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Respond Letters responding to: Election up for grabs, but nothing to play for, by Mick Hume
Hume writes: ‘The SNP suffered a terrible result in one of its target seats.’
In an otherwise reasonable article, Hume is surely mistaken to describe Glagow Nort East as one of the SNP target seats.
It would take a swing of 58 per 59 Labour voters for the SNP to win GNE.
Tom Robinson, Scotland
Another cracking article from one of the few decent reads in the country. The only place to still get your mind exercised on a regular basis. Let the pollsters rummage around the chicken entrails and read the runes to those who pay for it.
Best thing we can all do is bring our pencils along to the polling booth, create our own ‘None Of The Above’ box and put our crosses there.
Chris Hartnett, England
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Respond Letters responding to: Too many people? No, too many Malthusians, by Brendan O’Neill
While much advancement in agriculture is permanent (such as development of higher-yield cultivars, construction of irrigation systems and the development of crop rotation), O’Neill has neglected to mention the real neo-Malthusian argument: that our current yields are only made possible by the massive use of rapidly-depleting oil and gas.
Without artificial nitrogen fertilizers (whose current manufacturing process requires large amounts of natural gas) the Earth could only support two billion people, and farm machinery (currently powered by oil) also greatly increases yields by eliminating the need to keep working animals.
We need an all-out drive to eliminate this dangerous dependence. Electrically-powered farm machinery should be developed, and the use of natural gas to produce hydrogen (for ammonia – and hence fertilizer – manufacture) must be abandoned and replaced by non-fossil fuel sources. Electrolysis powered by nuclear or renewable energy, or thermochemical breakdown of water using nuclear energy are possible alternatives.
GM crops should also be developed to fix atmospheric nitrogen, reducing the need for chemical fertilizers. This research should be done by governments and put in the public domain, as it would be exceedingly dangerous to allow any private company to monopolise it.
George Carty, UK
I agree totally with the argument put forward. There is a vein of fascist thinking running through the political mentality of the British ruling class. Ironically, it was Malthus – a professional Christian – who was the spark that set it off as early as the late-Eighteenth Century. He was a dissident, anti-enlightmenment thinker whose luck was in because his ideas appeared in a book he authored and published in 1798; that is, five years into the counter revolutionary war against France.
Desperate to inoculate England against the poison of revolution, the ruling class snatched at Malthus’ ideas, which set the scene for English politics for the period 1815-1848. This culminated in English policy towards Ireland during the Great Famine of 1846 when over a million Irish lives were considered disposable.
These Malthusian ideas were revised in the early years of the Twentieth Century when the so-called science of eugenics was fashionable and became the talk of intellectual middle class circles in the 1920s and 30s (see Richard Overy’s The Morbid Age). After the Holocaust, these ideas went underground. But now they are reappearing in the guise of environmental survival, and peddled by the climate-change lobby.
Thomas Hefin Mathias, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Erasing David and the fight for privacy rights, by Tessa Mayes
NO2ID did not fund Erasing David. That would have been well outside our remit and beyond our resources. We and others did help the film-makers by answering questions, and they took the trouble to listen to the answers – which may be why it contains very few errors of fact that I have noticed.
Guy Herbert, General Secretary, NO2ID
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Respond Letters responding to: Nutts to these anti-alcohol experts, by Brendan O’Neill
O’Neill raises some very good points and exposes the growing, desperate ‘Cult of Nutt’, and its attendant hangers-on and botherers. However, O’Neill’s argument is full of holes. Great big holes that one can fit their great, big, annoyed head through.
You see, like many civilised and intelligent people these days, I, at the end of a busy work-a-day week, like to take refreshment, sometimes in the form of a thirst-quenching round of beers. Alternatively, if the fancy takes me, I will indulge in something a little more effervescent such as a Martini or several gin-and-tonics. To supplement these, nay, enhance the refreshing experience of these beverages, my mates and I smoke marajuana, at home, on the way to pub and sometimes, shock, horror, actually in the pub.
My friends and I have the most uplifting, talkative, argumentative, creative even, memorable social nights out, week in, week out, without a cynical or morose ‘alienated’ hippy in sight.
My point here is, drink, smoke, it’s all the same pal, down our way. It goes in your mouth, tickles your brain, teases your senses and magically makes all the crap food in our boozer taste great.
So why all the fuss?
Pete Masters, UK
The pro-cannabis crowd is annoyed that alcohol gets a free ride and cannabis doesn’t, when the evidence indicates that using cannabis does less harm! Using perjoratives such as ‘dopehead’ does nothing to enhance the debate. What is evident is that alcohol does cause problems or ‘harm’. Let’s be honest and acknowledge that first.
Let’s also acknowledge that we will tolerate those problems to a certain extent as part of a society that believes in freedom of choice. Having made that clear, it becomes obvious how unjust the current legislation is on those that prefer smoking marijuana to drinking alcohol. Nutt is not for making alcohol illegal but for making it less accessible to those most vulnerable from its harmful effects. Perhaps that nuance is too subtle for O’Neill’s bludgeon.
His smug editorial does absolutely nothing to promote freedom. He says, ‘At least the government employs an equal-opportunities ban on drugs, legally denying everybody access to them’. This is factually wrong as it fails to recognise that alcohol is a drug, it’s just overlooked because it is legal. That is a totally arbitrary distinction. There was a time that opium was legal too – would O’Neill have ignored its harmful effects then, simply because it is was legal?
I, for one, love alcohol and have no desire to see it banned or its availability severely curbed. I don’t do other drugs but I am sick and tired of paying taxes to criminalise a portion of society without justification. It is neither just nor a good use of tax-payers’ money. I have also been the director of a Scottish drinks company and if O’Neill thinks that drinks companies don’t exert a huge influence over government policy then he needs to wake up and smell the brewing hops.
Tom Porter, Singapore
Could it be that because cannabis is the drug of the trendy, ‘liberal’ middle classes while alcohol is seen (by trendy ‘liberal’ middle-class people) as the drug of the ‘scummy and ill-educated’ working class?
In Nutt’s Britain, Guardian-reading hippies will go around smoking their dope freely, safe in their smug, self-believed superiority, while the ‘lower orders’ must be beaten over the heads with taxes and sky-high price hikes as punishment for their ‘dirty sin’ of boozing.
Daniel Factor, UK
One glass of wine makes me dozy and two sends me off to sleep. Cannabis always makes me hyper. Go figure…
Yossi Evans, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Elevating environmentalism over less worthy lifestyles, by Frank Furedi
As a scientist I was in no way surprised or alarmed at the court ruling giving global warming (GW) the status of a religion. I have long seen GW as a religion. In fact, I described it as such in a letter published in the New Internationalist about ten years ago. When the letter was published, it was accompanied by a slightly pained note from the editors, but it is to their credit that they valued free speech to the extent of publishing it despite disagreeing with it.
I doubt if that letter would be published today; it might be interpreted as making fun of Tim Nicholson’s court-endorsed views and lead to a custodial sentence.
By contrast, I wonder what that court would say if I insisted that my own deeply-held views should be treated as a religion. My views being that what was interpreted as global warming was in fact a thinning of high-level cloud between 1980 and 2000 that resulted in an increase in incident short-wave radiation, and warming between 1980 and 2000. (This is, of course, Peter Taylor’s view, expressed in his excellent book Chill: a reasessment of global warming theory.)
Tom Addiscott, UK
So environmentalists like Lord Melchett think they represent the voice of the British public? It seems to me that those who claim to serve the people would rather not have their point of view questioned by mere people.
Russell Taylor
Nicholson has stated that he hoped an earlier decision in these proceedings set a predecent that would support anyone who shares his views on climate change and the environment. But it looks like he didn’t read to the end of the regulations.
The UK Equality Act of 1996, which amended the regulations to ensure that they were not confined to religious beliefs, also amended the definition of ‘belief’ to include ‘lack of belief’. So, the law will equally protect from discrimination those who do not believe in climate change.
Ted Ringrose, Australia
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Respond Letters responding to: See! Mothers can be sex abusers, too, by Tim Black
There are a few statements Black makes in his article that make me cringe. He says that some of the registered female sex offenders are teachers who’ve had ‘foolish affairs with teenagers’ as if that is something of no concern. What makes a 40-something woman enticing her male students into sexual liasons any less of a predator than a 40-something male doing the same with his female students? The students in both cases are children. The teachers in both cases are adults. Both scenarios have a perpetrator and a victim. Neither situation is acceptable. Neither situation can be dismissed as a ‘foolish affair’.
Another cringe-worthy statement was that, ‘the number of women proven to have sexually abused children is thankfully miniscule’. Why does he think that is? Sexual abuse by a male perpetrator most often leaves physical evidence, while abuse by a female would most likely not. Children are most likely to be sexually victimised by someone they know, someone they interact with fairly frequently. They are most often alone with their teachers and/or sitters, who generally tend to be female; therefore, women have ample opportunity to victimise the children left in their care.
Whether they do or not is something that is incredibly hard to prove. Also, sexual abuse victims tend to be reluctant about revealing abuse if it’s carried out by those close to them, such as their mothers. This might be because they don’t want to get the person into trouble, or because they’re afraid they won’t be believed and then still have to be in contact with that person and deal with the abuse.
In spite of reading Black’s article through a few times, I am not entirely sure what his true feelings are on this issue. Does Black believe that women cannot be the same sort of sexual predator that men have been portrayed as since the beginning of time? Or is it that he believes focusing on the problem of the female sex offender will cause a breakdown of family values? Or perhaps it is another issue that I was unable to grasp?
Karina Gray, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: The ‘revolt of the experts’ is revolting, by Brendan O’Neill
Unusually, O’Neill is missing the point.
Of course actual policy should be determined by policy makers in a democratic and accountable framework. When they decide to reject evidence or scientific advice they should say so, and give us their reasons, and be prepared to be pilloried if they turn out to be wrong.
What is not on, however, is attempting to nobble the scientific advice you receive. Either pre hoc, by ‘selecting’ your advice or advisors, by letting it be known what sort of advice you want to hear, by phrasing the remit so tightly only one conclusion can emerge; or post hoc, by burying reports, editing reports or gagging your quote-independent-unquote advisors.
There is another issue of accountability too. If the UK home secretary is going to ignore the expert advice then what business does he have spending our money on it?
We should recall the legal dictum, ‘one who defends himself has a fool for a client’. You need to be very wise or very foolish to reject expert advice you have paid for.
Ashley Oliver, UK
I am surprised to hear O’Neill say that he has ‘a modicum of sympathy with Johnson’s argument that you cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy)’. This suggests that, if a person is in a position of advising the government, they must wholeheartedly support whatever the government does. Surely this is wrong.
If that was the case, why have independent advisory boards at all? Just stuff them full of people who will find the evidence to back the intended policy. Of course, that is what has led the country into such a mess – advice is intended to guide policy, not the other way around! It would be much better if advisory boards had more people with views contrary to the current political elite. That way there would be genuine debate, instead of blind obedience.
I also find it a little disingenuous of O’Neill to suggest that a person should have their freedom of speech capped by virtue of having a certain post! This surely runs contrary to what spiked stands for, and it would be good to see O’Neill justify his comment a little more.
In terms of Professor Nutt, he is quite correct to do as he is doing. The government is ignoring the scientific evidence, and substituting its own pseudo-scientific, ‘cannabis kills’ evidence. There would be nothing wrong with the government saying that the scientific evidence shows cannabis to be safer than alcohol, but that there are other, non-scientific, issues that need to be taken into account, and it is these that have led to the reclassification of the drug from class C to class B.
However, that would not be this government’s way: it might lead to a proper debate about the moralising (not moral) attitude towards drugs that the political elite insists on adopting.
Jeremy Wickins, UK
O’Neill writes: ‘I have a modicum of sympathy with Johnson’s argument that you cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy.’ Why have advisors if you require them to agree with you? Not to promote democracy, eh?
And that’s the issue, not the several extraneous ones O’Neill has tried to import into the argument. A government that demands Lysenkos is not a democratic government at all.
John Fitzgerald, Canada
I agree with O’Neill – the government should debate drugs as it would any other issue. I do feel, however, that there is inconsistency in the treatment of drugs.
If the government logic is that you can ingest a substance to get your rocks off, but only to a certain degree and only if it isn’t too dangerous then that is the ideological line. The question as to where each drug then fits onto the ‘danger scale’ is a scientific one.
The division between legal and illegal and the categorisation level is arbitrary. You`re just left with the question of why are ecstasy and cannabis illegal? The arguments I hear against them are generally based on governmental and regulatory laziness rather than any definite principles.
Adam Gent, Australia
With O’Neill’s attitude, why go to the bother of having experts at all? Why bother even considering the ‘facts’? If you’re in power, why not just make your prejudices legislation? Why not just make policy based on ‘political’ decisions, like what gets the most votes at the next election (regardless of any facts).
Peter Burnett, UK
O’Neill is wrong here. The control of drugs is through a legislative framework that gives the ACMD statutory footing to make recommendations just as Professor Nutt has done. It’s not about moral judgment, it’s about the social harmfulness of drugs.
Actually, the government does not have the legal discretion to exclude alcohol and tobacco from the law nor to administer the law irrationally which is what they are doing. While I accept O’Neill’s point about democratic accountability, we do have a law that applies to governmental and public bodies as well as the HRA (for good or bad) – the government are discriminating against users of controlled drugs with devastating consequences.
I am now of the view that we need legal control over democracy. The government have fettered their discretion on this subject by announcing that they will never legalise drugs, and the Tories have topped that with similar rhetoric.
People are dying from this abuse now. So what should experts do? Pander to an illusion of democratic accountability as being politically preferable to non-elected interference or do what they can to stop the abuse. We have to take our friends where we find them as opposed to suggesting that they are democratically unqualified and degrading their academic credentials. Professor Nutt is a proper academic, with a profound knowledge of the type that a postie knows FA about.
In fact, as usual, spiked really lets itself down on drugs issues.
Darryl Bickler, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Telling unfunny jokes should not be a crime, by Nathalie Rothschild
Merci pour la Publicité. I guess it must be difficult to know how to handle a story like this, but on this occasion silence might have been the better option. Thanks to Rothschild, I, and thousands of others, now know about this bloke and his views and would be mildly interested in seeing the show.
To paraphrase Hitler in Mein Kampf (after the party’s first public meeting attracted seven members of the public), ‘it is better to be mocked than ignored’. I find it hard to believe that in a country (France) that outlaws ‘holocaust denial’, it is okay to mock death camps on stage.
Oohkuchi, UK
Nowhere in Rothschild’s article does she mention that Dieudonné M’bala has been politically active and is closely connected to the Front National in France.
Even if UK libel law is bad practice, libel does exist and it should be possible to punish it. As to whether his public appearances are just bad taste or criminally offensive, I assume the latter and it’s just within the range of the law and common sense to fine him for what he has done.
Friedrich Heckmann, Germany
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Respond Letters responding to: Giving the young a taste of freedom, by Tim Black
Many people believe that risk-aversion is a product of the litigious culture that we in the UK inherited from the US. There’s undoubtedly some truth in this, but it is also a culture that has been positively encouraged by New Labour, along with its various agencies and supporters.
Aversion to risk-taking is part of the same distaste for any kind of red-blooded behaviour that might lead to personal advancement and inequality. In a devil-may-care attitude, the egalitarians see an alarming contrast to the sort of bovine lack of self-interest they hold to be virtuous and easily controlled.
Russell Taylor, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: ‘Rescue’: a new PC term for repatriation, by Nathalie Rothschild
How do you know that more women weren’t trafficked during the 2006 World Cup in Germany?
One of the main problems with sex trafficking, sexual slavery, bonded sex labour - whatever you want to call it - is the lack of disclosure by victims. They are scared and so mostly, no matter how much awareness-raising goes on, don’t come forward. This doesn’t necessarily mean that trafficking in women is not happening in great numbers. It’s often organised by very powerful criminals underground.
I really wish journalists would stop being so obsessed with number crunching and more clued into the reality of this often very hidden global problem.
Emma Boyd, UK
The problem with the war on sex trafficking is that some of the women involved may not actually have been forced into prostitution, but are willing to do this type of work, and could even have gone out of their way to do it. (It does, after all, involve a lot of fast, easy money, and you don’t need a degree to do it.)
I never heard so-called victims themselves complaining about trafficking. Why is that? Many of the self-appointed experts complaining about this have never even met a real victim. They make up a large figure out of thin air, claiming that millions of women and children become sex slaves each year. They have been saying this for over 15 years, yet no one can find all these women and children. They have no evidence to back up these numbers, and yet no one questions them about it.
A key point is that on the sidelines the prostitutes themselves are not being listened to. They oppose the criminalisation of the sex work, while the self-appointed experts make up numbers and stories.
This is a story that has been greatly exaggerated by politicians and media. What hard evidence do the police have that these women were forced into slavery? I think it’s very unlikely that most women in this business are forced into it against their will. It would just be too difficult. There may be some exceptions but I believe this is an attempt to over inflate an issue in order to get more government money to fight a cause. As a tax payer, voter, and resident I don’t want the government to mislead me.
Jeff Lewis, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: If comedians can’t be offensive, who can?, by Tim Black
I love Tim Black’s term, ‘offence-hounds’!
I fear ‘the joke’ is now dead and comedy will only become a rambling discourse of ‘what happened to me lately’, as it has become already for so many stand-ups. It’s entertaining but all a bit samey.
Sadly, the ‘offencearti’ fail to notice the open prejudice - racism, sexism and so on - that is so prevalent in so many people’s everyday lives. Sadly, it lurks below the surface in many places.
Scott, UK
I have nothing against comedians (and others) having a ‘right to offend’. However, the ‘offencearati’, taking offence on behalf of others, and those who are genuinely offended on their own behalf are different. For example, I was individually offended by Jan Moir’s piece on the death of Stephen Gately; not offended because someone told me to be, or offended because it was ‘the done thing’.
Moreover, the corollary of a ‘right to offend’ is the attached right to offend back (verbally). You can’t have it one way only.
Gary McLachlan, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Go veggie to ‘save the planet’? Burger off!, by Rob Lyons
After reading so many fear-mongering articles by people like Lord Nicholas Stern, it was so refreshing to read Rob Lyons’ factual, well thought out article, which was full of common sense.
Frank Brown, UK
Lord Nicholas Stern, says that one day eating meat will become as ‘socially unacceptable as drinking and driving’. That’s right, one day we will regard eating cows, chickens and pigs as on a par with downing 10 pints, jumping into a car and mowing down a little child. It must be wonderful for the families of those killed or maimed in drink-driving accidents to know that Lord Stern equates their pain and suffering with eating animals.
Dan Factor, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Climate change is not beyond questioning, by Stuart Blackman
Whew, a breath of fresh air! So much about this climate change hysteria is wrong, starting with the notion that science is ever settled. By nature, science is the business of questioning assumptions.
Dan Carruthers, USA
Only one small point: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Blackman compares both sides of the climate debate as though they are on equal footing. For example, articles supporting climate change have made errors, and strayed far from scientifically supported ideas, so why are they not questioned by Nature magazine?
This is because the articles supporting climate change fall on the same side of the argument as the scientific mainstream. And this is a very simple point: if the scientific consensus on climate change is false, then the general principle one needs to believe is that it is possible to convince the scientific community of this via peer-reviewed research.
You find me one true psychic, one telepath, one valid psychokinetic practitioner, and I will guarantee you that the scientific community will easily confirm this and accept it through valid, reproducible peer-reviewed research. After all, psychic powers are far less extraordinary than quantum mechanics and relativity.
Therefore, if climate change is not real, then let us convince the scientific community first, because if such evidence exists, I guarantee they will believe us.
Jeff Harris, Canada
Perhaps the biggest lie of all in this regard, is the notion that there has ever been anything resembling a scientific consensus. Even the IPCC’s own scientists don’t agree. This, however, hasn’t stopped the IPCC policy framers – who, by the way, outnumber IPCC scientists by about three to one – from presenting only one side of the argument, and calling it a ‘consensus’. The motivation for this deception seems clear – to enhance the apparent need for an organisation such as the IPCC.
Peter Kidson, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: ‘Voltaire never saw concentration camps’, by Tim Black
Trying to censor certain opinions – in this case those of BNP chief Nick Griffin – gives the impression that the other views are the only right and proper ones. This railroads debate into narrow channels where the views of favoured groups are lent an air of superiority they did nothing to earn. Instead of winning support through open and rational debate, their opinions are inferred to be virtuous simply because opposing views have been branded evil. This is disgraceful, but it is tactic that much of the media is happy to use.
Of course, everyone should be free to have their say, no matter how loathsome their views. That would allow us to treat BNP buffoons with the same contempt as those censorship-happy idiots who dream of some socialist utopia, where they will enjoy endless revenge on their tormentors.
Russell Taylor, UK
I think it’s a great thing that Nick Griffin is on Question Time. It will show him up for what he is: an idiot. As Black points out, the public are not led by people like Griffin. Free speech is so important because it allows the people to decide in a democratic country.
As for Griffin managing to stir up hate crimes, I don’t think so. After the 7/7 bombings there was hardly any increase in race hate crimes, and likewise back in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, IRA bombings prompted little in the way of a general backlash.
These were far more significant events than an appearance on Question Time. The British public can be relied upon to make the right choices.
The Labour government must love Griffin – the fuss this has caused has taken people’s eye off the real mess we’re in.
Adrian Starks, UK
And, of course, the BNP is perfectly happy to obtain all this extra free publicity.
Paul Filing, Australia
I do enjoy reading spiked, but this time I strongly disagree with your writings relate to Nick Griffin’s case.
All of three articles – Editor’s Comment, ‘The New Divide…’, and ‘Voltaire never saw concentration camps’ – are advocating an absolute freedom of speech or expression, which simply doesn’t exist, at least not in Europe.
In that context, I would like to remind spiked that Norman Cousins, American editor and writer, branded Mein Kampf by far the most effective book of the Twentieth Century. I would add that this is the most detrimental book ever written: for every word in Mein Kampf 125 lives were lost, for every page, 4,700 lives, and for every chapter, more than 1.2 million lives.
Besides, article 10, line two of the European Convention on Human Rights, clearly limits freedom of expression. Should we change it?
Dusan Babic, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Too many anti-fascists believe, as a friend of mine once said, ‘the masses are asses’. A wiser associate said to us, ‘no, we are the masses’.
To speak of the people in the third person is the beginning of elitism. It opens the field for real elitists – fascists and their ilk – to operate.
It was the masses who defeated Hitler and Mussolini, not college kids dressed in black with fashionable slogans and symbols. All that is necessary for the triumph of neo-fascism is for the anti-fascists to keep using a vanguardist playbook. If you don’t trust the masses, you’re halfway to fascism yourself.
Tikhon Andrew Gilson, USA
Banning Nick Griffin not only gives the BNP publicity, it gives them credibility as well. Preventing someone from expressing an opinion just allows them to argue that the authorities are afraid to let the people know the truth.
And as those of us who can recall the 1950s know, it’s not just wrong ideas that get suppressed.
John Fitzgerald, Canada
The big error being made here is to see fascism as a right-wing problem only. The USSR was every bit as evil as Nazi Germany, and the far-left agitators opposed to Griffin being allowed to speak, are every bit a threat to our civilisation as Griffin is.
Julia Issak, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: What do family courts have to hide?, by Thomas McMahon
As a psychologist who presents in the family court, I read McMahon’s article with interest. While I understand his point, my misgivings are based on two things:
1) Most family court cases (at least in New Zealand) are dealt with in mediation or by agreement. The remainder are often the highly conflicted and complex cases. Complexity has not been a strong suit of reporting on family cases which often takes a simplified moral view. I would feel more comfortable if I had been able to see responsible and nuanced reporting of family court cases.
2) The second misgiving is that in New Zealand the family court has been open to the media for some time, and there has been a distinct lack of interest or attendance by the media, except in cases where there is some high profile person involved. This suggests that the media is more interested in personality and sensation than a serious examination of the issues before the court.
Of note, the opening of the New Zealand family court system seemed to be triggered by protests from father-based groups, similar to the UK’s Fathers 4 Justice.
Gerard Dolan, New Zealand
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Respond Letters responding to: Stop presenting gays as whiter than white, by Mark Adnum
Good article. The Gately-Moir furore is all oddly reminiscent of the recent Polanski affair, where you want a pox on everyone’s houses. One of the reasons I continue to admire Peter Tatchell – for all that I disagree with some of his more recent political stances – is that Outrage! were always prepared to argue for gay equality, regardless of how individuals chose to live their lifestyles.
I do feel slightly sorry for Gately, who to my mind never seemed entirely comfortable as a gay rights icon – worth remembering that it was tabloid exposure that led to his outing in the first place, and I don’t remember him making any explicit boasts about his clean-cut lifestyle (of course, the whole point of Boyzone was an implausibly clean-cut Oirish counter to the ‘bad boys’ of Take That or East 17). And as ways to go, being man-rammed by Bulgarian tourists seems perfectly reasonable – unfortunately, passing away while your boyfriend does the man-ramming is nobody’s idea of a way out.
David Bowden, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: They couldn’t manage a mail service in a post office, by Mick Hume
Congratulations – best article on this strike I have read.
I’m married to a postman who has never voted for a strike before, but has grown fed up with Royal Mail mismanagement. There’s not a lot of choice of employment in this area, but, on the whole, he loves the job, when he can get on and do it.
Also, if truth be told, the private delivery companies’ delivery staff will be lost without the local postie to ask for directions. Private delivery company drivers are always getting lost!
The other problem in my experience is that when I miss a private delivery company’s delivery, I have a long trip to collect a parcel as they do not have a wide network of depots like the Royal Mail.
The local postie also bears the brunt of customers’ complaints, usually about issues they have no control over themselves such as there being no early morning delivery, no Sunday collections, and for items delivered by a private delivery company to the wrong address.
Sally Davies, UK
Where Hume sees ‘scabs’ or ‘strike breakers’, I see fellow working-class people, who, through no fault of their own, are without the good fortune of work. If it is ‘only’ an issue of quoting poor pay and market rates (unemployment benefit is £3,146 a year or £60.50 a week for those aged 25 and over, and £2,4934 a year/£47.95 a week for 16- to 24-year-olds) to garner sympathy for the unemployed ‘strike breakers’, then surely they are equally, if not more, deserving of our concern.
At the expense of re-treading old ground, I’m sure I remember reading a publication decades ago called Taking Control which urged the labour movement/unions to show solidarity with the unemployed by advocating that the unemployed should be paid a real living wage.
Why should the unemployed who are being shipped in to break a ‘strike’ show a concern for ‘fellow workers’ jobs when the same courteousness is not extended them? Sadly, despite Hume’s laudable intention of ‘sending a message’, perhaps the posties in their present guise deserve only to lose.
Alfred Graham, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Circumcision: cut the crap, by Nancy McDermott
No one can justify circumcising an infant. And nowhere does McDermott attempt to do so. Instead she assumes the status quo is pro circumcision and that her readers must justify not circumcising.
One hundred per cent of women are not born with an unsightly birthmark, she argues. On the other hand, one hundred per cent of men are born with a foreskin? Why? Is it a genetic defect common to male vertebrates that has to be corrected? Producing a child does not bestow on someone the ability to judge what is in his best interest medically or otherwise.
Circumcised men I have known have been Jewish and reluctant to criticise the practice for fear of being seen to let the side down. Being seen to criticise your mother for such an extreme act is a difficult emotional hurdle to jump, especially when you’ve been told by her that the decision was taken with love, for your own good and with reference to all the best opinion available (namely, her mates and fashion). Maybe they’ll take the view that she was misguided – provided they are steered clear of these pages.
As for the example of Kenyan men – well, they were men, not infants. Four thousand, five hundred men who had had sexual relations then agreed to circumcision – really? Relying on evidence from a country where female circumcision is still practised?
Terrence Foley, UK
McDermott really ought to get off her high horse. I can understand mothers getting defensive when anti-circumcision advocates accuse them of having ‘mutilated’ their children, but they just end up instinctively defending the indefensible.
The foreskin is not a birth defect. Infants have the right to not have parts of their body removed for social or religious reasons. Routine circumcision is wrong. The law that protects girls from having their genitals surgically altered in any way should cover boys as well. End of discussion.
Roland Hulme, USA
Parents who made the decision to circumcise their children did so out of love. They wanted the best for their child. It shows great parenting on their part.
However, they were ill-informed and circumcising their children was a horrible decision. Until people like McDermott can grow up and stop thinking that every discussion of circumcision is a personal attack on their parenting skills, we’ll never tackle the issue and end this institutionalised mutilation.
Please, use your journalistic skills to do something constructive, instead of helping perpetuate a disgusting practice that should have been abolished decades ago.
‘Champagne and Benzedrine’ blog, USA
How nice, this is coming from a woman who is protected from genital mutilation in the US.
I am a guy and I am circumcised. While attempting to restore my foreskin the other day, I thought, why should I have to spend two years stretching what little skin I have left to make it the way it should have been – not to mention get several sexual and protective benefits.
I would never circumcise my son’s penis. What right do I have to cut off parts of his body because I think it looks better? My parents had no right to circumcise me and I resent them for it.
As for what the Center for Disease Control (CDC) is saying, it’s just another bullshit way for Americans to try and justify male genital mutilation, using nonsense studies done in Africa. I wish they would explain why 80 per cent of the world is uncircumcised and that every country that has low circumcision rates has a much lower HIV rate as well. The US has a higher HIV Positive rate and a higher circumcision rate – why does the CDC ignore this?
Look at Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and Canada: circumcision is highly discouraged in all of those places. There is simply no reason to do it, circumcision being nothing but cosmetic surgery. It should be the penis-owner’s choice later in life whether to be circumcised. I think it should be illegal for parents to do it, unless its 100 per cent medically necessary. It’s sexist and disgusting that women are protected from this and men are not.
As I said before, I am circumcised, but when I have sons, I will not arrogate to myself the right to damage and mutilate their genitals. It will not be done unless they choose to have it done to their bodies. Children are human beings, yet they are treated like adults’ property. The US is the only first-world country that does this for non-religious purposes: it has to stop, for the sake of children.
Shawn Saunders, USA
Given the US’s strange preoccupation with mutilating the genitals of male children, I suppose the debate needed an American to defend the other side of the debate, or at least come up with a half-decent straw-man argument.
But isn’t it ironic that the person who’s defending the non-consensual removal of boys’ foreskins turns out to be… er… a woman?
I can’t wait for the follow-up, where a (male) Somali cleric tells us all that female genital mutilation isn’t bad at all, and what on earth are we thinking by complaining about it? After all, to paraphrase McDermott, women aren’t their clitorises – are they?
Alexander Hay, UK
I’m just curious how McDermott would feel about the millions of girls who have been held down, screaming, while having ‘just’ the edges of their labia minora cut away (because their parents made that ‘personal decision’ for them).
These girls have lost much less tissue than a boy loses from circumcision. The surgery does not interfere with reproduction or pleasure any more than male circumcision does.
It follows from McDermott’s extensive arguments that these girls (and the women they become) have nothing to complain about. Is that correct?
Tina Kimmel, USA
Why do people need to touch either male or female infant sex organs? Just leave them well alone – they will be fine, just as nature intended.
Adrian Starks, UK
As someone who has a botched penis due to circumcision, it was harmful to me. And I know many others who have suffered through circumcision. McDermott should know that there aren’t that many studies looking at long-term complications of circumcision – they are usually restricted to immediate complications such as bleeding. So we tend to suffer in silence.
Just because ‘anti-circs’ speaking out against the practice may make McDermott feel bad, it doesn’t mean they are wrong to do it. It isn’t their primary intention to make mothers who have already circumcised their child feel bad. It is their primary intention to inform people so that potential mothers see that opting to keep the child intact is the better option.
James Thomas, USA
Ethan Epstein’s article on circumcision was superb. All of his assertions were backed up and his reasoning was sound. This article, by contrast, is nothing but McDermott saying she disagrees with Epstein. She says nothing new, nor adds any new information, to a discussion with which she apparently wants no involvement. Why then did she write this article?
Also, as someone who has worked to educate others on the facts (versus the myths) of circumcision for several years (yes, I am an ‘intactivist’), I don’t appreciate being told to ‘get a life’. McDemott may want to think we are some fringe group, but our 56 per cent circumcision rate (down from 90 per cent) is because more and more people are becoming educated about the surgery and deciding to let their sons decide for themselves.
Furthermore, comparing circumcision to other parental choices like schools, moving, and whether or not the parents stay together and get divorced is ridiculous. All difficult parental decisions should in theory be made because 1) it benefits the child (circumcision does not), or 2) the decision is chiefly that of the parents (ie, divorce). Circumcising a child to ‘look like dad’ (which, 90 per cent of the time, is the real reason it’s done), is not an appropriate use of parental authority.
Caroline Warren, USA
McDermott defends circumcision vigorously, not on the grounds of circumcision being beneficial but that those in opposition to it have no right to say boys should be allowed to have any say over their bodies. I suggest she herself undergo the same procedure as her sons: removal of the foreskin.
Foreskin removal for both boys and girls in America was written up as the answer to many physical and emotional problems in medical journals including that of the American Medical Association. This surgery was covered under many healthcare insurance plans until 1977 in America including Blue Cross Blue Shield. There are many circumcised American women now in their 50s and older who do just fine without their clitoral hoods. After all, it was their parents’ right to affect them so.
Camelia May, USA
McDermott’s article is a cruel and heartless dismissal of the very real physical and psychological damage inflicted on unconsenting minors with absolutely no medical need.
It is absolutely clear that mass circumcision of generations of American males has delivered absolutely zero health benefits. Indeed, AIDS took root in the US, yet the US continues to have the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the developed world. Meanwhile non-cutting cultures in Europe and Scandanavia etc, enjoy far superior sexual health overall. Around 85 per cent of all the world’s males enjoy an intact penis and suffer no particular health issues. Why doesn’t McDermott mention this?
Male and female circumcision may not be equivalent, but they are certainly analogous: dismissal of loss or harm, questionable health benefits, improved cleanliness and roots in cultural/traditional/religious beliefs.
On the basis of human rights, it is either acceptable to remove healthy parts of healthy children or it’s not. People arguing that the foreskin of male children represents such a danger to health that normal legal protections and established principles of medical ethics do not apply, are doing so from a very morally compromised position.
A circumcision forever changes the appearance, the feeling and the function of a penis. This is certainly something I did not want to happen to my penis and I very much resent the fact the best and most sensitive parts of my penis were so thoughtlessly cut away and discarded.
Healthy children do not need surgery. This is common sense and should be obvious.
James, Australia
What is most concerning about McDermott’s approach to circumcision is the idea that the parent has the only say. True, there are many aspects of child rearing which are best left entirely to the parents. And society at large should probably be a little more tolerant of parents getting things wrong and learning from experience. But a surgical procedure with a distinguished history of entirely fabricated benefits (from salvation of the soul to salvation of the eyesight), and some potential benefits that are at best tenuous and none of which are relevant until the child himself is old enough to make his own decision, does not fall within the remit of decisions that parents should be making on behalf of their children.
McDermott needs to be able to justify why this decision has to be taken so urgently by parents of newborn children and not by the children themselves when aged, say, 15. By waiting and giving the choice to the person whose body it actually is, you lose nothing and give the choice to the person who morally owns the decision.
That male infant circumcision is a less drastic procedure than female infant circumcision is no more justification for the procedure than saying you can remove one eyelid because doing so is less drastic than removing two.
James Visanji, Germany
If the foreskin is just ‘a few inches of skin’, the lens of the eye is just ‘a blob of jelly’. But where it is and what it does make a heap of difference.
McDermott misrepresents the Sorrell study of 2002. It did not ‘indicate that some men enjoy sex less after circumcision’ but objectively measured the sensitivity of the foreskin, the first study to do so, and found it was ‘the most sensitive part of the penis’.
In discussing FGC, she compares the tribal custom in the female with the surgical operation in the male. When you compare apples with apples, the difference becomes much smaller: 56 youths have died of tribal circumcision in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, this year alone – how much worse can it get?
Circumcision is only ‘a personal decision for parents’ in the US. In the rest of the non-Muslim world, it is almost unknown. The rest of the English-speaking world tried it, found it did no good and gave it up, but it continues in the US for reasons as much habitual as financial.
Her speculations about the origins of intactivism are interesting, but tangential. Taddio et al did find that circumcised boys respond differently to the pain of vaccination than did non-circumcised boys, even months later. And neuroscience does suggest that circumcision alters sexual functioning, but this work is still speculative.
The key failure of McDermott’s discussion of the human rights versus parental decision issue is that she never acknowledges that the baby grows up to be a man with his own opinion about how much of his own penis he might like to keep.
Intactivism probably does have its roots in the same ground from which the civil rights movement, feminism and gay rights sprang, though it is unconnected with them. More important is that very American concern with the rights of the individual.
One of feminism’s key slogans is highly applicable here: whose body, whose rights?
Hugh Young, New Zealand
Unbelievably offensive.
How a woman can possibly think she has any ‘insight’ that trumps the experiences of actual men in this regard is beyond a joke.
McDermott should stick to something she is qualified to talk about. I for one am glad I didn’t have someone like her as my mother, otherwise I might not be as intact as I am.
David G, Australia
McDermott’s piece commits the heresy of being both well argued and good humoured. Of course, it is therefore immediately the target of all those who have neither a good sense of humour nor a sense of logical proportion. (She makes mincemeat of Ethan Epstein’s article, by the way).
It’s interesting to see how many respondents are writing in to attack the parental right to make decisions about their children. And, in doing so, advocating a ‘nanny’ state which will forbid parents to make such choices.
Eugene Montague, USA
I suspect McDermott attempted to add balance to the discussion, but her portrayal of the disparities between female genital mutilation and male genital mutilation was not a like for like comparison. To say that the equivalent of FGM for young boys would be removing the penis and scrotum was the point where McDermott’s sexism became apparent. To argue for parental choice, as she does, falls into the same line of arguments that are offered in Sub Saharan Africa for continuing the procedure.
I find it amazing that white, privileged females somehow consider themselves arbiters on this issue. However, just as we have listened to women advocates in the arena of FGM, or abortion, I think it is advisable we accept men as the prime advocates on this issue, not women.
In sum, her portrayal was shockingly misandrist. Views such as this, particularly those of white western women who possess such ill-formed superiority complexes, undermine egalitarianism and humaness.
Arianne, USA
McDermott writes,
‘There isn’t really overwhelming evidence for or against infant circumcision, which makes this issue quite unambiguously a matter of preference.’
You could use the same mentality to justify female circumcision. I assume McDermott does not object to, say, Middle Eastern countries that engage in that practice.
Norman Lathers, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: Giving animals human motivations: that’s Life, by Patrick West
As a vegan of almost three years, I too have given much thought to the realities of nature and the boundaries of imposing human intentions and emotions. It is true that even the most sincere vegan cannot honestly and reasonably expect to turn the animal kingdom, or the human one, into a utopia, yet the idea has persisted over the generations.
No, the best path I have found up until now is to allow the world to be chaotic, violent, and even ugly, but also to not be afraid of demonstrating and celebrating our wonderful capacity for compassion. After all, there is a wide world of difference between the lion and the gazelle, and our modern industrial factory farms, to cite the most egregious example of our disavowal of human compassion.
Kevin Schneider, USA
So, high levels of depression in the West are caused by the high level of expectations? I thought we were living in an era of low expectations?
Really, West’s simplistic notion of the very serious psychiatric illness of depression is the kind of infantile thinking he purports to address.
I think West should take a lesson from our evolutionary ancestors and get some meat under his belt to allow for a little higher brain functioning.
Gavin Philpott, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: What do you think: is this child porn or art?, by Nathalie Rothschild
There are thousands of parents here in the USA who exploit their daughters by entering them in child beauty pageants. The picture of Brooke Shields is tame compared to the little girl exploitation pictures you can see at any under-10 beauty contest.
Martin Berliner, USA
I saw all the photos from the series some years back in New York. No, it’s certainly not child porn. I’ve seen real child porn in the course of my research. But as a photographer, I wouldn’t call it art. The UK and the US are behaving really bizarrely over this topic. Where will it end?
Tom Mcguire, Spain
This is 100 per cent child porn. The world is a tough place for all of us, especially children – why make it harder by displaying ‘art’ which is clearly going to excite paedophiles?
Ari Dale, Israel
I think Alfred Steiglitz’s original 1923 photo, from which Richard Prince’s one takes its name, may have just provoked shock!
Kerryn Whiteside, Australia
I have seen the full image. It is child porn.
Shame on Brooke Shield’s mother for commissioning it, and shame on all the others who wish to capitalise on it.
David Devore, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Jackson Jive: the return of Aussie racism, by Guy Rundle
Australia like New Zealand is a deeply racist country but I have never heard it accused of introspection before. The problem is that Australians, like New Zealanders, are completely ignorant and uneducated and entirely lacking in any kind of self-awareness.
Rundle says that previously TV executives would have known what they could and couldn’t get away with. But surely, in the past, they could have easily gotten away with precisely this kind of racism. And if Harry Connick Jr hadn’t been there, they would have gotten away with it this time, too.
The response of the Australian public has been to see it as ‘PC gone mad’. They lack any kind of self-examination or the slightest thought about their identity or their history. White Australians and White New Zealanders are too insecure and defensive to give that any thought. (I only keep including New Zealanders so you don’t think I’m being Anti-Aussie, not to steal the glory from Australia).
Australia and New Zealand are extremely racist countries and always have been. Our problem is old-fashioned racism, not new UK-style navel gazing. There’s really no question about it.
Nadine Fox, New Zealand
Rundle has made a good attempt to make sense of the bizarre TV showing of witless medical students re-enacting something unfunny they did over a decade ago.
The anarchic humour really did begin after the show. This was when white commentators and the TV show host fell over themselves to apologise to other white people who may have been offended by the possibility that different coloured people might have been mortified to find their very existence ridiculed and publicly humiliated by a bunch of overgrown, privately-educated Australian schoolboys.
It’s amazing how it’s never considered racist to assume that people of colour not only have different pigmentation but that their skin is uniquely thin, too. So much so that their mental capacity may predispose them to seek hurt in every banal and unfunny public act or statement. This is certainly a new take on ‘Not in front of the children’.
One wonders where on earth the politically correct and racially aware social commentators get their insights? Rundle’s article gives us a hint when he elaborates on the bashings of Indian students in Melbourne. He says, ‘conservative columnists had assured Australians that Indians were naturally passive’. But conservative columnists only echoed the deliberate press statements made by the head of Victoria’s police who used the ‘naturally passive’ excuse for the targeted beatings of Indian students living and working in Melbourne. The commissioner of police and his deputy had the gall this year to sum up the coloured Indian people as ‘passive, vulnerable and soft targets’. Or ready- made victims in the minds of the police.
Being offended because one assumes other ‘racially different’ people may be offended is no different to the position taken by Victoria’s police and their media mouthpieces. That is, they (people of colour) are different to us normal (white) folk because they are somehow dogged by their past and naturally predisposed to victimhood.
Only the ‘Marxist’ (as she was introduced on ABC TV show Q&A) Germaine Greer brought some light relief to the disturbing debate. Not wanting our racially different brothers and sisters to steal all the victim limelight, Greer, with all the dignity she could muster, made the case for ‘our need to be offended’, not just by blacked up men but also ‘by men dressed as women in the pursuit of comedy’. After that I took back anything bad I may have said about the quality of Australian TV in the past.
Dom McCarthy, Australia
Having been to Australia a few times, I have always been struck by how its people are relatively untroubled by the pet issues of Western intellectuals. Beyond vague ideas about equality, there is little of the hand-wringing and self-loathing evident in European societies.
This is quite refreshing to someone who lives in a country where ‘resentment studies’ are alive and well – where every disparity in society is attributed to the prejudice or cruelty of others, and where every social group is regarded as oppressed or the oppressor.
That said, Australia does appear to be a country uncertain of itself. The last time I visited, there seemed to be moves towards the kind of paternalistic politics common in Europe, as if they thought this is how grown-up governments operate; as if this is how they will be taken seriously by the rest of the world.
Personally, I hope that Australia retains some of its larrakin spirit. The last thing we need is another country run by humourless bureaucrats, guided by axe-grinding intellectuals. This isn’t to say that a little more sensitivity wouldn’t go amiss, but if they venture too far down the road to European-style politics, they will cease to be the Fortunate Country.
Russell Taylor, UK
Racism is alive and well on USA TV, or at least it is in the Spanish-language comedies. Just search YouTube for TELMEXUVISION and watch some in-your-face ridicule and stereotyping that pales in comparison with the Australian Hey Hey skit.
Ricardo Sanchez, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: Why libertarians should support the right to die, by Wendy Kaminer
I have always looked forward to reading Wendy Kaminer’s column and I think it is a real coup for spiked to have her on board. However this article misses a very important point about the ‘right to die’ debate.
Though I can sympathise with the frustration of Kaminer when confronted with the thin-end-of-the-wedgers – and I believe this is simply scaremongering in order to hide the weakness of the argument – I think that there is a great danger in allowing the state to sanctify the ending of a life. For one thing it is an admission of defeat, but more importantly, it creates confusion over what a right actually is.
History is characterised by struggle, class or otherwise, to create a better life for humanity in general. Rights, one of the gains of such struggle, are intended to improve life, not end it, and it is here that I feel Kaminer’s argument falls.
I think that the idea of ending a life in a civil society should be seen as a crime. It should be left to the courts to decide on the particular cases. That is what courts are for: to impose a generally accepted morality.
Allowing this ‘right to die’ only creates fatalism in both the technical (medical) ability to find a solution and in society more generally. I am still old enough to remember when a diagnosis of cancer was a death sentence. Today that, thankfully, is not the case.
Denis Joe, UK
The problem with legalisation of physician assisted suicide is that it is not a substitute for the decriminalisation of suicide. It is a way of protecting physicians from some malpractice suits and adds to the number of ways in which money is funnelled to the doctors.
Death is a part of life. If every individual has a right to life, every individual must have the right to end his own life. Whether he chooses to involve a physician should be his own choice. The repeal of all laws against suicide or attempted suicide (still on the books in most states) should precede the legalisation of physician-assisted suicides.
Richard Bohan, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: The self-destruction of the House of Commons, by Brendan O’Neill
Over my 55 adult years (counting from starting work at 16) I have had direct (albeit fleeting) contact with four MPs. Two have genuinely impressed me, one of which, by a huge irony, was Jack Profumo, my then MP. The other two are almost perfect examples of the description given in your opening paragraphs.
Populist view or otherwise that is exactly how I found them. I will however concentrate on Jacqui Smith MP, my MP, whose infamous second home is only a 10 minute walk from me.
Let me list my populist antipathy.
1) Only weeks before being appointed home secretary, it was revealed that her husband (yes, that very same husband) had written letters to the local free paper praising the work of ‘our local MP’ surreptitiously failing to mention his connection with his ‘local hardworking MP’. Incidentially, similar letters had been written by ‘members of the public’ who also forgot to mention they were local Labour Party members.
2) Here in Redditch the real anger was for the claiming on expenses of a bath plug not the naughty films. Even in Redditch a little bit of spice does no harm.
3) Finally (I will bore you only a little longer), my MP then gets up in Parliament to apologise and says (I paraphrase) ‘I will continue to work hard for my constituents in Redditch’. This from the lady who, while still only prospective parliamentary candidate for Redditch, applied to be a candidate for a much safer Labour seat in the nearby by Black Country. She wrote a letter of apology to ‘us’ after she had failed in her attempt.
Peter Bolt, UK
The article was good but it was missing some salient points. I think that O’Neill will find that claims that it was within the rules actually translates as, ‘the fees office allowed it’. Quite simply, if I claim expenses for my gardening, it does not have any effect on my ability to do my parliamentary duty, but it does enrich me because I have not had to pay the bill myself. This is against the rules.
Again, the fees office have failed woefully to carry out their statutory duty. I will accept that it is possible to innocently make a wrong claim. But the revelations prove corruption was rife. It would be the job of the fees office to check and authorise each individual claim. Those responsible in the fees office should be sacked. Seeing as no MPs are asking for this, it seems there is complicity between the fees office and our so-called honourable members of parliament.
This further suggests that there should be mass prosecutions of MP’s for conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud. This should result in harsh sentences for these miscreants who appear to think they are above the law as applied to the average citizen.
Seeing as they stole more than the great train robbers, they should receive similar sentences. They should also be stripped of their assets as proceeds of crime and barred from political office for life. This should see justice done for the citizens and would send a clear warning to those will follow the current crop of corrupt politicians.
Edward Devoy, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Brighton bomb memories, by Mick Hume
I remember the Battle of Orgreave in 1984 and also, of course, the Brighton Bomb. I was an A level student in Sheffield at the time. The question asked that October morning in the college canteen amongst the students was whodunnit? While many opined it must be the miners, I had little doubt in my mind that it was the audacious act of Irish republicans.
I recall miners from all over the country invading Sheffield city centre for a National Union of Miners rally one day that year with police struggling to keep a lid on the mayhem. Going to football back then we celebrated goals and victories with much more passion, invading pitches and reacting to goals conceded and defeats with equal vehemence by invading opposing supporters’ terraces. Everything seemed to be infused with greater meaning. Things mattered more. Even the graffiti on the walls was aggressive and in your face. Today’s political battles and football matches seem anodyne and sanitised in comparison. Times were tough, too, of course. When were they not for working people?
There were casualties of war and conflict 25 years ago but such sacrifices were viewed in the context of a wider struggle, as a painful but necessary contribution to a common cause. That was the case whichever side of the fence you were on. Contrast the public reaction to today’s fallen troops in Afghanistan and Iraq to the popular reaction to the Falklands campaign where similar levels of casualties were incurred. Although today’s killed-in-action are mourned and remembered, their sacrifices are seen as a futile waste. Instead of popular support for ‘Our Boys’ there is bitterness and resentment towards the government that committed them to war.
Today each battlefield loss is deemed incalcuable and leaves the body politic in a state of paralysis or denial. The sacrifice is shorn of meaning. Past wars were fought out of strategic necessity or with clearly defined goals and ambitions. Today’s adventures are fought over ethereal values that seek to shore up the elite’s flagging legitimacy.
No one wants to fight for ideals or visions of the future that fail to inspire or lack meaning and purpose. There are many reasons to be angry today. However, Politics cannot be made relevant if the desire to affect meaningful change is absent. But the converse is also true. Politics can raise the standard and channel the rage and the passion of the age in a positive and progressive direction. It is about time someone came up with a meaningful agenda for change that can inspire and rally people.
Michael Hallihane, UK
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Respond Letter responding to: Jackson Jive: the return of Aussie racism? by Guy Rundle
I am writing to spiked from Harry Connick Jr’s management team, Wilkins Management.
We read Rundle’s very thoughtful piece Jackson Jive: the return of Aussie racism? and while we truly appreciate his insightful analysis of this subject, I write to point out some factually incorrect statements, as it refers to Harry.
Rundle writes: ‘Elsewhere, online daily Crikey turned up old footage of Harry Connick Jr sporting a black face for Saturday Night Live and Germaine Greer, appearing on the local version of Any Questions, wondered aloud why people weren’t equally angry over drag acts.’
Harry has never appeared in black face. Although he doesn’t think there is a problem with doing so, he has not yet played a black character in his career.
Regarding the MadTV skit that Harry participated in, we have issued the following statement and posted it to his official sites:
There is a 1996 MadTV clip of a spoof featuring a black Baptist minister named Rev LaMonte Nixon Fatback and a white southern evangelical preacher with a pompadour named Dr Michael Kassick. Some people seem to be confused about which actor is playing which character. For the record the actor playing Rev LaMonte Nixon Fatback is Orlando Jones and the actor playing Dr Michael Kassick is Harry Connick Jr.
Thanks so much for your time and attention.
Best Regards,
Ben Willmott
Wilkins Management
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Respond Letters responding to: Watching football is not a civil right, by Duleep Allirajah
Allirajah’s arguments are narrow and technical. Rights in our society flow from morality and are then made law, not the other way round.
It’s the ownership of football that bothers people. Who put the FA in charge? Who gave them and the SFA the right to sell all games for the next five years?
These organisations are in receipt of public money. And once again they’ve signed up to a company who can’t cough up, just like the Bundesliga, the football league and the premier league (as the SPL used to be known before they gave that up to the English Premier League). People in Scotland and England weren’t consulted. Allirajah should go to Liverpool and explain to the fans his view that they have no ‘right’ to watch ‘their’ clubs.
Live football was rationed in the past to ensure high attendances. When technology made it profitable to charge, charges were introduced. No such restrictions applied to the broadcast of live UK football on the continent, where football was generally played on a Sunday. Live English (and the occasional Celtic v Rangers) were a regular Saturday event for years in Europe.
People don’t like being screwed, and they bristle when they hear the half-baked arguments of the apologists for this system. The logical conclusion of your arguments is the death of football.
‘Football without fans is nothing’ – Jock Stein.
Terrence Foley, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Weighing into family life again, by Rob Lyons
A few years ago a European survey on national body mass index (BMI) averages rated England as the second fattest nation after Malta. This has not always been the case. In The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell describes chronically undernourished and underemployed working men amongst whom he sojourned in depression-era England.
A friend’s mother, then a teenager, described the British who emigrated to Canada during or after the Second World War as uniformly gaunt, thanks to the depression, wartime and post-war rationing. One of her British co-workers at the time salvaged every leftover scrap in the company dining hall and was aghast at the wasteful habits of Canadians.
I’m not suggesting another depression or world war as a solution to reversing the obesity trends of modern nations of which England is just one example, but it will take a major sea change in consumption and activity habits rather than some scolding by midwives and paediatricians.
Alan Tallmeister, Canada
It’s funny how the politicians and experts who advocate meddling in people’s private lives always claim to act on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves: children, animals, Mother Nature and so on. Could their desire to meddle in our lives exist without an array of victims to rescue?
Russell Taylor, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Refighting the Culture War over Roman Polanski, by Brendan O’Neill
O’Neill’s article is brilliant, measured, insightful.
As a lawyer, I agree that it would have been helpful to have a debate about arrest warrants for long ago crimes (eg, Nazi war criminals). I happen to think that with certain crimes, there should be no time limit as regards prosecution.
As a ‘liberal’ I don’t see how this type of case is a positive example of ‘pushing back the boundaries of’ anything.
As a mother, I do think Britain is in the grip of hysteria about paedophilia, but I don’t think raping and sodomising children – however eminent the perpetrator – is something that should be a matter of artistic licence due to a) the passage of time and b) the forgiveness of the victim.
The factors the pro-Polanski side want taken into consideration are perhaps relevant when it comes to sentencing. Not whether the man should be held culpable.
Ultimately, the furore about this boils down to that current obsession, celebrity. If Polanski had been a Mexican-American senior citizen who worked as a labourer no one would be defending him.
Marsha Prescod, UK
Frantic isn’t that bad a movie.
Alexander Solomita, USA
This isn’t about a Culture War – writing and talking about it simply makes people feel important.
No, it’s all about what happened in March 1977, and nothing else matters, not what the ‘left’ or ‘right’ think. It’s about the crime, the victim and justice. It’s simple.
Andrew McKinnon, USA
Polanski broke the law and then fled the country. He’s a wanted criminal. Seems pretty straightforward, really.
Jen Stynes, Australia
Whilst O’Neill quite rightly demonstrates the awful behaviour of liberal commentators in relation to the Polanski affair, it is clear that your strictures on ‘conservatives’ are not justified by any of the evidence you present. From the conservative sources you referenced and elsewhere, the real conservative argument has nought to do with the ‘60s, but rather with the simple point that Polanski raped a 13 year old and should face the law. There is no whiff here of grapeshot from the culture wars.
Peter, Australia
Even O’Neill’s article seems to over-complicate things a bit. A convicted child molester that fled the country to avoid a just punishment for his crimes will finally (hopefully) be sent back to the USA to serve his time.
The French and Polish reaction is truly shameful, as is the predictably tedious defence of Polanski from Weinstein and other puffed-up, self-important film industry members whose moral compass points solely to ‘look after your own’. I don’t see two sides to this one, and haven’t really found any moralising about what Polanski represents. He is just someone that drugged and abused a minor.
Tim Gagie, Switzerland
Nice article. What I would really like to know, though, is whether O’Neill thinks Polanski should be extradited back to the USA or whether the case should just be dropped. But I suppose cultural critics are much too erudite to actually take sides on a sensitive issue.
Bill Spivey, USA
Interesting article regarding the political thinking underpinning the Polanski affair. But I wonder what the aim of the detention is, and whether it’s worth all of the money it will take to get Polanski here and process the arrest through our legal system?
The injured party has stated many times that she is no longer interested in pursuing the issue further. She has been compensated. She has a life and a family and has moved on. Can’t something be arranged between the authorities and Polanski, such as having him give money to organisations that help victims of abuse, etc?
And why now? He has a home in Switzerland. He has been openly wandering about the world for the past 30 years so it’s very hard to believe that this is the first opportunity there has ever been of catching him? It is not like we have a sex offender running around the USA who could potentially continue to harm our young citizens.
France certainly doesn’t seem to be concerned. So who is going to pay for all of this mess? The answer is… the American people. In these hard economic times there are much better ways for the US to spend resources. This isn’t about helping a victim find closure and justice. It is a puffed up attempt to prove a point.
Bonnie Boyce, USA
O’Neill states that the movie Frantic is ‘awful’. It’s ironic that someone who is commenting on the ‘pathetic proxy clash between a clapped-out left and right’ provides his own subjective opinion in this case. If he was trying to be neutral and as objective as possible (which he was possibly attempting) he should have taken a peek at the Rotten Tomatoes rating (as close to an objective rating as one could hope to find) for the movie: 77 per cent. Not too bad at all.
Jack Forrest, USA
Sixties, schmixties… O’Neill’s article is so long winded and ridiculous I don’t know what to compare it to.
Nobody in America gives a flying one about ‘refighting the Culture War’ over Roman Polanski. The general disgust with him transcends the political divide, which is something of a phenomenon all by itself. Check out the comments at the Huffington Post posted in response to articles defending him and you’ll find the same ‘WTF?’ reaction from die-hard liberals as you’ll find on conservative websites. There’s nothing complicated about it.
He was 44. She was 13. He drugged her and then raped her before running away to avoid paying for it. Everything else is beside the point.
And where are the sources for O’Neill’s claims about who means what anyway? With not one quotation in the entire piece, it’s just a rundown of the author’s prejudices about left and right. O’Neill has simply set up a pair of straw men and has them battling furiously against one another. The upshot is a column on Polanski (hey, everybody’s doing one!) in which he gets to pontificate at great length without having to take a stand one way or the other.
Mary McLaughlin, USA
I am very conflicted by this article. As an obstetrician / gyncologist / sexologist I have both conservative and liberal sides to me.
The facts, though, are a matter of record: it was rape by any criterion.
So, if priests, politicians, and all the rest can, and have, been prosecuted decades after their acts, why not Polanski? The holocaust/Sharon Tate defences give no immunity from wrongdoings such as this.
The only lingering question I have is why now? After years of free passage between European nations, and having houses in France and Switzerland, who or what inspired the authorities to nab him now?
Congratulations on (another) first class piece. And keep up the good work!
Alan Scott, France
Forget all the gibberish O’Neill has written. Read the transcript. She was 13 years old.
Jim, USA
I am amazed! This is not complicated. There is right and wrong. A man ought not to drug-rape and otherwise sexually abuse a 13-year-old girl. If he does he should be punished, not rehabilitated.
I hope Roman is given a stretch in a real prison. It would be truly justice for him to feel what he made a 13-year-old girl feel, and I do not mean just emotionally. Here comes the chariot Roman!
Dan Carruthers, USA
Polanski isn’t being extradited just for rape; he is also being extradited for fleeing while on bail, after being convicted. I see that he has been denied bail by the Swiss – reasonable enough, given that he has already jumped bail once.
Paul Surrellin, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: Circumcision: the first cut is the deepest, by Ethan Epstein
Thank you, Mr Epstein, for expressing so rationally what many of us feel. It is illogical to decry one form of involuntary genital cutting while supporting another. This is an issue of basic human rights. Especially when we consider the protective, sensory, sexual and immunological value of the foreskin.
Ever since circumcision was promoted in the USA by Victorian doctors as a way to discourage masturbation (and the host of ailments alleged to stem from it), there has always been a new justification popping up every generation or so: penile and cervical cancer, UTIs, STDs, and now HIV. It has been said that infant circumcision is a cure looking for a disease, and the HIV scare tactic is just the latest in a long history of scare tactics.
If people would open their eyes and look at the empirical evidence, we see that non-circumcised Europe and Japan have lower rates of just about every STD, including HIV, while majority-circumcised USA has among the highest rates of the same diseases in the industrialized world. It should also be mentioned that Langerin, the hormone secreted by Langerhans cells in the foreskin, actually breaks down HIV and other viral cells. Why would you want to amputate your first line of defence?
The answer is simple: circumcision is profitable. And as long as it remains profitable, it will continue to be pushed and justified by those who profit from it.
Todd Downing, USA
Thanks for a powerful, truthful explanation of why routine neonatal circumcision is not only misguided, but wrong. The United States has made male circumcision an ingrained part of its culture. Fortunately, over the past 20 years the number of babies being needlessly circumcised has dropped to less than 60 per cent nationwide – with the western states at just 35 per cent and the mid-west at more than 80 per cent.
The USA needs to wake-up to the fact that we have the highest number of circumcised male adults (79 per cent) for non-religious reasons among Westernised countries. Yet we also have the highest rate of infection from HIV and several other Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Follow the lead of our European neighbours who have circumcision rates below five per cent and also have low rates of HIV and other STDs. We Americans need to promote abstinence, condoms and remove the Victorian veil that keeps us from talking openly about sex.
Bob Harlan, USA
Epstein’s reasoning is narrow-minded and childish, to say the least.
Circumcision is not advocated for its health benefits in preventing the spread of AIDS, but for basic hygiene and ‘ease of use’. Maybe you and a few other men are upset that they lost some length or girth down there and now women don’t find you sexually satisfying, but don’t subject a whole generation of men to a greatly increased risk of urinary tract infections and other hygiene-health related issues that affect uncircumcised men. It’s just a cleaner, easier way to go and if it is done properly at the right age there are no adverse effects whatsoever… all we Jews can’t be wrong!
Really man, it’s not worth the extra few millimeters!
Joshua Gottlieb, USA
The claim that male circumcision reduces the spread of HIV is simply idiotic and scientifically invalid.
It’s like saying that a man with only one leg has 50 per cent less chance of getting the ‘athletes foot’ fungal infection. Furthermore, anyone whose genitals have been mutilated is less likely to have sex anyway, as thousands of circumcised men and women can testify.
More ominously, however, the research only reports on circumcised men, not women. It’s fairly obvious that the folds and crevices of the female labia are more likely to incubate germs than the male foreskin because there are more of them. Compare the size of your foreskin (if you are lucky enough still to have one) with your wife’s labia if you don’t believe me.
I don’t suppose for one minute that anyone would care to carry out the research, but if it was found that circumcised women were less likely to spread HIV, would we call for all women to have their vulvae hacked off, regardless of whether they want the procedure? I don’t think so.
David Cann, UK
Thank you so much, Mr Epstein, for writing a great article that finally shares accurate information. Promote him and give him a raise!
Caroline Warren, USA
From my perspective as the (uncircumcised) father of an 18-month-old (circumcised) son, Epstein’s article needs some further research. There are other, perfectly rational, reasons for circumcision beyond the real or imagined increased protection against HIV. At two months, my son, then uncircumcised, was hospitalised in a serious condition with a urinary tract infection (UTI).
At that time, myself and my wife researched the question, and the available evidence unmistakably shows that circumcision reduces the danger of a UTI. (For one example, see Circumcision for the Prevention of Urinary Tract Infection in Boys: A Systematic Review of Randomised Trials and Observational Studies).
Needless to say, and on the doctor’s recommendation, we arranged for our son’s circumcision before he left the hospital. It’s a relatively easy choice between a foreskin and a return visit to intensive care.
I agree that the procedure should not be mandatory, but there are actual health benefits, and these need to be taken into account. In contrast, to my knowledge, there are no health benefits of any kind to the insidious practice of female circumcision.
Eugene Montague, USA
Good article! Why can’t we leave men and women be, just like they came out of the factory?
Unless foreskins or labia are giving constant problems, why fiddle with nature’s design? Just leave them alone!
Adrian Starks, UK
Circumcision among American-born males has been the norm for multiple decades already, and occurs right in the hospital. Somehow American teenagers, regular adults and even porn stars seem to be surviving this procedure with what seems to be anything but a dearth of sexual pleasure.
If it reduces the incidence of HIV infection by 20 per cent rather than the whopping 50 per cent or so found in the African study group, without even mentioning the impact on other STD’s, it deserves merit. This is not a hysterical new movement in the USA. And male circumcision predominates despite individual choice of parents.
Elenkela Jurzdyczanski, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: Feral kids: Cocky, confident and in control, by Tim Black
Like all spiked writers Black starts from the outcome which he desires and works backwards to what it implies. In this case the outcome is that the future is bright (spiked’s leitmotif), the kids are the future ergo the kids are okay. But some kids aren’t okay, so they must be misunderstood. Hence the following is written about Fiona Pilkington’s suicide:
‘But, and this is key, it was Pilkingtons decision to take her own and her daughter’s life. As vile as those teenagers and children were, they did not drive Pilkington to that layby and set fire to the car; the tragic decision was hers alone.’
Such logic simply reveals how disorientated the left has become.
The difference between ‘cause and effect’ and responsibility, may seem intellectually cogent to spiked, but it simply distances you (the ‘left’) from the people you pretend to support (the victims).
Peter Burnett, UK
‘It was Pilkington’s decision to take her own and her daughters life. As vile as those teenagers and children were, they did not drive Pilkington to that layby and set fire to the car; the tragic decision was hers alone” is perverse.’ This statement of Black’s is perverse.
Pilkington was harrassed to death by the sort of sadistic bully-boy gang culture he tries to explain away and indeed excuse, all in the name of a contrary, glib article. Let us not forget that for years, Pilkington was ignored, abandoned, humiliated, neglected; her humanity and the humanity of her family devalued. And that is the true horror of what has happened here.
Perhaps Black would have heroically pressed on despite years of abuse. But many people wouldn’t, their breaking points being far less. You see, human beings don’t as a rule stand up well to non-stop abuse; it tends to weaken and destroy them. For bien pensants like Black this is simply unfathomable.
No doubt he would say that it’s their fault for being foolish enough to live in the midst of feral kids, and believing in abstract concepts like ‘anti-social behaviour’ or a right to a safe, secure life and justice.
But something tells me Black hasn’t lived in the sort of hellhole many families in Britain today have to endure. Or, if he has, he’s probably just picked the easy option in cases like this, and sided with the bullies.
Alexander Hay, UK
I don’t think the ‘adult world’ is scared of children. Given the chance most people would love the opportunity to deal with the type of scumbags that hounded Fiona Pilkington.
Yet we have a ‘police service’ who are more likely to respond to anyone who attempts such a thing. This could result in a criminal record which in turn could lead to the loss of a job and a barrier to finding another one, for example. It is this that scares people. Of course if the whole community is involved, that would be different, but we are not living in that type of world.
Even without the 10 years of harassment, Pilkington’s life seemed pretty wretched. It was pretty crass of Black to state her actions were her own decision. To do what she did was totally irrational, but, quite simply, she couldn’t take any more-choice doesn’t come into it.
Linda Payne, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Not all migrants are dirty, scruffy victims, by Nathalie Rothschild
Is it not the case that the would-be immigrants in France are simply the victims of people traffickers? Given the low wages in Afghanistan (or rural China – remember the cockle pickers who drowned in Morcambe Bay in 2004?), how do these people expect to pay for the transportation to the UK, if not from the wages they expect to earn once here? As illegals, they will effectively be indentured to their traffickers’ associates if they do ever gain admission. By not tackling this aspect of the problem, we are effectively condoning a modern-day form of slavery. Any relaxation of UK border controls will simply encourage traffickers.
John Birkett, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: An epidemic of OCD: Obsessive Carbon Dogma, by Austin Williams
Williams writes: ‘Even if carbon emissions are causing global warming, and even if global warming has the potential to cause dangerous sea-level rise, it still doesn’t follow automatically that we should use less carbon. Maybe we should use more carbon.’
To start off with, no scientist with a non-trivial amount of climate-related publications questions either the fact that human carbon emissions are the primary driver of modern climate change, or the fact that it will cause sea level change, so the qualifiers ‘even if’ would seem to be unnecessary from a scientific standpoint. Science is about scientists, not crackpot environmentalists or documentary-making politicians, and all the criticisms of misguided environmentalists are irrelevant to the fact that the idea of some mysterious force affecting climate that all the worlds’ scientists have so far yet to detect is far-fetched at best. One would expect spiked to have a little more faith in scientific research.
Furthermore, nothing follows ‘automatically’, but many things do follow after extensive scientific research. Perhaps the Chinese, instead of shutting down toxic manganese smelters because of cancer in children, should forge ahead at full speed to develop the economy so that people will no longer have to live near toxic manganese smelters and can make cancer treatment more affordable. After all, one wouldn’t want to be in danger of stifling creativity or lose sight of any options. spiked‘s hatred of liberal misanthropic environmentalism seems to be blinding itself when it comes to the science.
Joseph Chu, USA
Williams really should get his facts straight and employ more sensitivity when it comes to criticising people with ME/chronic fatigue syndrome. What the hell would he know about it? Has he ever suffered from it? Well I do, and it’s not the same thing as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder at all. It is a horrible, debilitating illness that he has no right to ridicule.
Imagine struggling day in day out with so much pain in your legs that you can hardly walk. Imagine having to cope with such chronic exhaustion that you can hardly get out of bed, and such terrible concentration that you can hardly have a conversation. And then there’s the struggle with depression because you can’t get out and do the very things you want to.
Imagine feeling like this for years. This is the reality for many people struggling with ME. Williams’ assertion that ME is comparable to OCD is horrendous and infuriating. He should really be much more informed in the future, and a bit of humanity wouldn’t go amiss, too.
Name withheld, UK
To understand the widespread belief in Anthropogenic Global Warming and the consequent fixation on CO2 and carbon, one needs to ask two basic questions: Who benefits from an acceptance of the idea? And who funds the idea?
The answer in both cases is governments. AGW is an entirely politically-funded and politically-motivated notion. In the USA alone, $80billion worth of taxes has been spent trying to prove and propagandise it, outspending other research by a factor of some thousands.
Government climatologists today are in an equivalent position to the tobacco industry scientists of a few decades back who told us smoking is harmless. In both cases, the scientists in question simply dress up their paymasters’ naked self-interest as science.
We need to see both the scientists and the science for what they are.
BFJ Cricklewood, South Africa
The unnamed ME sufferer on this page (see letter above), who complains about Austin Williams’ inventive analogies for our preoccupation with carbon, gives as much offence as she/he takes.
The insistence by many ME sufferers that their condition must have a physiological basis seems motivated by an unspoken assumption that disorders with no such basis are somehow illegitimate. This conveys at best a lack of sympathy, and at worst outright contempt, for those with purely psychological disorders. To respond to an article that mentions obsessive compulsive disorder and ME in the same breath by launching into a ‘my disease is more debilitating than yours’ pissing contest only confirms this impression.
Sandy Starr, UK
Joseph Chu (see letter above) has a very good point when he states that ‘no scientist with a non-trivial amount of climate-related publications questions either the fact that human carbon emissions are the primary driver of modern climate change’.
Yes, it is a real shame that these scientists invariably fail to question the thermodynamics of the matter.
Having read such publications extensively, without exception the authors conduct their dialectic on the assumption that ‘The Earth radiates heat in the infrared like a black body’. This absurd assumption is used to predict an icebound planet at -19C, somehow saved from an icy extinction by greenhouse gases, trace gases that warm the planet by a cosy 33C. Based on this mistaken assumption, vast tracts are written about ‘the end of civilisation as we know it’ due to an equally improbable overheating, unless… we abandon the combustion of carbon, etc, etc, etc.
Since the Earth reflects about 30 per cent of incident radiation there is no way it can be said to behave like a black body, no more than a yellow body can be ‘black in the blue part of the spectrum’.
The black body assumption has never been, and cannot be, justified – it is completely mistaken. The assumption has all the features of good old-fashioned perpetual motion machines; endlessly invented but thermodynamically quite impossible.
Sorry about the billions wasted to produce ‘climate science’ publications but the whole caboodle fails at the initial assumption, an assumption that, like he says, is never questioned.
Dermod O’Reilly, Belgium
In response to Joseph Chu (see letter above), who suggests that no scientist with ‘a non-trivial amount of climate-related publications’ questions the fact that human carbon emissions are the primary driver of modern climate change, will the Pielkes, father and son, do? Roger Pielke Snr isn’t even really a denier since he acknowledges the role of CO2, he just questions whether it is the primary driver. Nevertheless, that is enough to bring down the ire of the alarmists upon him, and also to fit your definition. I won’t even mention Richard Lindzen.
Even if we admit that most climate scientists accept the carbon model (and it is all about consensus these days, isn’t it?), it’s generally accepted now that the only way that climate change could affect sea level in the short term is if there was a major meltdown of land-based Arctic and Antarctic ice. This possibility could be described as ‘controversial’, were it not that most glaciologists regard it as utter baloney. Those ice sheets are kilometers thick in places, and there is this little thing called Latent Heat…
Alan Barnett, UK
I agree entirely with Joseph Chu (see letter above) that the global warming issue needs to be tackled on a scientific basis rather than with environmentalist hysteria.
The issue arose mainly because of the more or less undisputed warming of the climate between 1980 and 2000. This definitely needs to be explained scientifically, as does the standstill/ decline in temperature since 2000. The carbon dioxide story can explain the warming before 2000, but not the standstill, using some very heavy modelling.
Measurements should generally take precedence over models, so are there any measured data that explain the warming? Peter Taylor, author of Chill: A Reassessment of global warming theory , has been through the literature of various climate-related disciplines and has shown that both the warming and the standstill are explained by measured changes in the amount of short-wave radiation impacting the earth, which are themselves explained by measured changes in high-level cloud. Occam’s Razor surely suggests that the explanation based on measurements is the more satisfactory.
Tom Addiscott, UK
‘No scientist with a non-trivial amount of climate-related publications questions… the fact that human carbon emissions are the primary driver of modern climate change.’ (See Joseph Chu’s letter above.)
The problem we the public face here is trying to determine the motives and integrity of those very scientists and their journals. We now know, for example, that the initial study that put global warming on the map – the ‘Hockey Stick’ paper – was essentially a fraud that used cherry-picked data and dodgy DIY statistics algorithms. There is also the more recent case of the University of East Anglia refusing to supply global temperature data to anyone not already committed to the ‘correct’ view as exemplified in the quote above.
So, what other hidden agendas and academic shenanigans are skewing the pitch of mainstream climatology? What we seem to need, is an independent study of those who study climatology.
Rene Charont, USA
‘No scientist with a non-trivial amount of climate-related publications questions either the fact that human carbon emissions are the primary driver of modern climate change, or the fact that it will cause sea level
change.’ (See Joseph Chu’s letter above.)
What that actually means is ‘no member of the climate modelling mafia who make their living pushing global warming’ deny it exists. In the same way nobody making a living from the ‘science’ of astrology denies it is real.
As Climate Audit’s Stephen McIntyre has now proven beyond any possible doubt, there is no extreme warming and never has been. The entire thing has been based on what has been statistically proven to be deliberate fraud.
The largest single expression of real scientists opinion has always been the Oregon Petition in which 31,000 scientists say increasing CO2 is actually beneficial.
Neil Craig, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Could this be the worst ever election, by Mick Hume
I dont know who to Vote for. Labour has thrown away much of its 1997 promise, with more and more legislation, an ever expanding quangocracy, and the relinquishing of UK sovereignty to the EU.
Even applying the most basic acid test of a labour government, the rich appear to have got considerably richer and the working class have stood still, with the possibility of ‘green taxes’ hitting them disproportionately hard.
What of the alternatives? Tory leader David Cameron would say anything to get into bed with the electorate. And the Lib Dems’ David Clegg would, at the drop of a hat, tax working-class motorists off the road, confining most to a life of low wages and limited mobility, while the rich green elite move freely around, offsetting their carbon sins, and lecturing us mere mortals.
See my problem? It seems a bit like playing Russian Roulette – a spin this way or a spin that way but sooner or later, you get it in the head.
Adrian Starks, UK
Again, another great article! If Brown had really wanted to get us out of the recession he could have taken the money that he gave to the bankers and shared it between all UK citizens over the age of 18. However the people spent the money – whether to pay mortgages or to purchase goods – this would have given the economy the boost it never got.
Brown could still do some good by using the money meant for Trident (some £20billion plus) and used it to subsidise petrol/diesel to a pound per gallon, instantly reducing the cost of goods allowing the public more for their money and an incentive to spend and boost the economy. Both initiatives combined would have given a super boost to the economy with more goods being sold and therefore an increase in production followed by an increase in jobs to keep up with the increase in production. While some will say it is too simplistic an approach it can’s be any worse than what the Government are suggesting.
Talking of Governments, when we get rid of this lacklustre New Labour crowd, the only alternative is a lacklustre Conservative crowd. Worse still, even when we do vote New Labour out, they’ll simply be sat in opposition, still stealing our money and doing even less than they do now.
Edward Devoy, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Afghanistan: the West has defeated itself, by Mick Hume
The latest from the Obama Administration is that they will step up the remote-control drone attacks in north-west Pakistan before adding reinforcements to Afghanistan. This is classic Washington CYA (cover your arse) non-policy.
We’ve been launching Predator drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal areas for years. Has anyone heard of the principle of diminishing returns? If we were serious about hanging onto Afghanistan, the US would institute a draft and put about a half million troops into that country. That is what it would take. Conscription, however, is the electric third rail of American foreign policy. So far, Vietnam continues to dominate US foreign policy, even if nobody mentions it.
Tikhon Andrew Gilson, USA
For the past few years we have been told that the ‘real’ war of consequence was not in Iraq, but Afghanistan, and that ‘losing’ Afghanistan to the Taliban and its terrorist friends would pose a mortal threat to the West. Now we increasingly read that this war cannot be won by the West.
Surely this war must either be won by the West, or it must not; it can’t be both. I mean, can you imagine a newspaper article, say, in 1942, the darkest year of the Second World War, with the headline ‘Pacific victory a mission improbable’ or ‘Europe victory a mission improbable’? No, of course not. The West, principally the Anglosphere, together with the USSR, saw itself in mortal danger from both Nazi Germany and Japan. There was never any question but that the West and the USSR would prevail, eventually.
Now, however, it seems we of the West may be about to give up in the face of another mortal threat. I’m confused; it just doesn’t add up.
Charles Bures, Australia
I agree this war has lost any sense of direction (if it ever had one). There may need to be an intervention in Afghanistan to prevent the growth of extremism, but I really don’t think the main part of this should be military. Addressing the root causes of poverty, lack of education and lack of opportunities to engage in legitimate economic activity would be a better place to start.
Andy Sumpter, UK
Protecting ‘the locals’ while those same ‘locals’ are intimidated and/or slaughtered by a particular group of their own, aka the Taliban, seems to me indeed a losing proposition. It’s as if, in the 1930s, one tried to keep Germany away from a small, but lethal, subset of Germans, aka the Nazis. I can’t see it any other way. Neither can anyone else, I gather. So, who belongs to the Taliban? Answer that question, then proceed to eradicate the lot – once exposed, they’ll come to their senses quickly enough.
Ted Schrey, Canada
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Respond Letters responding to: Hunting the Celtic tiger, by John Hearne
Ireland went from 65 per cent of Britain’s per capita GNP to 140 per cent in 20 years. If they are now down to 130 per cent, at least partly because they aren’t borrowing 12.5 per cent of GNP as Britain is, this is hardly catastrophic. It will be interesting to see if the London-based media, which gave relatively little coverage to Ireland’s astonishing growth (averaging seven per cent when the world average is five per cent and Britain managed 2.5 per cent) will go back to that lack of interest when the Irish economy begins growing again, no doubt before the UK’s.
Neil Craig, UK
Heartiest Congratulations to Hearne for his incisive and brilliant account of the mean, scornful and self-righteous reaction to Ireland’s economic woes.
Whoever it was who said that the Irish that did begrudgery best should read John Hearne’s piece, and find out how much ‘fellow Europeans’ and ‘elite’ journalists resented Ireland’s brief but real economic success.
May John Hearne’s writings reach many, and be as influential as they surely deserve to be. I am proud of my native country when I read writers such as Hearne.
Mary O’Regan, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Fifteen months for a foolish affair, by Tim Black
Why was a banning order ‘too cruel’, but a custodial sentence inevitable in the judgment of the same judge? For the same reason that bureaucratic rigidity and official policing of private life required a prosecution in the first place. Discretion is gone. Judges now have almost no control over the sentences they pass. That role too has been taken over by box-ticking to please the Home Office taliban. The only way he could show mercy was to exercise discretion where it was allowed to him, in the matter of the refused supplementary order.
Guy Herbert, UK
We are talking about a crime of love, of passion – something that rape is not. I feel truly sorry for Helen Goddard who is a victim of a draconian, blanket law, the result of which will undoubtedly be much worse for the pupil concerned than the affair could have been. I wonder if she regrets her decisions now – I doubt it.
Cloblog, UK
It is good to read rational arguments on what has become a farce of British Justice. It is always wrong to make arbitrary distinctions on a matter such as this, ie, stating that once the girl had reached the age of 16 all would be ok. I think not.
Some people of both sexes are ready to be sexually active at a very young age and some do not develop until they are in their mid twenties and some are never ready.
Every case should be looked at individually, and in this case there was no wrong done by either party. The only wrong was perpetrated by the judge in his sentencing. If he felt, for whatever reason, he had to give a jail sentence then that sentence should have been a suspended sentence.
Edward Devoy, UK
I have nothing to add to that excellent, clear-sighted and temperate article except to say: hear, hear.
Thank you for some common sense and compassion.
Ian Williams, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: The backwards attacks on Norman Borlaug, by Rob Lyons
I am sure the agricultural reseach community would support Lyons’ comments on Norman Borlaug. The obituaries we are seeing show Borlaug as a thoroughly decent, down-to-earth bloke who wore his honours lightly – and saved millions of lives, of course. To launch an attack on Borlaug of the type that Lyons describes needs a sick mind.
Borlaug was not only a great plant breeder, he also showed great perceptiveness both in his support for GM crops and in his comments about global warming, particularly on the role of natural cycles. A recently-published book by Peter Taylor, Chill, a reassessment of global warming theory: does climate change mean the world is cooling and, if so, what should we do about it? emphasises the importance of these cycles to the warming of the climate, but the current orthodoxy does not pay nearly enough attention to them.
The book also shows that the warming from 1980 to 2000 can be explained perfectly well by measured increases of the amount of short-wave radiation reaching the earth from the sun. All the guff about carbon dioxide was almost certainly a complete distraction, but an enormously expensive distraction. Borlaug was right to be suspicious.
Tom Addiscott, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Why Thatcher defended the Berlin Wall, by Mick Hume
The Soviet Bloc stood as an example of what Marxist ideas looked like in practice and, as such, gave the West something to define itself against. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, many predicted the death of Marxist ideas, but quite the opposite happened.
With few communist countries left to serve as cautionary tales, the idea that the Soviet Bloc had got it wrong and that ‘true’ Marxism was still a possible and attractive alternative to the status quo has regained credibility. Initially, the Marxist influence was limited to social and cultural policy, but more recently even our economy has become tainted by such ideas.
Few people under 30 have any notion of how appalling life was in the Soviet Bloc, or how its atrocities were the obvious consequence of its underlying ideology. It’s little wonder that Western leaders regarded the fall of the Berlin Wall as a mixed blessing.
Russell Taylor, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: In defence of crowd incitement, by Duleep Allirajah
Well said! Adebayor’s celebration has been blown out of all proportion. The resulting furore has been nothing less than a media witchhunt. It’s pathetic.
Louise O’Hare, UK
Can we not have a vote for fans to decide what should be banned – a goal celebration referendum?
I vote to make that stupid Bebeto baby celebration illegal, followed by Peter Crouch doing anything resembling a robot dance, and finally the diving Klinsmann copycats.
Swearing, punching cornerflags, badge kissing, acrobatics, flute playing, coke snorting and stripping (with no ballsack visible) are fine by me.
Adam Gent, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: State-enforced equality is damaging democracy, by Brendan O’Neill
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the ‘no platform’ position, and the membership issue, I would like to argue that parties with discriminatory membership criteria should not have access to the public funds or benefits in kind which are currently made available to registered parties in the UK.
Take for example the National Front, a registered political party in the UK, who have a policy of forced repatriation of all ethnic minorities. Yes, all ethnic minorities, including those whose families have lived in the UK for centuries.
Apart from the obvious problem of where these people will be deported to, and what happens to people of mixed race (dissection and pre-deportation to the various countries of origin?) there is the question as to how this would be carried out. Given that the majority of these people were born in the UK, one can only conclude that this will be carried out by force and the use of violence. Now if I was an ethnic minority living in the UK I do not see why any portion of my taxes should reach such a party. Would male taxpayers be expected to finance a party that advocates the castration of all men?
And on the membership issue, it is a little naive to think that no ethnic minorities want to join the BNP. For some time now the party has offered affiliate membership for ethnic minorities in response to demand, and at least one BNP councillor elected in the Greater London area is Jewish. Ethnic minorities can be racist too – remember Rwanda?
David Spencer, UK
The BNP may offend most liberal-minded people, but I agree with O’Neill’s article on the dangers of state-enforced ‘equality’.
Democracy, if it is to mean anything at all, must be protected by allowing the ‘freedom of association’. The distinction between the ‘public’ and ‘private’ is very important. If we regulated every personal relationship or group and forced it to be ‘equal’ then it would be harder to allow for dissent. In the public realm, things are different. Because the public sector provides vital services for individuals, it must be free from any discriminatory practices.
We should allow the BNP to have a voice so we can see how non-progressive their policies are. However, to always do the immediate, seemingly, ‘right thing’, can have dire consequences for ‘democracy’ in the long run.
John Elfed Hughes, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: You say underclass, we say white trash, by Neil Davenport
I am from resolutely working-class stock and am as sensitive to moral panics and liberal nannying as anyone. As far as I’m concerned, politicians and ‘experts’ should have no say in what I say, think or consume. But even I can recognise that there has been a definite shift in moral standards over the past few decades.
Frankly, anyone who suggests that levels of kindness, decency and self-respect in society are unchanged or unimportant is a liar or an idiot. Vulgarity, criminality and egotism are not traditions of the working-class character. In my experience, pride, determination and a desire for self-improvement are more appropriate.
There’s nothing ‘authentic’ about degraded behaviour and nothing artificial and oppressive about recognising a hierarchy of values. It is respecting such values that allowed my family to drag itself out of the London slums.
Seeing middle-class liberals romanticise modern-day depravity, and install themselves as saviours and redeemers of the masses, is nauseating. Their efforts to dismantle naturally-evolving values to justify their own quest for radical individualism are totally self-serving. Their ideology doesn’t offer salvation; it promises to imprison people in their own cultural and economic squalor.
Russell Taylor, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Yes, its a return to the dark ages of football, by Brendan O’Neill
At the end of his article, Brendan O’Neill states that he doesn’t go to games. Fair enough: living abroad I don’t make it to many matches either, though I did in the ‘Dark Ages’. I wish I’d had O’Neill with me then to explain how the Birmingham City fans who trashed a train I was on were showing what ‘simply was an instinctive reaction against…top-down brutalism’. I’d have felt so much safer.
Perhaps O’Neill would have been able politely to tap the shoulder of one of the people throwing fire extinguishers through the window at passing trains to ask whether this ‘was a reaction against the elites already-existing obsession with football hooliganism’?
Similarly, O’Neill would make a useful companion if one were taking a kid to a game, as he would be able to point out to the young hopeful that a few thousand grown-ups screaming ‘You’re going to get your fucking heads kicked in’ and the racist chants aimed at black players was nothing new: ‘Trouble at football is as old as the spectator sport itself.’
And if only he’d been around when I used to live between White Hart Lane and Highbury so that he could explain that checking out Saturday’s fixtures before planning to use the tube was a morally panicked over-reaction; an ‘elite fear of the strangeness, unpredictability and volatility of the lower orders’.
How blind I was. All that high living I was doing working in a shop clearly fuelled my hatred of the masses. Still, as a Carlisle United fan it’s a pleasant change to be classed as part of the ‘elite’.
Martin Clarke, Hong Kong
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Respond Letters responding to: Why I’m opposed to a maximum wage, by Tim Black
So Tim Black, assured that morality should have nothing to do with economics, is intent on convincing us proles that there is nothing wrong with one-person bonuses of, say, £10 million on top of even bigger one-person salaries?
How about dishonesty, mistrust, corruption or theft? They are all moral questions that are utterly pertinent to economics. Any of these could cause a business to fold or cost someone their job. So, why does ‘greed’ get a big special exemption?
Crazy, unfettered earnings of the nature recurrently on offer today are clear violations of sanity, let alone economics.
D McCarthy
If we had a cap on salaries at, say, £200,000 then what percentage of the population would that affect? Perhaps half a per cent? Would that stop ambition? Not for 99.5 per cent of the population!
I am not a Communist, but Marx was right about unchecked capitalism; history has shown this to be true. The rich become richer and fewer in numbers and the poor become poorer. There need to be checks and balances; right now there aren’t enough.
Tom East, UK
It’s probably unfashionable to point it out, but greed only prospers in a controlled environment, such as that proposed by Compass. In a free market, where success depends on being sensitive to the wants and needs of others, greed guarantees failure.
Of course, it’s much more satisfying to believe that the inequalities suffered by others are caused by rapacious fat cats nicking our share of the money. But that doesn’t make it true.
Experience tells us that wealth and innovation are promoted by competition, choice and the potential for limitless self-improvement. This, naturally, results in inequality. It even gives some people access to vast amounts of wealth. And yet, these rich folk are often responsible for creating opportunities for the rest of us and improving society as a whole. Even the poorest under such a system are better off than they would be otherwise.
Maybe a few bankers seem not to have deserved their wealth, but that’s no reason to start capping salaries. It will inevitably drive away talent and hamper the process through which we can all prosper. But then, the people at Compass are probably unbothered by this prospect. Like all mean-spirited left-wing ideas this shows contempt for people, their ambitions and their potential. They would rather we were all equally miserable than unequally happy.
Russell Taylor, UK
Our political left/right system was built on the owner/worker struggle. That was a struggle for the apportionment of real wealth creation. We now have corporations not factory owners and the political dichotomy is between the private and the corporate. Our political system has not adjusted to this change and has no means of dealing with the amorphous unaccountability of corporations. As a result the corporate organisation can plunder resources, ruin lives and steal future wealth to pay for exorbitant current salaries.
Black fails to realise this is not about wealth creation but about wealth extraction, and the problem is far deeper than maximum salaries. The end game, which in a world context is already happening, is mass starvation and a few obscenely wealthy.
This proposal is a clunky attempt to curb excessive wealth extraction. Its only worth is in the realisation that the corporate organisation is out of control.
Brian Mawdsely, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: We’re all traffickers now, by Nathalie Rothschild
In countries like Cambodia I think there are now far more anti-trafficking workers and volunteers than there are ‘trafficking victims’ - which is why they are all supporting laws that round up sex workers, beggars and drug users to fill their beds so that they keep getting more money…
Andrew Hunter, Asia-Pacific Network of Sex Workers
The easy way to stop what Rothschild describes in her article would be to legalise and regulate drugs and prostitution.
Robert McFarlane, Scotland
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Respond Letters responding to: Viewing Britain as a nation of Begbies, by Tim Black
Were I to now go beserk in a pub to the point where I would wish to glass someone (they support Arsenal, for instance) I would now be denied the appropriate tool, and would need to resort to biting them. This brings up a serious possibility of infection that was not present with the previous glass-based assault.
Adam Gent, Australia
According to one news website, ‘The Home Office minister, Alan Campbell, said the redesign could make a significant difference to the number of revellers who are injured’. It would appear that the minister has already shown gross ignorance of the pub market by branding all drinkers as revellers. Statistics already identify venues geared primarily to excessive drinking and many have a joint plastic/glass policy to mitigate the problem.
The majority of pubgoers view social drinking in a far more civilised role with distinct benefits and a place in local life. I urge ministers to stop wasting the public purse on gimmicks and give support to our community pubs were we can police local drinking in the traditional manner. Families use local pubs because they are safe, revellers on the other hand travel to their preferred areas to congregate accompanied by the all the associated problems.
A return to traditional values and an understanding of responsibilities backed by visible law enforcement would help us far more than a partial ban on plastic pint cups.
Jim Wheeler, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Defending A-Rod from moralising sports writers, by Sean Collins
What makes A-Rod so good may well be ‘what supplements he ingests’. If you’re a true fan of the game, you’ll know that drug-taking players, including McGwire, Bonds and Sosa, have effectively made home run records meaningless.
The fact that baseball fans still enjoy the game is irrelevant. I still like rugby union, but the recent cheating at Harlequins isn’t acceptable. They are not mutually exclusive statements.
A-Rod took drugs which means his career stats have an asterisk beside them. That means he is less of a player, and, yes, baseball writers have a right to judge him on that for the hall of fame, just like Pete Rose and his gambling.
Tim Gagie, Switzerland
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Respond Letters responding to: Al-Megrahi and the crisis of political leadership, by Frank Furedi
I was glad to see Scotland assert some autonomy. There’s no doubt that the release of al-Megrahi was two fingers up to Whitehall and 10 Downing Street. Is there anything wrong with that?
Those who want a dying man to spend his last agonies in a Scottish jail seem to forget that we’re all basically on death row. Do you know anybody who’s immortal?
The cheering crowd in Libya was disappointing but predictable. At any rate, I seem to recall reports/rumours that the Syrian government had something to do with the atrocious Lockerbie bombing…
Andrew Tikhon Gilson, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: The worst decision ever – part II, by Duleep Allirajah
Thank you for a sensible and balanced report on the subject of the disallowed Crystal Palace goal. There are very few such comments in the press and online, and letters and forum comments are similarly unbalanced, often just showing a hatred of referees.
What annoys me most is, that despite the so-called respect campaign, the respect being given is all one way. As the reaction to the wrongly disallowed goal from players, management and fans shows, the open acknowledgement of refereeing mistakes shouldn’t be at the expense of hating referees any less. Otherwise they’d have taken the opportunity to redress the balance and not been quite so vitriolic in the mistake’s aftermath.
As a referee, I’d rather make an honest mistake, however silly it looks, than be so immoral at to blame someone else for everything that goes wrong.
Stephen Smith, Senior County Referee, Lancashire, UK
For Crystal Palace to have twice suffered a disallowed goal coming back off a stanchion is impressive.
However, the worst individual decision must still be the ‘goal’ awarded against Watford last season where the ball sailed one foot wide of the post and rebounded of the hoardings.
David Watford, Australia
I am not a connoisseur of football so I do not know the rules of the game as they are applied in detail, but I have long heard that the great advantage of the game was that the rules are simple, not open to (much) interpretation and that ‘the game is the thing’.
I have studied the video clip of the 1980 Coventry v C Palace game linked to within Allirajah’s article, and if a goal is scored by the ball crossing the goal line, I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone could even think that it was a goal. The slow motion part is inadequate in that it stops before the rebound is complete, but the clip is clear enough: it shows the image of the ball cut in two by the post because the ball is still on the field of play. Granted, it is a poor image, but even the full speed clip shows the ball rebounding onto the field of play, something that could not happen from inside the goal.
It seems more like wishing than scoring to me.
Dermond O’Reilly, Belgium
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Respond Letters responding to: Cameron’s Tories: the heirs to Blairism, by Rob Lyons
There is, of course, a much simpler and more politically depressing reason for the recent convergence between Cameron’s Tories and the Blairite health agenda than that which Rob Lyons points to in his article. And that is that they were, and are, being written by the same person. True to the politics-lite mood of the times, and the principles-lite outlook of contemporary academics, it was Professor Julian Legrand of the London School of Economics who was the unelected and unaccountable scribe of New Labour’s health policies, and who now, true to the historic role of fickle, self-absorbed, middle-class, useful idiots, has migrated to the Tories to pursue his career and interests. How very ‘third way’.
Bill Durodie, Singapore
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Respond Letters responding to: America’s health wars, by Sean Collins
It’s scary how badly Democratic strategists misread the American public. Obama and co act as if the people were to the right of the Republicans, when they are actually to the left of the Democrats.
Years ago, a poll asked Americans if they wanted a single-payer government health plan (similar to the British NHS). The answer was affirmative, by about 70 per cent. Obama’s plan is not too liberal; it is not nearly liberal enough, notwithstanding a few loudmouths at town meetings.
Obama will blame Republican ranters for his own shift to the right, but I am not fooled. His party has a badly distorted view of the voting public. If the current trends continue, 2010 will see record low voter turnout – and probably a Republican Congressional coup.
Tikhon Andrew Gilson, USA
The US healthcare system is indeed the most expensive in the world. However, some of Collins’ stats need some input.
The raw number does tell us that the US trails many countries in life expectancy. However, those numbers reflect the fact that the US has the highest murder and accidental death rate in the developed world. If you use the accident/murder rate of say Canada, the US has the longest life expectancy in the world.
The same is true of infant mortality. We have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the developed world. All these are social problems, not medical. We have a far higher cancer survival rate then the UK, Germany or Canada. In fact, in almost every category we have measurably better healthcare than anywhere else. Also, nearly all new drug therapy and procedural advancements come from the US.
What the UK really has over us is its legal system and in that we need serious reform. We are a lawsuit-crazed people! And that helps drive up the cost.
Dan Carruthers, USA
The backlash against healthcare reform in the US originates in the health insurance industry.
As for Canada’s ‘nationalised health system’, health care is a provincial responsibility in Canada, not a national one, and medical institutions and professionals are not directly regulated by government. It is essentially a scheme of universal health insurance.
John Fitzgerald, Canada
I’m very sorry spiked published such pro big-government tripe as this piece by Collins. Free market solutions to healthcare should actually be tried first. Surely you Brits know the heartbreak of putting Big Brother in charge of a free man’s health care.
Susan Gorgo, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: Lockerbie: what’s justice got to with it?, by Rob Lyons
See my letter below to The Times (London):
Those who criticise the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi should rack their brains to recall an incident that occurred some five months prior to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. This was the downing of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes. The US Navy warship was in Iranian territorial waters when it launched its surface to air missiles. All 290 civilians on board the airliner died. The captain of the Vincennes, William C Rogers III, was subsequently awarded the Legion of Merit by President George H W Bush.
Yugo Kovach, UK
It is so important to keep the focus on the criminality and injustice pertaining to the original prosecution of this case. Criminality and injustice, that is, perpetrated by a US government that could not afford at the time to see a proper prosecution against either Iran or Syria – the real suspects.
I feel desperately sad when I hear some representatives of the American families who feel so let down by the al-Megrahi’s release. They are victims of the US and UK governments’ original shenanigans in this case. The pathetic wee al-Megrahi was never anything other than a fall guy – and the entire affair had nothing to do with Libya.
The US is digging a further great hole for itself in Europe with the appalling attempts to bully and vilify Scotland. However, here in Scotland, there seems to be a growing sense that our institutions have done justice a better service than would have been the case under the earlier Westminster/US dominated system.
Perhaps this is yet another stage in the decay of the Union. This feeling was reinforced by the sight this weekend, on the BBC 24, of the unshaven and bedraggled-looking ex Scottish Labour First Minister Jack McConnell, who ranted on about the ‘shame of Scotland’. Many Scottish people will be thinking ‘ah yes, another Scottish Kailyard Labour Party man, always to be depended on to regurgitate whatever the London-based Labour line is’.
Ted Harvey, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Afghan questions: eight years too late, by Mick hume
In both the Iraq and Afghan wars, the British military has served as no more than a European wing of the US army. I just don’t buy all this stuff from the British government about national security and fighting terrorism. Al-Qaeda targeted America and America alone until its allies got involved because of its willingness to bomb weak Arab states and its blind support for Israel. Iraq and Afghanistan were and still are American wars. It is disgraceful that barely anybody in the British media dares to admit in print that our boys are dying for somebody else’s cause and that Britain is gaining nothing out of this except the hatred of the Muslim world.
As for the mission to build democracy in Afghanistan, what arrogance! What the hell gives suits in Washington, who have never known a day’s poverty or physical insecurity, the right to decide what kind of government Afghanistan has? This is a multiracial state with a long history of serious strife and instability, and it needs a firm, authoritarian government, not some elected puppet regime that will not be able to survive, never mind function effectively without long-term foreign military support.
Meanwhile, the Western media churn out all this patronising guff about our role in Afghanistan as if the British Army were a bunch of social workers and our heroes are dying for a better cause (of course, they would not dare to glorify or even seriously report the sacrifices of the insurgents, who actually constitute quite a large part of the local population). It is a disgrace that this subordination of our military to a foreign power goes unquestioned by the vast majority of the ignorant electorate of Britain.
Oohkuchi, Japan
Some of the largest demonstrations ever known in the UK happened prior to Iraq invasion. Yet they made no difference. I doubt that if double that number had turned out in opposition to the war in Afghanistan, it would have changed the government’s mind; If the corporations want their oil/gas pipelines and that is what they will get.
I wish I still had Hume’s optimism, but my belief in the existence of democracy died many years ago. It used to be religion that was used as the excuse for the rape and pillage of the world. Now it simply goes under the name of ‘democracy’.
Audrey Hunt, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: This invention really does suck, by Nathalie Rothschild
The trouble with types of device like the LifeStraw is that they are the product of a thinking that reckons small is best for the world’s poor. Hence many of the oh-so-caring NGO types seem to prefer opposing big development projects, such as dam building. They implicitly state that those in under-developed countries can’t have what we in the west have – a decent standard of living.
Water supply and sanitation are areas in need of proper consideration. Much of the under-developed world pollutes its own supply, and that’s a problem even when there’s no drought.
In short, we have too much whimsical development and not enough of the real stuff. We need to enlarge our imagination, both at home and abroad.
Mark Harrop, UK
Rothschild’s article on the LifeStraw clearly struck a nerve, with all six letters in response (see below) suggesting her indignant attitude is out of proportion or inappropriate. But Rothschild herself concedes the device is clever, and better than nothing in desperate circumstances: what she is quite rightly reacting against is the cheery way the LifeStraw has been presented, and the lack of recognition that it is unacceptable for so many people not to have something as simple as access to clean water.
There are many parts of the world where child prostitution is rife, with no simple overnight solution. In those circumstances, charity workers distribute condoms so young girls can service their clients with less risk of pregnancy or infection. I don’t have a better solution – maybe this is simply the best that can be done short of much wider social transformation. But what is a properly humane attitude to this practice? Should we congratulate ourselves that the condom is such a nifty little invention? How would people feel about brochures with pictures of 13-year-old girls grinning broadly as they brandish their condoms, thanking charity workers for this fantastic gift? It would be obscene.
The lack of clean water in so many parts of the world is just as obscene as the fact that young girls must resort to prostitution in others. By all means charities must do what they can, even if it seems pathetic, but we should be under no illusions that the desperation of these people is a humiliation to us all. Rothschild’s attitude is spot on; the sanguine response is a reminder of all that is wrong with contemporary politics.
Dolan Cummings, UK
Wow, Nathalie Rothschild really does not like the LifeStraw. I, on the other hand, am amazed by its design and potential as well as completely astounded by her take on it. I don’t believe the company is saying that the LifeStraw will be the end of the water crisis in the third world but I do think it’s trying to help poverty-stricken areas survive until safe water can be provided locally.
What Rothschild seems not to understand is that for many communities the idea of a tap with clean drinking water is very far away. Yes, charities such as Water Aid are trying to fix this problem but it’s not going to be solved over night. For towns and villages that have not had wells put in, devices like the LifeStraw are able to keep people alive until that well is put in.
Rothschild asks readers if they would bend over and drink out of a dirty lake with one of those straws. I’m asking her if she would rather drink from it without the straw.
Francis Poole, UK
There is nothing wrong with this invention, not to mention the many others that could be used to improve conditions in developing countries. If people could be persuaded to use various devices developed to produce safer water it would undoubtedly have a positive impact (already a PET bottle filled with water in sunlight will do a good job in eliminating bacterial and viral contaminations – clay filters to bind arsenic are simple and useful as well).
The problem is that the educational background required for the successful application of even the simplest technology is almost never there. And the more advanced technology needed for piped water requires institutions are usually absent.
Should we stop developing clever devices that we would ourselves undoubtedly use when on safari? No, but we should not expect anything more than a very modest effect from these technologies. It’s not the inventions that suck but the absence of fertile ground in which to apply them.
Gerard te Meerman, Netherlands
I can’t believe Nathalie Rothschild could be so disparaging about this invention. No one apart from her could possibly assume that the LifeStraw would be considered demeaning by its users. There can’t be anything more demeaning than to have uncontrollable diarrhoea or watch one’s children suffering from it.
Of course the LifeStraw’s not a permanent solution to the lack of clean water so many people live without. But at least it’s something. Rothschild’s article is a mean-spirited counterproductive waste of monitor-space.
Monique, Turkey
I found this article thoroughly unconvincing. Of course the device is a band-aid. Who is suggesting otherwise?
But there is a place for band-aids and a new and more effective band-aid would be a useful invention. Surely people, without access to clean water already, try to make the best of what they have through various kinds of filtering, and helping them do so more effectively should be supported unless it displaces longer term solutions.
Entirely missing from the article is any evidence that this is the case with the LifeStraw. Does Rothschild really think that people without access to clean water would be better off if it hadn’t been invented? If not, then Rothschild needs to get beyond the distaste about aspects of its marketing that seems to have shaped her response and think seriously about maximising its utility and avoiding the downsides.
Ken Cameron, Australia
Although your article was very informative and has a huge ‘wow’ factor, Rothschild’s misplaced exasperation at the problem and not the creative, life-saving solution, overshadows the point.
Although Rothschild obviously has a personal issue(s) with the straw because one would look unsightly using it (this is Rothschild’s humorous side I guess?), why not put more energy into explaining to those of us who are grateful and somewhat astounded that such a simple device can be so helpful and be of such serious importance to those millions who obviously need it?
Rothschild’s personal aesthetic issues aside, why not spend more time describing the hope and joy that could come from having their parents, children, and friends around a little longer from using this simple device? A different perspective and attitude would have made this article, well, more satisfying.
Sean Ward, China
Rothschild’s criticism of this device seems to boil down (sorry) to the fact that all(!) it does is to make contaminated drinking water safe, while failing to install a fully functioning drinking-water and sanitation system in the locality of its users!
Yes, I’m lucky enough to get my water from a tap and, no, I wouldn’t want to have to suck up dirty water through one of these straws. I also travel by train rather than donkey, but so what? For people with no access to clean water, the availability of technology such as this could be a life-saver.
Of course it isn’t a long-term solution for the billion-plus who can’t get clean water and – especially given that many of them will be part of the same billion-plus on $1 per day – may not be the best short term one, either. But rather than expend so much energy attacking the invention, how about a spiked campaign to raise money to buy the patent, sell the device commercially to hikers and campers in rich countries and use the profits to give the things away where they’re needed?
Martin Clark, Hong Kong
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Respond Letters responding to: It’s time to teach them academic freedom 101, by Wendy Kaminer
I am a human rights lawyer and an alumnus of both New York University and the National University of Singapore.
You can hear Dr Thios’ incendiary parliamentary speech here. And you can read the letter supposedly hostile to her and her deeply offensive response here
Readers are more than capable of deciding if Thios’ views on human rights and her actions as an apparatus of an authoritarian state which, according to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House and the International Bar Association, engages in human rights abuse, permits NYU alumni, students, faculty, and donors to protest her appointment on the basis of her unsuitability to teach about human rights. Please be mindful that her NYU credentials would have been taken back to Singapore and possibly been used to further subjugate the defenceless and oppressed in a distant-foreign land.
Among the would-be human rights professor’s views, she stated that if homosexuals are not incarcerated for two years, it would be the first step of a radical, political agenda which will subvert social morality, the common good and undermine our liberties. She called homosexuality a ‘gender identity disorder’ and claimed that homosexual intercourse leads to gay bowel syndrome. Thios used the pejorative word ‘homosex’ no less than a dozen times when writing personalised communications to homosexual students (which she also forwarded to their professors and administrators), some of whom were teenagers. Thios joked on the floor of parliament that anal sex was like shoving a straw up your nose to drink. At the culmination of her effort, she was successful in ensuring a degraded Singaporean population is subject to imprisonment under conditions not meeting international standards.
Despite all this, NYU refused to rescind her appointment. Dr Thio stepped down after almost nobody signed up for her classes. She received a handful of letters requesting her dismissal which were copied to her and an online petition called her out as an abuser of human rights. Surely, US citizens have the right to protest and express their views. The only action that NYU could have taken was to censor and restrict free speech. That is a piece of Singapore that does not belong at NYU.
Richard Junnier, USA
Tolerance has to be a two-way street.
Objecting to the appointment of a faculty member based on their viewpoints is exactly the same kind of intolerance that those in the gay rights movement complain about. I don’t know if Dr Thio withdrew for reasons of personal safety, but ultimately nothing is solved. Those who wanted her out of NYU will view this as a vindication of their actions, while those backing Dr Thio will only feel enraged by what they view as an act of reverse discrimination. No dialogue means no progress.
It is sad that anyone who opposes homosexuality on whatever grounds is immediately branded a homophobe. It seems that it is inconceivable to those in the gay rights movement that there could be other reasons for people’s opposition to homosexuality other than fear. We need more dialogue and understanding and less hysteria and name-calling.
Aaron Wong, Singapore
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Respond Letters responding to: A festival with much to trumpet, by Sashwati Mira Sengupta
A wonderful article which brings to life all the colours and hedonistic atmosphere of the Guca Festival. I only wish that I could have experienced the festival first hand.
Marie Lowe, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: There’s more to Calvin than dourness and asceticism, by Dolan Cummings
Thank you for Cummings’ well-researched and well-written article on John Calvin.
I am neither a theologian nor a philosopher. I am a lapsed Christian who used to have a copy of Calvin’s Institutes on my bookshelf, and at one time had a great deal of sympathy for his teaching. I have become intrigued by trying to understand the issue of free will: whether it exists or not, and if it does, to what extent freedom is evident in practice?
If we had untramelled free will, we would exercise perfect self-control, have no addictions, live beautiful holy lives etc – we would be supermen, which evidently is not true.
It seems to me that due to a quirk of thinking, most people have an exaggerated idea of how much control they actually exert in their lives and environment. It can be explained that the mind finds the world too horrific to contemplate, and reassures us by conjuring a delusion of choice. This delusion is sometimes called will power or volition, and it rests on the assumption that one’s destiny is in one’s own hands.
The antithesis of free-will is determinism.
Calvin said that in the matter of salvation God makes the choices. This concept is very disturbing to us because we want to decide things for ourselves, particularly with the seriousness of finality itself. But God is the author and finisher.
Secondly, there are no grounds for self-justification. A person’s goodness has no bearing on his acceptance. The Bible explains this well, (Eph.2v.8): ‘by grace are you saved through faith – not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.’ This plunges us into despair when we understand it correctly, because it is saying, ‘there is nothing you can do.’ Suddenly we feel the extremity of having no hope apart from seeking God.
There is a personal and experiential hunger for the Divine, because there is no salvation without him.
Billy X, Scotland
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Respond Letters responding to: Save our Sloanes, by Henry Williams
Very interesting little piece, and very enjoyable. It’s quite rare to read an article on a subject that I know about, that contains so few errors! (And none that were important, too.)
I would add, however, that this was ‘The Road Of The King’, and it is therefore King’s Road, rather than Kings; a small point from an arrivista (only moved into King’s Road in 1979).
Simon Addinsell, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Anti-consumerist tracts: so many to choose from!, by Daniel Ben-Ami
Ben Ami’s analysis is misplaced: anti-consumerism is not an elitist critique of quality (eg, having the right ‘chocolate biscuits’), it’s about quantity and disappearing consumer sovereignty. Neal Lawson’s All Consuming may be a clumsy rip-off of the work of Galbraith, Veblen, and Ewen, but to write off the whole subject, as Ben-Ami does, as a ‘trashy genre’ is a dangerous mistake.
True, the genre is repetitious like so many others – the ‘new athiest’ books being a prime example – but what’s most troubling is how politically inert this pressing issue of consumerism is. We shouldn’t mind a bit of repetition if it helps secure the pervasive problem of consumption capitalism (a critical element in the global recession) a place in serious political discourse.
Max Farberov, USA
Ben-Ami levels the charge of elitism at anti-consumerist writers and activists, but I’m not sure Ben-Ami fully explains how trying to protect consumers, ie, ‘the masses’, from being manipulated by marketing and advertising firms is actually elitist.
Adam Graham, USA
I’d like to point out that it wasn’t the Austrian school of economics founded mainly on the works Mises and Hayek that promoted consumption and consumerism. It is the economics taught in today’s schools that teach the idea that consumption drives the economy. That school of economics is primarily the Keynesian school of economics.
John Maynard Keynes claimed that the free market would sometimes break and not serve people as they needed, so the government must step in and spend money and invest money and consume in order to get the economy working again. He also envisioned a prime interest rate at or close to zero, which is the biggest driver of inflation and consumerism.
The cause and enabler of rampant consumerism isn’t the free market. It’s the policies of government which are based on the non-free market model by Keynes.
In fact, an article by the (austrian) economist Peter Schiff came out recently bashing government sponsored consumerism. See here
I believe that the author of the book might be misguided and that the author of this article is either misguided or simply ignorant of economics.
Joe, Canada
Ben-Ami is right to say that the argument against consumerism is often elitist. People do need things.
But people also say that we don’t only want things. Freedom is great to have when you have the money to purchase what you need, and more. But we often find that we don’t need so much to ‘keep up with the Jones’ and be comfortable. Advertising plays an immense part in this, and people need to regulate themselves in order to best survive. If this is called austerity, I am all for it.
Self-regualting one’s own consumption can be done on a personal level with or without laws or penalties impinging on Ben-Ami’s precious free markets. When the people quit buying, the market will turn to something else.
Ben-Ami seems to be what we in America would call a conservative. I, however, as a poor liberal, do think that sometimes less is better than more. The plethora of goods available at the supermarket can be confusing, and is indicative of the free market tendency. We do, of course, need freedom to acquire more things but we also need freedom from things or commodities. We are more than our bodies, and bigger than our pay-cheques.
I find that conservatives, like Ben-Ami, are too wedded to their own ideologies and are loathe to give anyone else the respect they are due. Too many young, smart guys have taken the side of the mainstream corporate establishment.
Patrick Prein, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: Baby P: another round of prole porn, by Tim Black
I utterly reject the common misconception that this sort of behaviour is in any way a product of socio-economic upbringing. Being poor is not an excuse – these people are not victims. I myself grew up very poor and knew many other families that were also poor, yet we all managed to be decent human beings.
By the same token, middle- and upper-class families are just as capable of such atrocities, sadly enough. It’s irresponsible and lazy for someone in any journalistic capacity to link such abominable behaviour with the fact they were poor. One could just as easily rationalise their behaviour using the prism of race or religion or what have you.
Jim Robinson, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: How the killjoys colonised Britain’s public houses, by Joe Jackson
I’m a non-smoker and I agree to a large extent with Jackson’s views that the ban has nothing to do with health. I believe that the individual landlord should have the power to make the decision for his own pub. That said, I still prefer to eat in a smoke-free restaurant and work in a smoke-free office.
But I also believe that many pubs have lost their atmosphere as a result of the ban and that outside areas are now almost no-go areas for non-smokers. It almost sets up potential for conflict between the smokers and non-smokers. How can this produce a happy, convivial atmosphere?
The UK authorities are getting it wrong, once again.
Moyra Cosgrove, UK
I was just sitting here at home in Nanjing reading Jackson’s excellent article.
Here’s what I wrote on my blog:
‘A few minutes ago, I was sat here at my computer listening to Joe Jackson on iTunes while surfing the web. I was on a British website: spiked, a social-commentary online paper (it’s irreverent to the point of iconoclasm and I read it a lot). Anyway, I was reading this story on spiked which talked about the demise of the British pub.’
After I had finished reading it, I wondered who the author was; of course, it was none other than Joe Jackson.
Real life is full of such impossible coincidences. Novels never are.
Geoff Gibson, China
I am recently back from a holiday in Vienna and endorse everything Jackson says. It really was wonderful, and far superior to anything British pubs offer. The pubs and the Cafes all have smokers. And real, live human beings.
Peter Bolt, UK
There are contradictions inherent in the smoking ban, and, to my mind, they stem from the fact that the government is trying to micro-manage using macro techniques. By that I mean that it is trying to micro-manage individuals behaviour, by using a macro-management tool – a ban on smoking in public places.
This contradiction is rife in all the government does. All the problems about pub closures, rates increases, etc stem from this contradiction.
James Watson, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Copenhagen climate deal would be no fairytale, by Rob Lyons
Lyons has chosen wind power and nuclear energy to suggest that cutting emissions will cut standards of living. But there are many ways of cutting emissions – such as insulating homes properly – that are, in cost benefit, net positive for the homeowners.
One of the more peculiar things is why we need a Copenhagen agreement at all. Do we really have to ask permission of another country before we work on reducing emissions, given than many schemes, already more than pay their own way?
Francis King, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Saving cricket from the stuffed blazers, by Duleep Allirajah
It’s great to sit in a test match crowd and be soaked in beer by obscenity-chanting, racist buffoons with the added attraction of a Mexican wave every few minutes. And the vomit. And the urine. It’s worth every penny of the £50 my ticket costs me.
Gerald Hammond, UK
Nothing new in Allirajah’s claims of a new raucous atmosphere at test matches – I was amazed when I saw England vs West Indies test at the Oval. We even had a steel band, and chants while the bowler made his run – it was very noisy.
This was in 1975, I think.
Ken, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Sorry, but Fairtrade is a political issue, by Patrick Hayes
Sorry, but Hayes is confused.
It is about time journalists looked a bit deeper than an article in the Economist to form an impression of fair trade. The Fairtrade that Hayes writes about is a brand mark and a label that represents criteria that the Fairtrade Foundation, and its global parent the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation, have determined will create access for products and brands into fair trade. Fairtrade, one-word, is a registered trademark. Fair trade, two words, is the movement.
There is no Fairtrade movement, there is only a Fairtrade label. If Hayes would like to understand fair trade the movement, he should talk to the World Fair Trade Organisation, the global body that represents fair-trading producers and the guardian of fair trade values.
It is absurd to suggest mechanised business as a solution to poverty, much of which exists in rain-forested areas. It is only the skills of farmers and artisans that can deliver excellence in quality of produce, that can lift communities out of the poverty that is enforced by the commodity markets.
High-quality products and gourmet foods are driving transformation in these extremely delicate and threatened environmental regions. Climate change is the consequence of Hayes’ thinking; he really ought to get a grip rather than grab at what presents itself as the low hanging fruit of this rather pathetic story about the BBC’s George Alagiah. Where mechanisation has a place, fair trade organisations are developing it, particularly artisans of Asia and Africa, where steel and stone can be turned into a valuable means of production.
The beauty of fair trade, the movement, is to be found in the people who are the genuinely motivated change-makers. They have created an alternative economy right under the nose of the hopeless and hapless WTO and the bureaucrats and corporations who rip the guts out of any poverty-alleviation project, simply by absorbing any value before it reaches the grassroots it was intended for. The wonder is that these entrepreneurs, these community builders, these visionaries, are building businesses that conserve and re-establish biodiversity and ecosystems, despite the poverty they are working in.
Hayes should get a life, pay a visit to the WFTO and book himself in for an education.
Robin Smith, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Are British stag nights really wrecking Riga?, by Tim Black
The incidents in the press are the more extreme examples, but let’s not pretend there isn’t a problem.
There are well over a million British people living in Australia, so those figures Black quotes are misleading. According to the Central Statistics Board of Latvia, there are 85,000 British visits every year, not 100,000 as Black states. You do not quote the total number of arrests in Latvia, but prefer to quote the smaller number of arrests in the Czech republic – a red herring – because you think it will lend credence to your argument.
They are in fact different countries, with different languages, although I concede that they are both located in ‘central and eastern Europe’, so perhaps we can just lump them altogether when it suits our arguments. So, if the Latvian figures are extrapolated onto the Czech Republic, we would have 50 arrests per year for pissing at just one monument.
I take his point about the stuck-up attitudes of the UK broadsheets, but should the readers of spiked be looked down on as if they have no critical faculties whatsoever?
I hope Black shares a plane with a British stag party some day soon.
Terence Foley, UK
Black made a nice try at defending his countrymen, but drunken English louts have been wrecking urban nightlife in so many places for so long that around the world the Union Jack has become synonymous with vomit and mob violence. The only cities in the world I’m afraid to walk in at night are those where the young men of England (working out their imperial decline with violence and binge drinking) are encouraged to gather.
Peter Culley, Canada
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Respond Letters responding to: Organic food and unhealthy snobbery, by Rob Lyons
Lyons might’ve reminded the organic enthusiasts that it’s the farming method that’s ‘organic’, not the produce. All fruits and vegetables grow from the same seeds with the same genetics which metabolise sunlight, water and nutrients in the same way. The only significant difference is the price, which affects you fiscally rather than physically.
I might add, ‘Natural is Mother Nature’s way of killing you’.
Terry Colon, USA
A well-written and sometimes slightly amusing article on this subject, from a slightly different angle. I thought it was fair, but, of course, with a subject like this there will always be more than one side to the story.
The snob value of organic is something quite apparent among the people that I know. Some snobbery has had to go in the face of recession, but I also think people like to feel that they are putting pure products in their mouth, and avoiding harm. Of course there are no guarantees…
I think organic is not going to go away, no matter what the ‘experts’ have announced. It’s big business and many people’s minds have been made up and won’t change.
Margaret Mead, South Africa
This is an atrocity! How can one say that food grown with chemicals is the same or better than organic? Organic food is based on the premise of eating food grown with pesticides, and they do no damage, right?
Chris Vail, USA
Why does Lyons call the middle classes ‘the dregs of political life’? Is it that because the younger members of the class support either New Labour or New Tory that you despise them? It’s good to see that race prejudice is illegal, immoral and fattening – but class prejudice is alive, well and lauded.
When Lyons grows up he might understand and even practice tolerance.
Nick Hamilton, UK
I am not ‘posh’ or well off, but I am a healthy, if slightly overweight, middle-aged female. Not at all like the stereotypical organic supporter that Lyons describes.
I have been growing organic produce for over 20 years. What I am unable to produce myself, I buy from others. I do buy conventionally grown food too; but where possible I look for suppliers/supermarkets who support a reduction in their use of pesticides.
My belief is that everyone is entitled to the best quality and most nutritious food that can be produced.
Mary B Radford, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Restating the case for human uniqueness, by Helene Guldberg
If 98.5 per cent of the genetic code is the same between chimps and humans, perhaps the answer isn’t in the genetic code. That we share ‘so much’ DNA with chimps and yet are so different indicates that there’s more to humans than DNA.
Paul D Hughes, USA
Why can’t Guldberg and the rest of these anthropocentric fools give it a rest? Considering that Guldberg doesn’t care about animals, why does she bother writing about them?
John Braithwaite, UK
Apart from stating the obvious, what else has Guldberg done to prove that folks are smarter than monkeys? Has it not occurred to Guldberg that silence may profit her, me and monkeys more than all her useless cleverness?
Mark Schonfrucht, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Al-Qaeda: what’s the big idea?, by Philip Hammond
Perhaps because he’s British, Hammond’s comparisons of al-Qaeda to exclusively left-wing ‘humanitarian and ecological’ groups significantly overlooks the fact that in the US the most persistently murderous terror movement in the recent past has been the extreme elements among anti-choice right-wing Christians.
Jim Thorn, USA
Like al-Qaeda, liberal fascists also have no direct experience with the various ills that they claim can be solved by ever more powerful government intrusion, interference, and control. The term ‘limousine liberals’ springs to mind.
Rick LaBonte, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: Why I prefer to wake up to Wogan, by Patrick West
Why does West say all Radio 1 DJs are complete cocks? I’m a big fan of spiked, but West’s statement is just stupid and snobbish. There are loads of good music shows on Radio 1 which are intelligently compiled and presented – I wonder if you’ve ever listened to the station at all?
Granted, Chris Moyles is very annoying though!
Sophie Wills, UK
I prefer the Today programme to Wogan’s show, and read the newspaper comment first. I’m sorry to learn I’m a bigoted weirdo. I do wish I was as open-minded, easy-going, unopinionated, tolerant, non-show-off, as you people at spiked!
West’s snobbish sneering at radio and TV audiences is just an indulgence. The main public issue with radio and TV is the BBC’s monopoly, underpinned by its privileged access to the TV licence, in effect a poll tax. Does West have anything to say about it?
Michael James, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: We want to determine the world, not be determined by it, by Tim Black
Black’s review of Susan Neiman’s books is most interesting. Without having read Moral Clarity (and thus commenting solely on Black’s interpretation of it), I’m struck by two fundamental problems, both of which are rooted in her hero, Kant.
Firstly, Marx was a product of Kant (via Hegel). The inversion of ‘ought’ determining ‘is’ led to Stalinism and Maoism and to the notion that the individual can (and must) be sacrificed for the fulfilment of some historical ‘ought.’
Secondly Black writes: ‘“You live with the dualism”, she says. “You always keep your eye on your actions and how you want the world to be. But you also need to be bound to a recognition, especially in political life, to the way that things are”.’
But this most definitely is not Kant. There was no dualism to be lived with, only the categorical imperative. If your children were starving and the only way to keep them alive was by stealing a loaf of bread, it would still be wrong, according to Kant, to steal the bread. For me, that kind of rule-bound, no-exceptions-allowed ethics will always lead a path straight to totalitarianism of one sort or another.
Give me Aristotle, any day. He recognised both our fallibility as humans and our capacity to transcend that to some extent. True, excessive attention to epistemological questions has blinded philosophy to its capacity to make a difference in the world. But a return to Kant isn’t the answer.
Larry Kilbourne, USA
The mark of a philosopher is the ability to think metaphysics and other such ‘abstractions’ concretely – not to make them ‘relevant’ necessarily, but to uncover the strong connections between conceptual and physical domains. This seems to be lost on the author of Moral Clarity.
Enlightenment philosophers had grounded thoughts and programs for moral improvement. Moral improvement was a means to an end: living in accordance with human nature. By contrast, those who strive for relevance are always destined to become mouthpieces for the values of the present. There is no progress when the founts of creativity (conceptual thought interrogating the present-day) are regarded as secondary, or even contemptible sidelights: mere armchair activity. The enlightenment philosophers, decisively, did not have such a negative view of the life of the mind.
I think Neiman’s intentions are admirable. But I also believe that her method tends in the direction opposite of what she intends. The brilliance of Locke, for example, lay in the coherence of his vision, and, included in that, the type of person who must be cultivated in order to realise the vision. Had he taken it as a methodological necessity that his philosophy be engaged with the world in the way Neiman demands, then he could not have imagined the future we live in today, and prepared the way to it.
Jon Monroe, USA
A brilliant review – thank you! Not to mention a welcome change from the ‘nothingness’ of critical legal studies.
Ellen Goodman, Australia
This review is a morass of oversimplification to fit wrong-headed righty assumptions.
Yes, the academic left can get bogged down in trifling distinctions and inaction, but politics is a continuum, and just short of their excesses are the rank-and-file left who do not even read Kant, etc. They are also the people who just changed the assumptions of who can be the American president.
One thing is for sure; the right has been and always will be a group working against changing anything; and being indescribably thoughtless and evil while doing so.
Jasper von Parity, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: Why unemployment is no longer a political issue, by Brendan O’Neill
Couldn’t the apathy towards job loss also be due to a lack of faith that the government could do anything about it? Who in their right mind would confidently go to Mr Brown asking for help?
Elaine Beaulieu, Australia
I enjoy reading spiked. I don’t get much news outside tech stuff and the Economist, so it’s nice to get a different perspective, and I usually agree with many of the articles.
In O’Neill’s unemployment article, though, I don’t think he makes a sufficiently strong case for the idea that the current welfare state/unemployment benefit system is ‘an immense bureaucracy that encourages people to adapt to unemployment, [and] actively lowers peoples horizons’.
My impression of the unemployment system is that it tries to force people to go to job interviews and actively promotes retraining. People lower their own horizons. If incapacity benefit is an ‘easy option’, then it’s no surprise that people go for it rather than going through the pain of job interviews and training.
It’s more of a cultural issue than a bureaucratic one. Unemployed people in the USA don’t have this mentality. Perhaps psychology leaflets and self-help mumbo-jumbo really are the answer!
Harry Percival, UK
O’Neill’s article hits the nail square on the head.
The promotion of TINA has also been taken into the classroom as teachers are now instructed to teach students how to pass tests but not learn. Teachers can’t encourage free-thinking or question given or known aspects. Children are taught to work hard and pass their exams and they may succeed. If they don’t, well, that must be their fault for being lazy.
TINA is the basis by which all governments work. Succeed and they take the credit. Fail and it’s your fault. Union membership is on the up, albeit slowly as more people begin to wake up to the fact that they don’t have to put up with arrogant managers and dodgy practices.
Recruitment in my office is about two a week over the past two months.
People are waking up. Lets hope enough wake up before the Sons of Thatcher go to the election.
Graham Armstrong, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Who’s afraid of Electric Vehicles, by James Woudhuysen
I don’t know if I qualify as a ‘green friend’, but I am a qualified transport planner. What bothers me about electric cars is that cars in general occupy the full width of a lane of traffic. We don’t have much road space in town, and hence the UK has serious levels of congestion. If one car gets stuck, because cars are wide enough to fully occupy a lane of traffic, all the cars behind also get stuck. Electric cars don’t help, because they are just as big as non-electric cars.
At the same time, bicycles are dismissed, as in this article, through ignorance. For a start, bicycles can filter through traffic. Most of the problems that bicycles are supposed to have were solved a long time ago; the technology, unfortunately, has been studiously ignored by the government, local councils, and, it appears, by Woudhuysen in this opinion piece.
Advanced batteries, combined with geared electric motors, can propel bicycles effortlessly up hills. Recumbent bicycles can be fitted with fairings to reduce effort, increase speed, and shed bad weather. Bicycles can be electric, pedal-electric, or pedal only, depending on the amount of effort that the cyclist wishes to put in. Cycling can be made much safer, too.
Given that bicycles cost £50 per year to run, and the average car costs £3,000 per year to run, there is a lot of opportunity here for change. We need a lower speed limit in towns (20mph), secure bicycle parking, bicycle training, and direct bicycle routes from town to town.
Francis King, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Let’s go back to the moon - and beyond, by James Woudhuysen
An astronomer friend of mine is wont to remark, ‘There’s nothing wrong with NASA – as long as you don’t mistake it for a science-funding agency’. He speaks from bitter experience, shared by many scientists whose need for funding has gone unmet while NASA pours untold billions into a manned space program whose justification, in sober scientific terms, is minimal to non-existent.
NASA is Boondoggle City; its chief function is to keep its vast bureaucracy employed while enriching its pet contractors. The shuttle program perfectly exemplifies this. Nothing was gained by this costly dog-and-pony show that was worth the resources expended. Lack of space precludes a detailed analysis, but, to summarise, nothing was achieved by virtue of putting a handful of pilots and engineers into low orbit that could not have been done far more cheaply and efficiently by automated, unmanned spacecraft. (This holds, by the way, for the celebrated Hubble telescope, worthy in itself, but crippled in many ways by enslaving it to the public-relations needs of the shuttle program.)
It is safe to say that the International Space Station is at least as superfluous. But NASA and its counterparts in some other countries keep putting space cadets up there because the public is far more willing to identify with a project offering them photogenic heroes than with one that relies entirely on mere robotics, productive and cost-efficient though the latter may well be.
I like sci-fi as much as anyone, but we oughtn’t to let the themes and fictional assumptions of that genre determine public policies that require expenditures in the hundreds of billions or more. There has never been a hard-headed demonstration, beyond daydreams drawn from juvenile fiction, that manned missions can accomplish much of anything for science, commerce, or national security. And, while the bureaucrats generously bankroll pilot projects for lunar bases or Mars missions that will certainly get us nowhere in the end (unless you’re a contractor), worthy science, including but not limited to that relying on space technology, is on a starvation diet. The cancellation, in the early 90’s of the superconducting super-collider is emblematic.
So, please, let’s postpone dubious schemes to send a few human specimens gallivanting around the solar system, at least until the relevant technology becomes cheap and reliable enough to do this without crippling science as a whole.
Norman Levitt, USA
I have always felt that it was a great shame that the US got to the Moon first.
Had the Russians got there instead, US pride would not have let them give up. The mission profile would have switched immediately to a Mars mission.
At that time it is likely that the only way that they could have achieved this objective reasonably quickly would have been to have completed development of the 10M, Saturn-boosted Orion, (the paper design for which was already quite advanced)
Had Orion propulsion been proved back in the 1970s it raises the intriguing possibility that the more recent missions to the outer planets might actually have been carried out by large manned spaceships weighing thousands of tons rather than tiny robots.
Things could have been very different!
Paul Howd, UK
The imminent 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, arguably mankind’s greatest ever achievement, serves to remind us just how much Western society and its values have changed in so little time. To some today who have known nothing other than the stultifying inhibition of risk aversion and the precautionary principle, it must seem almost inconceivable that three men would sit on top of nearly 3,000 tonnes of rocket fuel and travel at several times the speed of a rifle bullet.
Perhaps this incredulity explains in part the willingness of many to doubt that it ever happened at all, such is the conviction that it all sounds just too risky. But listening to some of those remarkable men, now in their late seventies, talking about how they did it reminds us that only 40 years ago big risks were taken and considered perfectly acceptable in order to achieve something.
Collins, who orbited the moon on Apollo 11 seems bewildered by the emotionalism which now informs the public discussion of their achievement. Lovell who was in Apollo 8 and
13 said that in those days they did dangerous and risky things without a second thought and without a risk-averse culture to question it.
What a sad reflection on today’s Western societies that empowerment is considered to come through emotionalism and risk aversion. Sadly the opposite has occurred, namely an enfeeblement both of spirit and of action because we are expected to feel bad about doing things that might put ourselves or others at risk .If risks had never been taken, medicine, science and technology, would simply never have advanced.
There could be no better advertisement for the empowerment of mankind on a global and personal level than the actions of those in the Apollo programme who rather than feeling uncomfortable at the prospect of danger, stared it in the face and triumphed.
Liam McLoughlin, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: China’s factory girls: nobody’s victims, by Neil Davenport
In response to Davenport’s essay, it should be noted that this is a situation brought about by citizens exercising their right to choose. The comparison drawn between this, and the introduction of women in the work place during the Second World War should not even be considered, as that was an entirely different situation.
During that war, most able-bodied men were called away to participate in an entirely illegal and immoral war, leaving their women and children to fend for themselves. The women needed jobs to survive with the household breadwinner gone to war. This was a ‘win’ for the war effort, since by some accounts, the women were easier to train and work with, which kept the ‘wheels of progress’ greased, as the industrial/military complex Eisenhower warned us about in the 50’s was entering it’s infancy.
Yes, they too had the ‘time of their lives’ but this also was the beginning of the end for family values (dad at war, mum at work) and thus lowered the standard of living (only one of many incremental attacks on American freedom and prosperity), which has in part had a role in the de-civilization of America we have experienced in the last several decades.
While I agree that what is happening in China is good (I also believe that conditions will improve over time), it could easily go the other way, as they may well experience the same social problems so prevalent here.
They are still at best, a socialist nation, so chances are pretty good they will fall into the same trap.
Only free markets with no government intervention will ever foster true prosperity.
Dave Neu, USA
I read Davenport’s article and it’s the best pro-slavery argument I’ve yet seen. I mean the same thing could be said of plantation slaves. There’s food, shelter, friends and family.
Picking cotton is a grueling all day chore, but later we can eat fried chicken and watermelon and play blues!
His article is propaganda from slave owners to calm the natives.
Get a clue!
Brett McFall, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: Why we should support this writers’ revolt, by Josie Appleton
I read Appleton’s article with horror! To have a criminal check of anyone coming into contact with children is appalling.
I am seventy-two years of age and I am now noticing the way children are being brought up by their overprotective parents at the cost of their freedom. Children here are escorted to the bus stop by their parents; picked up at the bus stop by their parents; driven to ‘play dates’ by their parents.
It is an insane contrast to the way I was brought up. We were free to do anything we wanted as long as we did not bring the neighbours wrath down upon our heads. This included: pulling beets from the garden and eating them with dirt and beet juice running down our chins; playing ‘Red Light’ outside in driveway until dark; sneaking out after bedtime to run wild in the field across the street chasing fireflies. The little boys across the street were always trying to get my sisters to play ‘Doctor’. They did not know what little girls looked like under their panties. Now the poor guys would be labelled perverts.
Where is this obsession with sexual abuse coming from? It can happen but not very often. I pity children being brought up now. And I also pity the adults that have to care for or teach them. Everyone’s freedom is being leached away.
Janet S MacDonald, USA
I am not sure that it is in fact true that visiting writers will have to be registered with the ISA. How long does Phillip Pullman spend in a single school? An hour every two years, perhaps. The ISA has been pretty clear on this in the past, although the ISA head who has appeared on the news bulletins has been a bit poor at communicating it.
Out of interest, do Pullman et al think that teachers, residential home workers, etc should be checked as a matter of course?
Rob Shorrock, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Turning fat people into social outcasts, by Basham and Luik
Below is an excerpt from Van Communications. I think this says it all:
‘Professor Michael McMahon concludes: For people with a substantial amount of weight to lose, gastric bands and bypasses often provide the only route to a healthy and active life which can then be maintained through healthy eating and exercise. The more people that begin to consider the possibility of this type of surgery, the more we’ll be able to start normalising attitudes to this type of treatment.’
It is sad that an educated and wealthy man feels it is acceptable to talk about people in the manner he has. A letter of apology to Eamonn Holmes’ wife and children wouldn’t go amiss.
I recommend this Junk food science blog post for anybody interested in weight and health.
Jonathan Bagley, UK
After fat people are turned into social outcasts, who will next be targeted by the health police? Surely it will be drinkers with the anti-booze lobby demanding that alcohol be sold only in dingy off-licences and that supermarket shoppers should queue up in separate checkouts if they are buying wine or lager. Such tactics to de-normalise the consumption of alcohol are already being tried in America and it won’t be long before they come over here.
Daniel Factor, UK
So long as the vast transfer of resources from people to the state takes place, all political discourse is a competition between interest groups for these resources. The state control of resources is by definition inefficient, with no mechanism such as the price mechanism to allocate resources efficiently. So as a consequence, these resources are never enough to satisfy the ever-escalating demand.
As a consequence this competition becomes a zero sum game. So for one group to increase its share of the available resources, another group must lose out. The most effective way of doing this is by scapegoating - whether it be smokers, immigrants, Muslims, or fat people.
Scapegoating and the consequent persecution of those scapegoated is the natural, immutable consequence of the state control of resources. This is no different in principle for the bourgeoisie in Cambodia, the kulaks in the USSR, the Jews in Nazi Germany, or the smokers in the UK. All that differs is the degree.
If you were to adjust the language used about smokers or fat people today, and swap obese person or smoker for ‘person with HIV’, many people would be rightly outraged. But becoming HIV positive for most people, like becoming fat, is a consequence of behaviour - yes there are some who received it through blood transfusion, just as there are some fat people who have gland problems and are medically fat. But scapegoating people with HIV is strictly forbidden. Why? Because they have an extremely able interest group as advocates demanding a much larger share of state resources for finding a cure/treating those already suffering, and as a world-wide consequence the amount spent is out of proportion.
This may all be viewed as extremely offensive - well, it probably is, but those who are scapegoating smokers or fat people are being extremely offensive as well (even though I defend to the death their right to be so).
It all comes back to the perverted and distorted way in which the state control of resources leads to some citizens being deemed by the state as second class. You cannot fix the outcome, without fixing the root cause. The state is the root cause of bigotry and prejudice.
Ian Stuart, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: British TV’s sci-fi inferiority complex, by Patrick West
Being an ex-pat living here in the USA and having views that lead me to read spiked, it seems very clear what happens with these programs. I only watched the new series of Doctor Who because I loved it when I was younger - ‘hiding behind the sofa describes it’. However, had I not seen it before I probably would have changed the channel within 15 minutes. I watched Torchwood because it was a spin-off and became rather more interested in that than Doctor Who (it being in HD probably helped).
However, Doctor Who really stinks for the reasons West says but also because of the combination of self-imposed inferiority and moral superiority - sneering from a great height - that make the stories, characters and locations so unbelievable. It is obvious that the people involved just don’t get it.
Bruce Godfrey, USA
The Americans also liked The Benny Hill Show so I guess that must be a seal of approval. Actually I liked it too but I suspect West didn’t.
In his two-word list of UK TV, West omits all the Gerry Anderson stuff, The Avengers, and even The Champions.
Neil Craig, UK
Torchwood: Children of Earth is about time-and-space travelling, monster-fighting bisexuals who often lack something better to do than each other. It really shouldn’t be taken as anything more; Russell T Davies just doesn’t have the writing skill for that.
Dutifully waiting for Steven Moffat to take over as Doctor Who,
Eli Gottlieb, USA
West is quite right that Britain hasn’t done many good sci-fi shows. But in a nation this size, there just aren’t enough reasons to do so. Not enough fans, not enough open-minded ‘well it can’t all be like wobbly set Blakes 7’.
One thing that might change West’s mind is a serial from the 1990s called Invasion Earth that BBC Scotland did. It was fantastic; bearable special effects, tense story, and a rather grim ending. And of course, it bombed, because people were too busy watching Eastenders, Big Brother, or Who’s Colostomy Bag Is This?
BBC Three has tried breaking the mould with things like Being Human - yeah, not strictly sci-fi, but comparable to True Blood for comedy and fantasy. And of course, what happens? ‘Well, it’s a shame it isn’t on BBC One isn’t it…’
West cites a few recent shows from American TV - there’s no doubt that there’s some great sci-fi shows there: Battlestar Galactica was amazing, Lost was very clever, and so on. But he also mentions the risible Flash Gordon remake that was only just marginally more fun than genital warts.
I’m not going to right British Sci-Fi’s past wrongs off the board, but I’m going to cross my fingers and hope that Torchwood‘s recent event raises the bar for future attempts at British sci-fi. But I’m not going to hold my breath. I’m not willing to suffocate myself just yet.
Jamie Walker, UK
I think West doth protest too much. It looks like West is demonstrating a said inferiority complex instead of exposing it. Over here in the US the attitude is miles different. Most geek-centric writers and producers would kill to work in Britain because the BBC and the Brits in general are far more receptive to sci-fi.
Don’t let the quantity fool you. The BBC’s contributions, especially over the last decade, are equal to those of the US. Considering we have ten times the resources and facilities at our disposal as well as an entire channel supposedly devoted to the genre, we’re actually kind of pathetic. Why do you think SyFy imports Doctor Who and Primeval? Why do you think ABC tried to copy Life on Mars? The fact is you practically have to put a gun to somebody’s head over here to get a new sci-fi series green lit. In the UK it’s different – Doctor Who was playing in every household for 20 years. Over here it played in a fraction of that at odd times on PBS.
Mike Lee, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: Who’s afraid of billions of people? by Brendan O’Neill
For O’Neill, another human being is nothing but a statistic to be subjugated to politicians. Rural folks are self-sufficient; they grow their own food, get their water from their own wells, build their own shelters, and defend their own homes from crime and invasion.
In many cases, urban dwellers live off of their excess. There isn’t enough open land per person in urban areas for each one to provide for themselves, so they’re financially dependent on those who do have land. They require food to be imported to their city, they require building crews to construct their shelters according to complex codes, they require water to be pumped in through city pipes and they require a military and police force to defend them. Urban dwellers are a drain on society; the only real reason one might want to urbanise the rural areas of Britain is to subjugate those free, self-sufficient people that are living there now and replace them with billions of tax-slaves for politicians to rule over like gods.
RS Woods, USA
No offence, but can we just say that O’Neill’s mentally insane? I have never in my life read such utter craziness
Sarah Johnson, UK
Blaming the world’s economic and social problems on population growth is literally antisocial. It is also reactionary, since it implies that exploitation is not to blame for poverty. The structure of the world economy is fine, they seem to say; it’s just those people who insist on having ‘too many’ children.
Flexible exchange rates that make foreign debt un-payable don’t show up. Severe underpayment of workers disappears. Free trade driving down wages is not mentioned. There are no greedy landlords or grasping banks. Nope, just all those damn kids.
More people mean more pro-labour voters; more union members; and more people to demand that the wealth be shared. I can understand why billionaires hate population growth. I can’t understand why we should take on their anti-social values.
Tikhon Andrew Gilson, USA
Spot on. I’ve thought exactly the same about those people who can be referred to as ‘-phobes’. They are scared of being in crowds, out of control, submerged and ordinary.
Mark Fuggle, UK
The population of the UK is increasing because of more immigration than emigration, not because of a faster birth rate compared with the death rate. The UK is a wealthy country and people wish to come here to share in that wealth.
Poverty (in financial, material, and health terms) produces the human insecurity that is the main cause of increasing procreation and population.
If human ingenuity were to be channelled into increasing wealth, and therefore standard of living, around the whole world, then the world population would be likely to stabilise, as it generally has done in all developed countries.
Jonathan Bywell, UK
This is one of O’Neill’s most cogent, best-argued, ‘quieter’ articles and it swayed me from fence-sitting to taking up the challenge to investigate more. There’s a lot O’Neill omitted that I can’t agree with but that’s fair enough. Thanks for reviving my interest in this population-bomb subject and I hope O’Neill runs with it further.
Tony Mora, Australia
Wow, is this ever simple-minded? Since about 1950, the amount of arable land available for food production for each person has dropped in half. At present rate, oceans will be fished-out by about 2043 or so and global warming gases continue to increase. What O’Neill’s article deals in is ‘magical thinking’, ie, some new technology is going to magically save us all. Not likely.
Craig Etchison, USA
Sitting in an ivory tower, anyone can write anything on overpopulation. You must come out from that tower and stay in any heavily populated country for a year, and only than will you experience how much horror poor people suffer in congested slums. Animals also have to tolerate this kind of situation. I am not concerned with the trouble they face but I am concerned with the dignity of men that has completely collapsed in overpopulated countries.
Ramesh Raghuvanshi, India
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Respond Letters responding to: The politics of the hidden agenda, by Frank Furedi
Very interesting article, but I think that any analysis of the conspiratorial thinking so pervasive in our modern world ought to include a discussion of the modern legal system and its inherently unhealthy conspiratorial thinking.
The entire personal injury industry – and it is a rather large industry – is built around the idea that every accident was some person’s fault through negligence or intent. It is rarely commented on how truly twisted it is to think of the world as an impeccably fair and just place in which injuries occur only when someone is ‘negligent’ and to constantly be assigning monetary values to the different degrees of ‘negligence’.
As the legal industry grows and more people are affected by it, it seems only natural that people would come to see their lives in terms of conspiracies. As soon as most people have an accident or misfortune of any kind there are many people encouraging them to find someone to blame and sue. It is a twisted way of looking at the world, but it is encouraged, indeed endorsed, by our legal system.
Joe Madden, USA
The problem with this description of conspiracy theories is that it assumes they are all wrong. Bush and Blair really believed that Saddam had WMDs; the CIA had never heard of Pinochet before he came to power in Chile; nobody was ever a member of P2, the non-existent masonic order in Italy; that banker really did hang himself under Blackfriars Bridge; nobody organised the coup that brought the Shah to power; nor the attempt to destabilise the Wilson government and get a right wing Tory in instead; the SIS did not plot to kill Milosevic in a tunnel; the poison found in his blood test was because he really had leprosy; the Mafia do not exist; neither does the lobby system; the international communist conspiracy never existed and none of the people who simultaneously came up with the idea it did had ever even heard of each other; and the man behind the curtain should be ignored.
Clearly the idea that we aren’t surrounded by conspiracies is more wrong, if much more socially acceptable than the idea that we are.
A rule of thumb is that conspiracies cannot get too big without everybody knowing and that any theory that demands flying saucers, magic or those in charge being supernaturally smart about how all the subsequent dominoes will fall, is wrong.
Neil Craig, UK
I know a lot of conspiracy theorists, and I wouldn’t say they lack a system of meaning through which they can understand the problems they confront. No, their ‘system of meaning’ is the proverbial round hole through which the square peg of facts won’t fit.
They reject the obvious and simplest answer in favour of the baroque and implausible. They tie themselves in knots to keep comfortable, or they become contortionists to avoid the really painful truth that their world-view was wrong. ’The important thing,’ says Tom Wolfe ‘was not to admit you were wrong in any fundamental way.’
Their convictions are too deeply-felt. They need to explain away these lumpy facts, these unforeseen events, no matter the cost to logic and evidence. Conspiracy theorists are ideologues, but on the back-foot.
Nick Weir, Australia
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Respond Letters responding to: When public health becomes a public nuisance, by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick
I have just read this article and would like to highlight my experience with suspected swine flu during the last week. I fell ill with symptoms on Saturday 28 June. I called NHS Direct for advice the following day and because I also had difficulty with breathlessness, arrangements were made for a doctor to visit me at home. The doctor telephoned me prior to his visit to explain how the swabs would be taken and that he would also listen to my chest as my breathing was very heavy.
The doctor arrived in an apron, mask, gloves etc. My husband had to put a mask on me before the doctor would enter the room. The doctor took the swabs, gave me Tamiflu, told my family and me to limit our contact with other people until the results were known (my husband was off work for a week and my son missed four valuable school days as we followed the doctor’s advice - we thought we should protect other people from my germs). I was told that the results would be known in three days and that my family would be given Tamiflu if the test was positive.
However, I spoke with my own GP who then advised me that the swabs were taking much longer than the three days I had been advised and that my family should go back to their normal routines if they showed no symptoms. My own GP also showed surprise that the doctor who visited me at home did not prescribe my family Tamiflu, nor listen to my chest. It is now 6 July and still no results, my symptoms have eased drastically and my family’s life has returned to normal, thank goodness!
It is very worrying that GPs are unsure as to what advice to provide to patients and that their advice differs so greatly. If the results from my swabs are known any time soon it will make absolutely no difference to me and would be too late for my family. I thought that we were told that the UK was so very well prepared for this - I am sorry to say that this is not my experience and I would assume it is not that of others either!
Nicola Harrington, UK
Wonderfully savage on Fitzpatrick’s part!
I suspect most things would improve without intervention of the type we commonly see. I would like someone taken to account for the wasted millions on this pandemic - money that we don’t have!
Ken Scott, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Let’s face it: things can get worse, by Mick Hume
Even a brief look at some basic numbers reveals that, as Nouriel Roubini and others have been pointing out for months, most Western banks are actually insolvent.
It’s the scale of the problem that appears to set this downturn apart economically from any previous one. For example, while the US economy’s GDP is something like $13 trillion, I’ve read that the value of derivatives is $600 trillion.
In addition, the momentum of the downturn - rising unemployment, collapsing world trade, shrinking real estate values - is so violent that it seems it is going to be much worse than what happened in the 1930s. We have yet to feel the consequences of what has already happened. I don’t really see how the banking system can be saved.
It doesn’t seem to me that there is an economic solution to this crisis. I understand the appeals for bold thinking about investing in infrastructure and productive industry, but I think even that’s wishful thinking at this point. It’s gone too far. There appear to be real historic limits to capitalist expansion.
Mike Orman, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: What about us gays who are flamers? by Mark Adnum
Thanks for this thought-provoking article.
As a gay man I often feel uneasy with uber campery but I’ve never really thought about why. I think it stems from a desire to appear ‘just like everyone else’, while also just happening to be gay. How many times have I secretly loved it when people have said to me ‘Really? I’d never have guessed’, and appeared to mean it.
I can see the well-meaning intentions of GLAAD and appreciate where they are coming from - overly camp is not how a lot of us want to be portrayed. Mark is right though – a lot of us are as camp as a row of pink tents. To feel anti- one of our own is to hate ourselves. I hadn’t thought of it like that until now.
What offends me in Bruno is, firstly, that I rarely enjoy straight men ‘playing gay’ in this camp way. It took a long time for white men to stop ‘blacking up’. Where are the gay actors poking pun at ourselves? When straight men do it, it often feels patronising if not downright offensive. And, secondly, I’ve never seen the point of Sacha Baron Cohen, with or without Bruno.
John McKormick, UK
I hate GLAAD, too. They are the worst example of failed 1990s get-a-place-at-the-table grovelling-cum-activism. But are Flamers really seeing Bruno as a role model? Are the Wayan Brothers and Two Snaps Up! back in vogue, too? If so, then Will & Grace is really a sharp social commentary and not just a bland sit-com mining gay cliches for cheap laughs.
Otto Erotica, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: In defence of the right to discriminate, by Wendy Kaminer
I read Kaminer’s article with growing exasperation. It confirmed my belief that certain issues in human society should never be handed over to lawyers and judges to resolve. They will needlessly overcomplicate what are, in fact, very simple matters of right and wrong, human rights and personal freedoms, drown them in a morass of tortuous legalistic logic, and turn them into an abstract intellectual game for their own amusement, while forgetting that it is human lives and human happiness that are dependent on their cold, detached deliberations.
This is not an exercise in propositional logic, or a game of chess. It is not about whether this or that First Amendment right is being denied, or whether associational rights are being infringed, etc, etc. It’s far more basic than that. It’s about whether a group of people should be allowed to exercise and promote discrimination against another group of people just because they believe that that is what their Invisible Magic Friend wants them to do, and about whether such groups should enjoy official recognition and public funding. That’s it - it’s a no-brainer!
I have a question for Kaminer, and would be very interested to know her answer: Would she defend the right of a gay student organisation to deny membership to people with religious beliefs, and to promote discrimination and persecution of religious people? Because that is the exact mirror image of the cases she is discussing. Try tying that one in a Gordian knot of legalistic jargon!
God save us from lawyers!
Steve Denton, UK
I am an Orthodox Christian but not a fundamentalist. I find it appalling that churches are having their doctrines dictated to them by politicians and pressure groups. Far more important than what is or isn’t a sin is who gets to say what is or isn’t a sin. Those who disagree can vote with their feet (and chequebooks) and go to a church that agrees with them. Or they can disagree and stay.
My best friend is both Orthodox Christian and gay. He does not agree with the Church on this issue, because the church still calls homosexuality a sin. Regardless, he is applying to an Orthodox church to form a small fellowship to do morning and evening ceremonies. (Our Church takes centuries to make any changes; that’s just how it is)
Churches are not monoliths, but pressure groups certainly are. Either you buy their whole agenda, or you’re out. I served my time with Amnesty International, until I found that disagreement with the central office on any issue would not be tolerated.
Tikhon Andrew Gilson, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: People should not be punished for their beliefs, by Frank Furedi
Once again, Furedi gets it right. The fact that politically correct illiberals feel they have a right to censor and silence individuals with whom they disagree is a sad reflection on how far genuine debate in this country has become impoverished by the requirements of party political imperative.
It is interesting that it is in the school classroom that the illiberals are seeking to silence their political opponents as this hallowed territory is exactly where they have sought to inculcate and dissimulate a politically correct but factually incorrect, selective and censored interpretation of British history.
Liam McLoughlin, UK
If the government was considering banning members of Muslim extremist groups who preach hatred against Jews and non-believers from teaching the liberal left would be screaming blue murder about infringement of civil liberties, Islamophobia and the ‘demonisation of Muslims’. They would say that Muslims are being punished for speaking out against British foriegn policy protesting the Iraq war and their anger about Israel’s attacks on Palestine. This would more or less reflect the view held by many on the Left that when white people are racist, it’s just because they are nasty, but when members of ethnic minorites are racist it’s because they have suffered social injustice.
Daniel Factor, UK
Furedi is, as usual, spot on. When a ‘blacklist’ of building contractors was recently discovered and a number of trade union agitators found their work drying up, David Davis MP said that denying a person work on the basis of their political beliefs was ‘disgusting’. He failed to respond to my question as to whether denying BNP members employment in the Police Force, Prison service, teaching, etc was equally ‘disgusting’. Now MPs are legislating to make the ‘blacklist’ illegal whilst the government try to pass laws to exclude BNP members further in employment.
Dr Stuart H Russell, UK
As a German I am very pleased when the English start to learn from us. We had this way of handling free speech in the 1970s when the Radikalenerla saw people deemed radical (whether on the left or right) banned from public jobs. The result? They started a ‘march through the institutions’ and are now sitting in the positions they were excluded. What a success!
Wolfhardt Krause, UK
Furedi is 100 per cent right. Almost 1million people voted for the BNP in the last election. Instead of listening to them and what they want, they are being told to shut up or risk being persecuted. Some democracy!
David Devore, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Climate change horror: the UK will be like Provence, by Rob Lyons
‘It seems likely that the world will get warmer over the next few decades, even if the consequences of this warming are often grossly exaggerated.’
Mr Lyons, I fear that your middle-of-the-road interpretation of the climate predictions misses the elephant in the room. While it is true that, according to the figures produced, the UK will not suffer a major catastrophe, it should also be noted that these figures are deeply suspicious.
They depend on climate models which have repeatedly been shown to be incorrect, and input data which is, not to put too fine a point upon it, rubbish. The US climate input data is, generally, publically available, and able to be shown to be incorrect – the Met Office is currently fighting a rearguard action to maintain the secrecy of the raw data it uses to feed its calculations. If this data is ever made available for proper examination, it is likely to be found to be as bad (or worse!) than the US data, which is so contaminated with issues like land change-of-use as to be more than 5 degrees celsius in error, making these predictions into a pointless exercise.
This is the issue the ‘deniers’ try to raise – that there has been and can be no proper audit of these figures until the data is publicly available. It is a scandal that the Met Office has refused to allow anyone other than its own selected scientists to have access to this data, and I would have hoped that spiked would have raised that issue whenever discussion of the possible future UK climate occurs
Chris Baxter, UK
Not too bad a report, but global temperatures have not risen for the last decade and have fallen since 2003, although atmospheric CO2 has continued to increase. However, the surface temperature measurements are suspect, as they are out of kilter with satellite measurements. See here
You can follow the ongoing debate here
The inactivity of the sun will also be a factor over the next few years as temperatures will continue their decline. See here
All in all, give it another 700 days and AGW will be regarded as the Emperor’s new clothes of climate research.
Perry Debrell, UK
And the 1-1.5 degree per 150 years that is the actual climate change can be adapted to, no doubt! The CO2 driven, or mythical climate change can never be adapted to.
Dan Carruthers, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: Northern Ireland: the capital of race hate, by Chris Gilligan
‘The attacks on Romanian migrants are shocking, but they are not evidence of any widespread virulent racism’, writes Chris Gilligan. It is my understanding that these Romanians were ‘Roma’ (Gypsies) - 150 of them.
Is there some particular reason why this professor refused to make that distinction. Prejudice against Roma is deplorable. So are some of the activities of some Roma around the world.
I expect better out of spiked. How about an article on Roma and the English and Irish Travelers?
Ray Marshall, USA
I have never written to a paper before in all my 55 years but I feel so strongly about all this that I have to say something. In all this nobody has interviewed the very close neighbours of the Romanians and if they have, nothing has been said about the other side of this terrible event.
The neighbours and people in the area have been subjected to stealing and begging in their area for a long time. My elderly sister, who has not a racist bone in her body, lives in the area and has had trouble with the Romanians. All the police do is tell her time after time that ‘their hands are tied’. Other people have things stolen off their lines, their homes broken into and have seen the people doing it with no help offered to them.
Politicians have rushed to condemn these attacks on the Romanians but where were they when their constituents needed them. Nowhere. That’s because their problems would not have given them high profile TV coverage.
How can the government justify the Romanians being here in the first place – they don’t work, contribute to, or pay tax and insurance that we as ordinary Northern Ireland citizens have to. All they have ever done is to left off in places in large 4x4s to beg all day on the streets of the town before being picked up again at night.
Somebody please take up the other side of this whole incident and stop accusing people who want to speak up as being racist. We don’t want to be associated with thugs and bully-boys but where are our rights to live in our own country.
Margaret Thompson, Northern Ireland
It’s not PC to say it, but attacks on Roma are not always unprovoked. Some Roma do steal, and some assault their neighbours. It would be more productive to view Gypsy-non Gypsy relations as a conflicted relationship in need of resolution, rather than a case of ‘racism’ on the part of non-Gypsies.
In Eastern Europe, the Roma usually concentrate on metalwork and professional music. I wonder what occupations they are doing in Ireland, and if they are displacing anyone. These are the sort of things to look at.
Tikhon Andrew Gilson, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: Hands off home education! by Jennie Bristow
Thank you for this excellent article. Bristow makes some important points about why we all need to have the choice to make decisions about our children’s education, even if we choose to accept the service of state education.
Of course state education suits many children, but for those with special needs, who struggle to manage the average pace of the classroom, it can be very stressful and demoralising. Home education provides a safe and happy haven where any child can learn to achieve their best with loving support and attention from their parents.
The most worrying aspect of the review report for many home educators is that inspectors will have automatic access to the family home and to interview each child alone to satisfy themselves that they are safe and well. If the report is implemented, then inspectors do not need to give any reason why they should see your child alone - it is an automatic right and a very dangerous one in my opinion, from many points of view.
At the moment, this threat only affects home educators, but how much longer will it be before the same compulsory visits are made for under-fives, with no reasons for suspicion, except perhaps that you don’t choose to send your child to nursery.
Sarah, UK
As much as I agree with Bristow’s condemnation of state interference into home education, educating children at home, except in cases of special needs, should not be allowed.
The family home should be private and free from overarching state regulation, but it’s a mistake for parents to deprive children of the essential socialisation of going to school. Kids are deprived of developing relationships with their peers, finding friends for themselves and standing up to bullies, by overprotective parents.
When spiked argues so strongly about the infantilisation of society, then they should identify home schooling as another aspect of this. Should kids be brought up with just mummy and daddy’s approved perspective of the world? Challenging the shortcomings of state education can only be done through participation and sheltering children from reality can only be detrimental in the long run.
Andrew Cox, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Another Iranian revolution? If only, by Mick Hume
Interesting and well-written article. However:
‘Many Western pundits seemed convinced that nobody could possibly vote for such an illiberal reactionary as Ahmadinejad, ignoring the fact that this election was taking place in Iran, not Islington in north London, and that even a poll published in the Washington Post three weeks before the election had predicted a big victory for the conservative president.’
Hume likewise forgets that the poll itself was done in Iran and not Islington. That’s akin to coming to Czechoslovakia in the 80s and asking any Tom, Dick or Harry if they supported Communism.
JS, Czech Republic
This article is just going through the motions. And to think,spiked are actually offering the article for sale!
The point Hume is missing is that the ‘fantasy Iran’ is not that of Western politicians. Listen to how cautious Obama and Milliband have been. It is the fantasy of the media - more specifically that of an increasingly aggressive BBC.
Having recently forced the prime minister to grovel when promising the unelected BBC a say in how Britain’s democratic system might be reformed (if only they will go easy and let him hold on for another year), the trustafarians of BBC news are now on a mission to reshape the world.
They are far, far, ahead of any plans Western political leaders might have – and until this absolute and irrevocable dominance of media over politics is recognised, its frantic, irresponsible storyline will efface reality, and with that, the possibility of revolution.
What Hume writes keeps open the possibility – not because you really believe it, but because you don’t know enough to write anything else. For a proper analysis try here. The author Geneive Abdo also exposes another simple fact in an article written before the election here
Unlike the BBC, which cavalierly repeats an estimate of 90,000 for the numerical strength of the basij militia, Abdo confidently uses a figure of 12 million. Instantly, that explains so much.
If one knows that 12 million is an accurate number, one is less likely to give so much credence to a large demonstration (about which the BBC’s John Leyne is reduced to quoting what other people have told him).
Hume asks what ‘tentative conclusions’ offer themselves, and starts with ‘It seems clear that the authority of the Islamic regime is unravelling, and the elite is turning in on itself.’ Nothing is more fantastic than that.
Abdo, by contrast, states clearly that ‘Ahmadinejad’s re-election has once and for all consolidated power around Mr. Khamenei, the military, and the circle of hard-line political elites who form the core of the Iranian regime.”
It’s not the Iranian regime that has lost confidence in itself, but Hume himself. He used to be funny…
Martin Stone, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Committing the sin of demanding more, by Tim Black
Once again spiked undoes its good work on other topics with a ludicrous piece of contrarianism. Tube workers are already all very well paid and job losses are a fact of life in any industry. I could go on and on with reasons why this article is nonsense.
RMT union chief Bob Crow put in as a term of the previous deal being agreed that two sacked drivers be reinstated, one of which opened the doors on the wrong side of his train and then lied about it. I would be fascinated to hear Black’s justification for that.
Mark Roberts, UK
This article is a lot of nonsense. Citing an imaginary blow against a ‘culture of austerity’ as an excuse to justify the unjustifiable is nothing more than a creative irrelevance. The sin is not in demanding more, the sin is in the action taken to achieve that demand.
This union has demonstrated more than just the culture of greed evident in the perks of parliament, the bonuses of bankers, and the wants of workers. The first two groups’ actions were grossly negligent - they didn’t give any thought to the effects of their ‘rewards’ on anyone else. However, the leaders of the third group, the RMT, quite deliberately set out last week to cause chaos, by premeditated action calculated to screw up the daily lives of as many individuals and organisations as possible in and around London, in an attempt to secure their selfish gains.
Jon Bywell, UK
What is the market-clearing wage for tube drivers? Less than £40,000 I would guess - especially as most of them could be safely and economically replaced by automated controls.
Peter Wood, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Tiller’s death: don’t blame Bill O’Reilly, by Helen Searls
The death of Tiller reveals something that is probably not made clear enough when discussing abortion: the hypocrisy of those who consider themselves ‘pro-life’. It is ironic that those who call for the protection of ‘the unborn’ through restricting access to abortion are often happy to condone, or at least fail to criticise, violent attacks directed against doctors such as Dr Tiller, the use of the death penalty against drug users who do not deserve to be punished in any way (let alone put to death by the state), not to mention military aggression, carried out in the guise of ‘humanitarian intervention’.
This suggests that the attempts to eliminate abortion access are not really about wanting to protect life at all, and actually have much more in common with a desire to restrict the freedom of women, particularly in terms of sexual interaction, in the interests of upholding an old-fashioned and oppressive conception of gender. The link is further confirmed when we consider that anti-abortionists also proclaim their opposition to the free distribution of contraception, in schools and other public environments, despite the fact that this would seem to be the best way of reducing the prevalence of abortion - which they presumably view as a worthy aim.
Benjamin Kindler, UK
Everyone I know is so sick of right-wing Christian Republicans. They’re out of touch with so many issues and they’re war mongers. They’re not even good at it. Democrats showed how it’s done during the Second World War.
As for the abortion issue… It’s a tough issue to tackle. Who’s right? There are solid arguments on both sides. The right-wing Republicans are also the first ones in favour of the death penalty. Yet, innocent people have been put to death, which is ironic given that’s the same argument they maintain against abortion.
The Republicans can’t be trusted. Just look at the history of the party. Other than wanting to save on taxes they stand for nothing good. I hope Dr Tiller is in a better place. God bless his family.
Allan Prudente, Canada
Every death is a sad matter - whether it’s that of a person’ among us or one yet to be born. And sometimes, both could be avoided, if the pro-choicers would make clear what they want. Is it a), a women’s right irrespective of necessity and circumstance, ie, total selfishness and convenience? Is it b), the provision of abortion where needed to save a life or preserve someone’s health. Or is it c), where there are very serious concerns about proven illnesses or deformities in the unborn.
The majority of pro-lifers could agree to b), and would be open to c).
The problem is that abortion as a matter of convenience has become the political flagship for an anti-feminist gang. In doing so, they actually see enemies in women who want a family and children - and maybe, even love (their) men.
That has distorted the whole abortion debate. I must admit, of the five cases of abortion I had in my vicinity, four were for holidays or living comfort, the fifth one I’m not sure about, but it was nothing life threatening. So, my experience makes me doubtful. And seeing the abortion-industry growing profitable makes me shudder.
I wonder if such doctors and ‘activists’ are really as caring and responsible as they claim to be.
Dr J Boost, UK
Searls’ article about the ethical responsibility Bill O’Reilly shares in the murder of Dr George Tiller. And it misses two critical points:
a) Mr. O’Reilly has been consistently, factually incorrect in his descriptions of the nature of Dr Tiller’s practice. Dr Tiller provided all manner of care related to women’s reproductive health, not just abortions, and he did not perform late-term abortions for women who, on a whim, were willing to toss a lot of cash his way (as if there were any like that in the first place, which there aren’t).
A significant number of pregnancies result in fetuses with severe congenital deformities or occur in women whose health is severely affected in a potentially fatal fashion. These unfortunate pregnancies cannot be brought to term without an impact on the families so great as to be life-destroying, either in the broader sense of the phrase or, in specific cases, literally. Dr Tiller was one of only three physicians in the entire United States willing to act to spare these women and their families from the greater harm that bearing to term would create.
b) O’Reilly specialises in the home ambush. His producers follow their targets to their homes, supermarkets, onto public transportation, and in one notable case, his producer Jesse Watters followed a woman over two hundred miles as she drove across three states for a weekend vacation. He gives permission by his very example to those who would stalk in places heretofore regarded as sacrosanct, private spaces. It was during his Sunday worship service inside his church that Dr Tiller was murdered, one of the few places in which he felt he would be safe from the need for a bodyguard.
David K M Klaus, USA
Dr Tiller was operating within the laws governing his state. His activity with regard to late-term abortions, however, was gross in every way. Worse was the knee-jerk reaction of so-called liberals when the state attorney general wanted records of underage girls given abortions by Dr Tiller. The issue was and is, how did they get pregnant as many were 13 to 14 years old. Had a crime been committed?
The assumption is of course these girls were impregnated by their 16-year-old boyfriends, but were they? In a number of cases girls were subjected to rape and incest. Some were preyed upon by predators. But, again we will never know how many were subjected to this as Tiller would not release any records. What we do know is he was very expensive and girls from around the world were brought to him for late-term abortions. Many were not women, they were children. Having said all of that, he did not deserve to die and I hope his killer gets aborted.
Dan Carruthers, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Federer: the greatest tennis player on Earth, by Duleep Allirajah
Extrapolating Rod Laver’s results through the period he could not play gives him 21 major wins, so statistically he is the best tennis player up to now. But Federer is so beautiful to watch. There is something that sets him apart in the way he moves from most other good athletes. Very few have this combination of speed and perfect balance. Among them I would include David Hemery, Luis Figo, Barry John, David Gower, George Best, OJ Simpson, Pele and the English Pele, Stan Collymore.
I saw Figo in Madrid. You don’t see it on TV, but he was cat-like. His feet seemed to barely touch the pitch as he ran. I’d like to know exactly what makes poetry in motion. Have great athletes’ movements ever been analysed in detail?
Jonathan Bagley, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: How the EU bureaucrats are destroying public life, by Frank Furedi
A point that has been completely missed by the mainstream media is that a large majority of those that turned out to vote did so for parties that are highly critical of the EU. In the UK the EU supine parties of Labour and the Liberal Democrats were trounced.
The EU project is conducted as if the populations of Europe are a coiled spring to be compressed. The trouble is you can only compress a spring so far before the energy created unleashes itself in an unforeseen and uncontrollable direction.
Robert Persey, UK
At this rate it can’t be long before a EU Directive is created making voting in these elections compulsory. What an opportunity for confrontation that will be!
Jeremy Edwards, UK
I am inarticulate with frustration! With politicians at home disinclined to take a stand and act honorably, I would do anything I could to change things, in addition to emailing your article.
Sidney Whitaker, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: It’s a recession, Jim, but not as we know it, by Phil Mullan
A good diagnosis of the problems but Mullan’s analysis raises two questions. Firstly, is Mullan not over-emphasising the importance of a lack of leadership in dealing with the crisis? The objective conditions of capitalism imply that political, or economic, leaders have very limited and weak policy options from which to choose. If leaders had the benefit of a Marxian analysis of the situation then of course their actions may be very different.
That raises a second question; if Mullan were Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer what would he do to improve things?
Mark Ramsden, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Is the digital age killing compassion?, by Stuart Derbyshire
In The Dumbest Generation, I cite dozens of studies, surveys, polls, and tests from US Dept of Education, Pew Research Center, National Council of State Legislatures, Kaiser Foundation, Nielsen Media, Book Industry Study Group, National Governors Association, College Board, Harris Interactive, and many, many other private and public organisations. And the point is not to say that the digital age makes kids bad people. In fact, on several behavioral measures, Generation Y is a big improvement on Generation X. However, the digital age is hampering the intellectual growth of the young, swamping them with youth stuff which pours through digital tools, meaning that the adult realities of history, civics, literature, fine art, and economics just can’t break through.
Mark Bauerlein, USA
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Respond Letters responding to: John Gray: poster boy for misanthropy, by Tim Black
If Malthusianism were correct, then mass starvation would already be limiting the number of people. That isn’t happening. Food production is still high and increasing.
Gray won’t face the fact that the ‘carrying capacity’ of the earth is not fixed, but can be (has been) enhanced by technology. All upper limits on human population are arbitrary. Such limits say more about the lack of imagination of the estimators than they do about the world. I’m reminded of the sage who, in the 1840s, said the US Patent Office should be closed, because everything which could possibly be invented had been invented.
One doesn’t have to be Christian to believe in human uniqueness (but it does help). I know spiked is a neo-Marxist publication, but, no, you don’t have to be a Marxist to believe in growth or progress.
Tikhon Andrew Gilson, USA
Black here shows a Marxist diehard position by denying the centrality of an evolved social psychology of hierarchy; this has the very deepest of biological roots.
The interests of people will always greatly diverge according to their status (if male) and their sex (the sexes being radically dichotomised). Such distinctions transcend differences in social systems.
John Gray understands this truth; the staff at spiked choose never to.
It’s an amusing hall-of-mirrors of backlash, that began with the political Left blaming ‘the workers’ instead of the stupid theory. A big-time comeuppance is fast looming.
Steve Moxon, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Five good reasons to hate Newcastle Utd, by Duleep Allirajah
Just a few points.
If Newcastle aren’t a big club then why are so many people so bothered about them being relegated? You can’t have it both ways.
It says a lot about Allirajah that he’s fallen for the stereotyped, Sky-manufactured image of Newcastle fans. It’s a media construct, perpetuated by lazy journalists. Try talking to some real Newcastle fans. I don’t know anyone who heads for St.James’ when the next management blunder is under the media spotlight.
It would be interesting to know which football team is lucky enough to enjoy his support and his reason for supporting them. Does it have anything to do with your place of birth? If not, why not?
Niall Mackenzie, UK
Make that six good reasons to hate Newcastle United. The sixth one being how football’s self appointed moral guardians use Newcastle United to eulogise about the ‘poor oppressed working-class football supporter’ trampled on by the ‘overpaid pampered premadonnas’ who earn ‘more in a week than they do in a year’. And don’t forget the nurses.
Daniel Factor, UK
Allirajah’s journalistic skills are well below those expected from a journalist.
His glorification of the term ‘messiah’ is copied from and extending a myth created by the media itself. If he took the time to talk to geordies he’d find that we don’t use that term to describe any of our legends.
His abuse of the word ‘massive’ to explain the way we see the size of our town (using quotation marks) is close to criminal really. We described ourselves as a big club, based on revenue, attendances, wages, transfer fees, historical precedence, etc. And he would obviously know that. Everyone knows that a massive club could only include Man Utd, Milan, Barcelona, etc.
He has a lack of knowledge about the history of the north east as well. When the next large settlement is over 100 miles away (Leeds/Edinburgh), and with a history of extended periods of autonomous rule, those in the north east have developed a nationalistic mentality different from other more densely populated areas in England. Obviously this is recognised by most… for example the north east was the first area in England to be offered a regional parliament because of this nationalistic feeling. Again any decent journalist would be at least slightly aware of this.
Newcastle are a one club city, I agree, but we do have better support than a great deal of clubs in England. We do also have a smaller hinterland and potential number of supporters than many (500,000 in Newcatsle and Gateshead). You will find 35,000 there next year which will still be higher than most clubs in the land. And to get 52,000 people there to watch the drivel we have been fed in recent years, then that’s loyalty. See if you would get that with Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, and so on.
Chris, UK
What a great, great article, my friend. I lived up there for 20 years and geordies are insufferable monochrome wallies when it comes to their football. They had one season when they played it the right way but still live off their Fairs Cup win of 1968. No club has had their delusions of adequacy indulged for so long, nor as many craven apologists for its serial underachievement. Bit of snow around the pitch and a hoof up into the air for a pit pony to hack it towards the stottie buffet… hardly Barcelona is it? The fact that Blair said he was a fan says it all…another Walter Mitty fantasist to put alongside Hall and Shepherd!
With the Geordie nation setting their satnavs/pigeons for trips to the Wessex nation (Plymouth) and the Fen Football Nation of Grimsby, where will everyone else in the premier league get their 6 points from now?
Still, it’s not all bad – with the government’s scrappage scheme for clapped out bangers and wheezers, Owen and Viduka alone is £4,000 towards Shearer’s Brown Ale bill. Pity WBA took Sunderland’s relegation berth! Apart from that?...bliss!
Chris Hartnett, UK
Five good reasons to hate Duleep Allirajah.
1) For writing an article which contains zero original material and is a mere re-hash of comments already made by other Newcastle-hating journos.
2) For being naive and stupid enough to think that the usual band of rent-a-mob idiots wheeled out by Sky Sports outside St James’ park actually represent the views of Newcastle United Fans.
3) For apparently thinking that his spiteful, invective is funny.
4) For obviously knowing fuck all about the north east of England and geordies in particular.
5) For being an unfunny, smart arse, band-wagon-jumping, twat of the first order!
Rod Molyneux, UK
Yes, NUFC has a deep spiritual malaise. But Dennis Wise was, is and always will be a boring cockernee spiv of the lowest order.
Steve Jones, UK
Dear Duleep,
I really enjoyed your article!
I loved the lazy cut and paste journalism, the stereotyping and half-baked opinions based on tabloid headlines and talksport callers’ comments and not any actual facts or knowledge of NUFC.
Who cares if Geordies only ever called Keegan the Messiah as a one-off, jokey nickname and the only people I’ve ever heard call Shearer the messiah are journalists and supporters of other premiership clubs on Radio5. Who cares if there were not thousands of crying Geordies at Villa Park to give Sky the cliched shots they love or that they only found one bloke from 3,000 with his head in his hands and had to resort to cutting to shots of three or four other people outside of Shearer’s Bar in Newcastle to desperately try and make it look like more.
Like you, as any right-minded football supporter, I too am sickened by the three instances of crying you mentioned over a 19-year period and if that isn’t a good reason to hate something and make wild, sweeping generalisations about any group of people, I don’t know what is. Who cares, they’re all the same these black and white bastards?
This is just the sort of jealous, prejudiced, hate-filled, exaggerated bile I look for in promising journalists.
Congratulations, a long and successful career here at the Daily Mail awaits you. Give me a call.
Paul Dacre*, UK
*(Not the real one)
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Respond Letters responding to: Asking questions is not an ‘Inquisition’, by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick
Nicely written. I believe it is very important that everyone remain civil. Threats and character assassination are not a way to address issues related to science and the health care of human beings.
The most recent International Meeting For Autism Research (IMFAR) was absolutely stunning for the reports of discoveries about the molecular pathophysiology of autism and its hope for near future interventions. It is sad that the public does not seem to have much if any awareness of this advanced body of knowledge.
Nancy Minshew, USA
Well done. Many of the dubious theories that the Autism File proposes and advises in terms of investigation and treatment are expensive and not relevant to the management of Autistic Spectrum Disorders. A clear lack of understanding of pharmacology and the poisoning effects of some of the agents used in their schemes are explained away by referral to Herxheimer responses with no obvious benfit to the child. Keep up the scrutiny; it’s just a pity that anti-science and counterknowledge are used to promote bizarre and irrelevant treatments.
Dr Edward Danczak, UK
I can understand that the Autism Trust wants to help autistic adults – and it seems logical to look for a rural location to build the facilities. I also understand that the Autism File magazine is an open forum for parents and professionals - the more information that’s available, the quicker truths can become apparent.
I can understand their agenda; they want to help. But I have a problem with Fitzpatrick’s. Why does he want to spoil their efforts? He comes over as a very narrow-minded, blinkered, closed and mean person. Is he really like that? What is his real agenda? Who or what has fuelled this nasty attitude?
Robert Hamon, UK
Many thanks for this excellent piece. To state an interest, my son is on the spectrum (and goes to a great school here in London). I think your points about the Autism Trust and Autism File are very valid - having bought one copy of the magazine I felt conned after reading and checking out the so-called experts mentioned. It does rather seem that autism is all about them and not about those on the spectrum.
Michael Walsh, UK
Fitzpatrick seems to be advocating avoiding all biomedical treatments. Hence he writes ‘…for biomedical treatments, with all the attendant risks’.
I understand that chelation is a concern to many, but SCD, DMG and B6/magnesium are all very, very safe (DMG is just a food after all). My son has done tremendously well, in terms of his autism and state of health, with these.
Why does he advise against them?
Lee Kinsville, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: The deification of Earth, by Rob Lyons
James Lovelock is not part of environmental science. His Gaia hypothesis is regarded as goofy at best. It is quite dishonest to lump Attenborough and Lovelock together.
Attenborough is a fine scientist. Lovelock is a crazy uncle in the basement. The fact that you would even consider reviewing his book shows that your knowledge of what is going on in science is superficial.
Wakenight, USA
Lyon’s review struck me as a fairly obvious case of trying to shoot the messenger. Lovelock’s predictions may be inaccurate, but his motives in making them are humanist. He regards Gaia as a metaphor, not a goddess. At least he did the last time I checked. He certainly doesn’t seem to be a natural soulmate of any of the vengeful nature mystics I’m aware of, who tend to regard human extinction with indifference or even excited anticipation, rather than trying to think of ways to prevent it. Of course, if you think there’s no actual threat from climate change, then Lovelock will start to look a bit as Rob describes him, but if this is really Rob’s view he ought to say so and then argue the science.
Simon Heywood, UK
Personifying (especially deifying) the Earth is one of the traps people can fall into who don’t have a personal God. As a believer in the tri-personal God of Christianity, I have sympathy for those who flit from one God-substitute to another.
The earth does not meet any of the criteria of a living organism. It cannot move on its own, grow, reproduce, or metabolise nutrients. Biologists have standards for defining life (BTW, viruses don’t quite make it either). Lovelock has been indulging in flights of fancy.
Tikhon Andrew Gilson, USA
Would you mind explaining why animism, or mysticism, is ‘anti-human’? It seems to me that a radical change in how people think about their relation to their environment could be very helpful for our survival in the long run.
Avery Morrow, USA
Shame on you, spiked, for treating Lovelock’s religious Gaia ramblings as if they were even remotely connected to a discussion of coherent defensible theories
Norman Hanscombe, Australia
Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis is merely a resurgence of ancient Earth mother paganism. It is entirely irrational to reify the systems seen manifest on the planet into a living being. If Lovelock rejects the notion of a Creator God as being irrational then in consistency he should reject his neo-paganism here as being even more irrational.
The only thing he proves is that mankind is incurably religious, but not only that, that the religions invented by men are nasty and totalitarian.
Steve Meikle, New Zealand
Lovelock was right to point out the statistical improbability of the Earth developing in a way that would keep it continuously habitable. He is using essentially the same argument that Intelligent Designers use, namely, that if the basic parameters of the universe (gravity, strong and weak atomic forces, magnetism) had been even marginally different, the degree of complexity needed for life to form would not have existed. In both cases the existence of a designer explains existence in a way which the traditional atheistic random universe simply cannot.
However, since Lovelock developed this we have seen the Everett-Wheeler Multiverse theory in which every single unpredictable possibility of every quantum movement of each atom in the universe creates a new universe every instant. Even though the overwhelming majority then reunite with the next quantum movement, it does produce a number of possible universes for which the word infinite is inadequate. However it does mean that it is inevitable that there will be a universe where we evolved and obviously that it is going to have the unusual conditions allowing us to evolve. This is what we see.
Indeed for the more mystically inclined one can combine this multiverse with its meta-infinity of uninhabited universes with Schroedinger (and his cat’s) view that a quantum event only achieves actuality when it is observed by assuming that our universe became real (whatever that means) when we evolved to be aware of it and that the uninhabited ones are merely quantum fluctuations.
Either option is possible; it’s the traditional random mechanistic universe that is unbelievable.
Neil Craig, UK
Just want to say I have finally found the best bloody website on the internet. Until I found spiked I thought the world was full of stupid people. I have read three articles, and they said exactly what I’ve always thought. 1) James lovelock is a bit of a prat, 2) the expenses scandal involves the media being prats and 3) an interesting article on food miles with some good links (which doesn’t really fall into the category of the other two but, oh well!)
Why did Lovelock use the name Gaia? I study ecology, and I really enjoy it when people call me a tree hugger. Thanks for dispelling the myth that we’re all hippies like lovelock. Also if his reason for saying the Earth could be alive is because we can’t define life, then surely the logical conclusion is everything’s alive?
Andrew Hanlon, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: Why outraged Chelsea fans should ref off, by Duleep Allirajah
I think someone needs to point out to Duleep Allirajah that his comments on the Ovrebo-Chelsea fracas are neither incisive nor original. He asks why the ‘silent majority’ has not been heard on this issue, and then goes on to cite comment from the 606 website.
Just like Ovrebo, he should have gone to Specsavers – 606 was full of boring Barca ‘total football’ fans (ie, know-nothing soccerati) claiming that Chelsea had strong-armed the first leg and ‘done nothing’ in the second (despite reducing the self-proclaimed ‘best team in the world’ to one shot on target for the entire match).
Allirajah has the gall to label Chelsea fans as puerile, and then goes on to set up a pro-Ovrebo Facebook campaign which, at the time of writing, has clocked-up a humiliatingly shit score of 19 members and 5 wall posts. ‘It’s all gone quiet over there…’
Instead of lauding the team that showed some guts in trying to overcome a foe that was supposedly more talented and dangerous, Allirajah goes along with the popular lie that Chelsea’s case was represented solely by Drogba’s outburst, and a bunch of internet morons.
Referees are (often) wankers, but you know football culture is in trouble when they get applauded by fans for being so.
Jason King, UK
The article on Chelsea was interesting but for me it missed one significant point. For the first time I felt that a wider layer of people are drawing conclusions about money’s link to sport, which I regard as positive. You may well be right that the ref was not bought in this instance but I was surprised by the amount of people I spoke to who thought he was. This is the first time so many people have said it’s possible that certain people want a certain result. This shows the link between sport and big buisness is seeping through to ordinary fans. At last!
Jonathan Traub, UK
Brilliant article Duleep. I wasn’t aware of that quote from Hodgson, but it’s made me like the man even more.
On the flip-flop question I can only quote Phil McNulty’s description of Drogba ‘looking like an enraged holidaymaker’.
David Bowden, Belgium
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Respond Letters responding to: Getting to the root of the economic crisis, by Daniel Ben-Ami
I surprised myself by agreeing with most of Ben-Ami’s article. Blaming the bankers is a silly. They were gearing up more and more because that was the only way they could see of making money. Plus, the myth of perpetually rising property prices, which Ben Ami doesn’t seem to mention, was not the fault of bankers either.
I only disagreed at the end, however, when Ben-Ami threw in what looks like an ill-considered value judgement that the slow real growth of developed economies is a bad thing. This is highly contentious, and not just because of the eco-arguments. It could simply be that the developed economies are up against the law of diminishing returns. The big productivity opportunities have already been taken; further productivity opportunities may be there, but at the too great a cost of the de-humanisation of life.
Or perhaps people would simply rather have more time off. The benefits of technology are being used to increase leisure and hence low growth. That’s what arriving in the promised land looks like.
I know there are cogent arguments for more growth too - but it’s not right to take them as given, and assume that the other side is only represented by woolly eco-types. Consider that the slow growth of the developed world is simply the manifestation of the freely made choices of the majority, and not a failure of political leadership. Who’s the more miserabilist now?
Matthew Green, UK
An excellent piece, especially on the management for risk and the role it played. What must be added to the major causes, though, is the role that the US government played in bastardising mortgage underwriting standards, to the extent that US brokers and banks threw any semblance of prudent lending policy out of the window.
This was fully explored in Anatomy of a Train Wreck, by Stan J Liebowitz, and, as is to be expected in our ‘blame only the bankers mob rule’, the UK media and documentary makers have studiously ignored any of the points made in this report. But that does not stop any of the points made and evidence presented from being any less valid.
Ian Stuart, UK
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Respond Letters responding to: What swine flu reveals about the culture of fear, by Frank Furedi
I have read Furedi’s book Culture of Fear and I agree with him about the anomie that a culture of fear potentially engenders. I also agree with most of what you have written in your latest spiked article.
However, I am a renal physician who sees the end result of people who smoke, don’t exercise, eat too much fast food, have poor control of their diabetes and end up with a very expensive disease called kidney failure. Having earned my living advising patients with these problems I feel that I am indeed an expert; defined as ‘a person who has special skill or knowledge in some particular field’.
It is of no solace to me that I can predict who will develop this type of problem. Although I try to give advice without the fear factor, when people know that it is very likely that they will develop kidney failure and end up on dialysis, not unnaturally they can become frightened.
If a patient asks me, as an expert in kidney problems, how they can lessen their risk of getting kidney problems, how can I avoid reference to these risk factors that I have mentioned previously?
In New Zealand the increase in patients requiring dialysis has increased by an average 10 per cent per annum for the last 20 years. We are unable to cope with the number of dialysis patients that we are trying to help.
Can Furedi therefore tell me what he thinks we should do to lessen the likelihood of this increase in patient numbers in the future?
Alistair MacDonald, New Zealand
It used to be that the government(s) did what they could to prevent panic among the people. Now panic seems to be the operating principle of government, from the UN to national and local governments.
The problem is, fear fatigue has long since set in. We don’t panic as easily as we used to. The authorities will have to come up with some other trick to manage the masses. Who knows, they might even break down and solve some social problems instead.
Tikhon Andrew Gilson, USA
I was actually discussing a week ago how there is a generalised return to the coupling of fear with the idea of contagion, the diffusion of a virus/microbe.
It was already the case in the late nineteenth century, when criminals were seen to be like microbes or a virus affecting the healthy body of society. Nowadays, because we all suffer from the generalised fear of competition, because our mental frame is weakened by the notion that everything is frail, fragile and ephemeral, we are gripped by the constant concern of being surprised by the unknown. Something bad will happen, we know it, and we constantly have it in mind. All that is left for us is to try to figure out from where the threat will come.
The environment, the family, the public sphere, our bodies; all these elements of our lives which generate life, which makes it grow and change, all these are now seen as the sources of change, and change, of course, is seen as the source of the unpredictable.
The public sphere in particular is scary because this is where we meet others, and others who might not be like us, hence reducing further our ability to predict and control. Our horizons contract, making us loose depth, breadth and width in how we apprehend the world. We have become unidimensional because it seems easier to predict and control. And we do not realise that by doing that we suppress, and that which is suppressed will eventually need release. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Valerie Hartwitch, UK
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