Society

Saturday

Tom Flynn

The sacred in secular societies

Those nations and cultural groups lobbying Western museums for the restitution of cultural property acquired during the colonial period are accustomed to having their requests denied on the grounds that modern museums should not be required to atone for historical contingencies. A recent declaration by a group of leading international museum directors phrased it like this: ‘The objects and monumental works that were installed decades and even centuries ago in museums throughout Europe and America were acquired under conditions that are not comparable with current ones.’ In other words, that was then, this is now. This simple appeal to an unwritten statute of limitations on illicitly acquired material is about

Andrew Kenny

Black fascism

Cape Town Anyone who wants to understand the inner workings of South Africa should pay careful attention to a speech made by President Mbeki at an official funeral in the Eastern Cape on 22 June. Surrounded by powerful black leaders of the new, liberated South Africa, Mbeki gave a eulogy for the departed man and urged the nation to rally behind his dream and to carry on his work. The deceased was the leading black supporter of apartheid, Kaiser Matanzima, the former president of the Transkei ‘homeland’, Pretoria’s ultimate stooge in the days of white minority rule. The two key figures in the formation of ‘Grand Apartheid’ were Hendrik Verwoerd

Mark Steyn

Tomorrow he’ll be yesterday’s man

New Hampshire It’s always slightly discombobulating when someone you’ve known for years and always written off as a mediocrity with no talents suddenly leaps to phenomenal success. In my line of work, it’s usually some fellow hack whose first novel gets optioned by Miramax for Cameron Diaz. Or the guy I sat next to at a friend’s wedding who tried to sell me his shoes, and next time I landed in Britain he’d somehow become the nation’s most beloved bisexual gameshow host, Dale Winton. But right now it’s happening on a much larger scale to someone called Howard Dean. If you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry. You’ll soon be

Simon Nixon

Whistling in the dark

Power cuts and rolling blackouts are about as Old Labour as rising taxes and paranoia about spooks, so it should come as no surprise that astute observers of the political scene are stockpiling candles. A report published this week explains why. According to the Institution of Civil Engineers (Ice), Britain is heading for a repeat of the 1974 three-day week, with the government forced to impose power cuts and homes left without light and heat. Ice says these problems will be upon us by 2020, but many industry experts think this is too optimistic. Professor Ian Fells, chairman of the New and Renewable Energy Centre, says that there is a

Andrew Gimson

Let’s hear it for traffic wardens

They are among the most hated people in urban Britain and – because many of them are from west Africa – often the victims of racial abuse. But, says Andrew Gimson, without their bravery and dedication our civilisation might collapse Get a proper job, get a life, sod off back to Africa, black monkey, African prick, storm trooper, German scum. These are among the many insults thrown at parking wardens as they go about their daily work. The jibes about Africa reflect the curious fact that in London about 60 per cent of traffic wardens are from west Africa, while the jibes about Germany reflect the German ownership of Apcoa,

Friday

Peter Jones

Ancient and Modern – 4 July 2003

Greeks and Romans loved lists, from Tables of Persons Eminent in Every Branch of Learning together with a List of Their Writings to Words Suspected of Not Having Been Used by the Ancients. In the same spirit, this column will over the next two weeks publish, from Professor Alexander Demandt’s Der Falls Rom (1984), a list of the 210 reasons for the fall of the Roman empire. As modern empires rise and fall in these troubled times, the lessons of history – or should that be historians? – may help us find our bearings: ‘Abolition of gods, abolition of rights, absence of character, absolutism, agrarian question, agrarian slavery, anarchy, anti-Germanism,

Saturday

The Spectator

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 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 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