This was not a good war for newspapers. I am not so much thinking of the journalism. Much of it was excellent, though newspapers are obviously at a disadvantage to 24-hour rolling news channels, which not only provide breaking stories but also analysis from people who surprisingly often know what they are talking about. Newspapers
One of the paradoxes of this war is that most of us do not have very much idea of what is going on. That is at any rate what I feel. There are hundreds of brave and talented journalists in Iraq who address us every hour of the day and night on television, and fill
Although much overshadowed by the war in Iraq, environmentalists, businessmen and charity workers met at the World Water Forum in Kyoto last week to discuss why 1.2 billion people still have no access to clean water. The United Nations has set a target of reducing this by half by 2015. But Michel Camdessus, the former
We journalists think pretty highly of ourselves. I don’t mean the chap who touches up photographs of Page Three girls; he may have a proper sense of his place in the universe. I mean columnists, leader writers and foreign correspondents. I mean the undoubtedly brave men and women who stand in the desert in Iraq
In a speech in Ontario a fortnight ago, Leo W. Gerard made an eloquent appeal for the formation of a new ‘worldwide movement for social justice to cure the ills of globalisation’. ‘Two decades of so-called
President George W. Bush has suggested that journalists should be pulled out of Baghdad. You may ask what business it is of his. On the other hand, perhaps he knows better than most of us what is likely to happen to the Iraqi capital over the next few days and weeks. There has been talk
Two weeks ago, I argued here – I hope without any suggestion of great originality – that all crises produce the same people. That is, doves, hawks and a majority which is moderate or opportunistic according to taste. Thus it was possible to compare the present crisis over Iraq with the 1914 crisis over Serbia.
The BSE epidemic is in decline and British beef is once more allowed to be exported. But BSE fears still have their uses. On several occasions in the past couple of years, the United States Department for Agriculture (USDA) has withdrawn several thousand tonnes of Brazilian beef imports from the American market on the grounds
Our old friend Peter Mandelson is alleged to have engineered the removal of Harry Blackwood, editor of the Hartlepool Mail, a newspaper in Mr Mandelson’s constituency. Tony Blair is supposed to have made a telephone call on Mr Mandelson’s behalf which may have been instrumental in Mr Blackwood’s suspension. These and other allegations have been
We are either at Munich, 1938, or Suez, 1956. Depending on whether we are for or against this coming war, one or the other is the favoured comparison. President Bush and Mr Blair, even more so Mr Rumsfeld, would have us believe that we are at Munich. Mr Bush, Mr Blair and, again even more
In the media age, life is a soap opera. For a time we are obsessed with a particular storyline. Then it is resolved, we move on to the next story, new characters are introduced, and the old characters on whose every word we once hung are phased out and forgotten. Two months ago the country
James Tooley recently wrote in these pages of the success of private schools in Africa and India, which in the past few years have exploded in number, offering an education for as little as £3 a term – which even the poor of Somalia can afford. In contrast, he recounted how pupils of government schools
Piers Morgan, the editor of the Daily Mirror, is an opponent of the coming war against Iraq. Fair enough. Many of us are unhappy about it. But he has taken his opposition to extreme and, I would say, imprudent lengths. To use a military analogy, he has fired off his biggest nuclear missiles without first
The genius of modern Europe is to have honed protectionism to such an art that in the minds of many Europeans it is synonymous with civilisation itself. It is hard to imagine that some of Europe’s greatest cities – Venice, Antwerp, Amsterdam – were founded on the riches of free trade, when the current epitome
Hugh Trevor-Roper long refused to write his memoirs. Eventually, the firm of Weidenfeld persuaded him, if he was not going to write them, to speak them. The recipient of his reminiscences was to be a tape recorder and I. He agreed to talk to me because – I speculate – I knew him, but not
A couple of weeks ago I promised that this column would keep a watchful eye on Rebekah Wade, the new editor of the Sun. As is so often the case, the first piece of evidence is right before our eyes, in the pages of Who’s Who. But before we get on to that, let me
A very high-minded European recently complained to me about British newspapers. Why are they all so awful, he asked? Even the so-called serious ones look like comics, with their pictures of footballers and half-naked actresses on the masthead. As for the tabloids, he went on, their venom, iconoclasm and sheer beastliness, not to mention their
The world of environmental science begins to resemble the Catholic Church before the Reformation. Anyone who challenges its grim orthodoxies can expect the latter-day equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition. Two years ago, the former Greenpeace activist Bjorn Lomborg published a book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, in which he comprehensively deconstructed the doctrines to which he had
The appointment of Rebekah Wade as the editor of the Sun has given rise to much baseless speculation. It has been suggested that she may swing the paper behind the euro. We are told she may ditch Page Three girls, to whom she is said to have a feminist aversion. She is, says my esteemed
Almost everyone assumes, whether they are pro or anti, that Britain will go to war against Iraq. President Bush seems set on invasion whatever Hans Blix and his team of inspectors do or do not find. Tony Blair would appear certain to follow: the Foreign Office believes that at least a token presence is necessary