The British press has a good reputation over here. Or rather, had. It's the Guardian that's causing people to think again, unsurprisingly. The estimable Glenn Reynolds, has this comment on InstaPundit.Com: "People are always telling me that the British press recycles all sorts of crap without checking it, but this takes the cake." There's also been a useful investigation by my friend Trevor Butterworth, an Irish grad of TCD (I think), into how the British press breaks stoies which then turn out to be complete codswallop. It's on Salon, unfortunately, which I haven't touched since it went "premium", but if the link turns out to be free, I'll post it here.
Nevertheless, there's still a lot to be said for British journalism. The commentary columns are a lot better, the sports reporting is head and shoulders above the awful American sports journalism, which could never produce a Cardus or Arlott, or even an investigator like Mihir Bose. There's also a sense of humor that's sadly missing from the tedious reportage of American papers. Moreover, although the British press does recycle any old rubbish, at least it doesn't impose a uniformally leftist spin on everything. A colleague met a senior Washington Post correspondent recently, who admitted that, when new data are released, journalists view it as their responsibility to tell their readers what to think about them. There is editorializing in the British news pages, but it's labeled as such (if only by the acknowledged stance of the paper) and it comes from varying standpoints. Overall, I'll take the British press over the American, even if I do have to keep my Rubbish Detector on at all times.
Important article in the Spectator about the role of former Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Charles Guthrie, in making Tony Blair into a decent wartime leader. I'd always assumed that Blair and Clinton were exactly alike, but I'm prepared to give Blair some credit here:
Early on, Charles Guthrie took Mr Blair to Bosnia. The PM was not only convinced of the need for a UK presence; he enjoyed the company of the soldiers. Old prejudices rapidly fell away. If he had ever thought he would be dealing with the 5th Bengal Pigstickers in their mess at Poona c. 1905, he now knew better.
Clinton never went throught this conversion. Could fault be laid at the Joint Chiefs' door? Possibly, but here's another difference between Balir and Clinton. Blair really does believe he's doing things for the good of humanity, and is therefore susceptible to having his eyes opened. It happened on nuclear disarmament, on the economy and now on the role of the military. We'll make a true conservative of him yet, boys.
Anatole Kaletsky has an excellent article in today's Times of London summing up what the collapse of the Taliban means. "Dynamist" Virginia Postrel has the link at her site together with some important addenda. The "war on terrorism" is a war on states that use and support terror. However entrenched they are, however repressive their regimes, they will not be able to stand up to a fraction of the military might that the US-UK alliance will throw at them. The Taliban stand (or rather, fell) as a dreadful lesson to those rulers. If there is decent evidence linking any state to Bin Laden and his gang of thugs, then that state too shall suffer. Dictatorships shall fall until they renounce terror forever. That is the only exit strategy we need from this war.
There will continue to be terrorists without state support, but their reach will be small and the damage they do will not approach the level we saw on September 11.
And all of us, American, Afghan, Pakistani, Briton, Indian, European, Israeli, Jordanian, shall sleep safer in our beds for that.
Everyone hoped this would go away. Now it's back, in a big way. As I mention below, Turkey is an important player in the current crisis. It seems to realise that. As this AP report -- Turkish Cypriot State Has Anniversary -- makes clear, the Turks seem determined to force the issue. Threats of war between two NATO countries are not to be dismissed lightly.
What is to be done? The Turks regard both the UN and EU as in hock to the Greeks on the issue (with some justification in the EU's case). The original 1960 Treaty on Cyprus was signed by the Greeks, Turks and British, who still have some sovereign territory on the island. It may be time for Tony Blair to come out to bat. In many ways, the issue should be simpler than Northern Ireland, for example. After all, there are (as far as I'm aware) virtually no Turks in Greek Cyprus and no Greeks in Turkish Cyprus. And, although the Turks were guilty of rape, murder and aggressive invasion, the Greeks had systematically deprived the Turks of rights previously -- neither side has anything to be proud of.
However, I'm not sure how strong the "ennosis" (?) movement for Greece-Cyprus unification is at the moment, but that will surely be an issue as well, given the Turkish position that Cypriot accession to the EU amounts to unification.
Anyone who's ever had to grapple with a problem caused by judges extruding new rights from the text of justiciable documents will appreciate the mess in the UK at the moment. This excellent Times piece by Earl Howe shows just one of the reasons why the UK government is taking such a perverse approach to civil liberties. We can't deport people suspected of terrorism thanks to a right invented by the European Court of Human Rights and attached to Article 3, from which there can be no derogation or suspension. So they're having to restrict Habeas Corpus, because they can suspend Article 5, where those rights are spelled out.
The European Convention on Human Rights and its bastard children have got to go.
Never thought I'd link to this tabloid rag, but the "trenchant" Richard Littlejohn has some good points to make about the UK Lord Chancellor's son's problems in The Sun.
The Lord Chancellor is an odd office, combining parts of the Attorney-General's, Chief Justice's and Vice-President's duties in the US context. It is therefore understandably a powerful one, with a major say in the consideration of new legislation. If the Lord Chancellor's son is addicted to cannabis, then, some questions have to be asked about his Government's moves to decriminalize it. Moreover, Littlejohn is right to ask why a prominent Law Officer did not alert the police to his son's use of a drug classified as so dangerous by the law. This is not a private matter. It is very, very public. It is therefore disgraceful that, at a time when the need for a UK version of the First Amendment is so obvious, the Government has sought to restrict free speech by importing a right to privacy that has been used to cover up corruption in France. Once again, the European Convention on Human Rights is the villain (I feel like a broken record here).
The Sun Also Rises
Never thought I'd link to this tabloid rag, but the "trenchant" Richard Littlejohn has some good points to make about the UK Lord Chancellor's son's problems in The Sun.
The Lord Chancellor is an odd office, combining parts of the Attorney-General's, Chief Justice's and Vice-President's duties in the US context. It is therefore understandably a powerful one, with a major say in the consideration of new legislation. If the Lord Chancellor's son is addicted to cannabis, then, some questions have to be asked about his Government's moves to decriminalize it. Moreover, Littlejohn is right to ask why a prominent Law Officer did not alert the police to his son's use of a drug classified as so dangerous by the law. This is not a private matter. It is very, very public. It is therefore disgraceful that, at a time when the need for a UK version of the First Amendment is so obvious, the Government has sought to restrict free speech by importing a right to privacy that has been used to cover up corruption in France. Once again, the European Convention on Human Rights is the villain (I feel like a broken record here).
