Features

Flap over nothing

Who believes that bird flu may cause as many as 50 million deaths? Ross Clark doesn’t, and here’s why I don’t personally know anyone suffering from malaria or tuberculosis, but I imagine that if they have been following the Western media they must have found the past week somewhat surreal. Half a billion people are

Who runs the Tory party?

Peter Oborne says that Ken Clarke’s leadership bid comes at a time of almost unprecedented anger and chaos in Westminster and the constituencies The Prime Minister faced a number of grave problems on his return from his Caribbean holiday this week: the collapse of his policy in Iraq, a sharp downturn in the British economy,

Gunning for game-shooting

The first fortnight of the shooting season has not been as auspicious as it might have been. This is not just because the grouse themselves are in short supply. It is also because, having put on to the statute book a crass, pointless and probably unenforcable law against the killing of vermin with hounds, the

Hop off, you Aussies

‘Individuals who seek to create fear, distrust and divisions in order to stir up terrorist activity will not be tolerated by the government or by our communities.’ So said Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, on Wednesday, when outlining the grounds on which undesirable foreigners can be deported or excluded from the UK. But you don’t

The sound of silence

The musical profession has never recognised borders. Composers, performers and ensembles have moved from city to city and country to country, learning and teaching, experimenting with local styles, adding to the repertoire and delighting patrons and the public. This cosmopolitanism belongs to the spirit of Western music, which is an art without frontiers, flowing unhindered

United in hate

Politics makes strange bedfellows. Stranger still when the odd couple are fundamentalist Islam and the secular Left. The evolving Black–Red alliance is growing in France, Germany and Belgium. But, based on the successful British model, it is now going global to declare war on the war on terror. No fewer than three international conferences have

The last days of the Tartan Raj

Andrew Neil says the English should stop worrying about the invading Jocks: the northern grip on the nation’s politics, media and business is being irrevocably weakened by the dumbing down of the Scottish education system They gathered to praise Robin Cook in the forbidding Presbyterian aisles of Edinburgh’s St Giles’ Cathedral last Friday but the

Terror camps in the Lake District

Colin Cramphorn, the chief constable of West Yorkshire, occupies one of the two hottest seats in British policing today. Since it emerged that all four British suicide bombers of 7 July came from his patch, he has scarcely drawn breath. Cramphorn’s only relaxation in that fevered week came after his surgeon — who has been

Let them build nukes

It would appear to be another August crisis. From Washington to Tel Aviv there are expressions of alarm and despondency, especially in Brussels. It looks as if European diplomacy has failed. The Iranians seem determined to press ahead with their nuclear weapons programme. To judge by the newspapers, one would assume that this has come

The real threat to Britain

In these frightening days, we must seek our consolations where we can; and one of mine, over the last month, has been running a private contest to log the most idiotic remark made by one of the battalions of ‘security experts’ on standby at times like this to provide vitally needed, life-sustaining, 24-hour fatuous commentary

Theo Hobson

Don’t blame religion

Theo Hobson says that the suicide bombers are not inspired by a belief in an afterlife so much as by political ideology — like the kamikaze pilots of the second world war Heaven is the problem. That is what the atheists are saying. Religion is dangerous because it hooks us on heaven; it encourages us

The home of jihad

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, aristocrat by temperament, catholic in taste, sectarian in politics, and the father of Pakistan, was the unlikeliest parent that an Islamic republic could possibly have. He was the most British of the generation of Indians that won freedom in August 1947. As a child in the elite Christian Mission High School in

Just the ticket

Kate Middleton is a Home Counties brunette with pretty, if not quite supermodel, features who has been Prince William’s girlfriend for just over two years, and naturally speculation is flourishing that she will one day be his Queen. The couple are now reunited following William’s first official tour in New Zealand, and though the media

New squawk

While Rudy Giuliani’s zero tolerance policy took care of crime, the Audubon Society, America’s RSPB, which celebrates its centenary this year, has been taking care of the birds. After decades when the only bird life that flourished in Manhattan was of the Bianca Jagger/Jerry Hall variety — and even they came close to starvation —

Why do greens hate machines?

When George W. Bush last week stunned the world with his plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions, no one was more surprised than the green lobby. Human psychology being what it is, no one was more furious. It is not so much the scale of the planned reductions that have offended the eco-warriors: how could

Prince of peace

Prince Hassan bin Talal is the almost-man. After 34 years as heir-apparent to Jordan’s Hashemite throne, the crown was snatched away in 1999 by his dying brother, King Hussein, and handed to his son, the present King Abdullah II. Never mind; Hassan has other fish to fry. And so I visit the direct descendant of

The myth of moderate Islam

The funeral of British suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer was held in absentia in his family’s ancestral village, near Lahore, Pakistan. Thousands of people attended, as they did again the following day when a qul ceremony was held for Tanweer. During qul, the Koran is recited to speed the deceased’s journey to paradise, though in Tanweer’s