more information is available, the less thoroughly it is sometimes read. There are many positives that result from this wealth of information, from the increased oversight of

Simon Hoggart

August Spectator Wine Club

El Vino is the celebrated, even revered, wine bar in Fleet Street. Lawyers and the crustier type of journalist drink there, usually selecting wines from the old reliables: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne. Château Thames Embankment is Rumpole’s soubriquet for their house claret, and very good it is too. But El Vino now has several other branches, and they attract a younger crowd, more likely to go for lively, fruity New World wines. The company now combines tradition and innovation with considerable success. So we can start with the two house wines, the red Velvin (6) and the white Choisi de Boyier (1). They’re not allowed to say so, but I can

James Young

Competition | 9 August 2008

In Competition No 2556 you were invited to describe an encounter between Bertie Wooster and James Bond in the style of either P.G. Wodehouse or Ian Fleming. They are two of the most popular characters in English fiction, but it’s hard to think of two more disparate ones; Bertie, the chump, always in some sort of soup and needing Jeeves to free him from unsuitable romantic entanglements; Bond, the spook, both gunman and swordsman, in a state of perpetual priapism. Nearly all of you chose Bertie as narrator, which is as it should be; I expect Bond will eventually go the way of the action heroes of my childhood Dick

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The Wiki Man | 9 August 2008

Toby Young in last week’s Spectator remarked on the peculiar malice, as he saw it, of the online comments posted in response to his articles. He has a point. The people who post comments are not the same reverential folk who form a paper’s traditional print readership. On the other hand, at a time when the Telegraph and the Guardian attract more than 18 million online readers each month, your online readership is no longer a small niche you can safely ignore. Why then do they seem so nasty? Most people who comment on writings on- line aren’t nasty at all. Responses to blog posts are often complimentary and constructive.

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Shared Opinion | 9 August 2008

So it was 2018 and the government was in trouble. Real trouble. In newspapers and magazines, on Dame Emily Maitlis’s Newsnight and Davina McCall’s Today programme, one question was being asked. Would anybody ever vote Conservative again? At this stage, by-election disasters were not unexpected. The loss of Crewe and Nantwich had been on the cards for years and Enfield, although symbolic, was hardly a surprise. Fulham had been a shock. Henley all the more so. Lord Johnson (of Henley) was particularly upset by the latter. As he said to the Radio Times, ‘to call this lot a shambles would be an insult to other shambles, such as erm…’ Although

Michael Prescott

A film that shows how gutless Britain has become

Michael Prescott — who was a passenger on the King’s Cross train on 7/7 — applauds a movie inspired by the terrorist attacks. But why is nobody keen to distribute it? The world has an estimated 798 billionaires. Thousands more people are each worth hundreds of million. Any one of them is in a position to blow £8 million on a whim. Only one of them has decided to gamble that amount on a film about how Britain views its Muslims in the age of Islamist terror. Aron Govil is an Indian-born Hindu who has lived in New York since 1970, gradually accruing wealth through his activities in industry and

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Temptations of the Leader Page

In an editorial written, judging from its cadences, by Leon Wieseltier, welcoming the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, The New Republic argues that: Whatever one thinks of the war in Iraq, it is impossible to deny that it has had the effect of delegitimating “humanitarian intervention” for a new generation. This new diffidence must be resisted. It is what the mass murderers and the mass rapists are counting on. You cannot be against the genocide in Darfur and against the use of force to end it. Otherwise your opposition to the atrocity is purely gestural, and merely a display of your admiring sense of yourself. It makes no sense to be

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Notice for Edinburgh Readers

And art lovers… You still have time to pop into the Flaubert Gallery in Stockbridge (opposite The Baillie, an excellent location for a post-purchasing pint) where you will find an exhibition of my sister’s excellent paintings. The show closes this weekend but there are still some fine pictures available for you to purchase… London-based readers should not fret however, as Claudia will be showing some of her work in the big smoke in October.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Trouble in the Caucasus

Far from Beijing, Russia and Georgia kick-off in South Ossetia. I suspect that this is going to prompt people to raise the whole “should Georgia join NATO” thing all over again. Now, perhaps putting Georgia on the road to NATO membership might have cooled tensions in the region. But the opposite seems more likely given Russia’s likely reaction to what it would see as a provocation. And, frankly, it’s a great relief that Germany, among others, stopped the move to make Georgia a member of the alliance,  given the potential for trouble if Russia and a member of the alliance start fighting one another. It’s hard to argue that South

Alex Massie Alex Massie

National Enquirer (More or Less) Vindicated

John Edwards admits affair with campaign staffer  –  but denies fathering her child – in an interview with ABC News. I remember when this was rumoured last year everyone of my Democratic friends admitted that they believed the story. It just seemed plausible. Doubtless, much of the mud about to be thrown at Edwards will point to the fact that his wife, Elizabeth, was fighting cancer since early 2007 when the disease, which had been in remission, returned. I imagine this is why – perhaps honestly! –  he continues to deny paternity since the child was born this year… Trouble is: his denials don’t cut much mustard. Nor does claiming

Vidhi Doshi

Comparing Cabinets

Just to recommend a great post over on Iain Dale’s blog comparing Thatcher’s 1988 Cabinet with Brown’s 2008 vintage.  Do Brown and Darling rank up to Margaret Thatcher, Nigel Lawson et al?  Or is it, as Iain says, a case of the lightweights against the heavyweights?

Peter Hoskin

Risk aversion therapy

If you want some grisly reading for a Friday afternoon, I’d recommend the National Risk Register, released by the Cabinet Office today.  It outlines the “range of emergencies that might have a major impact on all, or significant parts of, the UK”.  A welcome act of transparency – I’ve always thought it would be a good idea to know what our government’s worrying about, and – by extension – what we should be worried about. Not that we should worry too much, mind.  The aim of the document is to make us more informed, rather than paranoid.  And, for that reason, it avoids providing a straighforward ranking of threats – a terror top-ten, so to speak.  Instead there’s a

The Spectator

Two reminders

Just to remind you that… We’re running a Q&A with Eric Pickles.  Go here to submit your questions. And we’ll be posting our first Sunday Essay this weekend.  For more information on how you can submit an essay for consideration, click here.

Brian Cullen

Brown’s PR people should rein him in

Gordon Brown has written in the literary anthology Wow 366 that he had a boyhood fascination with Antarctic explorers such as Captain Scott.  It surely won’t be long before the cogs start whirring for commentators (in fact it’s already started) on the similarities between Brown’s premiership and Scott’s Antarctic expedition, which ended in his – and his whole party’s – deaths. Brown really doesn’t do himself many favours by proudly telling us his fascination with doomed figures – or how he most identifies with the (questionable) character of Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights.  Like it or not we live in an age of spin.  It must be hard to spin this

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Australian Summary

Having come-off second-best in our West Indies game, I’m duty bound to suggest (gently) that I’ve had the better of Norm in the Australian leg of the series. In large part, of course, this reflects the luxury of being able to select Don Bradman with the first pick, just as Norm benefitted from choosing Gary Sobers first last time. In each case the player picking first has been able to acquire two players for the price of one. That’s quite an advantage. Having Bradman in my side permitted me to pick Keith Miller second, to provide balance, and my two favourite Aussie fast bowlers with my third and fourth selections.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Simon Gray, RIP

Sad news. Simon Gray, the playwright and memoirist, has died. Just last month I read the latest, and, I suppose, final installment of The Smoking Diaries, a wonderful, funny, poignant set of memoirs that I recommend without the slightest reservation. More importantly, sad because he was one of my father’s oldest friends from Cambridge days way back when. Not many of them left. Booze and tobacco and all that. Telegraph obituary here. The Guardian’s Michael Billington here. And a characteristically good Simon Hattenstone interview here. Understandably Gray rather disapproved of the notion that his memoirs may outlive his plays, but that’s the nature of the respective genres. But I can’t

Brian Cullen

Maybe not so courageous

There is an irony about the arrest of Tibetan freedom protesters in Beijing yesterday. The mother of Lucy Fairbrother – one of those detained – was quoted as saying:  “If my daughter’s going to be put in prison for anything I’m glad it’s for a human rights protest.” Except, of course, that she wasn’t put in prison.  In addition to attracting great attention, the timing of the protest also means that those arrested (two Brits and two Americans) have already been deported and arrived home safely.    Whatever the rights or wrongs of the protest – I’ll leave those to CoffeeHousers to decide – we should consider for a moment how

Kaz Mochlinski

On your marks

The worst place to try to put Beijing’s Olympic Games into context is perhaps actually Beijing. Arrive in the city at present and the overwhelming impression is of a modern, successful, prosperous, happy and western-looking population, greeting the forthcoming sporting festival with a greater pride and joy than it has ever previously been received with. The Games of the XXIX Olympiad will superficially be the grandest in history, staged in venues that are already being seen as architectural landmarks, with every ticket for every event in Beijing sold out in advance. Even the small bore shooting. And yet the International Olympic Committee seems constantly ill at ease and takes immense