Society

Saturday

Paul Johnson

And Another Thing

Do the sources disagree? Of course. And so they should. One of the mysterious aspects of human perception is the way in which eye-witnesses disagree about what they have seen. Not just many years later, when memory has had ample time to weave its fantasies, but soon, even immediately, after the event. An interesting case concerns Jimmy Cagney’s masterpiece, The Public Enemy. This brilliant and horrifying movie, with a spectacularly gruesome ending, is now chiefly remembered for one bizarre sequence, in which Cagney, playing the top gangster, is having his room-service breakfast in a slap-up hotel, and is annoyed by his tiresome moll. Suddenly he says ‘Aw, shuttup!’, snatches up

Bryan Forbes

Get your hands off my light bulbs, Big Brother

Call me old-fashioned, as Dame Edna says, but I don’t fancy spending my remaining years in semi-darkness because this poxy government has performed yet another knee-jerk reaction and decreed that all incandescent light bulbs will be phased out, whether we like it or not. A warning bulletin from Defra informs us that should we be careless enough to break a long-life bulb, we must immediately vacate the room in which the tragedy occurs for at least 15 minutes. Then we are not allowed to vacuum up the broken glass because that will spread mercury droplets around the entire house. Instead we must don rubber gloves, sweep up the glass and

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown’s reputation for economic competence has gone. The Tories should seize the chance

It was easy to forget during Gordon Brown’s trip to India and China that he has actually been Prime Minister since June. His speeches were filled with export targets and trade deals, barely distinguishable from the rhetoric he deployed as Chancellor. This is deliberate. Mr Brown makes no claim to be a suave statesman (a reality he inadvertently reinforced by stumbling over a red carpet in Delhi). Abroad, as at home, he bills himself as the hardworking guardian of prosperity. His entire premiership is based upon the supposedly sturdy pillar of economic stability. This is why the turmoil to which Mr Brown returned on Tuesday morning could be as damaging

The Spectator

Not so good

Since the words ‘credit crunch’ entered the public lexicon last summer, many politicians and pundits on both sides of the Atlantic have maintained a state of blithe denial about the economic danger signals that were increasingly apparent. But this week, amid worldwide stock-market turbulence, some painful truths have been confirmed. In Washington, the Federal Reserve acknowledged the threat of a sharp downturn and possible recession in the US with an emergency interest rate cut of three quarters of a per cent. It was the biggest cut for almost 25 years, and it seems, for now, to have succeeded in its immediate aim of averting a Wall Street crash. But it

Aidan Hartley

Look and learn | 26 January 2008

Somalia I am in a refugee camp of 200,000 war victims on the outskirts of Mogadishu. The muezzin call to prayer drifts across a sea of plastic tents set among coconut palms and banana groves along the banks of the Shebelle River. Miles from here Ethiopian and Islamist insurgents are fighting in the streets and bombarding civilian districts with rockets and mortar fire. Yet it was almost a relief to fly into Somalia after Kenya, just to take a break from the horrific sight of my home country committing a kind of national suicide this last month. I found it hard to leave the family at home, but apart from

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Clinton Derangement: 43rd St Edition

Reihan Salam, in characteristically excellent form, dismantles the New York Times’ lazy and baffling endorsement* of Hillary Clinton and, as a bonus, comes up with the best line I’ve read today: Clinton must sorely regret that she can’t use proxies to pointedly accuse Obama of fathering a black child — because, after all, he has two of them, and they are adorable. *As a veteran of comfy days writing editorials myself, might I also suggest that you could scarcely hope to find a better example than this of the stuffed-shirt pomposity that plagues the genre. The Times’ leader is simultaneously platitudinous, banal, witless and appallingly written. To wit, for instance:

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Madison Avenue, we have a problem. Can you help?

There are those people – mainly on the right – who don’t think it a problem that, for one reason or another, the United States has an image problem overseas. Of course one may disapprove of American policy – or merely the manner in which it has been implemented – while remaining enamoured of the United States itself. Still, the United States does have a problem. Don’t take my word for it; the US tourism business  – despite the weakness of the dollar! – seems to have got the message. How else to explain the rash of advertisements on British TV making the case that your next holiday should be

Peter Hoskin

Silver linings and bankers whining

Recent events have been as nectar for the political blogosphere (no more so than for Guido – who’s claiming credit for Hain’s downfall), and Michael White has tackled them all with typical aplomb in an excellent post over at the Guardian website. Whilst I’m not sure about White’s characterisation of the fundraising scandal as a “moving traffic offence”, he makes a pertinent every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining observation about Hain’s resignation: “Hain’s fall meant that Alistair Darling’s retreat on CGT reforms and the compromise on MPs’ pay – 1.9% plus the details – were buried on today’s inside pages and after the human interest stories (so many of them nowadays) on dumbed-down TV.” And I’m particularly taken

Luke Honey

How to cook your Burns Night haggis

I’ve just bought my Burns Night Haggis, and it’s currently winking up at me cheekily from the kitchen table.  For those of you who claim not to like it, I don’t know what all the fuss is about.  Okay, it might sound—how can I put this—slightly gothic, but in reality it tastes a bit like a spicy meatloaf.  Mind you, all that stuff about “trenching your gushing entrails bricht” doesn’t exactly help the cause. The Macsweens brand is the Haggis of choice, but most brands share the following ingredients in common: the sheep’s “pluck” (heart, liver, and lungs), suet, spices, salt, and some form of oatmeal, all boiled up in

Peter Hoskin

The high cost of energy

According to a new Ofgem report, rising fuel prices are behind a trebling in the number of homes disconnected by power companies over the past two years.  And what lies behind rising fuel prices?  Well, according to energy companies, around 50 per cent of the rises can be attributed to new costs – especially green taxes – imposed by the Treasury.  The sad link between environmental measures and public impoverishment looks set to continue for the forseeable future – compliance with new European Commission environmental proposals will see a 15 percent rise in rise in electricity bills. Regardless of whether or not its necessary in the first place, it’s becoming clearer

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Join us on the campaign trail

Columbia, South Carolina As the 2008 presidential primaries enter their decisive phase, we’ve launched a new blog to keep you up to date with all the latest developments. “Americano” will be giving you our take on what is going on from now until election day on November 4th. I’m out in South Carolina at the moment where the issue of race is dominating campaign coverage. South Carolina is the first contested state on the Democratic side with a large African American population, 29% of South Carolinians are black and the vast majority of them vote Democratic. How Hillary Clinton fares here will tell us how damaging her comments about Martin

Wednesday

The Spectator

What to do about Iran? | 23 January 2008

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. 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.

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s slow-burn politics

The news that ID cards will be delayed until 2012 perfectly characterises the Government’s modus operandi: namely, the politics of delay. Many of Brown’s policy approaches have a very long fuse indeed – a house-building programme to be completed in 2020; a new generation of nuclear power stations which will take a decade to complete; and the establishment of a twelve-month NHS review when, as the Reform think tank puts it, “urgent decisions on cost control and reform are already one to two years overdue”. Of course, exercising due care is no bad thing in itself. However, when pressing problems need fixing now, due care is a luxury and delay

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