Spectator articles from April 2003

Spectator archives from April 2003

Portrait of the week.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... An ICM poll in the Guardian found that 52 per cent approved of the war and 34 per cent opposed it; among Conservatives approval was 61 per cent, among Labour supporters 59 per cent and among Liberal Democrats 31 per cent. Mr Geoff Hoon, the...

A fickle public.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... If the assault against Saddam Hussein is not quite going to plan, that fact seems to have been lost on the many shadow war cabinets meeting in session down at the Dog and Duck. Six weeks ago, when the troops were still gathering at the Iraqi...

Diary.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... I used to be amused and appalled by the Pentagon-speak which developed during the Vietnam war. But now the almost Stalinist euphemisms and aggressive acronyms have given way to a less extreme form--a military version of corporate-speak. Perhaps...

The Spectator's notes.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... Happy news of Jo Moore, the former government spin doctor who became famous for making the truthful, but perhaps heartless, observation that 11 September 2001 was shaping up, in news terms, to be a `good day to get out anything we want to...

I feel a cold anger at the stupidity of this war. (Another Voice).(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... Last Sunday evening, weary from digging, I staggered in to wash and eat, and then, cup of tea in hand, slumped down in my kitchen chair by the Rayburn to listen to the radio. The clocks had gone forward and it was just after nine. I enjoy...

The special relationship between Blair and God: the Prime Minister's religious faith is acknowledged, says Peter Oborne, but it masks a remarkable doctrinal elasticity. (Cover Story).(Cover Story)
April 5, 2003... It was an unusual preliminary to the war. No British prime minister before Tony Blair has set the scene for a military campaign with a visit to the Vatican for a blessing by the Pope. Admittedly it was not a state visit. Tony Blair's trip to...

Banned wagon: global.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... One of the arguments advanced in favour of the war on Saddam Hussein's regime is that it will enable the West to end economic sanctions against Iraq. But Iraqi businessmen shouldn't hold their breath. You don't need to be at war against the...

Mind your language.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... Veronica tells me she is `against the war'. At least she hasn't joined up for the Baath party. While she was making a placard or two on the kitchen table, I have been puzzling over a letter from an anaesthetist, But before that, may I mention a...

Where were the Americans? Julian Manyon was amazed to see the Iraqi army withdraw--and no attempt by the US to capture Kirkuk.
April 5, 2003... Kalak, northern Iraq They say that the devil has the best tunes, and that is certainly true in Iraq. In recent days I have missed Radio Baghdad, briefly bombed off the air, but this morning it came back on our car radio, crackly and...

Must we flatten Baghdad? Andrew Gilligan says the coalition must show respect if they are to win the acquiescence of the Iraqis.
April 5, 2003... Baghdad The optimists among us were half expecting to be home by now. The pessimists were half expecting to be dead by now. What none of us quite bargained for was that, entering the third week of George Bush's crusade against evil, so...

Ancient & modern.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... Commentators are complaining that the Iraqi army is refusing to confront the coalition forces head-on. Very sensible of them. Quintus Fabius Maximus (charmingly known as Verrucosus, `covered in warts') would have applauded. In 218 BC...

Spectator mini-bar offer.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... A A FEW years ago I stayed with my family at an ancient hotel particulier in the lovely southern French town of Gaillac, on the river Tarn. Strolling in the market square we found a stall offering sample of the local wine, and I was astonished...

Second opinion.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... I don't understand how anyone could ever have thought that the organ of cerebration resided anywhere other than in the head. After all, one's thoughts certainly feel as if they are located in one's skull rather than, say, in one's left foot or...

Happy hookers of Eastern Europe: Phelim McAleer reveals the truth behind the myth of sex-slave trafficking.
April 5, 2003... Bucharest The reports of Eastern European women being forced into prostitution in the West are as numerous as they are horrific. They have worried the government so much that the Home Office has plans for a new scheme to provide...

Children of confucius: Jeni Hung takes her children to China to pay their respects to their ancestors.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... Qufu, Shandong Province Lunch is turtle soup, sea slugs or stir-fried cicadas. The cicadas look like large, fat cockroaches and the sea slugs are slimy but very good for you. We order turtle soup for the children. When it arrives, the...

The last great luncher: Robin Oakley mourns the passing of the political lunch, at which great men were bibulous and indiscreet.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... The saddest five words in the English language, the Guardian's Ian Aitken once declared as we awaited a lunch guest, are, `Shall we go straight in?' I recalled them as the political world headed away from Westminster Abbey on Thursday after the...

Pointless damaging tax: Labour's tax rises are hurting the economy and failing to improve public services, says Nick Herbert. It's time for real reform.
April 5, 2003... Pollsters talk about the tipping point--the moment when public opinion changes. They think one of these might be about to happen in relation to tax. I'm certain of it. Together with 100,000 other residents, I tipped last week when Westminster's...

`That man committed a hate-crime.' `What?" `Well, he told a joke, didn't he?' (And Another Thing).
April 5, 2003... We are more censored, or self-censored, now than at any time since the mid-18th century. The concept of the hate-crime, enforced with increasing vigour, and against spoken as well as written offences, makes it unlawful to joke about certain...

The craven BBC. (Letters).
April 5, 2003... From Captain Jonathan Tokeley Sir: Three cheers for Mike Dewar ('A breathtaking achievement', 29 March) and Mark Steyn (`War is purgatory', 29 March)! Yes, the BBC coverage has been craven and despicable. The problem seems to be that we...

Yarns of yesteryear. (Letters).
April 5, 2003... From Mr Richard Bruton Sir: Max Hastings ('When boys were boys', 29 March) rightly sings the praises of G.A. Henty, the prolific writer of Victorian schoolboy adventure stories that incorporated bags of action with meticulously researched...

The oldest hatred. (Letters).
April 5, 2003... From Mr Kenneth Strachan Sir: Melanie Phillips (`The new anti-Semitism', 22 March) is to be congratulated for once again highlighting this malevolent and potentially catastrophic phenomenon. The only point upon which I am regretfully...

Two kinds of conceit. (Letters).
April 5, 2003... From Mr George Liebmann Sir: It is startling that Richard Perle (`United they fall', 22 March) believes that the UN Security Council is a product of the `liberal conceit of safety through international law administered through...

Foolish delusions. (Letters).
April 5, 2003... From Donna Sherwood Sir: We are all very touched here across the pond by Peter Hitchens's expressions of concern over the possible prospective loss of civil liberties via the Justice Department ('Not in our name', 29 March). We are also...

We can't help Zimbabwe. (Letters).
April 5, 2003... From Mr John C.H. Mounsey Sir: While quite agreeing with the thrust of Rod Liddle's article (Thought for the day, 22 March) about regime change in Zimbabwe, there is no doubt that he is being disingenuous. He must know perfectly well that...

Font et origo. (Letters).
April 5, 2003... From Mr C.D. C. Armstrong Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 22 March) writes that when he was a pupil at Stonyhurst all the employees `were Catholics from birth'. Surely he means that they were Catholics from baptism? Colin...

War may not have defeated Saddam--but has hopelessly confused the left. (Thought For The Day).(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... Poor Robin Cook. At first we thought that he had effected yet another escape from an uncomfortable and untenable position, with his important principles firmly intact. And then we had to think again. If you remember, some years ago, Robin...

Nobody really knows how the war is going, partly because our governments lie. (Media Studies).(Iraq War, 2003)
April 5, 2003... 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...

Given for valour and won under fire--it's the Queen's Award for exports. (City And Suburban).(economic analysis)
April 5, 2003... Needs must for some, but I have never felt the urge to go to Basra, which has been described to me as a polyp on the Shatt-al-Arab. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office seems to agree with me, because Iraq is (not surprisingly) one of the nine...

The best committee that ever sat.(Book Review)
April 5, 2003... POWER AND GLORY: JACOBEAN ENGLAND AND THE MAKING OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE by Adam Nicolson HarperCollins, 18.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 288 ISBN 0007108931 There are two literary facts in English which it is almost impossible to examine, to...

A selection of recent paperbacks.
April 5, 2003... Non-fiction: The Daily Telegraph Best Sermons Ever compiled by Christopher Howse, Continuum, 10.99 [pounds sterling] Inside Track by Robin Oakley, Corgi, 7.99 [pounds sterling] The First World War by Michael Howard, OUP, 8.99...

Master of the merry-go-round.(China)(Book Review)
April 5, 2003... CHINA by Alan Wall Seeker, 10.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 378, ISBN 436205467 Sprawling, teeming with people and flooded with an almost malevolent brilliance, this book is the literary equivalent of some vast conurbation. As with a...

Partial in both senses.(An Army an Dawn: The War in Norh Africa, 1942-1943)(Book Review)
April 5, 2003... AN ARMY AT DAWN: THE WAR IN NORTH AFRICA, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson Little, Brown, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 681 ISBN 0316725099 The general reader is prey to the reporter-historian, who recounts the past not as it was but as he is able to...

The invention of Great Britain.(The Making of English National Identity)(Book Review)
April 5, 2003... THE MAKING OF ENGLISH NATIONAL IDENTITY by Krishnan Kumar CUP, 47.50 [pounds sterling], pp. 381 ISBN 0521771889 The main burden of this book is clear enough. It is contained in what its author suggests as a suitable alternative title, `The...

The heart of whiteness.(Book Review)
April 5, 2003... THE ICE: A NATURAL AND SOCIAL HISTORY OF ANTARCTICA by Stephen Pyne Weidenfeld, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 448 ISBN 1842126741 Happiness writes white, it's said: so too, one would think, does Antarctica. How is it possible to describe an...

These foolish things.(The Encyclopaedia of Stupidity)(Book Review)
April 5, 2003... THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF STUPIDITY by Matthijs van Boxsel, translated by Arnold and Eric Pomerans Reaktion Books, 19.95 [pounds sterling], pp. 205 ISBN 1861891598 Perhaps this strange volume is a bang on the nose for political correctness, but...

Among the goys and philistines.(A Spoilt Boy )(Book Review)
April 5, 2003... A SPOILT BOY by Frederic Raphael Orion, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 291, ISBN 0752855840 For some reason, almost every time I plunge into too hot a bath I find myself thinking of my days as a public schoolboy--presumably a `tosh' must...

Style of contradictions: Andrew Lambirth on the V&A's vast and magnificent exhibition of Art Deco. (Arts).(Victoria and Albert Museum)
April 5, 2003... Art Deco is the style that succeeded Art Nouveau, enjoying a surprisingly long global ire, stretching from 1910 to 939, and from Europe to America, India and Australia. As the curators of this vast exhibition (over 300 exhibits) maintain, Art...

Slowly but surely. (Exhibitions).(Richard Eurich )
April 5, 2003... Richard Eurich Visionary Artist Millais Gallery, Southampton Institute until 26 April In 150 years of coexistence, painting and photography have had an ambivalent and shifting relationship. Since photography first learnt picture-making...

Civilian thoughts. (Pop music).(music appreciation)
April 5, 2003... It's a ridiculous business, reviewing records. You listen to a record half a dozen times over a few days, more if you like it, less if it's by Simply Red, and then you pass judgment on it. Maybe it's one of the best albums of the year, or an...

Feat of endurance. (Dance).(Compania Nacional de Danza)(Dance Review)
April 5, 2003... Compania Nacional de Danza Sadler's Wells Theatre At first he was just a superbly talented, drop-dead gorgeous dancer, whose name prompted all sorts of silly snack-food related jokes. Then he proved himself to be one of Jiri Kylian's...

Courage and confidence. (Opera).(Ciboulette )(Opera Review)
April 5, 2003... Ciboulette University College Opera Agrippina Royal College of Music Julietta Opera North Reynaldo Hahn's Ciboulette is a work of fragile charm, clearly in Offenbachian vein, more Hoffmann than Helene. When one contemplates the list of...

Workaday activities. (Gardens).
April 5, 2003... Years ago, as they say round here, there was such a thing as a `blackthorn winter', a spell of harsh weather in late March and early April when the blackthorn,flowers were white in the hedgerows. This year, it has been a `blackthorn summer',...

Sound and fury. (Theatre).(Crossing Jerusalem)(Theater Review)
April 5, 2003... Crossing Jerusalem Tricycle Claw Greenwich Playhouse Lags BAC I crossed London to see Crossing Jerusalem. The curtain rose at 8 p.m. By 9.15 I was crossing London again, I'm afraid. The plot of Julia Pascal's noisy new play is both...

Negative speculation. (Radio).(Feedback, Space Race )(Radio Program Review)
April 5, 2003... Although I have found the radio coverage of the war generally impressive there is, however, too much speculation of a negative kind. There is more of it on television, of course, as the 24-hour news channels dipped into by the terrestrial...

Death and Venice. (Television).(Murder In Mind, The Murder Game, The People's Book Of Records, The Real Casanova, The Secret Lives of the Artists: Vermeer)(Television Program Review)
April 5, 2003... Murder In Mind (BBC1) was the last appearance on TV of the late Adam Faith, and I have to say he didn't look very well, resembling a mop on legs. Faith was to acting what Rex Harrison was to singing; he didn't try anything fancy, he knew his...

Back on track. (The turf).(horse racing)
April 5, 2003... Well, hello again. The House of Lords, it seems, is not the only proof of life after death. This column, having ceased to be on 22 February, is now, thanks to the kind intervention of readers who missed The turf and to The Spectator's sage and...

Fowl play. (Low life).(country life and family reunions)
April 5, 2003... On the Saturday, hungover, we drove from London to Norfolk in dazzling sunshine. The further we drove into East Anglia the more wildlife we saw lying dead beside the road, pheasants particularly. If we'd stopped to pick up every dead pheasant...

Hard times. (Singular life).(alleged fraud by Conservative Member of Parliament Michael Trend)
April 5, 2003... I cannot help but feel sorry for Michael Trend, the disgraced Conservative MP, who allegedly defrauded the taxpayer by claiming a whopping sum in false expenses. Michael Trend's career and perhaps his life is now in ruins and he can look...

Oops! (Bridge).(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... THE choice of opening lead in bridge is, of course, crucially important--that single card can spell defeat or victory for the opponents. But it's not always clear what to lead, especially if it's a choice between your partner's suit and your...

Kasparov speaks. (Chess).(Garry Kasparov)
April 5, 2003... For over a decade Garry Kasparov has been preparing a magnum opus on the world champions, coveting their styles and best games. This is a rare treat, since it is not common for a champion to comment on the games of his colleagues. Indeed, it...

Hide and seek.
April 5, 2003... In Competition No. 2283 you were asked for a poem in which 12 items of a single category are hidden among the letters. Gods, jewels, cars, poets, currencies, metals and alloys, Tolkien characters--the categories were a delight in...

1608: Parlour. (Crossword).
April 5, 2003... One hallmark of the 1 is its 23. Another is suggested by the remaining unclued lights (one of two words). ACROSS 12 Dough-boy's gullet's ecstasy: a shop bursting with cake (10) 13 Fortifications? Cavalry needs new castle (5) ...

Restaurants.(Claridge's, London, England)(Restaurant Review)
April 5, 2003... I've booked dinner at Claridge's, in Gordon Ramsay's restaurant, for myself and two friends. Now, the prospect of dining at a Ramsay establishment is both thrilling--he is now generally regarded as Britain's greatest chef--and absolutely...

Two nations divide. (Spectator Sport).(rugby competition)
April 5, 2003... England won a rugby match in Dublin last Sunday, and, in doing so, the players saved their reputations. Had Ireland beaten them--and they gave it a jolly good go--Clive Woodward's men would have spent the rest of their lives branded as...

Your problems solved. (Spectator Sport).(etiquette)
April 5, 2003... Dear Mary Q. My parents-in-law have taken to dropping round uninvited. While I do not dislike them, they always seem to appear at an inconvenient time, when either the house is looking horribly dishevelled or I am. My husband doesn't see...

The penny drops: Leo McKinstry reveals that gambling is declining in the UK--because the Lottery has taught us a horrible truth.
April 5, 2003... Remember all those grim warnings that the National Lottery would turn us into a nation of compulsive gamblers? The puritans and doom-mongers claimed that, with the new betting craze sweeping across the land, all too many of us would spend our...

Portrait of the week.(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, held tales at Hillsborough Castle outside Belfast with President George Bush of the United States. Mr Bush said that the United Nations should playa `vital role' in the reconstruction of Iraq. The two men,...

Iraqis back to Iraq.(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... It is to be hoped that the American forces establishing control of Baghdad will leave until last the Iraqi information ministry. Nothing would complete the humiliation of Saddam Hussein's regime better than the sight of its splendid minister...

Diary.(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Kabul The place to stay in Kabul is beyond a doubt the Gandamack Lodge. It would be idle to pretend that it possesses all the creature comforts of the Paris Ritz, but it is far more interesting. Until the fall of the Taleban, Osama bin...

Is that a weapon of mass destruction or a tin of feta cheese? (Thought For The Day).(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... I wonder which agency will be awarded the contract for planting various weapons of mass destruction in some cubby-hole on Iraqi soil, now that it is evident that the Iraqis themselves don't actually possess any. Perhaps the whole thing has...

In a speech about domestic security, delivered to New York's John Jay College last week, the Home Secretary announced, `An important part of my visit this week has been to go to Ground Zero, not in a morbid or macabre way, but to reinforce my understanding of the enormity of what happened and the changes that have occurred since.. (The Spectator's Notes).(David Blunket)(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... In a speech about domestic security, delivered to New York's John Jay College last week, the Home Secretary announced, `An important part of my visit this week has been to go to Ground Zero, not in a morbid or macabre way, but to reinforce my...

Unlike certain other former foreign secretaries we could mention, the former SDP helmsman Lord Owen has been sound on the war throughout. (The Spectator's Notes).(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Unlike certain other former foreign secretaries we could mention, the former SDP helmsman Lord Owen has been sound on the war throughout. He is sound, too, on the post-war. `This cry for a UN administration is much too glib,' he tells me from...

The government's enthusiasm for saddling us all with identity cards, gussied up though they may be as `entitlement cards', is something you would expect to exercise the humbug-hating campaigners for democracy on the New Statesman. (The Spectator's Notes).(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... The government's enthusiasm for saddling us all with identity cards, gussied up though they may be as `entitlement cards', is something you would expect to exercise the humbug-hating campaigners for democracy on the New Statesman. Oddly, it...

A legal warning to shake the very foundations of the Chancery arrives on my desk. (The Spectator's Notes).(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... A legal warning to shake the very foundations of the Chancery arrives on my desk. It recently came out in print where the Master of the Rolls likes to take his morning constitutional, and the Lord Chancellor's department has written to...

Peter Hitchens, a man valiantly campaigning to reappropriate `reactionary' as a badge of honour, is congratulated on the back of his new book, A Brief History of Crime: The Decline of Order, Justice and Liberty in England, for sticking up for a long list of the exemplary patriotic virtues, among which is the Last Night of the Proms. (The Spectator's Notes).(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Peter Hitchens, a man valiantly campaigning to reappropriate `reactionary' as a badge of honour, is congratulated on the back of his new book, A Brief History of Crime: The Decline of Order, Justice and Liberty in England, for sticking up for a...

Quietly, and almost unnoticed, a David and Goliath battle has been won in a New York court. (The Spectator's Notes).(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Quietly, and almost unnoticed, a David and Goliath battle has been won in a New York court. The publishing giant Penguin has been found guilty of stealing `comma for comma', and without acknowledgment, the work of an amateur anthologist who...

A Purple Heart, surely, for the BBC's John Simpson, defiantly broadcasting to the world even as he coped with bleeding eardrums and a legful of American shrapnel. (The Spectator's Notes).(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... A Purple Heart, surely, for the BBC's John Simpson, defiantly broadcasting to the world even as he coped with bleeding eardrums and a legful of American shrapnel. The man's a trouper. Nor is this even the worst injury he has sustained as a war...

Encore for the Gordon and Prudence Show but it's nearing the end of its run. (City And Suburban).(Gordon Brown)(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... One more Budget, and Gordon Brown will overtake Nigel Lawson's record and go on to challenge Gladstone. He is coming up for his seventh year as Chancellor and by now we know the Gordon and Prudence Show so well that we can hum along with him....

The end of the beginning: Syria and Iran are preparing to launch a terrorist campaign against coalition forces, says Michael Ledeen. The only answer is regime change in both countries. (Cover Story).(Cover Story)
April 12, 2003... Washington DC The battle for Iraq is drawing to a close, but the war against terrorism has only just begun. As President George W. Bush has said since the first days after 11 September, this will be a long war, involving many terrorist...

Tony Blair's Syrian connection.
April 12, 2003... Tony Blair has staked much of his personal and political prestige on attempting to tame the young Syrian President, Bashar Assad. His hard work has been rewarded with embarrassment and humiliation. When the Prime Minister visited Damascus in...

The hero of Baghdad: Mohammed Said al-Sahaf has been entertaining the world for the past three weeks. Kim Sengupta profiles Saddam's minister of information.(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Baghdad We shall slaughter them all. God will barbecue their bellies in hell. We trap and beat them everywhere. I triple guarantee you, there are no American soldiers in Baghdad.' The last declaration was made while a US army Abrams tank...

Pax Americana: William Shawcross says Europeans are hypocritical, isolationist and deluded in their attempts to hobble the greatest power on earth.
April 12, 2003... Tony Blair has played a blinder on Iraq, standing for the Iraqi people, with the United States, and up to the French and Germans. He has quite rightly said that after the war is over, `there is going to have to be a discussion; indeed, a...

Ancient & modern.(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Wilfred Owen is always quoted in times of war, especially his poem ending `... you would not tell with such high zest/To children ardent for some desperate glory/The old Lie: dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori'. But Owen's understanding of...

Anglican miracle: the C of E has got its act together, says Damian Thompson, and the recently fashionable RC Church is looking increasingly sad.
April 12, 2003... Ten years ago, a priest at the Brompton Oratory began a sermon with the words, `At last, we are witnessing the final disintegration of old mother damnable, the Church of England.' At about the same time, Paul Johnson suggested that the cause...

Mind your language.(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... `But I don't know the first thing about it,' I said to my husband. `Well?' he replied, unkindly. What I didn't know the first thing about, on this occasion, was Arabic, as I mentioned a fortnight ago when I wondered aloud if the...

The Arab street: Andrew Gimson visits the Edgware Road and discovers resentment between Middle Eastern shopkeepers and noise-sensitive residents.
April 12, 2003... Londoners have no need to travel to Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus or some other city of the Middle East in order to experience the sensation of being in the Arab world. A visit to the southernmost stretch of the Edgware Road is quite sufficient. The...

The Islamification of our law: Roger Scruton fears that liberal absolutism threatens our ancient liberties in much the same way as Muslim fundamentalism.
April 12, 2003... World events are delivering an important lesson in jurisprudence. They are teaching us that there is a radical distinction between those for whom law is a way of reconciling differences between people, and those for whom law is a way to...

Banned wagon: global: a weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade.
April 12, 2003... The US is not the worst country in the world for blocking free trade, yet a vast gulf exists between what it professes to believe and the protectionism it practises. Notionally, the US's anti-dumping laws are designed to promote free trade,...

A moral politician. (Letters).
April 12, 2003... From Mr Alastair Campbell Sir: Peter Oborne (`The special relationship between Blair and God', 5 April) reiterates the observation that Tony Blair is the most religious prime minister since Gladstone but ignores the more pertinent point...

An immoral war. (Letters).
April 12, 2003... From Mr Jonathan Guinness Sir: Stephen Glover's suspicion (Media studies, 29 March) that those who oppose the war with Iraq `hope for the worst' is offensive. The case against the war has nothing to do with what happens in the course of...

My fight against the EU. (Letters).
April 12, 2003... From Mr Peter Hitchens Sir: Donna Sherwood (Letters, 5 April) beautifully demonstrates the irrational position of pro-war conservatives. She describes me as a `deluded fool', while lauding my brother Christopher as `a man of inestimable...

Oil contracts in Iraq. (Letters).
April 12, 2003... From Mr Graham Hay Sir: I agree with Rod Liddle (`Blood, oil, tears and sweat', 29 March) that British contractors should have been allowed to bid for reconstruction in Iraq, but which company would he suggest to restore oil...

Rowse's other pursuits. (Letters).
April 12, 2003... From Mr Robert Triggs Sir: Dr A.L. Rowse's `pursuit of Prick', (A.N. Wilson, Books, 29 March), was sometimes employed to ruthless effect. As a senior fellow of All Souls, he had it in his gift to influence considerably the selection of...

Parkas and Purple Hearts. (Letters).
April 12, 2003... From Mr John Miles Sir: Your article (The Spectator's notes, 5 April) referring to current barter rate between the US and UK troops struck a chord. In 1953, my battalion, 1st Royal Fusiliers, was next in the line to the Indian Head...