It is now an archive for my newspaper and magazine pieces. My blog can now be read at: www.spectator.co.uk/stephenpollard
Politics, economics and culture from the master. Unmissable.
Melanie Phillips home page
Melanie Phillips' peerless blog. Read, and learn.
Daniel Finkelstein's Times Comment Central
A daily must-read.
Tim Worstall
Lots of interesting nibbles - and a ruthless swatter of economic gibberish.
Harry's Place
Must-read left of centre blog from writers who understand the threat to the West.
Clive Davis
Always interesting selection of culture and politics, from an Anglo-American bent.
Samizdata
Libertarian blog, packed every day.
Norm's blog
The thoroughly sensible thoughts of renowned left-wing academic Norman Geras, Professor of Government at Manchester. And cricket, too.
Public Interest
Peter Briffa's inimitable take on The Yazzmonster and other assorted demons.
Reform
The public sector reform group; their website is an invaluable source of data and ideas.
Centre for the New Europe
The leading European public policy think tank.
Developed by:
| February | 21 |
| 2007 |
One of my pet hates is people who holiday in Cuba, usually accompanied by the sentiment: 'we want to see it before it gets all commercialised'. Last week I heard a distinguished academic say how much he preferred Prague in the 1970s and 80s, before it became so 'commercialised'.
For 'commercialised', read 'free'. These people deserve the contempt of anyone who believes in freedom. Their moral code is no better than those who holidayed in Durban under apartheid, on the basis that - as some family friends once put it to me - 'you never see the blacks so you can completely escape the apartheid'.
Samizdata links to this idiocy from Charlize Theron:
Charlize Theron left a TV news anchor stunned by offering to "make out" with him in the middle of a tense interview. The star was being interviewed by Cuban-American CNN presenter Rick Sanchez on February 4 when she decided to make light of her recent trip to Cuba, where she produced new hip hop movie "East Of Havana."
The South African actress enraged Sanchez when she compared the freedoms she enjoyed in Hollywood to those she experienced in communist Cuba - from where his family fled to avoid Fidel Castro's regime.And when the news host, a married father-of-four, suggested the actress didn't have a very high opinion of the America, she attempted to lighten the TV chat by saying, "I want to make out with you right now."
Ms Theron is clearly not troubled by an over-supply of brain power. As Jackie D puts it on Samizdata:
What is taking her so long to move there?
MessageSpace
But Prague and other parts of the old Eastern Bloc did have a quirky charm that has been lost since the end of Communism, and I daresay the same will go for Cuba too. I'm all for freedom, but there are several places I'm glad I got to know before it arrived. Travel would be dull if all you got to see were model societies.
I'm sure Cuba - and Burma - retain a "quirky charm" but to experience their quirky charm you have to spend money which supports and maintains the odious regimes in power.
See the link via Cuban-American blog
http://www.babalublog.com/
Holiday hell in Cuba
http://www.sunderlandtoday.co.uk/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=2060486§ionid=1107
There can be little question, at least among decent people, that the current regime in Cuba is evil, but where does one draw the line? One supports such regimes not simply by going on vacation there but by purchasing the goods produced by such nations, and if one is to boycott Cuba, why not all those other evil nations the Guardian and the BBC are totally silent about like China which apart from its terrifying and innumerable abuses of human rights has stolen Tibet and murdered a at least a million of its citizens. Why not Russia whose current leader would give Stalin a run for his money in the evil stakes?
And then there are the people who want to boycott Israel. And I believe that the Polish government having accepted open anti-Semites into its ranks should be boycotted. What about boycotting Britain because of her behaviour in Iraq or her participation in the illegal bombing of Serbia (I know there were many Americans who boycotted the UK over its conduct in Ireland)? How about a boycott of the Islamofascist regimes? Then there's a good case to be made for a worldwide Jewish boycott of Europe until she returns the property stolen from the Jews her citizens murdered. Naturally, there will be many Europeans who will want to boycott Jews for their support of the "illegitimate Zionist regime".
Incidentally, I have many friends and acquaintances in Central and Eastern Europe. Having spent decades scared to death waiting for the midnight knock, and forever anxious they may have said the wrong thing, and unable to buy their children even the most basic of commodities like meat and schoolbooks, I can assure you they do not yearn for the quirky charms of peeling paint, ancient trams and nothing in the shops. A couple of months ago, I actually told two friends, one a top orthopedic surgeon in Poland and the other a consultant physician, about this crazy person in the UK who longed for the old days. The surgeon curled his lip in contempt and told me he should burn in hell. The physician told me she'd very much like to spit in his face.