Prepare to leave Iraq As one who was against the invasion of Iraq from the start, I feel I must now urge a complete reappraisal of what our forces can realistically be expected to achieve there. Whatever views people may have had on the legitimacy of the various reasons presented to them for going to
Comments on There is no cure for the UN by Mark Steyn Thank you for bringing us Mark Steyn and his comments. We need him dearly here in Canada but are now confined to the excellent Western Standard to read him. The information in this column should be shouted from the rooftops – but –
Labour delegates left Brighton this week with the clear impression that their leader will depart some time in the next four years, and possibly sooner, to begin his long-awaited retirement. Mr Blair will launch himself at the annual beanos of American corporations. His speeches, doubtless on themes such as ‘Me and Dubya’ or the ‘Special
Comments on Why do we tolerate intolerance? by Rod Liddle As Secretary of the Scottish Friends of Israel, www.scottishfriendsofisrael.org, I read Rod Liddle’s article and considered it going some way to explaining some of what gets in the way of the seemingly simple idea of differing shades of humanitarian aid working together for the better
The government decided to put off overhauling council tax by revaluing houses until after the next election. The National Health Service, despite unprecedented increases in government spending on it, went into the red for the first time in five years, with a deficit of £250 million, which Sir Nigel Crisp, its chief executive, pointed out
Our vanishing hospitals In 1909 my great-grandfather C.H.E. Croydon built and gave the Croydon Cottage Hospital to the people of Felixstowe. It consisted of ten beds and the population at that time was roughly 1,840. We now find that, with a population of nearly 33,000 and ever more need for hospital beds, it faces the
To understand the full scale of the catastrophe that might be about to enfold British forces in southern Iraq, it is important to be clear about what happened on Monday. When two SAS men were waved down at a police checkpoint, they did not stop. Why not? Because the Iraqi police force has become so
As the price of petrol rose above £1 per litre, a group of protesters calling itself the Fuel Lobby threatened to blockade motorways and oil refineries in protest against fuel duty. Many petrol stations ran out of fuel as motorists resorted to panic-buying. Loyalists rioted in Belfast for two nights, injuring 30 police officers, after
Pro-God, anti-religion Theo Hobson makes some interesting points in his article about ‘literary atheism’ (‘Writing God off’, 10 September) but his case is fatally flawed by his repeated tendency to assume that ‘religion’, ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ are somehow synonymous. They are not. It is, in fact, perfectly possible to reject religion without rejecting God; one
Comments on The grim lessons of Katrina by Walter Ellis What a ridiculous negative article. We get hit by a level 5 hurricane. What do you know? There’s death and destruction. Mr Ellis notes the fact that there is a black underclass in New Orleans, which has been there for 200 years, and in other
It is tempting to sympathise with the hoary mob of farmers and hauliers, collectively known as the Fuel Lobby, who as we go to press are threatening to blockade motorways and oil refineries in an attempt to force the government to cut the duty on petrol and diesel. As we have frequently argued in these
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, flew off to China and appeared at a press conference with the Chinese leader, Mr Wen Jiabao, where it was said that there had been a resolution of the dispute over European Union import quotas, which had seen 80 million items of clothing of Chinese manufacture piling up at
RSPCA is off target Simon Heffer was right to warn about the danger to shooting, and Charles Moore was equally right last week (The Spectator’s Notes, 3 September) to point to the real issues that shooters must address. But whatever its position on shooting, it is clear that the RSPCA has already utterly corrupted the
Comments on Triumph of the poms by Michael Atherton Like Mike Atherton, I would like to see England win the Ashes. However, I would urge caution. The balance in the current Test series has shifted to England, but it is not all over yet and I cannot be totally confident that England will wrap up
The issue of how best to approach a friend who has badly let you down is one more commonly dealt with at the back of this magazine, by our agony aunt on etiquette, Mary Killen. But this week it is one that needs to be addressed here. Over the past years this magazine has been
The Home Office proposed a new offence of having images from the internet of serious sexual violence and other obscene material; it would be punishable by three years in jail. The presumed murderer of an 11-year-old boy in West Lothian was found dead, hanged in his house; the man was on bail awaiting trial on
Strange customs Having suffered similar humiliation and over-zealous inanity at the hands of British immigration, I can only sympathise with James Hughes-Onslow’s friend (‘Hop off, you Aussies’, 27 August). However, I do have to point out that this is neither a new phenomenon following an increased threat level, nor is it specific to Australians. It
Comments on The last days of the Tartan Raj by Andrew NeilI agree wholeheartedly with Andrew Neil’s comments. The devolution settlement is an absolute disgrace.England has been left out in the cold. The West Lothian Question remains unanswered, and MPs representing English constituencies sit on their hands.May I suggest a follow-up article featuring the Campaign
The Conservative party talks about Europe so little these days that it is becoming unnatural, rather as if the Lib Dems had decided that the issue of PR was irrelevant. Ostensibly, this is because Europe is no longer a ‘live’ issue. It is no longer conceivable that we are going to join the euro, goes
The news blackout that Downing Street had asked newspapers to impose about the whereabouts of Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, on holiday, supposedly for reasons of security, was broken by the man himself when he popped up at a VJ Day commemoration on Barbados, where he had stayed previously at a house belonging to