Society

Thursday

The Spectator

Obama takes a shot at Hillary

At the YouTube debate Barack Obama and Hillary got into a row about whether or not the US president should meet with some of the world’s least attractive leaders—Castro, Chavez, Ahmadinejad etc. Clinton went after Obama hard for promising to meet with all these guys during his first year in office. After the debate, she described his plan as “irresponsible and frankly naive.” Hillary, perhaps, overplayed her hand, as her criticisms drew from Obama his toughest attack on her to date: “I think what is irresponsible and naive is to have authorized a war without asking how we were going to get out — and you know I think Senator

The Spectator

Has the Dianaisation of Britain changed the country for the better?

The new issue of the always excellent Prospect has a great debate between Andrew Marr and Joan Smith about whether the mass emotionalism that followed Diana’s death, and is now a regular part of our national life, is a good thing or not.  Andrew Marr argues that thanks to it: “We are a more relaxed and more emotionally healthy people than we used to be, and the “Diana moment,” for all its weirdness and excess, marked this change. It was a telling national catharsis, and the moment too when “holding it all in” was no longer seen as a virtue. I like what we have become. I like the footballers’

The Spectator

RIP Shambo

If you’re thinking about the sacred bullock that is about to be slaughtered on the orders of the Welsh Assembly, do read the incomparable Jeremy Clarke’s piece on Shambo.

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The unread

Perhaps only a French professor of literature could write a book entitled How to Talk About Books You Have Not Read. Professor Pierre Bayard’s book became a best-seller in France this year, and one can see why. After all, a book that promises to lift the oppressive guilt one feels at not having tackled many of the giant literary peaks has a lot to be said for it. At the very least this guilt leaves one feeling somewhat inadequate, especially when one compares the amount of reading done by one’s forbears (who admittedly didn’t have the distractions of television or cinema or a thousand other things and, equally, for the

The Spectator

The warped world of Ward Churchill

I have been interested in Ward Churchill for years. So interested, in fact, that his writings inspired me to write a novel about what might happen if the “global justice movement” developed a taste for revolutionary violence. Churchill, who claims Native American ancestry, has finally been sacked by the University of Colorado for calling the dead of 9/11 “little Eichmanns” – his appalling claim being that the financiers in the World Trade Center were no better than the Nazis. In fact, Churchill has been saying this, and much else for six years. His reaction to the September 11 atrocities was: “it’s about time.” And he has written a string of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The clunking fist connects

To date, Cameron has got the better of Brown at PMQs but the clunking fist had some good lines today. I’d bet that this one–“The wheels are coming off the Tory bicycle; it’s just as well he’s got a car following him!”—will be on the news tonight. As Tony might say, clunk!

The Spectator

What a dope

Oh, Vino. How could you be so stupid? You fought all the way up from the bottom, making it from Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan to Paris, France on the strength of your legs and an indomitably aggressive spirit. When your team collapsed days before last year’s Tour de France when German Jan Ullrich was barred on doping charges, you convinced the Kazakh government to put together a team just for you. When you fell on one of the first days of this year’s Tour, you won the hearts of fans by racing on with more than 30 stitches in your leg and arm. Just finishing this year would have been enough to

The Spectator

Bush is not for turning

Anyone who doubts George W Bush’s commitment to Iraq should read this speech delivered by the President at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina.  Quoting verbatim from intelligence reports, Bush argues that al Qaeda is firmly established in Iraq, but that its operations there predated the invasion of 2003. He takes Bin Laden at his word, in concluding that this is a test case for the war on terror, not a distraction from it: Our action to remove Saddam Hussein did not start the terrorist violence — and America withdrawal from Iraq would not end it. The al Qaida terrorists now blowing themselves up in Iraq are dedicated extremists

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Beckham and Azharuddin…

Just recovering from a 21 hour Istanbul-Washington trip (thanks American Airlines), so still catching up with correspondence and the like. Still, here’s a piece I wrote for The New Republic defying the (emerging) conventional wisdom – at least amongst some soccer snobs – that Beckham’s arrival is the beginning of the end for US soccer. Of course, it’s also the case that, psychologically, some American soccer fans fear what might happen to their game if it really takes off (I argue that it has already taken off). Can soccer survive American interest? And, just as pressingly, can soccer fans, many of whom are proud to have the sophisitication and the

Alex Massie Alex Massie

By Galata Bridge I sat down and fished…

Marginal Revolution’s Alex Tabarrok writes: “On the famous Galata bridge fisherman cast from the top level while outdoor restaurants line the walkway below.  The fishermen’s lines are hard to see so dining at dusk you are surprised when silvery fish, glittering in the last light of the sun ascend to the sky as if swimming to the heavens.” Well, I was on the Galata Bridge on Sunday, watching these fellows cast their lines into the Golden Horn. I don’t munch fish anyway, but even if I did would I want to consume fish that swam in these waters? More, and possibly slightly deeper observations on a week in the Turkish

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Shambo, the Heroic Hindu Bull…

Mr Eugenides, guest-blogging in fine style at Jewcy, fills you in on the sad yet stirring story of Shambo, South Wales’ latest celebrity. Read all about how bureaucrats are doing their best to slaughter this sacred, er, bull, here.

Monday

The Spectator

The real Iraq question

Both sides in the Iraq debate tend to ignore, or downplay, the downside to their preferred course of action. On Meet the Press, New York Times columnist David Brooks put the dilemma that both sides need to address: So are we willing to prevent 10,000 Iraqi deaths a month at the cost of 125 Americans? That’s a tough moral issue, but it’s also a tough national interest issue because we don’t know what the consequences of getting out are. And the frustration of watching the debate in Washington, very few people are willing to, to grapple with those two facts, that there’s–that the surge will not work in the short-term, but

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Public sour on globalisation

There is a fascinating, and worrying, poll in the FT this morning about people’s attitudes to globalisation. Remarkably, about 60 percent of the electorate in the UK favour government imposed pay caps for the heads of companies. Less than 20% think globalisation is good for this country. Indeed, of the six countries surveyed—Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the US—we are the least positive about globalisation. But, interestingly, only the Americans are more confident than us Brits about people’s prospects for social mobility.

The Spectator

Country music

In Competition No. 2503 you were invited to supply new words for the British national anthem, to be sung to the original tune. Spain’s opposition leader Mariano Rajoy recently called for its anthem to be given words following complaints from athletes who were fed up with humming self-consciously or staring solemnly into the middle-distance while it was playing at major sporting events. The story prompted the Today programme to invite the poet Murray Lachlan Young to come up with new words for ‘God Save the Queen’ which would reflect our changing political society. His opening was pretty feeble: ‘On this Atlantic rock/ We do complain a lot/ And like a

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 21 July 2007

Why Russia’s defensive Sir: The only pertinent fact from Fraser Nelson’s anti-Russia diatribe last week is that the country’s defence budget is 5 per cent that of America’s. (The New Cold War, 14 July). The rest of the article is scaremongering. An evening spent in Moscow should convince anyone that Russia has not left ‘the orbit of the West’, rather that it has embraced our way of life with gusto. Five minutes spent in a supermarket in Saint Petersburg, Saratov or Volgograd nails the lie that ‘the free market has perished in Russia’. And why should not Russian gas companies start to charge market prices for their output, after years

Taki

Beyond belief | 21 July 2007

On board S/Y Bushido Last Friday the 13th was not a good-news day. I was in Ibiza, sailing around, when the papers were brought in and I read about the death of my old and very good friend Nigel Dempster. Actually, it was a blessing. He had been suffering for years and every time I spoke with him – to him, rather, as he was unable to towards the end — it was getting worse. Talk about the end of an era. How I miss the good times with him. Then over the telephone we heard that Huntsie Schoenburg, my 19-year-old nephew, a six-foot-four blond Yale student, and the sweetest

Roy Hattersley

The great leveller

I spent much of my early boyhood in a disused cemetery — a Gothic beginning to my adolescence which was the result of nothing more romantic than the fact that only a high wall, over which I could climb with the help of an elderberry tree, divided our back garden from the overgrown graves. I spent much of my early boyhood in a disused cemetery — a Gothic beginning to my adolescence which was the result of nothing more romantic than the fact that only a high wall, over which I could climb with the help of an elderberry tree, divided our back garden from the overgrown graves. It was

Daphne Guinness

Diary – 21 July 2007

I miss Issie. I am waiting outside in the Orangerie in the Parc de St-Cloud, in Paris, where the Chanel show is about to begin. The incessant driving rain, the clouds, thick, and black with purpose, as another deluge begins. The huge white bright spotlights shining undiminished give a silvery magnificence to the scene. The team of Karl Lagerfeld and Chanel, undefeated by the elements, succeed in staging one of the best couture shows I have seen, and I have seen quite a few. Contrary to what one might expect, the rain heightens the senses and gives it a poetic surrealism. Showtime. The moment the first model exits to explosive

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody | 21 July 2007

Monday What a day! Just back from Service of Thanksgiving in the All-Faiths-And-None Prayer Room. Jed read an excerpt from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inaugural speech about having nothing to fear but fear itself (I thought J.F.K. said that but never mind). It was v moving. Just like the American people in 1933 the citizens of London are about to be given back their energy and hope. Boris himself was going to pop in and address us briefly but apparently he couldn’t work out the entry system. Tuesday DD really enjoying the New Cold War. Says it’s even better this time around because the kit’s more advanced. Foxy ringing non-stop asking