‘A Budget for business’ was how — as usual — it was spun beforehand. ‘A Budget to expand prosperity and fairness for Britain’s families’ was how the speech actually began. But this week’s 11th and final performance from Labour’s longest-serving Chancellor was in reality neither of these things: it was a Budget for Brown. The
Paterson’s pranks Sir: Could I, as the person who unwittingly provoked Jennifer Paterson’s outburst in the Spectator kitchen, say exactly what happened? I was not, as Simon Courtauld writes (‘Who wants to buy our old office?’, 10 March), ‘a junior member of staff’, but the magazine’s advertising director. The kitchen was opposite my office and
In his film on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore quotes Winston Churchill’s famous warning in 1936. Admonishing those who were ‘only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent’, Churchill declared: ‘The era of procrastination, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is
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
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
Don’t blame the website From Malcolm Gooderham Sir: Your leading article of 24 February misses a fundamental point. Notably, the e-petition initiative has helped to breathe new life into the body politic, and has put No. 10 at the heart of key debates and in touch with millions of voters. The fact that ministers and
To adapt Macaulay, there is no spectacle so ridiculous as the Labour party in one of its periodic fits of ideology. While the heir-presumptive, Gordon Brown, has remained in old-fashioned purdah about his plans as prime minister, the jostling candidates to be his deputy leader have engaged in a shrill and often juvenile battle to
Tolerance: for and against From C. Vestey Sir: John Gray argues that ‘relearning the habit of tolerance’ may allow us to reach a ‘modus vivendi’ with Islam (‘The best we can hope for is tolerance’, 17 February). He has learnt nothing from the events of the last 30 years. It was tolerance (and cowardice) that
If there is such a thing as e-panic, New Labour is in its grip. Alarmed and caught off guard by the 1.7 million people who have signed an online petition against national road-pricing, the Prime Minister has written a response to them, hastily explaining that the government’s blameless intention is to reduce congestion, rather than
Beating bird flu From Peter Dunnill Sir: Ross Clark’s article on what will happen if bird flu becomes a pandemic (‘Will you have a place in the bio-bunker?’, 10 February) is correct in its criticism of government. However, our government could learn a lot from America. Mike Leavitt, the equivalent to Patricia Hewitt in the
First, let us not submit to the self-indulgence of moral panic: there has never been a time when British children have been less afflicted by poverty, disease and malnutrition. The new Unicef league table for ‘child well-being’ across 21 industrialised countries, for all its disturbing statistics, gives little sense of historical perspective. Much of the
It’s about the child From John Parfitt Sir: Matthew Parris should do better than his elegant nonsense about so-called gay adoption (Another voice, 3 February). Until the inclusiveness lobby turned the word ‘discriminating’ into a boo-word, it was a compliment, meaning the ability to know the difference between good and bad, deserving and undeserving; to
The tragic death in Iraq of Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull under US ‘friendly fire’ in March 2003 has become a bleak parable of the flaws at the heart of the US-UK ‘special relationship’. Only now, and only thanks to a leak to the Sun of a classified recording of the conversation between two
Arrogant, not brave From Jolyon Connell Sir: Michael Gove is heartened by the left-wing writers who have denounced Islamic terrorism rather than seeking to make excuses for it (‘All hail the new anti-Islamist intelligentsia’, 27 January). Fair enough. But he also seems pleased that such a number of them backed the Iraq war. He calls
In a free society, people are at liberty to gamble, much as they are at liberty to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and engage in other practices which, if indulged to excess, can have terrible consequences. Gambling has wrecked lives and enlivened others. The morality of a casino is in the eye of the beholder: one
Out of control From Sir Peregrine Worsthorne Sir: Fraser Nelson is quite right to question David Cameron about ‘social responsibility’ (Politics, 20 January), and I would appreciate a chance to follow suit. My gripe is that Mr Cameron does not seem to recognise that all responsibility involves control. Only someone in control can be held
The best passage in President Bush’s penultimate State of the Union address on Tuesday was an admission of the transience of his own administration and of the newly composed Congress he was addressing. ‘The war on terror we fight today,’ he said, ‘is a generational struggle that will continue long after you and I have
Stop hounding us From Simon Hart Sir: Ever since he was sacked by Radio 4’s Today programme for his obsession with the Countryside Alliance, Rod Liddle has not been able to leave us alone (‘At least they understand democracy’, 5 January). The problem is that it suits Liddle to pillory us as a single-issue pressure
The 300th anniversary this week of the Act of Union between England and Scotland has been a depressingly defensive event rather than a festival of celebration. In the Daily Telegraph, Gordon Brown — that indefatigable champion of ‘Britishness’ — warned against the ‘Balkanisation of Britain’. The Scottish National Party is poised to form the largest
Israel’s ‘spin’ From Alex Bigham Sir: Douglas Davis has clearly been spun a good line by some Israeli military analysts if he thinks the Israeli threat to use nuclear bombs against Iran is more than that — a ruse to scare Iran into returning to the diplomatic table (‘Israel will do whatever it takes’, 6