Our article entitled ‘Shall we tell the Prime Minister? His gang has scattered like rats’ (10 March) was not intended to suggest that Sir Ken Macdonald, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, had leaked information to officials at No. 10 or that he was pressurised by the Police to withdraw from making the decision about
MONDAY Off to New York with Dave and DD next week! Am working flat out on preps. First priority: which hotel? It’s the Four Seasons versus Soho House. While East 57th Street says ‘statesmen-in-waiting’, the Meatpacking District says ‘modern, vibrant and cool’. This is what Jed calls a Fork in the Road. Meetings set up
William Wilberforce is about to hit cinemas as the Great White Emancipationist Hero in Amazing Grace. Wilberforce was a decent guy. We all need heroes; but let’s be clear, this is not, as it claims, ‘The True Story’. Ioan Gruffudd strides around convincing us that slaves had nothing to do with their own emancipation; nor
Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran — how intelligently is the West, especially America, handling the East? The Romans may have something to say on the matter. When the Romans took on Carthage in the two Punic wars for mastery of the western Mediterranean (264-241 and 218-201 bc), they engaged with an enemy as militarily brutal as themselves.
The government has declared the scientific debate on global warming ‘closed’. A dwindling minority of scientists still contest that claim, but let us assume, for the sake of argument, that ministers are right. The trap into which they risk falling is to confuse scientific orthodoxy and the inclinations of the liberal elite with mainstream public
Will the Labour party go bonkers after Blair? I only ask because the early signs are worrying — or reassuring — depending what view you take of these things. To judge by the attitudes and prejudices manifesting themselves in the transition from Mr Blair to Mr Brown, the party is gagging to put itself on
Nothing to fear? Sir: I rather enjoyed reading Tessa Mayes’s anxious tirade about the imminent arrival of Big Brother (‘Big Brother is coming’, 3 March), although perhaps not for reasons of which she would approve. During my 88 years of life so far (in at least 44 of which income tax at between 40 and
