Society

Saturday

5 Jul 2008

M is for PBH May

It’s that time again folks so here is the M XI, to follow those led by Armstrong, Benaud, Constantine, Dexter, Edrich, Fry, Gower, Hutton, Imran , Jardine, Kapil. and Lloyd 1. Arthur Morris (AUS) 2. Vijay Merchant (IND)3. Charles Macartney (AUS)4. PBH May (ENG) (Capt)5. Stan McCabe (AUS)6. Keith Miller (AUS)7. 8. Rod Marsh (AUS) (Wkt) 9. Malcolm Marshall (WI)10. Muttiah Muralitharan (SL)11. Glenn McGrath (AUS) Country representation so far [before the M XI is counted!!!!!!!!!]: England 45, Australia 27, West Indies 17, India 12, Pakistan 11, South Africa 11, New Zealand 5, Sri Lanka 2, Zimbabwe 1, USA 1. If Neville Cardus were selecting this side, Archie Maclaren would

James Forsyth

The hunt for Bin Laden

The new issue of Time magazine has a couple of interesting pieces on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The magazine reports that US counter-terrorism officials have decided that the way they are most likely to catch bin Laden—who some in the CIA think many only have months to lives because of kidney disease—is to catch some of the more junior members of the al Qaeda leadership. To that end, the Pentagon is seeking an executive order from President Bush which would expand the military’s authority to launch cross-border raids into Pakistan from Afghanistan. However, others in the Administration worry about the political effects such raid might have on Pakistan.

James Forsyth

The State and the establishment should stop pulling the rug out from under moderate Muslims

Matthew Parris and Charles Moore both have important columns in their respective papers today about the Lord Chief Justice’s remarks. Matthew eloquently sums up what is most worrying about the argument made by the Archbishop of Canterbury and supported by Lord Phillips: the second claim that Lord Phillips endorses is more dangerous. Decoded, Dr Williams is saying that in a multicultural society it is fine for people within a culture to agree not to exercise certain rights, even if English law would allow them to. This is a charter for male dominance. It’s a charter for cultural bullying; for peer-group pressurising; for self-oppression. It’s a charter against women and teenagers

James Forsyth

Brown’s dirty deal on the expenses vote

The vote on Thursday night not to fix the broken system of MP’s expenses was a disgrace; it was the kind of behaviour that brings politics into disrepute. It was mostly Labour MPs who blocked this change with 33 ministers and Brown’s bag carriers voting for the wrecking amendment despite the Prime Minister himself suggesting that he backed reform. Today, Peter Oborne goes some way to explaining how this happened: The key to understanding [Brown’s] position is the fact that Thursday’s vote on expenses followed an earlier one which involved the equally controversial issue of MPs’ pay. Facing a backbench revolt from Labour MPs who were furious at what they

James Forsyth

Ray Lewis stands down

There is no doubt that Ray Lewis’s resignation is embarrassing for Boris Johnson but I rather feel that sections of the media are rather overreacting to it. Listening to the Today Programme this morning you would have thought that the accusations against Lewis discredited the whole idea of community work. Ross Hawkins, the Today correspondent, said that the resignation had caused damage not only to Boris but also to the party as a whole. He concluded that ‘a couple of years down the line they [the national Tory party] might be able to forget this one’. I suspect that the next set of opinion polls will show that Lewis’s departure has

Melissa Kite

Real Life

The following events took place in a Lambeth Council parking shop just off Streatham High Road. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. This report contains scenes that some readers may find deeply disturbing. Melinda, a Lambeth resident, has just walked into a stark, white, newly refurbished ‘customer centre’. She is greeted by a dozen service desks, all of which have women sitting idly behind them. She approaches the nearest one. A frowning cashier warns her to desist from approaching the desk unannounced and tells her that she must take a ticket from the supermarket cheese-counter-style dispenser in the corner. Melinda tries to take a ticket but the

Roger Alton

Spectator Sport | 5 July 2008

If Gordon Brown really wants to make people start liking him, he could do a lot worse than turn to whoever’s giving mighty Andy Murray some advice these days. For what was obvious in that stunning, thrilling, epic, heart-pumping comeback to beat France’s Richard Gasquet in what was basically a night match on the Centre Court is that the great Scot has turned himself into a thorough crowd-pleaser. Later, munching sushi and taking a call from Tim Henman while talking engagingly about the match in a live radio interview, he must have won over millions more. Which brings me to the real Wimbledon highlight, possibly a sporting moment of the

James Young

Competition | 5 July 2008

In Competition No. 2551 you were invited to complete in verse or prose a letter by Noël Coward, ‘Dear 338171 (may I call you 338?)’, to Aircraftman Ross (aka T.E. Lawrence) and Lawrence’s reply. First an apology. Bill Greenwell points out that Lawrence, though originally Aircraftman Ross, was serving as Aircraftman Shaw in a second RAF stint when Coward wrote this letter in 1930 (Shaw was also the name Lawrence used when he served in the Royal Tank Corps between the two RAF stints). All very complicated, as befits a very complex man. So for the purposes of this comp, both the Ross and the Shaw aliases are allowed. Many

Lloyd Evans

The Spectator/IQ2 debate

Motion: Prince Charles was right: modern architecture is still all glass stumps and carbuncles. New rules at Intelligence Squared. For the debate on architecture the speakers were offered the use of a slide projector. Opening for the motion Roger Scruton described modern architecture as ‘a grammarless chaos’ in which buildings ‘aren’t made for the city but against it’. Like a softly spoken Moses he laid down his three architectural commandments. 1. A town is a home where strangers can enjoy a shared sense of belonging. 2. Buildings should fit together organically and be capable of accepting additions and developments. 3. Genius is as rare among architects as it is among

The Spectator

The NHS needs its Reformation

The government has promised that from next year everyone aged between 40 and 75 will be offered an ‘MOT’ of their health. The patient most in need of a health check, however, was 60 this week: the NHS itself. To a limited extent the government has recognised the inadequacies of what for its first three or so decades tended to be called ‘the envy of the world’ by using the anniversary to publish the NHS Next Stage Review, written by Lord Darzi, a junior health minister and eminent surgeon. The document is less celebratory than defensive, effectively admitting that the patient has often become lost in an organisation which is

Simon Hoggart

Criminally good

Criminal Justice (BBC1); Celebrity Masterchef (BBC1); Marco’s Great British Feast (Channel 4) Years ago I was ‘political consultant’ on State of Play, the successful BBC drama serial that got very substantial ratings. It launched several acting careers, being one of the few TV series that was also watched by the people who make films. About half my advice was ignored, to the delight of colleagues at Westminster who would ask how I managed to get something so spectacularly wrong. But the producers were right; dramatic effect is more important than nit-picking detail. And to be truly, nerve-shreddingly realistic, you have to ignore reality. Real life is usually rather dull; to be

Paul Johnson

And Another Thing | 5 July 2008

Somebody asked: ‘How do you express your love of country in this leaden age? How do you sweep aside the multicultural poison and simply assert — “I am an English patriot?”’ I answer: ‘Create a garden, or help those who do so.’ There is no more English activity than gardening, and it has been so for over a thousand years. Indeed, there were Anglo-Saxon gardens before: traces remain. Gardens grew under castle walls, and were tended by the wives of men who wore chain mail. They took the place of water lilies when the moats were peaceably drained. The first great English essay, written by Francis Bacon early in the

Matthew Parris

Another Voice | 5 July 2008

‘How the Guardianistas changed their tune,’ was the heading to a Sunday Times factbox published in the paper last weekend. The intention was to mock those Fleet Street columnists, erstwhile fans of Gordon Brown, who have turned against their former hero. ‘Only five more dreaming days until Gordon Brown’s coronation,’ the famously independent-minded and fiercely left-of-centre Brown loyalist, Polly Toynbee, was quoted as having written a year ago. ‘Brown’s first month looks like a striking success,’ Jonathan Freedland, always a thoughtful and progressive voice, had written a month later. Hopeful, trusting voices, both. No longer. ‘On current evidence he is simply not up to the job,’ thought Mr Freedland on

Rod Liddle

How to get stabbed: you, too, can be knifed in a public place

Been stabbed yet? Give it time. The latest weapon of choice for our go-getting and imaginative young people, apparently, is the ‘cat skinner’, a thin and very sharp device properly used for removing the plastic jackets from electrical cables. But also for skinning cats, I assume. And — increasingly — stabbing, or more likely slashing, people. From the pictures I’ve seen, if you’ve bought a cat skinner with which to stab somebody, you’ve bought the wrong tool for the job. No use complaining later. In the last year for which figures are available there were 64,000 knife crimes committed in Britain — the figures have been rising with great vigour

Lord Lloyd-Of-Berwick

The Law Lords are right to resist the government

Lord Lloyd of Berwick says that the government’s emergency legislation to overturn their lordships’ ruling on witness anonymity is part of a ‘gradual usurpation’ of our liberties On 18 June 2008 the Law Lords gave judgment in the case of R. v. Davis. The defendant was charged with murder. The prosecution case was that he had shot and killed two men after an all-night party. There were three witnesses — and three only — who identified the defendant as the gunman. All three gave their evidence behind screens under pseudonyms. Their voices were artificially distorted so that they could not be recognised by the defendant. The defendant’s counsel was not

Friday

4 Jul 2008

Alex Massie

Happy Birthday America!

To all my American friends, and readers, have a wonderful 4th! Here’s a classic American movie trailer, matched to Gene Pitney’s song of the same name: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Alex Massie

Could you become an American?

Via Clive, here are some of the “more difficult” questions from the new US naturalisation test given to all would-be Yanks. Foolishly, I forgot the first words of the US constitution but, happily and much to my relief, got the other 19 correct. I suspect y’all would pass too…

Alex Massie

Bob Geldof: My Sort of Wanker!

Heaven knows, Bob Geldof is a bore these days. But one of the splendid, indeed agreeable, elements of David Davis’s civil liberties campaign is that it forces one to question some of one’s own prejudices. It compels us to think again and remember that allies can be found in unlikely places. Thus it was that Geldof went to Haltemprice and Howden today to campaign for Davis and deliver a speech in which he said: So what great existential threat does this country now face that did not face our forefathers of the past 1000 years. What is so grave the emergency now that neither civil war nor world war nor

The Spectator

The week that was | 4 July 2008

Some highlights of the week on Spectator.co.uk: George Osborne wants your questions. Maurice Gerard reports on the aftermath of the presidential election in Zimbabwe. Fraser Nelson says that Ken Clarke has watered down the West Lothian Answer , and congratulates Kylie on her OBE. James Forsyth thinks Ed Balls has failed the laugh test, and gives his take on the waterboarding debate. Peter Hoskin observes how Gordon Brown is turning to the Blairites, and wonders whether Alistair Darling is set to axe the 2p rise in fuel duty. Stephen Pollard describes his encounter with a TV producer. Melanie Phillips gives her thoughts on the BNP. Clive Davis tracks the Ray Lewis business. Trading

James Forsyth

Walking the freedom trail

Something that I would recommend all Coffee Housers do if they get the chance is to walk the Freedom Trail in Boston. It is brilliantly laid out and gives you a real feel for the spirit of the 1776. It also makes you realise how very British their reasons for rebelling were; as the old Cambridge exam question put it, “The truth that the Colonists were truly British is that they rebelled.” Indeed, no country party man could disagree with the Declaration’s assertion that: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these