Don’t bring it home Sir: Charles Moore is right when he questions the benefit of holding the 2018 World Cup in England (The Spectator’s Notes, 29 May), but he doesn’t go quite far enough. Given the mindless, violent and xenophobic behaviour of many English football ‘fans’ since England won the 1966 World Cup, one can
Press Complaints complains Sir: Reluctant though I am to point out inaccuracies in Rod Liddle’s work, I would like to correct some of his suggestions about the Press Complaints Commission (Liddle Britain, 22 May). Mr Liddle claims that Paul Dacre is ‘Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission’s Editorial Code of Practice’. Incorrect. In common with
What matters most Sir: In last week’s Spectator there was an interesting section where writers and thinkers were invited to advise the new Prime Minister what his administration should urgently address (‘What the new government must do first’, 8 May). Defence was not included but surely with a war in Afghanistan, an uncertain world and
Unreasonable rationality Sir: I fully agree with the blunt but accurate observations of Melanie Phillips in her piece ‘Welcome to the Age of Irrationality’ (1 May). It is a good measure of the Western mind’s fall into murky confusion, and witless denial, that words like ‘rational’ and ‘secular’ have become prone to a transformation of
Making it work Sir: Your leading article (24 April) tells us that: ‘A hung parliament would be a disaster. Coalitions do not work in Westminster’s adversarial system.’ Can’t you see that the adversarial system, with its focus on doing down the opposition rather than on working collegially to decide what might be best for the
Delingpole’s victims Sir: In his most recent column (You know it makes sense, 17 April), James Delingpole suggests that ‘even as the wall is pushed on top of’ me by anti-gay Islamists, I ‘will be squealing with [my] last breath that it’s all the fault of Western imperialism and white heterosexist Islamophobia.’ I found this
Tea parties began here Sir: Daniel McCarthy is right that the tea party is ‘a symbol of colonial rebellion’ (‘The trouble with tea parties’, 10 April). But where does he suppose the rebels drew their inspiration from? The American patriots of 1773 didn’t see themselves as revolutionaries, but as conservatives. In their minds, all they
Read vs Parris Sir: I found it difficult to contain my derisive laughter at the ludicrous vapourings of Piers Paul Read in your Easter issue debate. The idea of the Roman Catholic Church and its teachings as the bulwark against the forces of evil set to overwhelm us is too risible to be borne. Given
More summer time Sir: Why do well-meaning international bodies like the Worldwide Fund for Nature, who instigated the big switch-off for one ‘Earth Hour’ of darkness on Saturday night, not come out instead publicly to support Daylight Saving in this country? Maintaining our clocks on British Summer Time from last October until 28 March would
Rural matters Sir: Alexander Waugh’s reference to planning officers asking impertinent questions about sexuality (‘The countryside under attack’, 20 March) reveals but a glimpse of the crackpot behaviour considered normal by these people. Last autumn, I went to an event sponsored by CABE, the government architecture quango, in which someone was brought in to lecture
The cunning Mandelbrown Sir: David Cameron and his gallant band do not seem to realise that they no longer face the clumsy and clunky Gordon Brown, but a new political hybrid — Peter Mandelbrown. The outward form may still be as lumpy and leaden as ever, but that merely serves as concealment for the hybrid’s cunning
Not cricket Sir: Many a cricket follower (‘Cricket’s foreign legion’, 6 March) would join Peter Oborne in denouncing the growth of South African mercenaries entering our domestic game. As a county cricket spectator, I have always enjoyed scouting for new talent for our national team. It gave me great pleasure to watch an emerging Michael
The story behind Kidnapped Sir: Not withstanding my gratitude for Andro Linklater’s kind words in his recent review of my book Birthright: The True Story That Inspired ‘Kidnapped’ (Books, 27 February), I must correct his description of the subtitle as ‘simply wrong’. It is inconceivable that Stevenson, a voracious reader of legal history, was unfamiliar
Bashing Gordon Sir: Poor, poor Gordon. Have mercy! We brutish Scots must stick together; if I had the likes of Bob Ainsworth, not to mention the simpering fraudsters of ‘Blair’s babes’, in my office every day, I would be sorely tempted to reach for the birch — if not a cricket bat. Then, of course,
Trust funds Sir: Your leading article’s diatribe against the public sector (13 February) rather missed the point. The categories of deficiency described are not sector specific. The common factor is the failure, in general, of some individuals, irrespective of their role, to set acceptable examples of judgment and probity. I would find it hard to
Scientists must engage more Sir: Arguments over nuclear energy, stolen emails from the University of East Anglia and allegations about flawed climate data have indeed split the green movement (‘The global warming guerrillas’, 6 February). But sceptics mustn’t get too excited. The revelations alter nothing. The centuries-old climate science behind the greenhouse effect of gases,
When war is a crime Sir: Andrew Gilligan’s trenchant indictment of Blair (‘How can we punish Blair?’, 30 January) includes the mitigating claim that: ‘For all the cries that he is a “war criminal”, the Nuremberg Principles make clear that war crimes relate largely to atrocities committed in the course of combat or aggression. The
For richer, for poorer Sir: Ferdinand Mount’s article (‘David Cameron should honour his marriage vow’, 23 January) is not entirely accurate. After noting that Geoffrey Howe was unable to persuade Margaret Thatcher to agree to the introduction of transferable tax allowances between married couples, he writes: ‘Nigel Lawson after him argued the same, with no
Hastings’s battle Sir: Max Hastings, one of the shrewdest and well-informed writers about defence, is right (‘The military’s last stand’, 16 January). There is a good case for increasing the defence budget, but no British government is likely to do so unless there is a dramatic deterioration in the international situation. Budgets are likely to
Gangster paradise Sir: Owen Matthews’s article (‘Something rotten in the state of Russia’, 9 January) brilliantly encapsulates and explains the condition of Russia today. But he omits to mention that the subversion of the judicial system and pervasive corruption have been in evidence for a long time, which does raise the question of whether Hermitage