Society

Wednesday

The Spectator

What to do about Iran?

Last night, The Spectator and Intelligence Squared hosted a debate on whether it would be better to bomb Iran than let it develop nuclear weapons. The speakers for the motion included the former CIA Middle East specialist Reuel Marc Gerecht and the political scientists Emanuele Ottolenghi and Bruno Tertrais. Sir Richard Dalton, the former British ambassador to Iran, Ali Ansari, a leading academic expert on Iran and Simon Jenkins, the columnist and former editor, opposed the motion. You can listen to the whole debate here.

Con Coughlin

Gordon Brown has a new plan to beat terror. This is what he should do

Do you feel safe? Every time you go to the airport do you worry that you might be blown up by Islamist militants? Do you avoid using public transport, or frequenting louche nightclubs, for fear of being targeted by fanatical suicide bombers? While the 7 July bomb attacks against London’s transportation system in 2005 have rightly dominated the public’s consciousness in terms of the tangible threat posed by Muslim terror groups, there have been many more foiled attacks that would have created far more carnage had they succeeded with their deadly designs. Just imagine the appalling loss of life that would have occurred if the plot to blow up a

Rani Singh

The schmoozer of Davos prepares to bare his teeth

In the week of the World Economic Forum Rani Singh talks to Angel Gurría, head of the OECD, who has sharp words on capitalist ‘schizophrenia’ and a coded warning for Gordon ‘Because of the miners’ strike we were all asked to have only one light bulb on. My wife and I had to take baths together in order to economise on heating the water and since then we’ve always taken baths together, for 35 years,’ booms Angel Gurría in a surprising aside, recalling Ted Heath’s premiership. The 57-year-old was then an MA Economics student at Leeds University. He is now secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Gurría’s

Kate Chisholm

Bach substitute

It’s been really hard getting used to the idea that there’s no more Bach at eight on Radio Three. After 48 mornings, I’ve found myself well and truly addicted. The only way to combat the withdrawal symptoms seemed to be an immersion in something completely different, so I dutifully tuned into Radio Two in the hope of finding a cure. Brian Matthew, Jonathan Ross, Paul Gambaccini…nothing could shift that post-Bach mood of truculent dissatisfaction. Nothing, at least, until eight o’clock on Saturday evening when a wail of anguish cut through the airwaves like a cat out of hell: Janis Joplin, in extremis, singing, or perhaps I should say performing, ‘Take

Charles Spencer

In the swim

There’s a lovely number by Loudon Wainwright III called ‘The Swimming Song’ that evokes the delights of bathing with both sharp wit and faux-naïf innocence. Kate and Anna McGarrigle covered it on their eponymous 1975 debut album — one of the all-time great records in my view, mixing folky exuberance and wrenching heartache in a manner that never seems to go stale — and in recent weeks I too have been singing ‘The Swimming Song’. ‘This summer I went swimming/ this summer I might have drowned/ But I held my breath and I kicked my feet/ and I moved my arms around,’ sang Loudon and the McGarrigles. To which my

Tuesday

Matthew Dancona

The verdict is in

A must-read this morning is Anatole Kaletsky’s damning assessment of the yesterday’s developments in the Northern Rock saga. Kaletsky is one of the most respected economic commentators in the world and – as a former colleague – I know that he does not make such sweeping statements lightly. He was, moreover, well disposed to Gordon Brown from the start, and certainly has no ideological axe to grind. His verdict – that the Prime Minister’s economic competence is shot to pieces – will send a chill through the already glacial corridors of Number Ten.

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Descent into recession?

Global stock-markets have plummeted today, with the FTSE 100 share index suffering its largest one-day drop since September 11th, 2001; losing more than 5% of its value.  The falls – which are being mirrored by rapid price drops for commodities such as oil – are being spurred by a fear of a recession in the US. Clearly, George W. Bush’s $140 billion tax-relief package for the American economy has failed to reassure financiers; even though its explicit aim is to catalyse continued growth (but “at a slower rate”) for 2008.  These tax relief measures appear to have come too late in the day to persuade American consumers – who are

Peter Hoskin

Reforming the Lib Dems

Over the weekend, Nick Clegg had a piece in the Telegraph in which he extolled the virtues of NHS reform.  He wrote: “As it approaches its 60th Birthday, the NHS is at a crossroads. As with all our public services under Labour, good intentions have gone awry under the iron fist of central control.  Money has been poured in, but it hasn’t delivered the first-class health service Britain deserves ….  So what next? There are no more bucketloads of cash to pour in. Instead of only asking “how much” we spend, it’s time to focus on “how” we spend it ….  A People’s NHS would replace top-down targets with personal

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

We have a front-runner

John McCain’s victory in the South Carolina primary makes him the Republican front-runner. It is an amazing turn-around for a man whose campaign was left for dead last summer but this new designation carries with it dangers for McCain. First, it puts a bulls-eye on his back. Rudy Giuliani, who must beat McCain in Florida, is already dinging him on taxes and the worry for McCain is that the other candidates all go after him on issues where he is vulnerable with the Republican base. Secondly, McCain has never seemed comfortable as the front-runner preferring to fight as the scrappy underdog.  Next Tuesday’s contest in Florida is crucial for McCain.

Saturday

Taki

Short stories

Gstaad The row over Indonesian ‘hobbits’ has split this beautiful alpine village in half. Alas, it began when I wrote something about the Olden, one of Gstaad’s oldest and most beautiful inns and its owner Bernie Ecclestone, of Formula I fame. The Olden had orginally been owned by the Mullener family, since the turn of the last century, and was run by Heidi Mullener for close to 50 years. Her cousin Rudy instructed the greatest Greek skier ever, and, while he was at it, he also turned Sir Roger Moore into an Alberto Tomba double. Now for the hobbits. When Heidi sold the Olden to Bernie Ecclestone ten years or

Anne Mcelvoy

Diary – 19 January 2008

In the month of back to basics, I no longer hanker for parties or cut-price cashmere, just the long, deep bath of my dreams. We spent New Year with friends in Cameron country: lovely Oxfordshire farmhouses, big fires and buttock-honing walks. My husband emerged glowing from his bath and said very sweetly that he would run me a fresh one. Nooooo! Any fule kno you never get more than one tankful at a time in a country house, however well appointed. But he is a city boy so I said, ‘Thank you, darling,’ raced for the plug and sat in the remaining five inches, covered in gooseflesh from the navel

Jeremy Clarke

Ex files

The only comfortable place to sit in my local pub is at this one particular table that is closeted on three sides by high-backed pine pews. Last Saturday lunchtime, when I popped in for a quick one, this cosy nook was bathed in winter sunshine. Trevor was there with his feet under the table, his right arm wrapped tightly around a girl of about 18 — not bad going, I reckon, for an overweight, balding 46-year-old. He was serious about this one because instead of the lascivious smirk one normally expects from Trev when he’s pulled a child, he was gazing with apparent sincerity into her eyes. Next to these

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 19 January 2008

The news that the circulation of the Sun sank below three million in December, its lowest since the early Seventies, is a landmark. The moment that the Sun’s circulation overtook that of the Mirror, in May 1978, revealed a big shift in the political and social history of this country. No longer were the aspirations of the working class linked umbilically to the Labour movement, as, since 1945, they had appeared to be. In a conversation I once had with Rupert Murdoch, who has owned the Sun since 1969, he explained the trend. The Sun rose, he said, because, with post-war recovery, working people wanted more freedom and more fun.

The Spectator

Letters | 19 January 2008

Too cosy with the KGB Sir: Denis MacShane (‘Welcome to the Vlad and Dave show’, 12 January) is right to imply that the attitude of the Conservative party to the Russian KGB state is reminiscent of the attitude of the same party to Germany in 1938. Only about a year ago the Russian services brought illegally a forceful radioactive material to this country, and then killed a British citizen. I can’t remember the Conservative party actively protesting against it in the European and other international bodies, particularly in the Nato. With such foreign policy, that party will never shine on the international arena. Oleg Gordievsky London WC1 Sir: Denis MacShane’s

Toby Young Toby Young

In which Mrs Young reveals some very bad news that turns out to be very good

In the newspaper business there’s a name for a story that makes your jaw hit the floor and your eyes pop out of your skull: ‘a marmalade dropper’. For instance, the disclosure that HM Revenue and Customs had misplaced the personal records of 25 million people was ‘a marmalade dropper’, as was the revelation that Lembit Opik was going out with one of the Cheeky Girls. However, I have always thought of this as a figure of speech rather than a literal description of the effect a particular piece of news produces. Until now, that is. ‘Darling,’ said my wife as I sat at the breakfast table munching a piece

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 19 January 2008

I caught my husband perusing a menswear catalogue. I don’t know where he got it. It can’t have been sent to him. It was the kind that leans towards nightshirts and Barathea blazers. The language used was extraordinary. The ‘striking set of gentleman’s pure silk-club ties’ — ones with thin stripes — would be, it assured the purchaser, ‘sure to receive the nod from the doorman’. If by chance it matched the real tie of the club in question, perhaps more than a nod. Can men really think they’ll be taken for clubmen and gents by sending a cheque for £30? The market envisaged has clearly been around a bit:

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 19 January 2008

Q. Now that eco-issues are so fashionable my husband has come out as a militant meanie on energy conservation. Meanwhile our three teenage daughters use absurd amounts of hot water each day and leave their laptops and televisions on. They also prance about in the skimpiest clothes imaginable, which means they always want the heating on full blast. Mary, how can I tackle these incompatibilities so that I can conserve some of my own energy and not have to dissipate it all on resolving domestic disputes? A.B., Pencaitland, East Lothian A. Stimulate your daughters’ own interest in conserving energy with the purchase of a Wattson O1 energy monitor. (£149.50 from

Peter Jones

Ancient & Modern | 19 January 2008

‘Change’ is the latest buzzword of contemporary politics. Change is, of course, quite meaningless until one knows what (precisely) is being changed and to (precisely) what; and, for a government in power for ten years, it leaves hanging in the air the objection, ‘If you want to keep on changing things, it rather suggests that you have kept on getting things wrong.’ The Romans had a terror of change. ‘Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque’, /intoned the epic poet Ennius — ‘Rome’s foundations are its tried and tested values and its men’ — and even when the going was at its roughest, Romans went out of their way to deny

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody – 19 January 2008

Monday Got back to complete chaos after my winter spa break with mummy. Any de-stress and/or slimming benefit from seaweed and salt wraps entirely lost in first three minutes in this place. When I left, Labour was embroiled in sleaze. Now Gids — of all people! — is accidentally forgetting to declare donations because Commons officials said he might not have to. A lot of other shadow cabinet members who will remain nameless here seem to have made the same silly oversight. Of course, our sleaze is a lot cleaner than Labour sleaze. That goes without saying. But it’s all jolly inconvenient. Instead of being able to get on with