Society

James Forsyth

How close did we come to another war in the Middle East?

The more that emerges about the Israeli air strike on Syria the more mysterious the whole thing becomes. The Washington Post reports today that the US corroborated an Israeli intelligence assessment that North Korean personnel were present in Syria before the strike; suggesting that the US effectively signed off on the strike despite the risk that it could have sparked an all out regional war just as Washington is desperately trying to damp things down so that it can make some progress on stabilizing Iraq and sanctioning Iran. But there is still no real read on precisely what the Israelis were bombing or how far along the Syrians were in

The great Blue Peter voting scandal

The breaking news is that the BBC Blue Peter cat-naming scandal was even murkier than it first appeared. As the Beeb fessed up today, the true result of a viewer competition to choose the name of the cat – ‘Cookie’ was the people’s choice – was over-ridden by heartless Corporation executives who imposed the name ‘Socks’ instead. There are now sensational allegations of electoral fraud, as the inevitable blame game begins. Apparently, there was a suspicious late surge of votes in favour of ‘Cookie’, leading the heirs to Reith to conclude that they must intervene – a dubious decision which has now backfired spectacularly. As any parent knows, you don’t

Alex Massie

Journalism 101 | 20 September 2007

Paul Krugman complains that the scale of Democratic triumphs is deliberately under-played by the American media. Conspiracy! In fact, it’s quite strange how the magnitude of the Democratic victory has been downplayed. After the 1994 election, the cover of Time showed a charging elephant, and the headline read “GOP stampede.” Indeed, the GOP had won an impressive victory: in House races, Republicans had a 7 percentage point lead in the two-party vote. In 2006, Time’s cover was much more subdued; two overlapping circles, and the headline “The center is the new place to be.” You might assume that this was because the Democrats barely eked out a victory. In fact,

US Defense Secretary doesn’t know if it was right to invade Iraq

If you want an idea of how far the Iraq debate has shifted since 2003 consider this exchange between David Brooks, The New York Times columnist, and Robert Gates, the US Secretary of Defence appointed by President Bush in late 2006 after he finally got rid of Donald Rumsfeld: “I don’t think you invade Iraq to bring liberty. You do it to eliminate an unstable regime and because sanctions are breaking down and you get liberty as a byproduct,” [Gates] continued. I asked him whether invading Iraq was a good idea, knowing what we know now. He looked at me for a bit and said, “I don’t know.” This is

James Forsyth

Ming Reviewed

Lloyd Evans, The Spectator’s theatre critic, has penned an absolutely fantastic sketch of Ming Campbell’s speech today for us which you can read here. I particularly enjoyed his final thoughts on Ming’s persona, “It isn’t relevant or sexy. But it’s thoroughly Liberal Democrat. Plenty of gravitas. No weight.”

Alex Massie

Bounders in clubland

I have been remiss, gentle reader, in failing to post another corker from The Daily Telegraph’s obituary pages. Lord Michael Pratt, who has died aged 61, will be remembered as one of the last Wodehouseian figures to inhabit London’s clubland and as a much travelled author who pined for the days of Empire; he will also be remembered as an unabashed snob and social interloper on a grand scale. Pratt would arrive at country houses announcing that he was en route to another castle or (even larger) stately home, and was intending to stay for only one night. Quite often the “night” would turn into weeks, and sometimes months. Although

Alex Massie

The Grand Trunk Road to end all trunk roads

From the Department of Why Didn’t I Think of That*: London to Sydney? Sure. London to Sydney by bus? Sign me up (cash and 12 weeks free time permitting, admittedly). What next? Tierra del Feugo to Alaska along the non-existent NAFTA superhighway? Cairo to the Cape? Well, why not? *Partly, you dolt, because you don’t know how to drive. True.

Alex Massie

Are you smarter than a Harvard student? Probably…

God knows how reliable this sort of sillyness really is (not very, probably) but: Students at many of the country’s most prestigious colleges and universities are graduating with less knowledge of American history, government, and economics than they had as incoming freshmen, with Harvard University seniors scoring a “D+” average on a 60-question multiple-choice exam about civic literacy. According to a report released yesterday by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the average college senior at the 50 colleges and universities polled did not earn a passing grade. You can take the test yourself here. I confess I did so with much trepidation. It turns out that I don’t know much about

Alex Massie

The Crawford Massive

George W Bush invited some friendlies to the White House this afternoon for a friendly little chat.  K-Lo was there to gush: Asked what traits people should look for in choosing a President, George Bush responded immediately: “Be comfortable with your family. Work hard to make sure there is love in the White House.” He went on to talk about how a president needs to have “rock solid” principles and warned that D.C. is a town where they will be constantly challenged. “If your principles ever get eroded, I don’t know how you will look in the mirror.”He also said it was important to “soak in the beauty and greatness

What to read in The New York Times

As Clive noted earlier, the whole of the New York Times will be free online from midnight tonight. I’d thoroughly recommend that you take the opportunity to start reading David Brooks, his column runs on Tuesday and Fridays.  As well as being America’s most perceptive conservative commentator, Brooks writes absolutely fascinating stuff about the brain. Here’s something from this Friday’s column on the declining importance of IQ: “One of the classic findings of [how IQ can be affected by the social environment] was made by H.M. Skeels back in the 1930s. He studied mentally retarded orphans who were put in foster homes. After four years, their I.Q.’s diverged an amazing 50

Is Bush senior sending a message on behalf of his son?

An intriguing development in the US presidential race, Bush senior just came very close to endorsing John McCain. McCain is currently on a ‘No Surrender’ tour designed to reenergise his candidacy based on his staunch support and advocacy for a strategy that might actually succeed in Iraq. At a stop in South Carolina, the McCain team unveiled an effusive video message from Bush 41. Now, they were quick to clarify that this was not a formal endorsement. But both sides must have known that this video would set tongues wagging, especially as the Romney campaign appeared to have been courting the wider Bush clan, and the fact that it was unveiled in South

Fraser Nelson

How we got into the current mess

As David Cameron prepares to speak, I would like to helpfully outline five components behind the mess we see today. 1. Bungling central bankers: As I blogged earlier, the Bank of England refused to support banks with the zero-penalty lending rates offered in every other major world economy. There’s a strong case for such discipline, but I believe a stronger one for keeping liquidity moving if there’s a risk of a run on the banks.  2. Dozy regulators: The FSA hasn’t kept pace with the UK’s fast-evolving banking sector. Northern Rock had stood out a mile as the most highly leveraged bank in Europe, yet the FSA didn’t see any problems. The

Diary – 15 September 2007

We took Alastair on holiday with us this year. Listened to his version of the Blair years in the car all the way to Biarritz — it was either him or French pop music. We took Alastair on holiday with us this year. Listened to his version of the Blair years in the car all the way to Biarritz — it was either him or French pop music. And no, unlike the average Travelodge customer, we didn’t leave him in the nearest service station for someone else to enjoy (is it just me, or does he have a crush on Bill Clinton?) Anyway, he was soon forgotten as we cycled

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 15 September 2007

Monday Dave has moved into the building! He and his staff left the Commons office on Friday night and set up camp in The Thatcher Room! That ought to put paid to the silly people saying Dave doesn’t respect Lady T. I went for a little peep earlier and he’s got piles of clever books. Inside Her Pretty Little Head: A New Theory of Female Motivation and What it Means for Markets sounds interesting. Bit concerned about The Low Carbon Diet. Are we going to have to eat CO2 now? Do I, as a Modern Compassionate Conservative, have to swallow my own footprint? Oddly, someone seems to have taken The

Letters | 15 September 2007

Lift sanctions on Iran Sir: The resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis is breathtakingly simple, were sanity to prevail (‘Iran will be next’, 8 September). Iran does not need an atom bomb to attain the status of a regional superpower: the size of her population and territory, her vast natural resources, her access to the Caspian Sea and dominance of the Persian Gulf confer that status upon her. If the sanctions imposed by the Americans and the Security Council were to be lifted and, simultaneously, Iran agreed to an international inspection of her nuclear installations, Iran’s moribund economy would be revived at the same time that fears about her nuclear

Fare’s fair

There’s a fair glut of food festivals going on all across the country in the coming weeks, reflecting — and rightly so — the harvest. There’s a fair glut of food festivals going on all across the country in the coming weeks, reflecting — and rightly so — the harvest. But how retro is that? Fantastic! Even better, to my mind, is that it proves that our collective mindset has changed dramatically — we are growing ever prouder of our food and its local provenance, willing even to think that British might really be best. That in itself is cause for celebration. My local is the second annual Hastings Seafood

A British revival

There was an episode in the latest series of The Apprentice in which a bungling ex-army man was commissioned with selling the best of British produce in a French market. He chose to represent his country with huge quantities of ear-and-sphincter sausages and factory cheddar, made a big loss, and was fired from the show. There really was no excuse. British cheeses have come an enormously long way in the last decade or so, as a quick peer into one of the Neal’s Yard shops reveals. In 1989 the Department of Agriculture was all set to ban unpasteurised cheese amid listeria panic. The Specialist Cheesemakers’ Association was set up in

Don’t follow the herd

Ten days ago I went to one of London’s finest restaurants, the Lahore in Whitechapel. The place was packed with hundreds of eager punters. Ten days ago I went to one of London’s finest restaurants, the Lahore in Whitechapel. The place was packed with hundreds of eager punters. There were bankers from the City, large families of Asians, Essex chavs. We were served plate after plate, piled high with spiced fodder from a kitchen with a glass façade enabling you to see the troops of cooks preparing kebabs piled on coals, hundreds of pieces of dough turning into breads in a brick oven, and huge vats of bubbling chicken and

This lethal golden elixir

It used to be the taste of shame. Something that could induce nightmare Proustian flashbacks to teenage years of furtive pub trips and buying jumbo supermarket two-litre bottles. Never go back! And yet we all apparently have: this alcoholic madeleine is cider, and it appears that everyone loves it now, unreservedly, without any embarrassment. But this lethal golden elixir has evolved a little from the days when it was something to be drunk in parks, by the swings. Now it comes in all varieties, and vintages, and prices, in bottles with pretty labels, and is there to be found in smart gastro-pubs and at swanky dinner parties. Look at Waitrose,