Society

Saturday

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Something rotten in the state of Louisiana

I have mixed memories of New Orleans. The hospitality was gracious and the cuisine was fine, but there was a pervasive whiff of something rotten which must have a bearing on the city’s lack of preparedness for the present disaster. I once spent an afternoon in the police headquarters hearing about efforts to eliminate corruption in the local force, and I recall an earlier visit in my days as a banker in the 1980s: I found myself being lunched in a dark corner of a restaurant by an adviser to four-term Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards, who confidentially offered me a slice of the action in a gas pipeline project across

The Spectator

Turkey must relent

The issue of how best to approach a friend who has badly let you down is one more commonly dealt with at the back of this magazine, by our agony aunt on etiquette, Mary Killen. But this week it is one that needs to be addressed here. Over the past years this magazine has been a staunch defender of Turkey and its right to join the European Union, negotiations for which begin on 3 October. We have praised its economy, its founder-membership of Nato, and condemned the many Turkophobes within the EU — most notably Frits Bolkestein, the EU internal market commissioner, who last year fatuously claimed that the liberation

Boris Johnson

How to live for ever

I found myself in disgrace a while ago when I contrived to fly my family to a Greek airport called Preveza, only to discover on arrival that they didn’t have a hire car big enough for our purposes. It was about 11 p.m. and I was standing pathetically thinking about buses and looking at a map of the area when I saw that Preveza was really called Preveza Aktio. ‘Hey!’ I said to my wife. ‘It’s fantastic!’ ‘What is fantastic?’ she asked in the tones of someone still faintly hoping that her husband would produce a people carrier. ‘It’s Actium,’ I cried. ‘All my life I have wanted to see

Interconnect

The Flintoff phenomenon

Michael Henderson talks to the sporting hero who is set to lift England’s hearts at the Oval ‘Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight!’ But when it comes, as it has this summer, what joys fly upon its wings. As the fifth and final cricket Test against Australia takes place at the Oval this weekend, the whole kingdom, it seems, is one with Shelley. Should England, who are 2–1 to the good, win or draw, they will regain the Ashes, the little urn that symbolises the longest-running rivalry in international sport, and banish 16 years of humiliation. Since Australia won the first Test at Lord’s by 239 runs, to confirm

Interconnect

The cowardice of the BBC

The peculiar and very bitter New Labour vendetta against the BBC presenter, John Humphrys, has at last drawn blood. Our government really, really hates the man and it is being aided in its campaign by one or two sycophantic News International journalists and one or two naive or envious souls from within the BBC itself. For the best part of a decade, New Labour has repeatedly accused the Today presenter of engendering within the listening public a cynical attitude towards politicians. It is, the spin doctors aver, the ‘Humphrys Problem’ and for seven years the Prime Minister has conspicuously avoided being interviewed by the man. That, I suspect, is at

Patrick J-Buchanan

Is this the end of empire?

Washington What did Katrina tell us? Much we already knew. Our politics is as poisoned as in the Nixon era. Even the worst disasters are exploited to score on one’s enemy. Where September 11 united us, Katrina divides us anew. No sooner had she made landfall than Robert Kennedy Jr was accusing the beleaguered Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour of moral complicity in the disaster — for having opposed the Kyoto Protocol. As it became apparent that African– Americans, two thirds of New Orleans’s population and almost all its poor, had stayed behind or been left behind, the race card was played. Bush was indifferent, it was said, because those suffering

Walter Ellis

The grim lessons of Katrina

New York It is tempting when looking back on natural catastrophes to see them as symbols of the affected nation’s fatal departure from good sense or moral progress. Hubris is retrospectively invoked to justify the evident nemesis. The horrific events in New Orleans and surrounding territories are being picked apart, like entrails in aboriginal Africa, as though there might be a clue, even a message, that will explain how America has begun to fall apart. In a bid to pre-empt at least some of Congress’s investigative zeal, the President announced on Monday that he would carry out his own inquiry into the catastrophe, but senators and congressmen refuse to be

Friday

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern – 9 September 2005

Two weeks ago, we wondered how Tacitus, that pillar of the Roman establishment, was able to get away with putting a speech in the mouth of the Caledonian ‘terrorist’ Calgacus to his troops that sounded so sympathetic to him and his cause. This week concludes the extracts and offers some comments. Note that Calgacus admits that some Britons, Gauls and Germans were fighting on the Roman side. He argues this is partly the allies’ own fault for not showing a united front before enemies he regards as a ‘motley rabble’: ‘Do you really believe the Romans to be as courageous in war as they are lecherous in peace? It is

Trevor Grove

Diary – 9 September 2005

With my wife’s consent, I have just become the lover of a handsome 57-year-old lady. She has a fine round bottom and a comfortable beam. I sought expert advice before embarking on the affair. Ian Burgoyne, marine surveyor, tapped her all over with a little hammer and probed her most intimate parts with a spike. He pronounced her in good condition for her age. Her knees were sound and her hog was free of wet rot, which was evidently a good thing. Mr Burgoyne’s only concern was five slightly cracked frames on the port side. Not knowing exactly what these were, I studied his recommended treatment: ‘The plank sea could

Saturday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 3 September 2005

The Home Office proposed a new offence of having images from the internet of serious sexual violence and other obscene material; it would be punishable by three years in jail. The presumed murderer of an 11-year-old boy in West Lothian was found dead, hanged in his house; the man was on bail awaiting trial on charges of sexual offences against young girls. A woman was shot dead with a baby in her arms at a christening party in Peckham, south London; a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old black youth were arrested. A survey of 9,700 children aged 11–15 found that 9 per cent of them had said they had been able

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 3 September 2005

Our children recently went to the stage version of Billy Elliot and, like most, loved it. I am sure it is an inspiring tale about aspiration, disadvantage and dancing. But the politics…. The miners, striking for a year in 1984–85, sing ‘Solidarity solidarity/ Solidarity forever’ while their police antagonists sing: ‘Keep it up till Christmas, lads,/ It means a lot to us/ We send our kids to private school. On a private bus.’ Were there really many rank-and-file policemen at that time who could afford to send their children to private school, even with the overtime? And where was the solidarity in a strike which was imposed on members of

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 3 September 2005

Strange customs Having suffered similar humiliation and over-zealous inanity at the hands of British immigration, I can only sympathise with James Hughes-Onslow’s friend (‘Hop off, you Aussies’, 27 August). However, I do have to point out that this is neither a new phenomenon following an increased threat level, nor is it specific to Australians. It happened to me in 1996. I was an American citizen, an 18-year resident of Switzerland, who as the child of a former diplomat had lived abroad my whole life, and had been travelling back and forth to Britain since I was a child. I simply wished to visit my British boyfriend for a couple of

The Spectator

Feedback | 3 September 2005

Comments on The last days of the Tartan Raj by Andrew NeilI agree wholeheartedly with Andrew Neil’s comments. The devolution settlement is an absolute disgrace.England has been left out in the cold. The West Lothian Question remains unanswered, and MPs representing English constituencies sit on their hands.May I suggest a follow-up article featuring the Campaign for an English Parliament, whom you will find very vocal in their demand for an English Parliament? They can be found at www.thecep.org.ukDerek Marshall Comment on lettersThree weeks ago I was sitting in a cell in a Pakistani military jail, after being rounded up with my film crew, while travelling from India to Afghanistan to

Taki

Political moves

Gstaad I know few politicians and speak to even fewer — Lady Thatcher and Lord Tebbitt being the exceptions — so I’m hardly the one to judge whether being a cuckold is good for one’s political career or not. I am, of course, talking about Nicolas Sarkozy’s marital problems, and the fears expressed by the British press that his career might be in jeopardy as a result. That’s the Brit press for you. It simply does not understand the French, c’est tout. The great Napoleon was greatly cuckolded by Josephine and, after his fall, by Marie Louise, and it certainly didn’t stop the Bonaparte legend or adoration of his person

Mary Killen

Your Problems Solved | 3 September 2005

Dear Mary… Q. We were recently married and a number of people who had informed us that they were coming failed to appear on the day. Besides the disappointment, our catering was not cheap and these no-shows cost us a considerable sum. We had to be tough with numbers, and we had a few people who were slightly hurt not to have been invited. We could have used the places for them. Our question is this: should we chastise the people who failed to appear? If so, how? M. & K.M., Cairns, Queensland, Australia A. Twenty years ago, had RSVP’d wedding guests failed to materialise, one would have expected the

Frank Keating

Down but not out

Never bet against world champions is the sage ringsider’s timeless rubric. Certainly not when they look to be cornered and groggy. In what is already the most imperishably thrilling cricket series staged in this country since the whole motley began 123 years ago, to regain the Ashes England need only to draw the final match, which begins at the Oval on Thursday, while Australia, strutting world champs for the past dozen years, must win it. Having humiliatingly lost the first of the five Tests at Lord’s in July, the intense euphoria of outrageous subsequent victories (by just two runs at Birmingham and three wickets at Nottingham) has had Englishmen forgetting

Simon Wilson

Quirky vision

Venice must be the most painted city in the world. Keith Holmes is among the latest in the long line of artists who have made their way there since Canaletto defined our image of it. Canaletto’s Venice was the Grand Canal, San Marco and the rest of the famous sights. In the 19th century, Turner, Whistler and Monet extended the canon to the Lagoon, with its incredible sunsets, sunrises and infinite variety of mists and atmospheric effects. Since then this repertoire has been exhaustively worked over. It is remarkable, therefore, that Holmes has found a fresh and personal approach to Venice, the nature of which is explicit in the title

Jaspistos

A, V and M

In Competition No. 2407 you were invited to incorporate 12 words into a plausible piece of prose, using them not in an animal, vegetable or mineral sense. Inadvertently, I made this competition more difficult than the genre usually is by giving you fewer choices of alternative meanings to play with. Consequently I have been lenient in my interpretation of the rules: I allowed capitals (Swede or Sergeant Pepper) and metaphorical uses (copper-bottomed). Two competitors used ‘brass’ in the sense of ‘prostitute’, which is a new one on me. Commendations to Margaret Joy and A. Roberts. The prizewinners, printed below (a stellar group), get £25 each, except for E.J. Davidson, a

The Spectator

Why ‘Europe’ matters

The Conservative party talks about Europe so little these days that it is becoming unnatural, rather as if the Lib Dems had decided that the issue of PR was irrelevant. Ostensibly, this is because Europe is no longer a ‘live’ issue. It is no longer conceivable that we are going to join the euro, goes the argument, and the European constitution is dead. What, then, is there left to discuss? Eurosceptics can satisfy themselves that they can still stare longingly at the Queen every time they hand over a fiver; while the Tories’ pro-Europe wing can be grateful that the handbag-waving has come to an end. Conservatives, therefore, can call

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Flap over nothing

Who believes that bird flu may cause as many as 50 million deaths? Ross Clark doesn’t, and here’s why I don’t personally know anyone suffering from malaria or tuberculosis, but I imagine that if they have been following the Western media they must have found the past week somewhat surreal. Half a billion people are now suffering from malaria, of whom about one million will be dead by this time next year. Nine million are suffering from tuberculosis, two million of whom will die in the next 12 months. Both diseases, which many in the West may have assumed were well on their way to eradication (it would be no