Society Archives

Saturday

6 Oct 2007

Find another planet and plant it with soybeans

Elliot Wilson says there isn’t enough arable land in the world to make plant-based fuels a viable alternative to oil ‘Biofuels?’ Ricardo Leiman gives an imperious snort, his eyebrows wobbling. ‘Biofuels?’ he repeats in an offended tone, as if asked to perform a lewd act. ‘There’s about 20 million tonnes of processed edible oil on the planet right now — not enough to fulfil 5 per cent of Europe’s energy needs, let alone any of the huge demand in the US, China, India or anywhere else.’ If Leiman doesn’t believe that biofuels are a viable solution to our energy needs, one wonders why anybody does. As chief operating officer of

Martin Vander Weyer

As the party games turn nasty, Sharapova shows bankers the elegant way to lose

When I bumped into Barclays chief executive John Varley at Wimbledon one mid-week afternoon in July, I thought he looked remarkably relaxed for a man locked in a potentially career-breaking takeover battle with his deadliest rival. We had just watched Venus Williams make mincemeat of Maria Sharapova, and perhaps Varley was cheered by the thought that it was possible to lose elegantly and still be loved by the crowd. Certainly I think he must have decided early in the ABN Amro game that he could do no more than play his best shots and pray for his formidable opponent, Sir Fred Goodwin of Royal Bank of Scotland, to be stricken

Simon Rae

Inheritance

A poem Inheritance It glinted on your finger all my life, Clicked on your whisky glass or the steering wheel. You used to twist it off to wash your face In restaurant Gents before we had a meal. The seal’s a warlike claymore in a fist — Though you were the most peaceable of men, Relaxing with The Bookseller and your pipe. It could though, at a glance, look like a pen. And that’s how I prefer to look at it, A great, plumed, ink-primed quill, Although I always type, and my first book Was published just too late for you to sell. Simon Rae

Peter Phillips

Teaching shifts

Wherever I go, I hear that music in schools is not what it used to be. By this it is not meant that the music which used to be taught is now taught according to different principles, but that the music which used to be taught is now not represented at all. School choirs no longer sing Christian music because the schools themselves aspire to a non-denominational atmosphere. The resources which used to go into maintaining an orchestra are now split among ethnic bands of every sort, because the Western orchestral tradition has been marginalised probably with the stigma that it is elitist. When I sat the other day listening

Aidan Hartley

Blot on the landscape

Malindi I watched a nest of baby turtles hatch on the beach in front of my mother’s house recently. What a hellish start to a life, I thought. You burrow up through sand and plastic rubbish discarded by tourists. On the race towards the sea everybody wants to eat you: ghost crabs, herons, crows and monitor lizards. If you make it to the waves, the predatory fish are waiting to gulp you down, nets to snare you, pollution to poison you. With enemies like these, who needs Naomi Campbell? The supermodel says that she and her ex-boyfriend Flavio Briatore, boss of a Formula One team, are going to build a

Fergal Keane

The sweet contagion of freedom will outlast the bloodshed in Burma

Burma is awakening from a nightmare of greed and repression. Fergal Keane meets a family on the Thai-Burma border whose tragic story is Burma’s story but remains optimistic about the chances of the Burmese desire for freedom ultimately triumphing over the junta. Mae Sot, Thai-Burma borderThe family had come from one of the villages along the border and their story of life and death came from the heart of Burma’s tragedy. They had crossed to Thailand because they did not have the money to buy medicine in Burma. Under the Generals’ rule healthcare in Burma exists only for the rich or the friends of the regime. The country has more malaria deaths than India, whose population

Douglas Davis

We came so close to World War Three that day

A meticulously planned, brilliantly executed surgical strike by Israeli jets on a nuclear installation in Syria on 6 September may have saved the world from a devastating threat. The only problem is that no one outside a tight-lipped knot of top Israeli and American officials knows precisely what that threat involved. Even more curious is that far from pushing the Syrians and Israelis to war, both seem determined to put a lid on the affair. One month after the event, the absence of hard information leads inexorably to the conclusion that the implications must have been enormous. That was confirmed to The Spectator by a very senior British ministerial source:

Theodore Dalrymple

Global warning | 6 October 2007

When we were students, a professor of public health once told us that the death rate declined whenever or wherever doctors went on strike. This was an even stronger argument, he implied, than the purely ethical one against doctors resorting to such action, or inaction. No profession should lightly expose its uselessness to the public gaze. Crossing Belgium recently, at a time when it had had no government for several weeks, I could not help but notice that it looked very much the same as when it did have a government. Obviously the crisis would have to be resolved sooner or later because otherwise people would realise the redundancy of

Mary Wakefield

Blair said to me: ‘Let’s not talk about the war’

A light rain drifts down over Kintbury village, blurring the surface of the Kennet and Avon canal. It gleams on the railway tracks, pools into fat drops under the roof of the station shelter on the London-bound platform and drips on to Robert Harris’s new suede shoes. Look, I say again, please don’t wait. I’ll be fine. You’ve been more than kind enough already. ‘No, no.’ Harris says firmly. ‘I’ll see you on to the train. I hope you’re not too cold, though.’ This is advanced niceness of a sort you don’t find very often. And though Harris is one of Britain’s bestselling writers (the author of Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel,

Douglas Murray

I am not afraid to say the West’s values are better

Before sidling off into history last month, the Commission for Racial Equality published a final report. Decades of multiculturalism, it revealed, had left Britain a fractured and unequal nation at risk of splitting up. The Commission’s chairman Trevor Phillips stated several years ago that multiculturalism had failed. His commission waited till its final hours to admit as much. It was impossible not to feel saddened by this confession. Even as left-wing experiments go, multiculturalism was an especially costly failure. Principally it blighted the lives of immigrants who escaped their own countries only to be told not to integrate into ours. But its victims also included those who refused to remain

Rod Liddle

It isn’t only rabbits who will suffer from the new surge of myxomatosis

Caught in the centre of a soundless field While hot inexplicable hours go by What trap is this? Where were its teeth concealed? You seem to ask. ‘Myxomatosis’ by Philip Larkin Aldbourne, Wiltshire I saw the rabbit, a young doe, 50 yards or so down the path. ‘Look,’ I said to the kids, ‘a bunny.’ But even as I said the words, I knew that this would be a problematic encounter. The rabbit just sat there, its usual hair-trigger response to approaching danger apparently nullified. ‘A fairly stupid bunny,’ my oldest son pronounced, as we clumped closer to the creature and it still declined to bolt. ‘A very ill bunny,’

Friday

5 Oct 2007

Alex Massie

I hate kids too. Just for different reasons…

I have no real interest in the SCHIP brouhaha and am puzzled by Bush’s to veto a bill that would expand children’s health insurance. This can’t be a very sensible move, politically-speaking. Anyway, my only interest in the matter was in the proposal that it be funded by taxes on tobacco. I was interested to see (former smoker) Matt Yglesias say this: The bill would also raise cigarette taxes, which, again, is a good thing to do since higher cigarette taxes cause either more revenue (a good thing) or else less smoking (a good thing) or else some combination of these two good things. Well, ain’t that a pretty thing:

Fraser Nelson

The tide is turning

Ben Brogan’s blog makes available to the punter the kind of lobby corridor gossip which I’d have given my right arm to be privy to when I was a press gallery minnow. He’s one of the best informed in the place – so when he rules out an autumn election, it’s significant. His rationale makes perfect sense to me. Yes, Brown would take some stick for bottling it, but this won’t have much traction outside the Westminster village and the whole affair will be forgotten by Christmas. Plus his aides want to get stuck into the Tory non dom tax proposal (I agree that the figures don’t stack up, not

Thursday

4 Oct 2007

Alex Massie

From the White Cliffs of Dover to the Tweed (But No Further)?

Yes, I’d noticed this part of Cameron’s speech too: And those changes have brought us success, in local elections we have taken Plymouth, we have taken Lincoln, we took Chester, we took the council right here in Blackpool and as William reminded us in that great speech on Sunday we are back in the North of England, a force to be reckoned with in every part of our country. Daniel Larison raises an eyebrow and asks: Except Scotland. Or maybe this was an intentional oversight? My sense is that it was an unintentional slip. It’s true that neither Scotland nor the Union were mentioned in Cameron’s speech but that’s understandable

Alex Massie

Bart goes to J-School

I’ve written before that I think the wailing and gnashing of teeth over Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of the Wall Street Journal is, like, way overblown. Still, via James Fallows, you gotta laugh at this still from the most recent episode of The Simpsons:

Liz Anderson

Torn about the ending

ITV’s three-parter Torn came to an end last night. This drama by Chris Lang about an abducted child was one of the most gripping television plays I have seen for ages. Holly Aird, playing the child’s mother, was terrific, as were all the cast. More, please. Note to Radio Times: don’t give away the ending in your blurb next time.

Wednesday

3 Oct 2007

Alex Massie

Sen. Strangemove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Obama

Marc Ambinder says Obama’s foreign policy speech today demonstrates just how the campaign believes it is going to challenge the way Washington does these things. The headline announcement may beObama’s desire for a nuclear-free world which is, yes, something that has been gaining traction in foreign policy circles for some time and also the sort of optimistic “transformational” (if we are still allowed to use that word?) policy Obama likes to think typifies his campaign. Barring a miracle of course, it’s also not going to happen. The Obama campaign says these talking points demonstrate just how their candidate would “challenge Washington’s conventional thinking” by: 1. Ending the war in Iraq

Nadine Dorries

David is ready

David looked so smart when he walked onto the stage with his hair slicked back, I thought he was going to break into a verse of Mack the Knife. He was the antithesis to Brown. Brown was big on spin, David huge on substance. Brown was stale and re-hashed, David fresh and new. He went into detail about the policies we would put in place to deliver a strong society and reverse the rapidly escalating decline we all witness when we hear about a teenager who has just been shot in the neck on a middle class housing estate. Tax breaks for marriage, welfare to work which will actually work

Tamzin Lightwater

Goodbye Blackpool, hello Number Ten

I’ve never been so happy! What a speech! What a leader!!! I’ve already started a Facebook group entitled: “Does anyone not want to vote for Dave?” When he whispered “I love you, babe” to Sam through the live mic, that we “accidentally” left on, it was just the best moment ever. It’s so exciting to think that in a month’s time I will be moving my Pony Club desk tidy into Number Ten – who would have thought it?

Fraser Nelson

Hit and Run

Cameron has just given the speech of his life, and celebrated by wasting no time getting out of Blackpool. Like me, he took a cab out of the conference straight after the speech and headed for Preston. He’s standing on platform six, smiling broadly, with Sam beside him. His aides are huddled ten feet away, giving him space. He’s just pulled this off, and I suspect he knows it.