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Michael Scott Rohan
Little Shelford, Cambridge
The lessons of Algeria
Alistair Horne’s interesting article ‘Roots of Terror’ (30 October) talks of the Algerian war acquiring ‘a new, sharper relevance’ in the context of Iraq. The difficulty, of course, is understanding exactly what the relevance is. Whatever one’s view of the current war, there are a number of significant differences between the two situations. The removal of a despotic leader had no equivalent in the French occupation of Algeria. Algeria was not just a colony but a department of metropolitan France with a large French population and a long history of French exploitation. The Algerian war can be seen as part of the general demise of European colonialism. Whereas Iraq…?
It serves, surely, as a good example of Mark Twain’s dictum that history does not repeat it itself; at best it sometimes rhymes.
Michael Sheahan
Paris, France
How foreign aid is wasted
The article by John Bercow advocating a Tory commitment to higher overseas aid spending (‘The Tories must help the poor’, 6 November) makes depressing reading.
Nobody disputes the need for humanitarian disaster relief. However, the fact is that foreign aid is a waste of time and money, unless it can be provided in the context of a reasonably stable, peaceful and law-abiding social environment. The rule of law and some semblance or hope of an orderly market, or something that might evolve into one, are a necessary precondition.
Before planting, the peasant farmer needs to be sure that his title to the land is secure, that the land will still be his when he harvests the crop. He needs to be confident that when he gets his product to market, some witless do-gooder has not undermined it by distributing free goods, or that the EU or the US has not wrecked it by dumping subsidised products. One has only to look at Zimbabwe — starvation in the former breadbasket of Africa — to see the effect of a collapse of the rule of law.
If we are serious about Third World poverty we must be prepared to face the real problems. Without this commitment the only predictable result of overseas aid is the self-satisfied smirk on the face of the donor.
George Gittos
St Briavels, Gloucestershire
John Bercow deserves praise for urging the Conservatives to set a timetable to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on aid to the developing world. It was under Edward Heath’s government in 1970 that Britain agreed in the UN General Assembly to establish this target. Economists say that each further $1 billion a year in UK aid can lift 400,000 people out of poverty. But Michael Howard should also pledge that if it is returned to power, his party would not attach conditions to aid, such as privatisation and trade liberalisation, which undermine its effectiveness. For example, the poor have gained little from the World Bank’s demand that in return for aid Tanzania had to privatise the water system in Dar es Salaam. Almost all of the investment will go to the areas where the richest fifth of the population live.
Romilly Greenhill
ActionAid, London N19
Regionalism rejected
Matthew Parris was not aware of the result of the vote in the North-East when he wrote his piece (‘Long live a stubbornly centralised England’, 6 November). We now know that, by an overwhelming majority, the voters have given John Prescott’s idea of regional assemblies the order of the boot. But be on your guard; these monstrosities already exist. In my area there is an unelected South-West Regional Assembly made up of officials, councillors, ‘community stakeholders’ and numerous committees. It covers Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Avon, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Dorset. How anyone can conceive that this quango can do anything for the area that is not already covered by the existing local authorities, I fail to understand. Paying for all the supporting bureaucrats and the extraordinary expenses of the unelected members must be wasting untold amounts in extra taxation. Surely, after the vote in the North-East, the whole lot should be scrapped and Prescott put out to grass.
Brian Thornton
L
ydney, Gloucestershire
Wilkommen!
Roger Köppel’s article (‘When did you last see your fatherland?’, 30 October) deserves a warm welcome. His thoughtful and thought-provoking comments need wide circulation. The German case in the ongoing debate on the future of the European Union has largely gone by default for reasons that Mr Köppel helpfully explains. Perhaps his initiative will encourage other authoritative German voices to join in. As he says, Germany cannot spend an eternity atoning for its history. It is time it summoned up its collective courage to stand up, publicly, for its views.
As one who fought in the last great conflict I feel entitled to invite our German friends to come in out of the cold.
Gareth Homfray-Davies
Var, France
A moment to savour
Spot on Charles Moore! (The Spectator’s Notes, 6 November.) Quite the most satisfying aspect of the Republican victory in the American presidential election is that it has confounded the predictions of so many media pundits.
It gives me a frisson of pleasure to see so many arrogant noses rubbed so firmly in the dirt: bearded, baseball-capped Michael Moore; the Pinters and their coterie of Bollinger bolsheviks inhabiting the leafy purlieus of London W8; the vast and vacuous army of pollsters with their swingometers in tow; most BBC political journalists. On the morning of 3 November, the whole monstrous Tower of Babel collapsed. These self-appointed experts will re-invent themselves, of course, but for once the voice of the people was heard and it was a moment to savour.
Robert Triggs
London NW3
Lives at risk
Dr Michael Wilks (Letters, 30 October) rightly states, ‘The legality of withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration, and the definition of artificial nutrition and hydration as medical treatment rather than basic care, are established under common law.’ But he then claims that the Mental Capacity Bill provides ‘a set of robust safeguards’ for incapacitated people. Far from safeguarding patients’ lives, new decision-makers are brought in who can order their death, including donees of ‘lasting power of attorney’ who may be going to inherit their property. Stroke victims who need some time for rehabilitation would be the patients most likely to be dehydrated or starved to death.
Mary Knowles
First Do No Harm,
Action group on euthanasia,
London SW3
Marathon monologue
Proust’s 937-word sentence (Letters, 6 November) is laconic compared with James Joyce’s effort at the end of Ulysses. Molly Bloom’s ‘stream of consciousness’ consists of some 22,000 words; moreover it contains not a single punctuation mark apart from the full stop after the final Yes.
James Young
London N1
Solar solutions
I was very interested to read your special supplement ‘The Nuclear Issue’ (30 October). In particular, the question of what to do with all that nuclear waste. Am I being naive to suggest it be simply packed into a rocket and directed towards the sun? Our nearest star is always described as one large nuclear reaction, and our tiny amounts of nuclear waste would be just a ‘drop in the ocean’.
Ronald N.C. Douglas
Glasgow
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