Bloody rude Sir: Michael Portillo (‘The view from Basra’, 28 March) accuses the British army of arrogance and, effectively, of incompetence. He says we’ve been humiliated. This may accord with his new television persona, but it is still disingenuous, apart from being bloody rude. It is his own political class that has been shown up
No progressive Sir: David Cameron’s article last week (‘It is not enough for Labour to lose this election’) mentioned the post-bureaucratic age ten times. Mr Cameron loves this phrase because it was coined by a progressive — Al Gore’s former speechwriter Andrei Cherney. And as the April date for Mr Cameron’s proposed £5 billion cuts to
Art for money’s sake Sir: It is hardly surprising that Olivia Cole (‘How to put children off art’, 14 March) found so many schoolchildren in the National Gallery and that they seemed to be learning little about art from their visits. The Gallery, like other public bodies, has a funding agreement with its sponsor department,
No axis of evil Sir: Melanie Phillips’s article (‘Beware the new axis of evangelicals and Islamists’, 7 March) contains untruthful statements about me. I have never said that I wish Israel, in her words, ‘to be destroyed’ or to ‘disappear just as did the apartheid regime in South Africa’. I have never believed this and
Don’t go Dutch Sir: The Dutch postal service was privatised, you say, ‘with no perceived damage to the services they offer’ (Leading article, 28 February). You would not say that if you lived here. Firstly, deliveries: there is one a day, which arrives at absolutely random times but is usually around 3 p.m. — even here
Bonus issue Sir: Ross Clark (‘Big bonuses in the public sector’, 21 February) summed up the challenge we face. The Institute of Fiscal Studies figure Clark quotes of a 12 per cent premium on public compared to private sector pay should be drilled into all taxpayers’ heads the way Mrs Thatcher used to hit Neil
Hidden behind Smith Sir: Matthew Parris (Another Voice, 14 February) correctly emphasised the cyclical pattern of economic markets in an optimistic tone that heralded a future recovery. As is almost always the case, writers from Adam Smith onwards are given the credit for the exposition of market theory. However, it was Josiah Tucker (1713-1799), an
Solidarity with the strikers Sir: As a member of the English working class I write to express my approval of and agreement with Rod Liddle’s article (‘Would the working class vote Labour now?, 7 February). I would compare the action of the strikers with those of the shipyard workers of Gdansk in 1980 whose actions
A failure of fairness Sir: Rod Liddle’s defence of the BBC (Liddle Britain, 31 January) does not stack up. Of course people with close connections to Palestinians, those fully aware of their sufferings and traumas, were in the forefront of calling for the BBC to air the charity’s appeal. How could it be otherwise? Yet
Israel fuels anti-Semitism Sir: I am a member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians and have participated in every one of the national demonstrations against Israel’s brutal onslaught against Gaza. I have never heard the slogans ‘Hamas, Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas’ and ‘Death to the Jews’ that Douglas Davis (‘The terrible warning of
Islam and the Nazis Sir: Charles Moore touches on an important point when he ascribes a Nazi–Hamas continuum of interests (The Spectator’s Notes, 17 January). While helping Europe Minister Denis MacShane write his recently published book, Globalising Hatred — The New Anti-Semitism, I was numbed by the depths of the relationship between radical Islam and
Selective facts Sir: Matt Ridley’s article on Darwin’s vision (‘Natural selection explains everything’, 10 January) omits one simple but very important fact, namely that Darwin did not originate natural selection. How do we know? Simple — both he and Alfred Russel Wallace gave the credit to Patrick Matthew and Charles Wells. Darwin even described Matthew’s
A coherent story Sir: Douglas Murray says (‘Studying Islam made me an atheist’, 3 January) that what killed the Bible was not Darwin but ‘German biblical criticism… the scholarship on lost texts, discoveries of added-to texts and edited texts’. It’s a pity he didn’t pursue his investigation further and discover that those dated theories proposed
Labour’s carrot and stick Sir: The Spectator is right (Leading article, 13 December) to call not just for ‘benefit claimants actually to do something for their handouts’, but for a significant increase in the income tax threshold. There is little sense — or fairness — in trying to push people off benefits and into work
Why did Gatland resign? Sir: The uproar over the strange case of Maria Gatland McGuire seems almost incomprehensible from a Belfast perspective. At the beginning of December she was compelled to resign as the cabinet member for education on Croydon council when it was revealed that she was also Maria McGuire, who famously was involved
Silence over Mumbai Sir: If Britain is still a safe haven for Lashkar-e-Taiba and Deobandi sympathisers (‘The global force behind Mumbai’s agony in our midst’, 6 December), this must place a big question mark on the government’s policy of dealing with home-grown terrorism. The current policy seems to rest on two assumptions: namely that home-grown
Nancy and the Keynesians Sir: Nancy Dell’Olio is a Keynesian (‘John Maynard Keynes, my hero’, 29 November), but if Keynes were alive today, he would be revising his doctrine. In the 1930s government expenditure was a much smaller proportion of GDP than it is today. So was the tax take. Then, with the private sector
Diplomatic bag Sir: Michael Nicholson’s story of a boat-owner finding contraband aboard from the previous owner (Letters, 22 November) reminded me of being compromised in Paris. As leader of a teenage school party, I suspected one or more of them of being in possession. As staff we searched suitcases and bedrooms with fingertip detail and
The problem with Pakistan Sir: It is preposterous that Elliot Wilson pleads for the bailing out of Pakistan (‘Britain can’t afford a failed Pakistan’, 15 November). The country is not facing a natural disaster; its economic meltdown is self-inflicted — it insisted on acquiring nuclear weapons and cosying up to Islamic terrorism. Pakistan, both politically
The licence fee is good value Sir: Charles Moore has really talked himself into a corner this time with regard to his pathological dislike of the BBC (The Spectator’s Notes, 8 November). Like many other ‘BBC bashers’ on the Right he seems to gleefully welcome the Ross and Brand affair as a vindication of his