Issue 139
October 2007
Contents
Mission accomplished
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
With most Sunni factions now seeking a deal, the big questions in Iraq have been resolved positively. The country remains one, it has embraced democracy and avoided all-out civil war. What violence remains is largely local and criminal
Dilemmas of terror
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
There are two approaches to counter-terrorism in Britain—the judicial track, emphasising evidence and due process; and the secret service track, which focuses on intelligence. How does today's terrorist threat affect the balance between the two?
Rebuilding Conservatism
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
David Cameron wants to heal the rift between Thatcherites and modernisers while also coining a distinctive new Tory ideology. To achieve this he must ditch flashy initiatives and show that he is truly committed to decentralising Britain
Making national identity work
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
The government should not scrap its ID scheme but radically rethink it. It should postpone the idea of the ID card and focus instead on allocating a unique national identity number, backed by biometrics, to each citizen—that is all that needs to be held in a national register
In search of British values 1
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
In July, Gordon Brown published a green paper called "The Governance of Britain." The final section said that we need to be clearer about the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and what it means to be British. It proposed "to work with the public to develop a British statement of values." We asked 50 writers and intellectuals to give us their thoughts on this statement and what should inform it
A summer of stabbings
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
It is not clear whether gun and knife crime is on the rise, but it does seem to be increasingly concentrated among resentful young males in thrall to the cult of cool
A poet at Cern
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
As poet-in-residence at Cardiff astronomy department, I want to understand the sub-atomic science and the people behind the world's largest particle collider
In search of British values 2
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Writers and intellectuals respond to the government's call for a statement of British values—page 2
Reply to Ram-Prasad 1
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Contrary to Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad's argument, it's not at all clear that India's middle class is politically unengaged. And who are they anyway?
Comment (1)Reply to Ram-Prasad 2
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
India's middle class still has to abide by the state's rules. Yet there is a danger that they will find ways to completely extricate themselves
The democracy world tour
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Travelling the world, looking for films and funding for a ten-part BBC series, I find that dreams of a democratic world are as strong as ever
Lessons from Scandinavia
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
What can David Cameron learn from the experience of Moderaterna, Sweden's centre-right party?
Reply to Ram-Prasad 3
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Ram-Prasad is right to point out the Indian middle-class apathy towards politics and the poor. But what about the politicians?
Burma: why sanctions won't work
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
The recent protests in Burma were magnificent but doomed. It's time for the international community to swap talk of sanctions for a more pragmatic view of how change might be brought to a closed society
Burma: feminist utopia?
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Decades of military dictatorship have taken their toll, but Burma's ancient commitment to sexual equality remains strong
The year in think tankery
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
David Walker, chair of the panel of judges for this year's Think Tank of the Year awards, on the state of British think tanks
Darling's victims
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
The government's change to the capital gains tax rate was targeted at hedge fund and private equity managers. But smaller groups have been caught in the crossfire
England's democratic meltdown
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Jack Straw attacks "English votes for English laws," but has no answer to the democratic crisis in England
The business of reconciliation
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
While Israeli and Palestinian politicians dither, businessmen on both sides have begun to create their own facts on the ground
Northern Rock lessons
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
How did a few dodgy loans in the US housing market lead to a mini-crisis in Britain's banking system?
No more Mr Nice Guy
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Brown should learn from the setbacks of Cameron and Obama, and abandon this nice-guy politics
Send in the peacemakers
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Diplomacy and a peace deal, not military intervention, offer the best hope of solving the Darfur crisis
Politics without a majority
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
How will Westminster change in the likely event of a hung parliament after the next election?
Living with West Lothian
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
"English votes for English laws" is the resurrection of a policy that failed over Irish home rule
A way in the world
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
In almost everything he writes, VS Naipaul hangs his arguments and prejudices from a seductive personal narrative that is jewelled with detail. His latest essay collection, about his early development as a writer, includes a beautiful account of his friendship with Anthony Powell
Symbolic language
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Steven Pinker has a good stab at explaining metaphor, but his belief that brains work like computers proves a big limitation. We still need poets to understand the imagination
Hitler the gentle opera lover
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
The relationship between Wagner's operas and Nazism, though fascinating, has been analysed to death by novelists and historians. A new fictionalised treatment sheds little fresh light on the topic
Common sense and hot air
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Bjørn Lomborg's climate change scepticism is made possible only by distorting the scientific evidence. His cheery optimism is not the counterweight we need to unthinking alarmism
Widescreen
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Take the sex out of cinema's history and you'd lose a few stars, but little of real quality. Perhaps filmmakers should consider a vow of chastity
Private view
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Why is Henry Moore so unfashionable? Yes, his work was bombastic and unoriginal: but isn't that also true of today's best loved artists?
Performance notes
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
London may not have the best orchestra in the world, but with its four permanent subsidised symphony orchestras it has the best orchestral life
Smallscreen
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Piers Morgan's celebrity interview series can be seen as the modern incarnation of Face to Face. The trouble is, Morgan is too soft on his subjects
Cuckoo
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Alice was half my age but twice as intelligent as me. She was an enigma threatening to dissolve my marriage.
Out of mind
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
The psychiatrist saw William just once. He'd been depressed, but now seemed better, so the psychiatrist sent him away. Then, five weeks later, he opened the local paper
Washington watch
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Will Britain's new ambassador get on better with the Americans than he has with the rest of the world? Plus, what's with Mitt Romney and his weird nickames?
Lab report
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority was wise to approve human-animal hybrid cells for research. Plus, Craig Venter's genome and mining the moon
Matters of taste
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Despite Asda's £2 chicken, many predict that the era of cheap food is coming to an end. If this causes us to start valuing our food properly again, it will be no bad thing
Brussels diary
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
Despite a few wobbles, the EU treaty should be signed in October as planned. Whether it will get through the member-state referendums is another question
Confessions
27th October 2007 — Issue 139
I have to admit, I was secretly pleased when I was dubbed a "literary babe." It all goes back to pretty-boy Alex at school, who informed me that "all women writers are ugly"