Society

Saturday

28 Jun 2003

Portrait of the Week – 28 June 2003

Mr Alastair Campbell, the director of communications at the Prime Minister’s office, agreed to give evidence about statements on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction before the televised Commons foreign affairs committee. Earlier Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, had told the committee that the second dossier on the subject was commissioned by Mr Campbell and was a ‘horlicks’. Four policemen were injured in the second night of disturbances on the Caia Park estate of 12,500 at Wrexham, north Wales, after clashes between local people and Iraqi Kurdish refugees (asylum-seekers whose applications had been accepted). New heights were reached in the row over the nomination of Dr Jeffrey John, who

Antonia Fraser

Diary – 28 June 2003

The word ‘traitor’ seems to be bandied about a good deal at present. ‘So you’re a traitor, then,’ said the complacently smiling lady sitting next to my husband Harold Pinter at the British Library literary dinner – rather a surprising venue for such an accusation, I thought at the time. They were discussing our recent stay in Paris. Harold explained his approval of French foreign policy over the Iraq war, coupled with his disapproval of the British action. Then I was alerted by John Guare to the possibilities of www.probush.com. Clicking on the word ‘Traitor’ produced a rather more sinister result. This voice was male as well as soft and

The Spectator

Feedback | 28 June 2003

Comment on Crippling burden by Rod Liddle (21/06/2003) Your tawdry article on those of us who are disabled adequately shows us that you are indeed genuinely disabled – by blindness to the facts, arrogance, facetiousness and selective deafness amongst others. You chastise us for almost daring to claim what is the birthright of every citizen: to be judged on what can do, rather than what we cannot. Do you want us to remain objects of pity when we could be taking a full part in society? Is it only for the non-disabled “elite” to claim life’s rich pickings? It isn’t as if we want anything special – just the means

Dot Wordsworth

Mind Your Language | 28 June 2003

Mr John Ross, a reader from Derbyshire, was struck by the strange juxtaposition of two phrases of different flavours in the second chapter of Scott’s Kenilworth. On the same page the host says ‘I wot not’ and another character, Mr Goldthread the mercer, says in answer to a question, ‘That I have, old boy.’ Mr Russ associates old boy with public schools, not with the England of Elizabeth I. Scott is a far from reliable authority on the historic use of language. He was writing fiction, after all, and he sprinkled the page with god wots and forsooths on a suggestive rather than an accurate principle. His magpie antiquarianism sometimes

Taki

Trust me

I was about to tell you of a wonderful weekend in Devon, the Wembury House vs the Zac Goldsmith team cricket match, the beautiful young girls that watched it, the brilliant party that Zac gave following it, and my disgrace (out second ball) on the field. (I made up for it a bit fielding, injuring myself while trying to save face.) In any case, the Hanbury team won, the sun shone like never before, everyone went home happy, but something has occurred in the meantime that takes precedence over the High life. Before I begin, however, a word to our loyal readers. As some of you must have guessed by

Jeremy Clarke

On the beach

At ten to five the sun rose. Me and the boy were seated in our directors’ chairs on the beach, mourning the embers of our dying fire. We were about midway along a five-mile curve of shingle, about 30 yards from the sea. The sun came up, as I told my boy it would, in the east. First a rim, then this big boiling orange orb appeared behind a hill and climbed remarkably quickly into the air. A small hapless cloud that happened to be in the area was burned off. The moon, low and translucent in the west, slunk quickly away. After that the sun had the sky to

Petronella Wyatt

Song of praise

I went to church last Sunday. This will surprise some of my friends. I am not noted as a regular attender of Church of England services. This is not because I don’t believe in God. But our relationship has always been a private one. One in which He or I can make our excuses and leave. Not that I haven’t been inside plenty of churches. I have always had a great interest in them architecturally. There is an extraordinary beauty and felicity in driving through a country village during the summer and coming across a simple, 12th- century church. There is no light like that which shines through stained glass;

Mary Killen

Your Problems Solved | 28 June 2003

Dear Mary… Q. I understand that, even though my husband and I are reasonably well paid (our joint income is £65,000), we may still be entitled to something called child tax credit for our new baby – this on top of child benefit. How do I find out if this is true with the minimum of annoyance, Mary?T.St.A., Cornwall A. I am glad that you brought this matter up. Astonishingly, you are probably eligible for some monies, since apparently anyone with an income of less than £66,000 and a child under one can benefit. Those couples with joint incomes of less than £50,000 are entitled to credit worth £545 annually

Ross Clark

Banned Wagon | 28 June 2003

The opportunity to applaud French farmers comes along once a century at most, so an overpriced, oversubsidised champagne must be in order. As I write, France is on the point of scuppering talks on reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), thanks to lobbying from its dairy and cereal farmers. This is entirely predictable and might not be seen as much of a cause for celebration – until one examines the proposed reforms. It isn’t easy to conceive of a more absurd system than CAP, which consumes half the EU’s annual budget subsidising the production of food which European consumers do not want and which ends up being sold cheaply

Stephen Glover

The press shouldn’t join the government in its mindless obsession with security

A favourite newspaper ruse is to sneak a journalist on to the flight deck of a Boeing 747 and then to suggest that we are all at risk as a result of lax security. It is, of course, very effective. Most of us are easily alarmed. And many of us will have been persuaded by the media that the admission of the ‘comic terrorist’ Aaron Barschak into Prince William’s birthday party at Windsor Castle was a terrifying lapse. There was almost universal horror. ‘This security breach has repercussions for the safety of every British citizen,’ thundered the Daily Telegraph. ‘This sorry saga reveals failings that are systematic, showing laxity at

Matthew Parris

The fact is that I don’t give a damn about gay bishops

Why is it that not only I but millions (I suspect) of my fellow-countrymen too are left cold by the dispute raging within the Church of England about gay bishops? One has only to see the newspaper headline for the eye to slide away. It was not always thus. Such controversies used to fire many of us on both sides of the argument with passionate conviction. There was a time when I would have leapt to my laptop, determined to join the debate. Chosen as a panellist on BBC 1’s Question Time in a week when such a question was likely to come up, I would have counted myself lucky.

Peter Mandelson

Small wobble in Labour party: no one killed

Don’t be taken in by the media’s hyperbole; by comparison with summers past, this government is not having a particularly rough time. Of course, depending on your media outlet of choice, Mr Blair is said to be ‘reeling’, ‘fuming’ or ‘fumbling’, and having the toughest two weeks of his premiership or the worst crisis since he came to power. But those with long memories and a sense of perspective know that we are light years away from the storms that used to rock Mrs Thatcher’s ship and the raging internal battles that tore apart John Major’s administration. Compared with previous Labour governments, Mr Blair’s wobbles are a sideshow. Remember the

The Spectator

The defence of liberty

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime remains a triumph of British and American arms. Casualties have been much lower than might have been expected in such extensive operations: a fact which the death on Tuesday of six British soldiers and the wounding of eight others should not be allowed to obscure. Such losses are regrettable, and one is bound to feel the deepest sympathy with the families and friends of the dead and injured, but the overall picture remains unchanged. Throughout the campaign there has been a tendency by those who were against the war anyhow, and by a great part of the press, to over-interpret minor setbacks, and to

Peter Williams

Pedantry and philistine parsimony

The Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) was established five years ago to support research and postgraduate study within the UK’s higher education institutions. But to read its website or its voluminous guides to applicants is a depressing experience – even if it is only to familiarise oneself with the hurdles colleagues have to jump to get a bit of money most would not need if they were properly paid in the first place or did not have their creativity consumed by overlarge student bodies and by work assessments of various specious kinds. I am deeply sorry for younger academics today, who will never know how wonderful it used to

Richard Branson

Come fly with me

Most Spectator readers no doubt know that this is the 100th anniversary of aviation and that the patriotic American brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, flew the world’s first aeroplane. I would imagine most of the readers have also heard of Charles Lindbergh, who was the first man to fly across the Atlantic in 1927. These names, along with Chuck Yeager, Buzz Aldrin and most recently Steve Fossett, join a host of other Americans who had ‘the Right Stuff’ and are etched into both the history of aviation as well as the imagination of every child enthusiast who looks up at the sky. Sadly, virtually no one realises that this year

Richard Comber

It could be you

Do you suspect you soon may be going to lose your marbles? And are you over 65? Or do you suspect your elderly parents may be going to lose theirs? Is this loss of faculties likely to be a serious one? Then do not inquire in New Labour’s New Britain for whom the bell of despair tolls. It tolls for thee. The care of the elderly mentally ill is in meltdown in much of the country and can only get far worse. It is a national disaster, made worse by the old and infirm who lack the energy and means to defend themselves. It is callous and shameful. I was

John Sweeney

The first casualty of Pilger…

The Americans are making a hash of rebuilding Iraq, but one of the not so bad things they have done is to give Iraqis the freedom to scribble. On the wall outside the Baathist ministry of health the other day, a graffiti artist had scrawled in perfect English, ‘We need a health ministry free of corruption.’ For years John Pilger – ‘one of the world’s most renowned investigative journalists’, it says on the back of his latest book – has been insisting that the West, not Saddam, is to blame for the crisis in Iraq’s public health; that 5,200 Iraqi children were dying every month; that Western depleted-uranium weapons were

Sean Thomas

Self abuse

I never used to like pornography – not really. Yes, in my teens in the Seventies I used to have the odd copy of Mayfair under my pillow; yes, as a student in the Eighties I used to filch the occasional Fiesta from my flatmates. But on the whole I didn’t really go for jazz mags or blue movies. I found them tedious, repetitive, absurd and very embarrassing to buy. There was also a certain bleakness about the harder, nastier porn videos: all those sad and sorry women; all those contrived and silly poses. And as for the guys with mullets and thick moustaches: ugh! In 2001 I went online.

Ross Clark

Public scandal

To get elected in 1997 Tony Blair championed the cause of ‘Mondeo Man’, a hard-working, hard-driving travelling salesman who had suffered from years of negative equity and suppressed bonuses. It is not Mondeo Man, however, who has ended up as the beneficiary of Labour’s six years in office. It is Principal Project Delivery Officer Person. That antihero of Chekhov, the white-collar government employee, is emerging as the hero of Blair’s Britain. Forget the corporate fat cats supposedly draining the British economy dry through their self-rewarding of failure; it is the public sector that is enjoying the explosion in pay. Between the first quarter of 2002 and the first quarter of

Rod Liddle

Back to basic instincts

Few people are entitled to more compassion than young men thus affected [by love]; it is a species of insanity that assails them, and it produces self-destruction in England more frequently than in all the other countries put together.William Cobbett, 1829 What on earth is the Conservative party going to do about sexual intercourse? People are having it off all over the place, willy-nilly, apparently oblivious to the possibility that one day Hell may swallow them up and devour them for such libidinous recklessness. Even Church of England bishops, who are meant to refrain from sexual intercourse by and large, or at least partake of it quietly, within a monogamous,