Friday, February 20, 2015
GETTYArchbishop Justin Welby's words were misconstrued by the press
“Archbishop says sorry for bombing the Nazis” screamed one banner headline on the front of a newspaper which, unlike this one, seemed to prefer melodrama to truth.
Justin Welby did no such thing.
What he actually said with dignity and Christian charity was that he felt deep regret and sorrow at the huge loss of civilian life.
Just in case anybody has forgotten the Allied attacks killed 25,000 people in two days.
Many of them would indeed have been Nazis but others would not have been.
A large proportion of the dead perished in the firestorm unleashed across the city.
It is possible to defend the action but still regret the vast death toll of civilians that it entailed.
Normally sane people have reacted oddly.
Gerald Howarth is an MP for whom I have huge respect but he responded to the archbishop’s statement with: “I don’t hear Angela Merkel apologising for the Blitz.”
No, but any German archbishop could be relied upon to regret and feel sorrow for loss of civilian life in almost any action Sir Gerald cares to name including those that took place during the Second World War.
That is just common humanity, let alone Christianity.
Present at the ceremony of commemoration for the bombings were people from Coventry, which suffered similar devastation though at vastly less cost of life.
Their dignified, quiet presence said it all.
If ever there was a just war it was the Second World War and no sensible person expects to fight an all-out war without civilian casualties but even Churchill was upset by the sheer scale of Dresden.
That is because he recognised what that screaming headline did not: that not all the Germans who died were strutting, Jew-hating, blood-crazed Nazis.
There is a memorable vignette in Jonathan Dimbleby’s book Destiny In The Desert in which a British soldier surrenders to a German sergeant at the end of a long day’s fighting, maiming and killing.
As he climbs into the sergeant’s vehicle the two men look at each other, then simultaneously and spontaneously raise their eyes to heaven.
United by the horror of it all they felt no hatred.
That is how many citizens of Coventry and of Dresden feel towards each other today and the world is a better place for it.
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The number of students taking languages to university level is falling at a dramatic rate.
That is bad news not just for British education but for the competitiveness of British industry in a global economy.
Language teaching in this country has always been a bit of a poor show.
In the post-war years we still expected all the world to speak English and even in the 1960s languages were too often regarded as make-weight subjects for O-levels rather than as tools of trade.
I learned French as an academic subject not a living language.
Frequently on TV we see some man in the street abroad being interviewed about an event in his country and replying in good English.
If a reporter from say France or Germany began stopping passers-by in this country it would probably be nightfall before he found one who spoke his language.
Ooh là, là, Grande-Bretagne, et reveillez-vous!
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On Monday in this newspaper Robert Gore-Langton listed his greatest children’s books of all time.
I would like to add Kipling’s Jungle Books and Kingsley’s Water Babies to the list.
My childhood would not have been the same without Mowgli and Mrs Do-As-You-Would-Be-Done-By.
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Figures show that top rate taxpayers have actually paid more in tax since the 50p rate was abolished.
That is no great surprise as exactly the same happened when the Thatcher government axed the 60p rate.
Suddenly it is worth the extra effort of earning more.
If Osborne really wants to get the economy going and increase the Exchequer’s revenues he should keep on reducing the top rate but is any chancellor brave enough to do what may look unfair but nevertheless brings in more for all of us?
It is a challenge which sorts out not so much the men from the boys as the statesmen from the politicians.
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The politician’s nightmare is the myth which is repeated so often that it becomes widely believed.
In my case it was that I defended shackling women in labour or childbirth whereas my statement to Parliament, faithfully recorded in Hansard, made it clear from the very outset that this had never been policy.
What I defended was securing female prisoners between hospital and prison and removing the restraints as soon as labour was confirmed.
With Cameron, however, the myth is much more dangerous.
Millions of people seem to believe that he has a history of promising a referendum on Europe and then ratting.
That is important because it colours the way electors view his promise of an in-out referendum by 2017.
I challenge anyone to produce a single occasion when the PM has promised an in-out referendum because he never has.
What he promised in the Parliament before this one was very straightforward: if the Lisbon Treaty (which gave the EU yet more powers) were not to be ratified by the time he was elected then Britain would be offered a referendum on whether to ratify it or not.
In short a Conservative government would not sign Britain up to the Lisbon Treaty without the say-so of the British people.
Gordon Brown therefore made darn sure that the ghastly treaty was ratified before the 2010 election because he knew that if it were ever to be the subject of a plebiscite Britain would say no.
Thus, to state the blooming obvious, Britain was already signed up by the time Cameron arrived in Downing Street.
He broke no promise and those who say he did slander him.
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GETTYKoo Stark has defended her ex-boyfriend Prince Andrew
Koo Stark has mounted a moving defence of Prince Andrew but what is interesting about her recollections is how effortlessly she appears to have coped with royal protocol while she was his girlfriend.
Perhaps they should have married.
The royals have an unfortunate history of rejecting potential spouses on the grounds of propriety.
Peter Townsend was divorced so Princess Margaret was forced to renounce him and the subsequent marriage ended in her own divorce.
Koo Stark was deemed unsuitable because she over?exposed herself in a film and Andrew’s subsequent marriage ended in divorce.
Prince Charles had a long string of girlfriends but too many had “histories” so he married a pure young lass of 19 and that too ended in divorce.
They generally appear to have been more relaxed about Prince William, who was allowed to fall in love rather than tick boxes and the happy result is there for all to see.
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Kara Scott
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