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.
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Libertarian blog, packed every day.
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The thoroughly sensible thoughts of renowned left-wing academic Norman Geras, Professor of Government at Manchester. And cricket, too.
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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:
| March | 16 |
| 2007 |
I doubt there is anyone on the planet who hasn't, at some point in their life, said something of which they are later ashamed. As for journalists, I'm sure we've all written something. I certainly have. So saying or writing something awful does not, of itself, make one an awful person.
I hope - and think - that's the case with Quentin Letts, who on reflection will surely think that his insult directed against David Miliband's special adviser, Sarah Schaefer, was disgusting. If Letts is a decent man, he will apologise to her.
Letts wrote:
Mr Miliband then stomped off, accompanied by a macintoshed gauleiter of a special adviser, name of Schaefer, who was shouting into a mobile telephone. This, England, is the politics of 2007.
As Daniel Finkelstein writes, the fact that Sarah (who, to declare an interest, is a friend) is partly Jewish and comes from a family which helped Jews under the Nazis, is of secondary importance.
What is so bad about Letts' remark is that it demeans Letts, insults all Germans and cheapens the horrific events of the Third Reich. But it is, unfortunately, all too typical of a strand in British society which still thinks that anything German is nasty. And that is not just insulting to modern Germany; it reveals a bigotry which still holds sway in certain sections of British society.
MessageSpace
From her website Sarah does seem a lively character.
Stephen
That is in the section 'for your viewing pleasure' section.
Now where is that number I had for the The Daily Mail again....
Er..apologies
I got the website for the wrong Sarah Schaefer
Sara Schaefer is a wacky New York comedienne.
(www.saraschaefer.com)
Thought it seemed too good to be true...
I trust we will also receive an apology from Joshua, who similarly demeaned himself by asserting that Paul Oestreicher, whose father was Jewish, and whose grandmother was killed by the Nazis, was "no more Jewish than Dr. Goebbels".
Nazi comparisons have long been a light-hearted way of puncturing the egos of bumptious officialdom and dictatorial control freaks in Britain, e.g. 'that traffic warden is a right little Hitler'. I'd say this is a legitimate form of expression.