Section:GDN BE PaGe:32 Edition Date:050912 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 11/9/2005 17:41 cYanmaGentaYellowblack

32 The Guardian | Monday September 12 2005 Comment&Debate They lost the plot – and only Ken Clarke can find it again Chris Patten

he Conservative party appeared. But this was a leader with a doubt whether any Conservative chan- leagues had been tougher with their crit- The Conservative party got an idea into its head difference. Thatcher had been the first cellor would have been able to avoid the ics. Such a course of action would not will continue to suffer in the 1990s. It was an party leader from the right of the party deluge, which swept away the govern- have been easy. Dissent was driven by idea that helped to wreck for as long as anyone could remember. ment’s reputation for competent eco- the mad, the bad and those beyond electorally until it can its prospects, delivering Moreover, she had given the right the nomic management. ambition. It was not easy to manage. exorcise the ghost of Britain into the hands of confidence to believe that their own Black Wednesday’s chaotic financial Major was always concerned lest he Ta Labour government prejudices and opinions ran with the crisis emboldened the anti-Europeans, should push too hard and risk splitting Thatcher’s defenestration shorn of principled grain of the nation’s character and inter- who made hay as the Maastricht legisla- the party like Peel. The trouble is that strategic direction but rich in personal ests. She used a good deal of her political tion stumbled from one parliamentary once you start bargaining with extrem- rivalry. The idea was to reverse the inter- capital in the late 1980s, at Bruges and crisis to another. Conservative rebels ists, the slope opens up steeply in front national posture it had first warmly afterwards, to drag the party into a more plotted with Labour whips to damage of you. Major promoted his opponents, embraced 30 years before when it had critical posture on Europe. This issue the government at every opportunity. “the bastards” as he accurately called become a pro-European party. helped to bring her down, but her fall With their own government in retreat, them; they behaved like even bigger The 1990s saw an upsurge in the man- left behind supporters for whom any the rebels (including the party’s future bastards, leaking and plotting against ifestations and consequences of what mutiny over Europe was in effect a ges- leader Iain Duncan Smith) continued in him. He tossed out concessions on pol- we call globalisation. Money, goods, ture of pious loyalty to her memory. hot pursuit, hounding ministers and dri- icy, until our posture on Europe turned tourists and technology flatten borders. The election of John Major brought to ving policy in an ever more Eurosceptic into ineffective and even embarrassing Prosperity and security — the things No 10 the candidate who was thought to direction. The descent into shambles parody-Thatcherism. And this is the real people care about most — can only be come closest to wearing her colours. continued to the election and over- point. Conservative sceptics, anti- secured though international cooper- Maybe he was. Major was prime minister whelming defeat. Europeans, obsessives have no idea ation. Even an island nation-state such for seven years; they were (at least from Several factors fuelled the journey what to put in place of the arrangements as Britain finds that its borders are 1992 onwards) unhappy years for him downhill. The Conservative party in against which they rail, except the argu- porous when it comes to combating and they ended with a terrible defeat parliament is not on the whole terribly ment that we really know what is best drugs, crime, environmental threats, after a period (latterly) of pretty success- interested in policy, and it was probably for the rest of Europe but cannot quite illegal migration, epidemic disease, ter- ful economic management. a mistake to think that the majority describe it for the time being. rorism. It is difficult to conclude that the Major managed the Maastricht negoti- could be saved for sanity by encouraging inviolate virtues of the nation-state con- ations with great skill. But after the 1992 an open debate on Europe. The normal s a European commis- stitute the basis of sensible domestic or election campaign, when Europe was stabilising influence of the majority — sioner I was responsi- international policies at the beginning of barely mentioned, it returned as an the commonsense bottom of the party ble for relations with the 21st century. explosive issue. With a slim majority of in parliament — was largely lost in the Norway, Switzerland Why did these arguments cut so little 21, Conservative anti-Europeans, ERM disaster. Moreover, the newspa- and the rest. My con- ice with Conservatives over the last deploying all the sovereigntist argu- pers that MPs and party activists read clusion was clear. dozen or so years? Why did Conserva- ments of the superstate and the loss of urged them on to ever-greater anti- AThey enjoy all the tives deny the logical outcome of the Britain’s birthright, could achieve real European excess. enhanced sovereignty policies embraced under Margaret and damaging leverage, and they did so The Conservative party, both then that comes with staying at home while Thatcher: the erosion of state sover- straight away against the bill to ratify and since, suffered from the conse- the decisions that intimately affect their eignty and the building of a borderless Maastricht. When the bill was put to the quences of democratisation in a con- own economic life are made by their world through free trade, open econom- Commons, opponents seized on the tracting party. As membership has neighbours in Brussels. We put a diplo- ics and competition? We have to return Danish negative vote in their own refer- declined and got older, it has also matic gloss on it of course. But to enjoy to the defenestration of Thatcher, for it endum on the treaty to insist that parlia- increasingly reflected the views of the our market they have to follow our is that act above all else that explains the mentary scrutiny should be delayed. leader writers of the rightwing news- rules: rules which they do not make or dramatic disintegration of Conservatism Fatally they were heeded, and by the papers that these Conservatives read. share in making. When we enlarged the as a credible electoral force, and until we time parliamentary debate was resumed By the mid- to late 1990s it was tough European Union these outer-ring coun- Conservatives can exorcise it we shall Britain had suffered the September being a moderate pro-European Tory MP tries had to pay into the funds that we continue to suffer electorally. humiliation of ejection from the in any constituency, and wellnigh make available to help the poorer new The removal of Thatcher, a prime exchange rate mechanism. It takes little impossible for anyone with such members. I remember a Swiss negotia- minister in office, by a part of her own encouragement for most of his cabinet declared views to get selected as a par- tor telephoning me to plead that this party in the House of Commons, did not colleagues at the time to denounce the liamentary candidate. subscription should be presented as a seem at the time quite such a calamitous then-chancellor Norman Lamont’s han- Things would not have got so bad, it voluntary donation for development in act of regicide as it has subsequently dling of this and other issues. But I has been said, if Major and his col- the deprived parts of Europe, not an additional fee for access to a larger mar- ket. But we both knew the truth. De facto sovereignty or de jure? There are also some Conservatives who really want us out of Europe alto- gether. They will continue to obstruct any efforts to drag the Conservative party back into a more sensible and com- prehensible European posture. Theirs is a programme whose main achievement has been to exclude from all hope of the party leadership the man — Kenneth Clarke — most able to exercise it in a way ª likely to restore the party’s fortunes. Others are driven to Others with similar views to his are driven to the outer fringes of Conser- the outer fringes to vatism, to watch with dismay the con- watch with dismay the tinued infatuation of the party they love with a ruinous fantasy. Such a pity, not party’s infatuation to understand the new plot. with a ruinous fantasy © Chris Patten 2005. This is an extract from Not Quite the Diplomat by Chris Patten, published by Penguin, £20. To order a copy for £18 with free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call the º Guardian book service on 0870-836 0875 ILLUSTRATION: TIM ELLIS

ry victory for Tampere, into hand luggage. The floor itself is walk”. Worried about Europe’s com- ing in front of a pile of jeans in Primark, Rzeszow, Kaunas and, strewn with mounds of crumpled cotton missioners? They’re “morons”. Fill in the Peckham, and finding a £5 pair that fit. I Bondage at indeed, Bydgoszcz! They debris, as though Mandelson’s China blanks after B and A “and you get bas- went, I fought, I endured — and now I — along with 85 other boycott has gone flops in a trice. tards”. His most unctuous ballad is called have a bargain tale to tell. Call it victim faraway places with Occasionally, after glum altercations, “Screw the share price, this is a fares consumerism: classless examination by 36,000 feet strange-sounding names company weight watchers dispatch war”. He’s honed Mr O’Nasty, the guy indignity. C— have just made Ryanair cursing transgressors to queue at an who liked to charge extra for wheelchairs. How does BA strike back? The good your carrier of supreme overflow office and pay for their sins. One lurking strand of Ryanair’s sub- news, maybe, is that they’ve finally got choice: more bums (3.26 million of When does a £40 ticket cost you double liminal pitch, in short, seems to trans- the message, courtesy of Gate Gourmet, Peter Preston them) on more seats in August even the money? When you’re 10 kilos over a late BO down that stretching queue into days of inaction and buckets of bile. On than BA. It’s another triumph for load. Expletives seldom deleted. So back bloody ordeal. This isn’t supposed to be my last long-haul test a few days ago, Michael O’Leary, for rampant expansion to the crawl through security, and the a pleasant experience circa 1986, with check-in pushed a scrap of paper back — and for sheer, unadulterated, un-Irish sharp-elbowed rush when the boys with welcome smiles and blond stewardesses over the desk along with my boarding Ryanair has overtaken nastiness. Welcome to MasochismAir. the black bags disregard any hope of an handing out cocktails. This is a carefully pass. What’s this? It was a voucher to BA by making the ordeal Here we are again, waiting to check in orderly boarding routine (as explained constructed obstacle race. O’Leary’s spend $20 (Canadian) on any airport with 102 people in front of us because via a defective loudspeaker system). So increasing operational shift from Stan- meal before leaving, “because the in- of flying a selling point the bus from the big city — 60 miles to seats so closely packed you can hear sted to Luton puts the airport of reality flight food may not be up to our normal away — arrived five seconds before we the first squeaks of incipient pulmonary TV choice back at screen centre. I’m a standards”. did. Nothing’s moving. A Croatian girl at embolism starting four rows away. nonentity, get me out of here. Good, old-style thinking, except that the front has left her passport in the Nasty? Of course. But insanely cheap And, of course, it works brilliantly, the only “meals” on offer before the hotel (60 miles away). A Spanish boy some of the time (unless you’re old, 3.26 million times over. Decades of air- departure gate were polythene-wrapped thought that identity cards would get young, disabled or want to change your line marketing tried to make flying a bagels at a bar. I notionally dined on two him on a plane to Stansted. booking) and relatively efficient most of wondrous experience, full of cosseted packets of peanuts, an apple and a And the familiar business of the bag- the time. MasochismAir takes you to comfort and luxurious treats. The truth, Bloody Mary, and left the notional gage rebalancing is already far advanced. places you never knew existed, destina- though, was always grimly different. change. The cabin stewards — serving Right down those two stretching, desul- tions without reasonable alternatives. The ordeal was constant; it just wasn’t below-normal-standards cheese and bis- tory queues, lads in trainers have their That’s not the whole of its branding suc- made into a selling point. cuits — were surly all the way home. But suitcases open on the floor, shuffling cess, though. Michael O’Leary has put that straight the captain wasn’t on message with his stuff back and forth. “Is it under 15 kilos For O’Leary doesn’t play emerald for ever. Bondage and humiliation still farewell “thank-yous” and “pleasant now?” “No, still bloody 17.5.” Piles of super-yob by accident. He’s just a function at 36,000 feet. Ryanair pros- trips”. On MasochismAir, we never for- jeans and T-shirts are slyly decanted into “jumped-up Paddy” who “doesn’t give a pers because indignity sells. There’s the get we have no choice. a black garbage bag to be carried through shite”, because he says so. Worried about same retrospective glow from the stand- below check-in sightlines — then stuffed the environment? Then “sell your car and ing and scrabbling as you get from kneel- [email protected] Section:GDN BE PaGe:33 Edition Date:050912 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 11/9/2005 18:25 cYanmaGentaYellowblack

The Guardian | Monday September 12 2005 33 Comment&Debate

Disarm the loyalists too

Jonathan Freedland

The Orange rampage in Belfast is a reminder that pressure and rewards have to be evenly spread

his was what the sceptics always said would hap- pen. Paramilitaries, officially on ceasefire, would break their word — and unleash a wave of Tdevastating violence. Armed to the teeth, these private armies would reach for the gun the moment they did not get their way. And all the promises made by the respectable political parties that stand alongside them would be exposed as worthless lies. That’s what critics of the Northern Ireland peace process always warned would happen. Except the menace they had in mind was the IRA and the repub- lican movement. It was the Provos who had to be disarmed and disbanded, lest they return to their bloody ways. What the sceptics did not bank on, what few people even mentioned, were the paramilitaries of loyalism. Rare was the cry for the Ulster Volunteer Force to decommission its weapons or for the Ulster Defence Association to declare that its war was over. And yet it was these men, backed by their allies in the Orange Order — not the IRA — who over the weekend turned parts of Belfast into what one loyalist politician described to me yesterday as “Beirut”. And this was no mere street riot, no outbreak of simple stone-throwing and The danger is that Brown window-shattering. The loyalist hard- men trained machine guns on soldiers and police, sending some 700 bullets their way according to one estimate. will be another Callaghan Bricks and petrol bombs came in num- bers too large to count. One eyewitness Jackie Ashley spoke of a mayhem unseen in 30 years. The chief constable of Northern Ire- land, Sir Hugh Orde, had no doubt who s Labour dying on its feet? As He does have a domestic agenda, of magnates. He will make huge amounts shared responsibility for this: he had seen Labour has lost its way Tony Blair returns, briefly, from course. It will feature heavily in his con- of money and at best move in the same men swathed in the sashes of the Orange and faces political his latest tour of China and India, ference speech. It consists of more of the circles as the Clintons and the affable Order attacking his officers. Some sus- some of his ministers fear the same in the public services — more city rock stars. And if Labour seemed to pect not a random outbreak of discontent meltdown if it can’t find party that took him to power is academies and foundation hospitals. The crumble without him, he could merely but a deliberate, strategic move by forces a new direction for rotting away. Like a great galleon theme will be enabling and empowering smile and ask: “Miss me now?” within unionism. Frustrated that Ian Iit sails on impressively enough, the individual citizen rather than leaving It doesn’t have to be this way. We are Paisley’s replacement of David Trimble as the post-Blair era with its 356 MPs, its ministers, its it up to the state to provide. And, above in the middle of an unreal hiatus in poli- the community’s leading politician had rich backers. But below the waterline all, there is “respect”, a subject close to tics, partly because of the London not stemmed the flow of perceived con- the picture is uglier. Membership has the prime minister’s heart, which brings bombings and partly because everyone cessions to republicans, they decided to crashed, down by more than half since with it more uniformed police officers, is waiting to see what kind of Tory party take their fight to the streets. 1997 from more than 400,000 to just another look at the national curriculum emerges from the leadership race. But This should shake those who have over 200,000. In that time it has man- and parenting orders. Labour cannot afford to drift. A quiet long regarded republicans as the sole ob- aged to get through four general secre- Some measures may work better than conference, which is what everyone pre- stacle to peace in Northern Ireland. In taries — the latest, Matt Carter, has just others, but as several senior ministers dicts, would be a wasted week at the the lead-up to the 1998 Good Friday announced his resignation, one of a line point out, slapping parenting orders on seaside and hasten Labour’s demise. agreement, and in the years since, who felt they weren’t listened to. More families is not what they came into poli- unionists and their cheerleaders in than a million fewer people voted tics for. Nor is respect the core of Labour’s he interesting stuff, I Westminster and the British press have Labour in 2005 than in 2001. But, worse purpose, compared to greater equality hope, will be on the piled the political and moral pressure on than all the figures, the party doesn’t and help for people at the bottom. It is fringes, because there the IRA and Sinn Féin, demanding that seem to know what to do with its third the sort of thing Margaret Thatcher and are ministers working they change. Much of that pressure was term. It has lost its identity. John Major banged on about during their hard to forge a harder- deserved. But it was also lopsided — as The great danger for Gordon Brown, years of political decline. edged, progressive this weekend’s events have proved. Now some leading figures in the party say, is Foundation hospitals and city acade- Tagenda. David Miliband we have seen, in the most lurid colours, not that he fails in the end to become mies will never get Labour’s heart is touring the big cities to that loyalists have guns too. prime minister, but that circumstances pounding faster. There have been seri- try to find ways to reconnect. He admits The double standard looks especially conspire to make him a second Jim ous funding problems and disappoint- that the big enemy in modern politics is glaring given the IRA’s July declaration Callaghan, struggling through the dog- ments over standards, fears of funda- “a sense of powerlessness”. Harriet Har- that its armed campaign is over and that days of a dying administration. By the mentalist influence on teaching, and a man is working on ideas for voter regis- it will lay down its arms. As republican- time of the next election he’ll face a new notable lack of enthusiasm — or down- tration to end the class divide scarring ism moves into a new phase, loyalism Tory leader, perhaps with a new big idea right hostility over the role of the private our democracy, whereby the poor don’t remains in the brutal past. Just yester- — the flat tax — that is anathema to sector and the market — in the party or vote and so get brushed aside. Other day a senior UVF source was quoted say- Labour supporters but has a simplistic in the unions. Ministers, both loyalist ministers are talking about how to re- ing that, yes, his group would wind up electoral appeal. So Brown could lose and not-very-loyalist, agree that this is store parliament to the heart of politics. its activities — but that it would never the election, and Labour find itself once too-thin gruel to keep the government Meanwhile, the Brownite, centre-left decommission its weapons. again in the wilderness. occupied for the next two years, if that is Compass group has brought together And yet the answer to the weekend’s Of course, you can turn all this round the time Blair expects to stay. academics and thinkers to draw up a violence is not simply to unload new and focus on the fact that Labour is still None of this is likely to come to a head manifesto for the next election, based on pressure on loyalists and unionists. On celebrating its third election victory. It during the Labour conference. As one three themes: a sense of the good life, a the contrary, it seems one of the multi- has already survived eight years in key New Labour player puts it, normal new collectivism and a left political ple causes of these disturbances is what power and is still functioning effectively party politics remains suspended while economy. The aim is to challenge not David Ervine, leader of the loyalist Pro- while its only real opposition has the Tory leadership contest continues. In only Blair, but Brown too — there is wide- gressive Unionist party, calls a “sense of become the media. But without a vib- a sense, we have not really had proper spread concern over his enthusiasm for abandonment” among grassroots, rant party, you have only a leader cult to party politics for more than a decade. market solutions. Brown himself, mean- working-class Protestants. Rightly or rely on. And when people weary of that, After 1992, Labour was turned inwards as while, talks constantly of connecting wrongly, he says, this community per- the whole house of cards can collapse in Blair and his followers transformed the Labour to its roots and is expending ceives a British government that bends ª an instant. We know Blair is leaving of- party, while the Tories decayed in office. much energy trying to untangle the over backwards for Sinn Féin — so that One senior colleague fice. The question is: will there be much After 1997, the Conservatives were never notion of Britishness and citizenship. “whatever the republicans want, repub- of a Labour party left to survive him? able to give New Labour a serious run for These initiatives prove Labour politi- licans get” — and does next to nothing speculates that Blair will His promise to return with renewed its money. That was Blair’s luck but not, cians are aware that if the years ahead for them. cut all his remaining ties vigour to the domestic agenda so far perhaps, in the best interests of good bring nothing but more academies and The lesson is pretty clear: the search looks hollow. He is off to the US again government or Labour itself. police powers to combat terrorism, the for peace in Northern Ireland needs to with Labour when he shortly, while G8 and EU business will Does this matter much to the prime party really will die. But what they need be more balanced. That means spread- leaves office preoccupy him until the end of the year. minister? One senior colleague specu- is leadership and focus, a new “story” ing the pressure over arms more evenly The woeful situation in Iraq, further lates that when he leaves office, Blair that takes Labour into a second decade — to include loyalists — and ensuring the troubles in Afghanistan and the continu- will cut all his remaining ties with of power. Unless that story is developed rewards for progress are seen to be ing preoccupation with the threat from Labour anyway. He will return to the sooner rather than later, Labour will re- spread more evenly, too, to include the al-Qaida mean his attention will con- people he seems more comfortable with main on the critical list. very same people. º tinue to be dragged away, week by week, already: the tycoons, American property from the mere governance of Britain. developers, Italian princes and media [email protected] [email protected] Section:GDN BE PaGe:34 Edition Date:050912 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 11/9/2005 17:31 cYanmaGentaYellowblack

34 The Guardian | Monday September 12 2005 Founded 1821 Number 49, 456

Four years after 9/11 Corrections and The war of unintended consequences clarifications • In a pictorial table of buildings in which the Guardian’s architecture During the past century the United States has The assault on America four years ago this preposterous than ever — if Iraq is exporting correspondent distinguished between faced two brutal assaults. Within four years of week was in every way as infamous a deed as anything to its neighbours, it is violence not those he would like to see preserved the first, on December 7 1941, the US and its al- the one committed by Japan in 1941. Much of democracy. Faced with a ruthless insurgency, and those he would not mind being destroyed, page 3, September 7, we lies had mobilised, taken on and defeated two the response to it, however, was not just inef- American public opinion is faltering as the gulf gave the wrong impression about his powerful enemies, Japan and Germany. Four fective but counter-productive. Faced with on the ground between reality and objectives feelings for Richard Rogers’ Lloyd’s years after the second, on September 11 2001, 9/11, George Bush’s initial response was briefly widens. Post-Katrina, the question is not building in London. The caption de- what real progress can the US and its allies hon- both brainy and belligerent. But the initial ad- whether the US will begin to withdraw — but scribed it as a building “not to save”. In fact our architecture correspondent estly claim for the war on terror? vantages were quickly squandered under pres- when, how and, above all, with what damage. has made it clear on numerous occa- The answer, tragically and alarmingly, is that sure from the ideological right. By choosing to Politically this may be inevitable and even sions that he greatly admires it. It was they have not made enough. Not only is terror rid the world of evil — above all in Iraq — rather desirable — but we will all live with the conse- also described in the caption as an very much still with us, it is also on the in- than to hunt down, take out and politically dis- quences. The most damning charge against the example of postmodern architecture crease. Last year, the US state department re- able al-Qaida, Mr Bush set his country on a path war on terror is that it has been a recruiting (which he does not generally like). It is an example of late modernism. ported 651 “significant terrorist attacks” which continues to dismay America’s friends sergeant for the very forces it sought to destroy. around the world, three times the total for 2003 and to delight its enemies. As Mark Danner put it in the New York Times • In a note, page 4, G2, September 6, and the highest annual number since Wash- In effect, though, he also did Osama bin yesterday, Mr Bush’s failure to focus on al- we referred to Sir Peter Maxwell ington began to collect such statistics two Laden’s job for him. The war on terror, with its Qaida has created a global “al-Qaidaism” of the Davies as “Master of the Queen's decades ago. Around a third of those attacks rhetoric of a battle between good and evil and kind that struck this country on July 7. Such al- Music”. That is correct. The holder of the office is no longer Master of the took place in Iraq, supposedly the central front its talk of a fight that will last for generations, Qaidaism is not going to go away. If the earlier Queens Musick, contrary to the belief of the war on terror, in some parts of which ter- depended for credibility upon the efficacy of generation could produce a 9/11 in the face of of the reader who raised the matter. rorist killings have now reached pandemic lev- American power and upon the accuracy of the American power, what will the next generation The office carried the k in Musick from els. Since April, more than 4,000 Iraqis have US neocon prescription of a “democratic revo- produce in the wake of the American weakness the time the post was created in 1626, been killed by terrorists in Baghdad alone. But lution” across the Middle East. In reality, both inseparable from an Iraq withdrawal? Bin in the reign of Charles I, until it was fi- nally dropped during the tenure of the killing is in no way confined to Iraq. No one have proved to be wishful thinking — the real Laden’s organisation may have been damaged Edward Elgar (from 1924 until his in London needs any reminder of that. And surprise being the limits of the US military ef- and disrupted since 2001, and his dreadful death in 1934). To put the matter be- Britain, like the US and many others, is fort. America has fought and occupied, but it cause may in many places be in the hands of yond doubt, Sir Peter tells us that the wrestling to balance established liberties and has not shown that it can rebuild. The idea that amateurs, but he could never have dreamed k-less Music in his title is official. ways of life with the danger that another 9/11, Iraq would set off a domino democratic effect that the world four years after the twin towers • The BBC correspondent is Rageh or another 7/7, may occur at any time. across the Middle East now seems even more would look so favourable to his objectives. Omaar, not Rageh Omagh (Birt is a beached grandee, says Bragg, September 8, page 9).

• In a report on the Man Booker prize shortlist (Vintage year for Booker … Japan’s general election but not McEwan, page 5, September 9) we said Monica Lewycka's comedy A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian A mandate and a monopoly had fallen by the wayside. She is Marina Lewycka.

It is the policy of the Guardian to The Japanese prime minister, Junichiro and remains a one-party system. Much has icy towards a more nationalist position. He is correct significant errors as soon as Koizumi, has won a stunning victory in yes- been made of the fact that Mr Koizumi is, in on his way to amending the country’s peace possible. Please quote the date and page terday’s general election. When Mr Koizumi Japanese terms, a market reformer, but this has constitution. Japan is slowly but surely ac- number. Readers may contact the office of the readers' editor by telephoning called the election in August in an effort to out- been greatly exaggerated. In practice, privati- quiring a more global military role, with troops +44 (0)20 7713 4736 between 11am manoeuvre internal opposition within the rul- sation, for example, has been very limited and, presently deployed in Iraq. Japan is becoming and 5pm UK time Monday to Friday ing Liberal Democrat party to his reform of the apart from the postal system, barely featured at a more intimate partner in US geo-military excluding public holidays. Mail to postal system, the predominant mood was that all in the election campaign. No doubt Mr strategy, while Mr Koizumi has deliberately in- Readers' editor, The Guardian, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER, his gamble could fail. Following the opposition Koizumi’s victory will be greeted as a mandate flamed relations with China and South Korea UK. Fax +44 (0)20 7239 9997. Email: Democrat party’s success in the earlier Tokyo for reform. But in reality it is not unreasonable by visiting the Yasukuni shrine to Japan’s war [email protected] elections, there might even have been the to argue the reverse. Mr Koizumi’s biggest sin- dead four times since becoming prime minis- The Guardian’s editorial code incor- ultimate seismic change, with the Liberal De- gle achievement yesterday was to revive the ter in 2001. Japan has singularly failed to come porates the editors’ code overseen by mocrats losing control of a government they flagging popularity of the Liberal Democrats — to terms with its often barbaric behaviour to- the Press Complaints Commission: see www.pcc.org.uk have dominated for half a century. In fact, the and thus to entrench their monopoly of power wards its neighbours during the last war. In this reverse happened. The LDP has a greatly once more. context, far from being a reformer, Mr Koizumi increased majority, winning up to 60 more Meanwhile the greatest single issue now fac- represents a small but disturbing retreat into seats, and Mr Koizumi is master of the scene. ing Japan barely got a mention during the Japan’s past. With China on the rise, Mr Country diary Although postwar Japan has all the trappings campaign. Mr Koizumi has presided over a slow Koizumi’s victory may be bad news for of a western democracy, in practice it has been but incremental shift in Japanese foreign pol- prospects of peace and stability in East Asia. Claxton, Norfolk

About once a week I go down to the marsh and face west towards Rock- land to watch dusk fall. I have to be there at least two hours ahead of In praise of… The Proms sunset to get the full transition from day to night. I’m sure I could market it as a type of therapy. Let us first salute Robert Newman, since with- played the scintillating piano part in Lambert's lieving that the dreams and aspirations for na- In the surrounding silence, the out him the past eight often wonderful weeks Rio Grande, so there was serious music before tional greatness expressed in Land of Hope and ears start to pick out ever fainter would never have happened. It was he who de- the flag waving and shanty singing began. But Glory somehow applied to all nations, not one. detail. Your eyes sharpen. The nervous system mellows and the vised what became, in honour of his conduc- then the Last Night is as much an excuse for a It's very much the BBC Proms nowadays, as heart acquires a slower rate. tor, the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, and party as a musical occasion, and this year the the corporation incessantly reminds us, rather I’m there ostensibly to watch birds now the BBC Proms, the last of which, accom- tub-thumping nationalism of the last hour was, to the exclusion of Wood, let alone Newman. perform their evening rituals before panied by satellite events of huge exuberance mercifully, not quite what it used to be. Along- But they plan it, they stage it, they sustain it, nightfall, but there’s more to it than that. I think of it as a kind of ornitho- in five cities, was staged under the brilliant side the union flag there now wave flags from they pay for it, they even put some (not logical fishing: waiting to see what the lights of the Albert Hall on Saturday night. Europe to Australia, while this year's conduc- enough) on TV. Let us not begrudge them their place lures from the imagination. Andreas Scholl sang Handel and Paul Lewis tor, Paul Daniel, tried to wheedle us into be- richly justified high proprietorial pride. This time I was intrigued to see a fowler tucked beneath a bush doing much the same thing. He stood silently for an hour and I guessed we were getting much the same from it, except for the end goal. This isn’t a September 12 1914 condemnation, more a “How could you do it?" Intermittently gunshots crashed out shattering the slowly accumulated The sure way to end the war atmosphere. He was after duck, but everything rose skywards in a chorus of alarm. Mr Winston Churchill at the London every seat in the theatre was filled and Mr Winston Churchill, who was re- we are met here in an abode of diver- Gradually, the rooks and jackdaws Opera House tonight sounded a thousands of people unable to get even ceived with loud cheers, moved: sion and of pleasure in time of peace, boiled down on to Mulberry Carr, stirring call to the people to give the to the doors were directed to an over- “That this meeting of the citizens of and although we wish and mean to er- while the gulls, higher and untouched country such an army as under the flow meeting at the Kingsway Hall. London profoundly believing that we ouse and encourage each other in by panic, sailed over inexorably to the shield of a successful navy will enable The Marquis of Lincolnshire, who are fighting in a just cause for the every way, we are not here for the east. Nightfall smoothed down the us to end the war in the way we hope presided, said that during the whole of vindication of the rights of small purpose of merriment of jollification, mood and the geese resumed their and intend it shall be ended. this great crisis the political sword had states and the public law of Europe, and I am quite sure I associate with honking comical parade to the broad The packed and enthusiastic been returned to its scabbard and, at pledges itself unswervingly to support me my two friends who are here where they rest the night. gathering he addressed had been the invitation of the two leading politi- the Prime Minister’s appeal to the tonight and my noble friend your At sunset, a band of deep magenta brought together at the invitation of cal clubs of the Metropolis, the inhabi- nation and all measures necessary for chairman, when I say that we regard was cradled on the western horizon, the National Liberal Club and the Con- tants of Greater London, representative the prosecution of the war to a cheers with which you have received though sunlight still shone in the stitutional Club acting together and of every class, were there to express vicarious conclusion, whereby alone us as being offered to us only because upper sky. A plane with its carbon- the audience and the speakers were their admiration of our gallant troops the lasting peace of Europe can be they are meant for our soldiers in the laden trail was caught in this magne- representative of all parties, all creeds, and those of our brave allies and to assured.” (Cheers). field and our sailors on the sea. It is sium flare and became a glistening and all classes. pledge themselves to reinforce them Mr Churchill said: “Gentlemen, that sense we accept them and thank snail trail across the heavens. An hour before the speaking began again and again and again (Cheers). these are serious times, and though you for them.” Mark Cocker Section:GDN BE PaGe:35 Edition Date:050912 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 11/9/2005 17:40 cYanmaGentaYellowblack

The Guardian | Monday September 12 2005 35

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The Conservatives The fight against poverty needs actions not words should go for flat tax

Five years ago, the world’s nations signed human development report, which des- then we must start to examine our own to come up with the money to pay for David Walker (Analysis, September 5) up to the UN millennium development cribes progress toward the millennium behaviours, because we are part of the their debt announcement. Is it right to illustrates the weakness of debate on flat goals, aimed at halving world poverty development goals as “depressingly problem. We can point the finger at the praise the G8 leaders for marginal posi- tax. Most support seems to be ideologi- by 2015. This week, the same nations will slow”. Those who long to see real G8, but the G8 is also us. tive moves while ignoring the negative cal and sadly innumerate. Support from meet in New York to review progress progress have a right to regard these Graham Bennett impact of their overall policies? Or is it right of centre is based on presumed eco- towards the goals (World summit on UN's “historical” meetings with a touch of One World Action right to expose the truth of their actions, nomic efficiency: that FT will increase future heads for chaos, September 10). scepticism. Vallely states himself that and put pressure on them to act differ- tax take — after Laffer’s celebrated curve This has been uneven at best. On current the task is to make sure that what was • I am afraid it is Paul Vallely who ently? Vallely seems more concerned to — and accelerate growth, via incentives projections, many African countries will promised is delivered. “This will require “exaggerates to make a point” in his defend the status quo than to press for from a reduced tax rate. As policies to not get there until 2147. vigilance and continued pressure,” he defence of the actions of the G8 at and the real changes that are needed. increase tax take seldom emanate from Meeting the goals depends on the writes. Surely he should come down from since Gleneagles. For the past year there Tim Jones the right, those on the left of centre are effective delivery of essential public his ivory tower and join the campaign. has been a barrage of rhetoric from World Development Movement convinced the objective of FT advocates services such as health, education, water Carol Hayton political leaders on world poverty. The is to cut the tax take, and therefore and electricity. Privatisation of health- Woking, Surrey actions of the G8 remain woefully inade- • Gordon Brown's scheme to raise government spending on all the “essen- care has reduced services and increased quate. Additional aid is not currently billions to prevent children dying in the tials” — health, education and welfare. prices, while privatisation of water and • Paul Vallely’s staunch defence of the going to “come on stream rapidly” — it developing world (Report, September 9) In the event, the decision will be sanitation systems has seen charges soar G8's “historic" pronouncements at will be 2013 before the UK spends 0.7% sounds a wonderful gesture. However, it made by the political perception of the out of reach of poorer families. As usual, Gleaneagles, juxtaposed with the launch of our national income on aid, 43 years is again one of those unjoined-up poli- redistribution of the tax burden were FT it is the vulnerable who suffer most. Yet of the latest UN human development after we first committed to doing so. cies that so characterises most western introduced. This demands a transparent powerful financial institutions such as report, concisely captures the problem. Leaked documents we have obtained responses to the problems of this part of estimation of the percentage of tax paid the World Bank and IMF continue to “If its commitments are translated into since the G8 summit show that free- the world. While I wouldn't want to be- by each income decile, before and after a press for more private sector involve- action," then at last we can believe the G8. market economic conditions are being little any genuine attempt to save lives, shift to FT. If FT and the current tax ment, despite the well-documented dis- If, if, if. But a child was dying every three planned to remain attached to debt re- what is the point of saving children from regime are compared at the existing tax astrous impact of many of their schemes. seconds before Gleneagles and the rate lief, and the G8 countries look unwilling one mortal disease, only to confront take, total tax and spending is taken out

We call on all world leaders at this hasn't slowed. What we have seen is the WWW.GKIMAGES.COM them with those of poverty, famine and of the debate, allowing assessment of week’s summit to commit to affordable US government trying — with 750 pro- misery a few years later? Unless a new the distribution of tax burden on rich public services that are accessible to all. posed amendments — to water down an vision is promoted that rejects market- and poor. National insurance, corporate A strong public sector offers efficient already mild “declaration" from the forth- oriented dogmas there will be no saving and inheritance tax must also be treated services to all of society and provides coming millennium review summit in of lives, nor will we see the really radical transparently. However, anti-growth and the building blocks for genuine poverty New York. Meanwhile, Africa gets poorer. changes that are desperately required. welfare preferences are entrenched in reduction. It is now time to abandon the As Paul urges, NGOs will be “vigilant"; John Green Britain and too many enjoy tax benefits failed privatisation model and put the but why must it always be so? I'm opti- London they think others pay for. Conservatives public sector at the heart of efforts to mistic enough to believe the mass mobili- should adopt the flat tax as a test of meet the millennium development goals. sation of UK citizens under the Make • The government’s ambitious attempts attitudes to tax at the next election in Dave Prentis Poverty History banner really does signal to end child poverty are always going to absence of other distinctive policies. Unison an anger that such inequality prevails, be under threat while it tries to deliver Dr Alister McFarquhar Louise Richards with the 500 richest people having more social justice by stealth (Report, Septem- Cambridge War on Want wealth than the 400 million poorest. ber 8). It is time for the government to Paul Noon All of us need to act. Yes, hold our come clean. It needs to explain why a • The perception of tax as having your Prospect governments to account; but also use fairer distribution of income will help us money taken, rather than it being your Hugh Lanning the links we have — through schools, all and make us proud to live in a country contribution to your country, needs to PCS trade unions, campaigning organisations, that has no truck with the poverty that change. Until it does, many of those less professional associations — to support blights children’s lives for ever. well off will still feel that withholding • Perhaps Paul Vallely (Letters, Septem- citizens in developing countries to Jonathan Stearn undeclared cash-in-hand income from ber 8) should take a look at the UN’s latest strengthen their own democracies. And End Child Poverty Campaign the taxman is their chance to improve their lives. Meanwhile, many of the better off, especially large companies, will use tax havens or other tax dodges to prevent Cricket conundrum Life mimics art as Bush gets the blues about Hurricane Katrina money going to the state. The use of tax havens, transfer pricing and bonuses in different currencies doesn’t show a desire Roger Mosey makes the point (Letters, No need to claim prescience over floods the small-government ethos of the day, • In The Control of Nature (1989) the ge- for low taxation, but a desire for no taxa- September 9), in reply to John Major's for Bob Dylan in such songs as High just as one hopes will happen now after ologist John McPhee wrote about the im- tion. Taxation can’t be simple if we use criticisms of the lack of BBC bids for Water (Letters, September 10). Knowing Hurricane Katrina. Patton’s words then minent diversion of the Mississippi above tax credits to safeguard those worse cricket broadcasting rights, that national his deep respect for the blues, it’s incon- are as fitting today: Oh, Lordy, women Baton Rouge into the lesser Atchafalaya off. But it would be a lot simpler if the sports should be “listed”. The 1996 ceivable that Dylan would have been and grown men down,/ Oh, women and river, threatening the industrial might of Treasury didn’t have to come up with Broadcasting Act saw test cricket unaware of the many blues relating to children sinking down,/ Lord have mercy, the lower Mississippi. In his novel Flood ways to legislate against tax dodges. “delisted”. Now, who was the prime the catastrophic Mississippi floods of I couldn’t see nobody home,/ and wasn’t Tide (1997), Clive Cussler has his hero Nick Hipkin minister at the time? 1927, and especially High Water Every- no one to be found. thwart the attempts of an international Twickenham, Middx Mick Chandler where, a profoundly compassionate Giles Oakley criminal to bring about the diversion and Coventry two-part song by Charley Patton, who London force commerce to use a new port. • David Walker condemns flat-rate tax experienced the disaster at first hand. Bob Connell after allowances on the grounds that it • People seem to be hoping and praying In the 60s, artists like Patton were • Charley Patton’s was just one of many Amberley, West Sussex would leave the government short of for rain, thus forcing a draw and an being rediscovered in folk-music circles songs recording the suffering caused by £50bn in revenue, but after he has overall Ashes win for England. Now, I and their records reissued, so Bob was the 1927 floods. Then, as now, the vic- • The battle of New Orleans may have chosen an allowance and rates (ie those don't follow the game, but is that cricket? probably also familiar with Blind Lemon tims were poor and black and the presi- been the only US land victory in the war of the Adam Smith Institute) suitable for Chris Parkins Jefferson’s Rising High Water Blues, or dent (Hoover) was criticised for appalling of 1812, but John Terry’s letter (Septem- proving his condemnation. Why not London Barbecue Bob’s Mississippi Heavy Water incompetence. Evacuees were forced into ber 10) was published on the anniversary choose allowances that are appropriate Blues, not to mention Bessie Smith’s segregated camps. Listen also to Mem- of the battle of Lake Erie, when nine US and equitable, followed by a flat-rate • Although Trident has less total explo- classic Back Water Blues. The anger and phis Minnie’s When The Levee Breaks, ships defeated six British ones, securing percentage sufficient to secure adequate sive power than past nuclear arsenals, sense of abandonment felt by the poor and Sippie Wallace’s The Flood Blues. the lakes and Detroit for the US. national income? its greater range and accuracy means black communities during the 1927 Paul Dennehy Mark Cohen John Bowler that it represents proliferation (Letters, floods contributed to the discrediting of Enfield, Middx Sheffield Cheltenham, Glos September 9). Nor is it “independent". The missiles are on loan from the US. If ever used, its targeting would be controlled by US satellite technology. Open Door John Reid should do his homework. Dr Douglas Holdstock Nuclear Hazards Group ventional owner of both the Guardian users (separate individuals) every day. with an exhibition, Hidden History, in and the Observer. It gives the papers a From tomorrow there will be a new the Newsroom, the Guardian archive • Is the new BBC/ITV service Freesat unique freedom. This special structure Response column which will run from and visitor centre which faces the main proposing to broadcast just in English has enabled the Guardian to make the Tuesdays to Fridays on the letters page newspaper building across Farringdon (Report, September 8)? Aren’t we present radical changes in an astonish- of the paper — in the spot occupied Road. The exhibition lays out a selection missing a great opportunity to offer a ingly quick time. The editor reiterated in today and on Mondays in future, by my of the material relating to the histories selection of European public service briefings last week that there will be no column. The Response column will pro- of the Guardian, the Observer and TV and radio stations? Most countries loss of editorial quality. vide, primarily for those who actually Guardian Unlimited, gathered during in Europe already have multilingual The trust, since my appointment in figure in the news, an opportunity to the short time since the archive was satellite services as a matter of course. Ian Mayes 1997, has strongly supported the princi- reply to a report or review at greater opened in June 2002 (www.guardian.co. Rene Wyndham ple that underlies the role of readers’ length (about 500 words) than the uk/newsroom gives a brief account). Lyme Regis, Dorset editor — that a newspaper such as the letters page would normally allow — a One of the items on view is a note Guardian, which by definition calls on chance to speak from a more conspicu- from an assistant editor, Michael McNay, • You report that “most of the The readers’ editor on ... others to be accountable for what they ous place in the forum. dated July 12 1987, to David Hillman, the consumers unable to receive Freeview a mutual interest in do, should also be accountable for its A temporary innovation on the web- designer responsible for the radical live in rural areas”. South Birmingham, own journalistic activities. site will be an editors’ blog, giving the design introduced in 1988, which sur- Coventry and environs hardly constitute accountability More than 10,000 of you write to me editor, his section editors and others vived up to Saturday. The question was, a rural area, but we aren't covered. in the course of a year, producing more (including me) an opportunity to keep should the paper retain its familiar Pam Lunn than than 1,500 entries in the daily cor- you in touch with the inner workings of masthead — the title across the top of Kenilworth he Guardian already rections and clarifications column. It is the paper and the reasoning behind the front page? The note from McNay to does more than almost an effective form of self-regulation, some of its decisions during the period Hillman says: “The editor [Peter Pre- • Airlines are still getting away with any other newspaper to reducing litigation and probably also of acclimatisation. ston] tells me that if we are having a tax-free petrol. Is it too much to ask foster what the editor complaints to the Press Complaints With this step into the future the root-and-branch redesign, he’s happy to the government to fix a tax to take the calls an “open and Commission. A great many readers have paper is not forgetting its past and the see it go.” Preston grasped the nettle place of the surcharge when the oil responsive” relationship come to see it as a positive expression of values of which it is the custodian and then. Rusbridger has done so this time, price comes down? Twith its readers. In its their relationship with their paper. which have made the Guardian what it bidding a final goodbye to Hillman’s Michael Ellman new format, launched This interaction should be enhanced is. The advent of the Berliner coincides influential title combining Garamond London today, it will do even more. As the by various new features in the Berliner. italic and Helvetica. You could not not editor, Alan Rusbridger, says elsewhere Access to the digital edition, normally With this step into the do that. Today’s change is a whole- • So it’s goodbye to sans serif. Does that in today’s paper: “Because we don’t available only on subscription, is free for hearted step into the future. To what mean we must say farewell to San Seriffe have a proprietor or shareholders our the next two weeks so that readers future the paper is not extent it succeeds, you will judge. I shall too — or might next April 1 bring a nostal- main relationship is with the readers.” worldwide can see what the new design forgetting its past and be here in the middle. gic visit for readers with long memories? The Scott Trust, to whom I am an- looks like, page by page. The Guardian’s Ian Mayes is the president of the Don Tordoff swerable as readers’ editor or indepen- network of websites, Guardian the values which have Organisation of News Ombudsmen. Northallerton, N Yorks dent ombudsman, is in fact the uncon- Unlimited, attracts 600,000 unique made it what it is [email protected] Section:GDN BE PaGe:36 Edition Date:050912 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 11/9/2005 17:51 cYanmaGentaYellowblack

36 The Guardian | Monday September 12 2005 Obituaries Nathan Joseph

Founder of pioneering folk and blues label Transatlantic, and theatre agent of note

athan Joseph, who has died at the age of 66, played an impor- tant role both in the development of the British record indus- Ntry and in British the- atre. He founded and ran Transatlantic Records, one of the first fully independent British record labels, which had an enormous influence on the development of the British folk and blues scenes, and later changed direction to become a theatrical producer and agent. Nat, as the folk world knew him, worked with everyone — from musicians such as Bert Jansch and the Dubliners, to comedians such as Billy Connolly and the playwright Arnold Wesker, whom he also represented. Wesker described him as “an agent who was a father, brother and uncle figure rolled into one, which made him also a special quality of friend. More, he was a thorough negotiator.” Joseph was born in Birmingham. His father was a businessman, working in the metal industry, who had just started his own business when he died at the age of 47. His son was just nine. Nat would later take over the firm, and transform it into a modern waste treat- ment plant, as a sideline to his main career. An only child, he was brought up by his mother, and educated at King Edward’s grammar school. He won a scholarship to Queens’ College, Cam- bridge, where he read English and was noted for his comic performances in collegerevues. The financial problems caused by his father’s early death left him determined to succeed in business, Talent scout . . . Joseph in his London office in the 1960s, and some of the artists whose careers he helped — (from top right) Annie Ross, the Dubliners and Billy Connolly and his colourful career started almost as soon as he left university. Love, Lust and Loose Living, and went when I was a student dabbling in singing blues to drop into Joseph’s London of- Clark’s The Petition, starring Sir John After a year “teaching, and then bum- on to record poetry albums by Christo- and songwriting. As I came off stage, I fices in Marylebone high street to find Mills and directed by Sir Peter Hall in ming around the USA”, as he put it, he pher Logue and Adrian Mitchell, jazz found a delightful and enthusiastic man out what he was doing, though the con- 1986. His theatrical agency represented decided that “I had to earn some money, by Annie Ross and blues by that most waving a publishing contract at me. I versation could soon swing to comedy, young designers and stage directors, and returned to England determined to influential of early British bluesmen signed, of course. rock or the US music scene. Apart from and, in 1985, he became the sole repre- start a record company.” So in 1961, aged Alexis Korner. Thankfully for Transatlantic, Joseph his British acts, Joseph distributed a sentative of Arnold Wesker. 21, he did just that. He was asked to act as Much of the most inventive music also had some genuine musical talent on wide range of American labels, and Joseph was that rarity, a shrewd, agent for various US labels, but the deal of the early 1960s emerged through the his books. Jansch and Renbourn were had an adventurous catalogue that inventive businessman who cared for, depended on him selling enough of their British folk scene, and Joseph was an successful solo artists who went on to included world music celebrities from and understood, a wide spectrum of the records within just a few months. He did enormous enthusiast. He first signed form the much-praised Pentangle, while Ravi Shankar to the Chilean star Victor arts. He was also a keen sports fan and a so, by “trudging around southern Eng- the Ian Campbell Group and then the another of his signings, the Humble- Jara. life-long supporter of Birmingham City land carrying samples in paper bags”, Dubliners, before moving on to make bums, consisted of that rock-star-to-be, In 1975, Joseph sold his controlling football club, and Warwickshire cricket and then set out to look for records that the Transatlantic label the home for Gerry Rafferty, along with Billy Con- interest in Transatlantic to Granada, and team. could be produced in Britain. many of Britain’s greatest guitarists and nolly. Other Transatlantic acts included two years later retired from the music He leaves his wife of 40 years, Sarah, Once again, he succeeded, this time songwriters, from Bert Jansch and John the Sallyangie (which involved a young industry. It seemed like the end of an and their two sons, Joshua and Gideon. by recording a bestselling set of Renbourn to Ralph McTell. Renbourn Mike Oldfield), those great harmony era, but it was merely the start of a new Robin Denselow controversial sex therapy albums. He said that with Transatlantic he was “vir- singers the Young Tradition, and Ameri- career in his early love, the theatre. followed up by matching folk singer Isla tually free to record whatever I wanted”. can bluesman Stefan Grossman. As a producer, he presented plays in Nathan ‘Nat’ Joseph, record company Cameron with actor Tony Britton to My own first meeting with Joseph In the 1960s and early 1970s, it was Britain and on Broadway, including Alec founder, theatrical producer and agent, record a song-and-poetry set, Songs of was at the Beaulieu folk festival in 1966, crucial for anyone writing about folk or McCowan’s Kipling in 1984, and Brian born July 13 1939; died August 30 2005 Birthdays Hedy West Bertie Ahern, Irish taoiseach, 54; Maria Aitken, actor and stage director, 60; Nicholas Barter, principal, Rada, 65; grew up on a farm in nearby Kenesaw. She moved to the west coast and Los Darren Campbell, Olympic athlete, 32; US folk singer, popular She was named Hedwig Grace, the for- Angeles in the early 1960s, where she David Goodhart, editor, Prospect maga- mer name from a German friend of her continued singing and later married. By zine, 49; Ray Gravell, rugby footballer, in Britain, whose father, but it was quickly shortened to this time, she was making regular visits 54; Linda Gray, actor, 64; Wesley Hall, Hedy. It was a musical family: her great- to England. She then lived in London for cricketer, manager and Barbadian politi- performances had a uncle Gus played the fiddle, while her seven years, making tours of the coun- cian, 68; Scott Hamilton, saxophonist, political dimension grandmother Lillie, a great influence on try’s folk clubs, and appearing at the 51; Sir Ian Holm, actor, 74; Gerald West’s musical development, played the Cambridge festival and the first Keele Howarth, Conservative MP, 58; Freddie banjo. West had piano lessons from the folk festival. She recorded three albums Jones, actor, 78; Donal Lenihan, rugby escribed by the great age of four, and taught herself to play for Lloyd at Topic — Old Times and Hard football manager, 46; Fiona Mactaggart, English folk musician the five-string banjo, as her grand- Times (1965), Pretty Saro (1966) and Bal- Labour MP, prisons minister, 52; Patrick AL Lloyd as “far and mother had done. In the late 1970s, she lads (1967) — together with another for Mower, actor, 64; Michael Ondaatje, away the best of Amer- received funding from the American Na- Fontana, entitled Serves ’em Fine. writer, 62; Gerard Presencer, jazz trum- ican girl singers in the tional Endowment for the Arts for a de- In the early 1970s, she lived in Ger- peter, 33; Molly Samuel, former world [folk] revival”, Hedy tailed project of the music and life of her many, where, before returning to the karate champion, 44; Han Suyin, doctor DWest, who has died at grandmother. US to study composition, she made a and writer, 88; Rachel Ward, actor, the age of 67, was the Hedy’s father Don West was a trade number of further recordings, including 48; Pam Warhurst, deputy chairman, real deal. In the 1960s, the urban-based union organiser and a well known one with fellow American Bill Clifton, Countryside Agency, 55; Prof George American folk revival had an idealised southern poet, and later she set some of Getting Folk out of the Country (1974), Zarnecki, art historian, 90. view of the singers and instrumentalists his poems to music, including Anger in and another entitled Love, Hell and Bis- from poor, rural America, and sought the Land, based on a story about the cuits (1980). Her songwriting gave a po- to emulate them. This was West’s back- lynching of a black man, told to Don litical dimension to her performances, ground, but she was educated and West by the victim’s brother. The song and she was active in the freedom move- Letter intelligent and had little sympathy was later sung by Pete Seeger. ments of the 1960s and beyond. She for the city copyists. Having won a prize for ballad singing strongly supported the boycott of the The foundation of her singing was when she was only 12, by her teens West ABC network after it refused to include Christopher Hawtree writes: Harold the traditional ballads and songs of her was singing at folk festivals, both locally Pete Seeger in its programming. Jackson’s obituary of William Rehnquist childhood. These songs had their roots and in neighbouring states. In 1959, she Hedy’s singing was heard less fre- (September 5) overlooks his wider in the folk songs of Britain and Ireland — moved to New York to study music at quently in recent years, and she stopped fame/notoriety. In Myron (1974), Gore songs such as Little Matty Groves and Mannes College and drama at Columbia altogether when cancer affected her Vidal obeyed a supreme court guideline The Wife of Usher’s Well. In addition, University. She was also absorbed by the voice. At the time of her death, she was to avoid language that might inflame she wrote her own songs, or adapted folk revival in the city, and invited by living in Long Island. Her husband pre- local sensibilities. Instead, he used the songs from her community, the best Pete Seeger to sing alongside him at a deceased her. She is survived by her names of censorious judges for various known of which are Cotton Mill Girls Carnegie Hall concert. Her talents were daughter. parts of the body. As well as, for exam- and 500 Miles, which was recorded by quickly recognised, and after singing on Derek Schofield ple, the powells, one finds a “rehnquist Peter, Paul and Mary, the Seekers, Bobby a compilation album, New Folks, for the between the legs”. This certainly revi- Bare and Sonny and Cher. Vanguard label, she soon made two solo Hedy West (Hedwig Grace), folk singer, talised the language. Born in Cartersville, Georgia, West records for the company. West . . . backed ABC network boycott born April 6 1938; died July 3 2005 Section:GDN BE PaGe:37 Edition Date:050912 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 11/9/2005 17:51 cYanmaGentaYellowblack

The Guardian | Monday September 12 2005 37 Obituaries Jacques Dufilho Majer Bogdanski

based in Tarbes. Aged 24, he made his Dufilho began to get larger roles in the Esther again. On his return to Poland, he Actor with a powerful way to Paris on a motorbike — wearing 1970s — among them a Breton patriarch Keeping Yiddish and discovered that they had both perished riding britches — and went straight to in Claude Chabrol’s Le Cheval d’Orgueil in Auschwitz. It emerged later that, presence on French Charles Dullin’s Théâtre de l’Atélier, (1976), the chief engineer in Pierre its culture alive in the though severely tortured, Esther had which had gained a reputation as the Schoendoerffer’s Le Crabe-tambour not betrayed her fellow Bundists. stage and screen most advanced company in Paris. (1977) and a ship’s captain in Werner diaspora Majer settled in London’s East End, Dullin, who also loved horse riding, Herzog’s Nosferatu (1978) — but he had worked as a tailor and developed his ed- ith his shaven immediately took the young man into to wait until he was almost 80 before he ajer Bogdanski, ucation. In 1954, he opened a workshop, head, penetrat- his troupe. Though mostly in small roles was able to play a lead, the title role in who has died aged where he worked on his own. At the age ing gaze, glow- as servants, Dufilho was working beside Pétain (1993). 93, was impris- of 52, he began studying the violin and ering look and the likes of Jean Marais, Madeleine Because of his traditionalist views, oned in a Stalinist singing at the Stepney Institute. For 40 sharp voice, Robinson and Alain Cuny. there were some who felt that Dufilho’s labour camp, years, he entertained students of Yid- the French In films from 1942, he played numer- moving and nuanced performance fought in Italy dish and Jewish music from all over the Wcharacter actor ous domestics or civil servants in dozens came out of the actor’s sympathy for Mwith the British world at courses and festivals in Oxford, Jacques Du- of mediocre French and Italian farces. the collaborationist general. However, army and became London, Amsterdam, New York and filho, who has died aged 91, was a pow- Slightly superior was the costume Dufilho’s part as the wise old man in one of the last remaining links between elsewhere. He preserved many ancient erful presence on stage and screen for drama Caroline Cherie (1951) and its rural France in 1918, in Jean Becker’s modern Jewish culture in Britain and Hassidic and cantorial melodies, and over half a century. Perhaps the nearest sequel, Un Caprice de Caroline Cherie enchanting The Children of the Marsh- the vibrant Jewish socialist movement composed more than 400 of his own equivalent to him in England was Don- (1953), both written by his friend Jean land (1998), was even closer to his heart. of prewar eastern Europe. Before the melodies to Yiddish poems, most of ald Pleasence, with whom he shared a Anouilh, in which he played a sinister In the 1980s, he was able to buy a war, he was a leader of the Bund in which he published in four anthologies, talent for comic menace. Like Pleasence, valet. Other roles included a bandit chief farm in the Gironde, the region where Poland, the Jewish socialist organisation from 1993. The last appeared in 2003, too, Dufilho had one of his greatest stage in Albert Lewin’s exotic curiosity Saadia he had been born. There, he led the which, in contrast to the Zionist move- and he wrote out all the music by hand. triumphs in the role of the truculent, (1953), Marat in Jean Delannoy’s Marie kind of monastic life that he had always ment, saw the future of European Jewry His CD, Yidishe Lider/Yiddish Songs, ignoble, pathetic tramp, Davies, in Antoinette (1956), and a bunch of ec- longed for. in the diaspora, with Yiddish language was issued in 2000, as was Budowitz, a Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker. centrics in films such as Louis Malle’s Ronald Bergan and culture as its foundation. recording on which he sang traditional Dufilho, who played Davies in the Zazie dans le Métro (1960), Jean-Pierre Bundism was the central influence wedding songs. He also learned Paris revival of the play in 1969, was Mockey’s Snobs (1961), and Peter Usti- Jacques Dufilho, actor, born February 19 in Majer’s life. He arrived in Britain in Sephardic melodies — a very different also associated with such other contem- nov’s Lady L (1965). 1914; died August 28 2005 1946. Much-loved in the Yiddish cultural tradition from his own Ashkenazi back- porary playwrights as Jean Anouilh scene, he influenced the life of everyone ground — and sang them in the 300-year (Colombe, 1951), Jacques Audiberti (Le who met him. He had an extensive old Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City Mal Court, 1955), Frederich Durrenmatt knowledge of religious and secular of London. He was a member of the (The Marriage of Mr Mississippi, 1959, Jewish music, history and folklore, London Friends of Yiddish for almost and The Visit, 1963) and Martin Walser and Yiddish language and literature. 60 years, and for many years its chair. (Chêne et Lapins Angora, 1968). He was born in Pyotrkow-Tybunalski, A lifelong socialist, Majer was an The last of these, in which he por- Poland, the eldest of the five children enthusiastic canvasser for the Labour trayed a Nazi general, co-starred and was of a cabinetmaker. His formal education party, and active in the Jewish Socialists' directed by Georges Wilson, with whom ended at 13, when his mother died, a Group, founded in the 1970s and based Dufilho had a long working relationship. terrible blow for a family constantly on Bundist ideals. A school governor, They later appeared successfully to- on the edge of poverty — and especially he gave talks in schools and to younger gether in Charles Dyer’s Staircase, Neil for Majer, who adored her. socialists. When speaking about the Simon’s The Sunshine Boys and Herb From then on, he cared for his younger Holocaust at the annual commemora- Gardner’s I am not Rappaport. But the siblings. He apprenticed himself to a tai- tion of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and very tall Wilson and the squat Dufilho lor and attended night classes in Jewish at other events, he always recalled the could not have been more different. and secular subjects. He also joined the fate of the Gypsies and other victims. The urbane, liberal-thinking, Parisian- Bund, which strove for cooperation with Even in his 90s, Majer captivated born Wilson contrasted with Dufilho, the Polish Socialist party and integration audiences with performances of Yiddish who had a strong belief in conservative of Jews into Polish society, laying great prose, poetry and folksong, and his values: the monarchy, the Catholic emphasis on the education and personal appetite for knowledge remained insa- church (he was a passionate supporter development of working people. tiable. As a regular at promenade con- of the Latin mass) and the countryside At 21, he began army service and, to certs, he chose difficult new works, (he always considered himself a man of his own surprise, showed great ability. because “you have to get to know what the soil). “From my youngest age,” he “A tailor boy," he recalled, “I was afraid is being written now". explained. “I was seeking order. That’s to look at a horse, let alone ride it. A He had a reading knowledge of about what attracts me about the religious life, nearly four-ton gun, how did I come to nine languages, five of which he spoke in which there is a miraculous meeting it?" He was sent to military college, fluently, and his Tower Hamlets council between a spiritual discipline and the became a corporal and, in spite of the flat was covered with books and papers control of the material life. It was while anti-semitism prevalent in Poland, was on which he was working. Even when working on the land that I believed I awarded a best student prize and be- his physical strength was failing, his found this truth.” came an instructor of other recruits. mind remained active and creative, and Dufilho was born in Bègles, in the In 1935, he married Esther Wolstajn, he continued to read and compose. south-west of France, the son of strict the daughter of a Bundist leader. They Majer never remarried and told me Catholic parents, both pharmacists. He moved to Lodz. Mobilised with the out- that not a day passed without his think- grew up with a love of nature and soli- break of war in 1939, Majer was captured ing of Esther. He accepted his impend- tude. Yet this very singular man, after by the Red Army when Poland was ing death philosophically, joking that working on a farm, became an actor, a carved up between Nazi Germany and he was determined to greet the most gregarious profession. He saw no Stalin's Soviet Union. malekhamoves, the angel of death, contradiction between the disciplines of He was sent to a slave labour camp with a smile. theatre and religion, nor did his passion 1000km north of Archangel, but follow- Heather Valencia for horses prevent him from owning a ing the 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet couple of Bugattis. Union, Polish prisoners were freed and Majer Bogdanski, tailor, musician and At the age of 18, in 1932, he joined the Majer joined the British army in Italy. folklorist, born July 14 1912; died Septem- Second Hussars, a cavalry regiment Dufilho . . . in his favourite role, as a wise old man in The Children of the Marshland He never saw his father or his beloved ber 4 2005

Other lives

Arthur Booth many years. He wrote wonderful illus- ative. She researched Indian society, and, The Mick Arnold in plays directed by the irrepressible trated letters to his granddaughters too. with her husband, published their mas- I remember was a Wendy. My father Arthur Booth, who has died Reading biographical and travel books terpiece Land and Labour in India (1962). huggy-bear of a The happiest part of my gap year aged 88, was a talented artist who was another passion. After Daniel’s death in 1974, Alice man intent on was spent eating, working — and painted hundreds of watercolours and He was an ordinary yet extraordinary started a new life as a single woman, spending his oil occasionally sleeping — in a down- many cartoons — in his younger years, man. building a research agenda on urban fortune on plays at-heel old music hall in Portobello, he worked for Punch magazine. Yet Maureen Hills-Jones processes in India and working with directed by Wendy Edinburgh, where we had resurrected most of his life was spent in the retail other women scholars on the gender one of Wendy’s Cambridge revues as trade, in men's outfitters. His father question. Then, in 1990, she approached a passage to Baghdad, where his uncle part of the festival fringe. Last autumn Ezra, a master printer in Chesterfield, me to organise a conference on how was the royal physician. There, he be- I received volume one of his autobiog- had rather scorned his son's choice of Alice Thorner communities constructed Bombay in came the more or less only friend of the raphy, beautifully written and self- career. His last job was at Debenhams, Though born an American, my friend the 19th and 20th centuries, and gave six-year-old King Faisal II, whom he published by Wendy. He handed the in Stratford-on-Avon, where he was and collaborator Alice Thorner, who has it a modern, secular identity. This con- knew as “Fizz”. manuscript of volume two to her on greatly loved by all the staff. died in Paris aged 87, had a passion for ference was held between the two 1992- When his mother remarried an Eng- her birthday in June, three months During the war, he had worked in all things Indian, instilled in 1939, when 93 phases of violence which initiated lishman, he went to school in Egypt, and after their golden wedding and two the Naafi and travelled to Egypt, Singa- she met Indian liberal-left students in a pogrom against Muslims in the city, then to Berkhamsted, in Hertfordshire. months before he died. pore and Italy, where he met and be- England, where her husband, Daniel, and threw into question Bombay’s secu- From there — despite his first languages Claire Yandell friended Gracie Fields’ husband Boris. was doing research in the India Office lar character. Volumes from the confer- being Polish and Arabic — he won a He went to stay with them both at Library on the railway system in India. ence, which we co-edited, reflected place to read English at Jesus College, Obituaries pages traditionally their home on the island of Capri. She and Daniel were part of a group that these concerns. Cambridge. describe/celebrate the lives of the great Later, with his Irish wife, Annie Paul, looked to India — which she first visited She remained a humanist committed There, he met and married a fellow and good, the famous and infamous. Booth set up home in a tiny village in 1945 — for a new kind of social trans- to liberal ideas and critical thinking. She student Wendy Joyce, a budding theatre There is another type of life that in Warwickshire, which he loved. He formation, neither capitalist nor com- will remain a role model for many of us, director, and they set off to start their deserves noticing: people less in the cycled everywhere and continued munist. a compassionate thinker who believed life together on the £7-a-week pay of a public eye, or lives lived beyond formal doing so well into his 70s. She went back to India for a year in social change. cub reporter on the Newcastle Journal. recognition. Please send your As his wife was a nurse, he became in 1952; and that year — because of Sujata Patel When the first of their three children contributions to: Other Lives, the original “new man", looking after McCarthyism back home — stretched out was born, Mick launched himself into a Obituaries, The Guardian, 119 three children, washing, ironing and until 1960, when they shifted to Paris. career in oil, which saw him travelling Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER, or cooking in the evenings and at week- Those eight Bombay years were their the world and using his familiarity with email to: other.lives@guardian. ends. He would take us for long walks most joyous together and her most cre- Mick Arnold the Arab world. He ended up informally co.uk or fax to 020 7837 4530, with and talk about the countryside, which Mick Arnold, who has died aged 73, advising the US senate on the Middle the writer’s name, telephone number was his greatest love. A wonderful Alice Thorner’s could have been a character in a picar- Eastern political situation. and email/fax details. Pictures should father, grandfather and great-grand- passion for all esque novel. Born in Poland, the only It was a very different Mick that I met be posted or emailed to: father, he always had time for things Indian led son of a portly newspaper editor and in 1977, in the rambling Oxford house in [email protected], clearly everyone — with drawing, board to the most joyous his glamorous socialite wife, he remem- which he and Wendy had settled. My marked with the person’s name and games and card games. and creative years bered from early childhood seeing his Mick was a piano-playing huggy-bear for the attention of Other Lives. A As he disliked telephones, Booth of her life, living in best friend shot dead as German tanks of a man who seemed intent on spend- selection of contributions will also be was a prodigious letter writer, sharing Bombay rolled into Lodz. After the sudden death ing his oil fortune on sending charabanc- posted on our website at: a weekly correspondence with me for of his father, his mother charmed them loads of schoolchildren around Europe guardian.co.uk/other lives Section:GDN BE PaGe:38 Edition Date:050912 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 11/9/2005 17:24 cYanmaGentaYellowblack

38 The Guardian | Monday September 12 2005 Reviews

Amid balloons and whistles, Daniel makes dashing debut

annual jingoistic jamboree, proved Britishness with the modern world. Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with Jerusalem with aplomb, even if this was Last Night of the Proms himself a versatile musician as well as However, before the music disappeared aching tenderness, but it was counter- more an exercise in crowd control than a witty raconteur. in the traditional second-half orgy of tenor Andreas Scholl who stole the musical subtlety. He talked of the diver- BBCSO and Chorus/Daniel It’s fitting that a Proms season that balloon-popping and whistle-blowing, show with his performances of three sity of the Proms season and of music as Royal Albert Hall, London has shored up core traditions, but which the Prommers were treated to some Handel arias. Accompanied by the BBC a metaphor for cultures joining together. has failed to entice audiences to new or luxury casting in the evening’s solo Symphony Orchestra, who managed However, the Last Night presents the ∂∂∂∂∂ challenging music, should end not with numbers. Paul Lewis, usually the most a passable imitation of a period narrowest possible conception of British a world premiere but with a triumph of cerebral of pianists, was the flamboyant instrument group, Scholl’s purity of identity. With its football-crowd fellow- This year’s Last Night of the Proms was interactive technology. Before Henry soloist in Constant Lambert’s The Rio tone created a startling musical intimacy, ship of flag-waving, the Last Night turns a pageant of sea-faring Britishness, the Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea-Songs, Grande. Lewis launched into the virtuosic even in the party atmosphere of the Last relics of Britain’s imperial past into post- climax of the nautical theme that has bugle calls once used in Britain’s naval piano part, and with mezzo-soprano Night. Still more ravishing was his modern kitsch. It’s all good fun, but the run throughout the whole season. battles were relayed from the simultane- soloist Karen Cargill, the piece sounded singing of Down by the Salley Gardens, danger is that its increasingly fogeyish Conductor Paul Daniel, making his ous Proms in the Park events around the fresh, energetic and even moving, accompanied only by the gossamer traditions have nothing to contribute debut in charge of the Last Night, and country into the Albert Hall. Like the especially in Lambert’s serene evocation threads of Williams’s guitar. to contemporary Britain, or to say about joining an elite group of British maestros whole of the Last Night, it was a quaint of the Rio Grande’s journey into the sea. Daniel carried off the rituals of Wood’s the realities of the world around us. to have led the Prommers in their attempt to connect an older, idealised Guitarist John Williams played Sea-Songs, Land of Hope and Glory and Tom Service

Paul Daniel proved a versatile musician as well as a witty raconteur at the Albert Hall Photograph: Dan Chung

Vic crooning his chart-topper Dizzy, the Of course, as another Shooting Stars the exuberance of Jyll Bradley’s been restored, the ticking resumes, hint- Comedy comedy aristocracy were out in force: colleague Will Self once pointed out, panoramic arrangement of cut flowers ing perhaps that Turnage’s “dark time” celebrity fans and sidekicks could be what makes the Vic and Bob material curving across the ground floor, filling it is not quite over. Vic Reeves Big Night Out spotted both onstage (Paul Whitehouse, funny is that it isn’t funny. Even in the with scent and colour, but also the confi- Salonen grouped this with three Too2Much, London Matt Lucas) and off (Shooting Stars early 1990s, the nonsensical postmodern dent inclusion of a Turner (Norham works written in the early years of the team captain Mark Lamarr). vaudeville of Big Night Out was an Castle, Sunrise, c1845), to give some 20th century. The brass took a while ∂∂∂∂∂ Cheers greeted the revival of every acquired taste. To some, it reinvigorated historical perspective on the notion of to settle in the first movement of La mer, character and catchphrase from the the British variety tradition — albeit progress. A room of Martin Boyce’s work though thereafter every detail of It was the must-see comedy gig of the show’s heyday. When Bob teases Vic given an absurdist spin — and triggered a shows the artist recasting design classics Debussy’s great seascape was perfectly year. To promote the DVD release of about his desire to “bum” a heavy- golden age in UK comedy. To others, it into haunting fragments that seem to and beautifully realised. The two suites their Channel 4 series Big Night Out, Vic weight boxer, Vic replies (cue hilarity): took the anarchic energy of alternative whisper of mortality, while Lee from Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloë glowed Reeves and Bob Mortimer were staging a “You just wouldn’t let it lie.” And the comedy and depoliticised it, paving the Mingwei’s Letter-Writing Project is with a fiery sensuality. The third work one-off gig in a former Soho strip joint. audience can barely contain themselves way for a decade of more or less silly, housed in two eerily tomb-like spaces was Luonnotar, Sibelius’s weird depiction Lured by the promised return of the when Reeves terrorises bespectacled catchphrase-driven laughs. in the main gallery. These subtle refer- of Finnish creation myths. The soprano Man with the Stick, Judge Nutmeg and lab assistant Les with some chives. Certainly, there are moments in ences to the human cost of progress soloist, accurate if occasionally tentative, tonight’s brief show when the silliness is murmur in much of the work. was Solveig Kringelborn. Salonen’s sublime. Witness Mortimer’s alter ego Another highlight is Chen Chieu-jen’s conducting was little short of astonishing Graham Lister in the Novelty Island film, Factory: a reminder that what we as the rustling orchestral sound created paddock, forcing lard through a cardboard think of progress now will soon slither a sense of uncanny mysteries. cut-out of Bryan Ferry’s face. And when into obsolescence. A silent film, it shows Tim Ashley Vic describes Jordan rubbing her “boobs” women toiling pointlessly in a Taiwanese to make a fire that will light Peter Andre’s factory abandoned as cheaper markets pipe, it becomes clear that the duo retain opened in other countries. What was Pop their flair for vivid word-pictures. once the future now looks tired and But the arbitrariness of it all can get irrelevant. It’s a sobering thought. 50 Cent wearing, the more so now that, 15 years Elisabeth Mahoney on, Vic and Bob’s pop-surrealism no Until October 23. Details: 0117-917 2300. SECC, Glasgow longer has novelty in its favour. The ∂∂∂∂∂ silliness is often indistinguishable from puerility, as when Reeves uses a Prom 73 50 Cent is huge, in more than one sense: stick to simulate defecating (“it’s not a a muscle-bound, scarred and tattooed shit, it’s a stick”) or Lucas dons a green Helsinki Philharmonic/Salonen totem of machismo. When, inevitably, jumpsuit and shouts “penis” a lot. his shirt comes off, lingering images of Rumour has it that reaction to this gig Royal Albert Hall, London his rippling torso are projected onto and to the DVD will decide whether Vic ∂∂∂∂∂ enormous screens. He’s also a multi- and Bob take Big Night Out on tour. I million selling rapper and the nominal hope they do. It’s a pleasure to watch From the Wreckage is Mark-Anthony head of a nascent empire. them together onstage, enjoying them- Turnage’s new trumpet concerto, written All his lieutenants in the self-styled selves and making one another laugh. for the Swedish virtuoso Hakan Harden- “G-Unit family” are in Glasgow tonight, I’d be more inclined to join in, however, berger, who gave the UK premiere on making a near-interminable series of if they were to reinvent Big Night Out for Friday with the Helsinki Philharmonic appearances before and during his set. 2005 rather than reanimate its 15-year- under Esa-Pekka Salonen. The title This kind of hip-hop is all about the old corpse. First time round, the show refers not to a nautical disaster but to franchise, but they’re a dismal bunch, was so unexpected it made your head the fact that the work was begun “at a mostly without even the chutzpah to be spin. Tonight, it’s less dizzy than cosy. particularly dark time in Turnage’s life”. made in their patron’s bluff image. You Brian Logan The concerto depicts a psychological wonder how Olivia, the only female journey from sorrow to calm via barely presence, feels in a world where a repressed anger and rage, its emotional woman is little more than a scantily clad Art trajectory delineated by the fact that rump to be shaken at a camera. Hardenberger opens the work playing a The sound is that staple of bad live This Storm is What dark-sounding flugelhorn, which he hip-hop — thud and blether, punctuated We Call Progress changes first for a standard with explosions and tasteful gunshots, trumpet during the agitated not that 50 Cent, the Rasputin of rap Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol central section, then for an — shot nine times and still standing — ∂∂∂∂∂ ethereal-sounding would be in any way perpetuating the piccolo trumpet in the idea that violence is glamorous. The exhibition’s title — borrowed closing pages. The When you can actually hear him above from Walter Benjamin’s descrip- outer sections are the barking of whoever else is onstage, tion of the angel of history as blues inflected, 50 Cent’s flow is less than impressive, depicted in a Paul Klee painting tender and appeal- little better than those much-maligned — has a resonance far beyond ing. In between MCs who used to grace cheesy the work selected for this lively come rhythmic and euro-dance hits. “Make some noise!” group show. For this exhibition harmonic dislocation comes the repeated cry from the stage, marks the re-opening of as the music seethes as if the lumpen entourage were Arnolfini after a two-year closure towards climaxes that collectively some kind of defective ego in for redevelopment. Although this collapse into exhaustion. need of constant external reassurance. is a rigorous selection of work Ticking, clock-like And the crowd, almost entirely white, a with plenty of depth, the show percussion goads Hard- thousand unwitting Ali Gs straight outta has a justly celebratory air. There’s enberger on his way, the Gorbals, comply. measuring his progress. David Peschek Vic Reeves, left, and Bob At the end, even after At Nottingham Arena on Tuesday (0870 Mortimer at the Too2Much club order has seemingly 121 0123) and touring. Section:GDN BE PaGe:39 Edition Date:050912 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 11/9/2005 19:09 cYanmaGentaYellowblack

The Guardian | Monday September 12 2005 39 Weather&Crossword

Weather report Weather forecast

Around the UK and Ireland Air pollution UK and Ireland Noon Summary

Sun Rain Temp (°C) Weather Sun Rain Temp (°C) Weather London moderate hrs mm High/Low (day) hrs mm High/Low (day) Shetlands Key London, SE England, Cent S England, E & W SE England moderate Aberdeen 4.2 0.0 20 6 bright Keswick 6.8 0.0 20 – sunny Midlands Mist and fog will clear to leave sunny SW England moderate Anglesey 1.9 0.0 17 14 bright Kinloss 0.4 0.3 18 8 cloudy Wind E Anglia moderate spells. Light north winds. Max temp 20-23C (68- Aspatria n/a Leeds – – 17 12 bright E Midlands moderate 73F). Tonight, fair. Min temp 10-13C (50-55F). Aviemore 3.1 0.3 17 7 bright Lerwick 1.2 0.8 13 9 showers W Midlands moderate Sunny intervals Belfast 8.0 0.0 18 7 sunny Leuchars 7.2 0.0 20 8 sunny 5 S Wales moderate Belmullet 0.7 – 17 13 fair London 0.0 1.5 17 15 drizzle SW England, Channel Is, S Wales Dry with any N Wales low Slight Partly cloudy Birmingham 1.4 3.8 16 12 bright Lowestoft 0.0 0.3 19 17 cloudy NE England low mist clearing to leave sunshine. Light north winds. Bognor Regis 1.4 0.0 20 16 cloudy Malin Head 0.0 0.0 14 12 cloudy NW England low Intermittent rain Max temp 20-23C (68-73F). Tonight, dry. Min Bournemouth 0.2 0.0 19 15 cloudy Manchester 0.0 2.8 19 14 rain Yorkshire low Bristol 0.0 8.9 16 14 cloudy Margate 0.0 1.5 19 17 rain temp 10-13C (50-55F). Scot borders low Sunny Buxton 0.0 1.8 14 11 dull Newcastle – 0.0 18 11 sunny Cent Scotland low Cardiff 0.013.2 18 15 cloudy Newquay 3.3 0.3 19 16 sunny NE Scotland low 1012 20 E Anglia, Linc, Yorks, NE England Mist patches Clacton n/a Norwich – 0.3 18 16 dull Highlands moderate will clear to leave sunny interludes. Warm inland. Colwyn Bay 3.7 0.3 17 12 sunny Oxford 0.0 0.3 15 14 drizzle N Ire/Ireland low 16 Cork Prestatyn Light north winds. Max temp 19-22C (66-72F). 1.0 0.0 17 14 cloudy n/a Today’s forecast in towns and cities Moderate Cromer 0.0 4.6 17 16 dull Ross-on-Wye 0.0 1.0 16 14 cloudy by busy roads. Low (1-3); moderate Tonight, clear spells. Min temp 10-12C (50-54F). Dublin 0.0 – 15 13 drizzle Rosslare 0.1 – 16 15 cloudy (4-6); high (7-9); very high (10) 3 Eastbourne 1.5 0.3 21 17 cloudy Saunton Sands 3.3 0.3 21 16 sunny Calm NW England, N Wales Edinburgh 6.2 0.3 20 10 sunny Scarborough n/a Sunny spells. Light and Eskdalemuir 9.0 0.3 20 9 sunny Shannon 0.0 0.0 17 13 cloudy Lighting up variable winds. Max temp 19-22C (66-72F). Falmouth 1.4 0.0 18 14 bright Shrewsbury 0.0 1.0 17 13 cloudy 1016 Tonight, clear spells. Min temp 10-13C (50-55F). Fishguard – – 16 15 cloudy Skegness n/a Belfast 1948 to 0653 Folkestone n/a Southend – 0.3 19 16 rain Birmingham 1930 to 0638 NE & NW Scotland, W & N Isles Patchy rain will Glasgow 7.6 0.0 17 7 sunny Southport 6.5 0.0 19 13 sunny Bristol 1932 to 0642 17 17 Guernsey 2.4 0.3 19 13 cloudy Stornoway 2.0 0.3 15 10 cloudy Dublin 1948 to 0655 spread from west to east. Mainly light south-west 3 Hastings 0.3 2.3 20 16 cloudy Swanage 0.1 0.3 19 15 cloudy Glasgow 1942 to 0645 winds. Max temp 16-19C (61-66F). Tonight, rain. Hayling Island 0.5 0.3 19 16 dull Teignmouth 0.3 0.3 19 16 cloudy London 1922 to 0632 Calm Min temp 12-14C (54-57F). Herne Bay 0.0 0.0 19 17 rain Tenby 7.8 1.3 21 16 sunny Manchester 1932 to 0639 1020 5 35° Hunstanton 0.0 0.0 17 14 cloudy Tiree 3.3 0.0 16 9 cloudy Newcastle 1931 to 0635 Isle of Man 7.8 0.0 19 11 sunny Torquay 5.4 0.3 19 15 bright Calm 30° SE & SW Scotland Some brightness, mainly in the Isle of Wight 0.6 0.0 19 16 cloudy Valentia 2.4 0.0 18 14 cloudy 19 25° east. Light winds. Max temp 17-20C (63-68F). Jersey 9.2 0.3 23 15 sunny Weymouth 0.0 0.0 17 15 dull Sun & Moon Tonight, cloudy. Min temp 10-13C (50-55F). Met Office report for 24 hours to 6pm yesterday. Irish data (sunshine from previous day) supplied by PA WeatherCentre 20° 20 15° Northern Ireland, NW Ireland Dry with bright High tides 10° spells, mainly in the east. Cloudy in western parts 3 later. Light south winds. Max temp 18-20C (64- Aberdeen 0754 3.5m 2033 3.4m Hull 0003 6.0m 1240 5.8m Slight 5° Avonmouth 0037 10.3m 1307 9.8m Leith 0908 4.5m 2141 4.4m 21 68F). Tonight, rain. Min temp 13-14C (55-57F). Belfast 0524 3.0m 1754 2.9m Liverpool 0501 7.5m 1751 7.3m 0° Dover London Bridge Sun rises 0631 0457 5.5m 1737 5.4m 0743 5.8m 2013 5.8m Channel Is -5° SE Ireland, SW Ireland Dry with bright spells Galway 1152 3.9m – – Penzance 1100 4.4m 2343 4.2m Sun sets 1922 Greenock 0628 3.0m 1908 2.9m Scrabster 0301 4.0m 1539 4.0m Moon sets 2321 -10° once mist patches clear. Light winds, moderate in 1024 Harwich 0551 3.2m 1818 3.3m Weymouth 0012 1.6m 1245 1.6m Moon rises 1651 the west later. Max temp 18-21C (64-70F). Holyhead 0428 4.5m 1717 4.5m Whitby 1024 4.5m 2306 4.4m Full Moon September 18th -15° Tonight, cloudy. Min temp 12-15C (54-59F).

Around the world UK and Ireland Five day forecast Atlantic front Noon today

°C °F Weather °C °F Weather °C °F Weather °C °F Weather Tuesday Wednesday ThursdayFriday Saturday Ajaccio 25 77 Sunny C’blanca 24 75 Cloudy Lisbon 22 72 Fair Paris 21 70 Cloudy 1008 1000 992 1016 Algiers 29 84 Sunny Dakar 30 86 Fair London 17 63 Drizzle Perth 20 68 Fair Alicante 28 82 Sunny Dallas 33 91 Fair L Angeles 21 70 Cloudy Prague 23 73 Cloudy 1016 Ams’dam 19 66 Fog Denver 28 82 Cloudy Lux’bourg 18 64 Cloudy Reykjavik 9 48 Sunny Athens 28 82 Sunny Dhaka 35 95 Fair Madrid 21 70 Cloudy Rhodes 27 81 Sunny 1000 Auckland 17 63 Fair Dublin 16 61 Fair Majorca 26 79 Fair Rio de J 29 84 Sunny 992 B Aires 12 54 Cloudy Faro 25 77 Sunny Malaga 27 81 Sunny Rome 26 79 Sunny 984 Bangkok 31 88 Cloudy Florence 25 77 Cloudy Malta 27 81 Sunny Shanghai 28 82 Cloudy 1000 HL Barcelona 27 81 Sunny Frankfurt 19 66 Rain Melb’rne 13 55 Cloudy Singapore 33 91 Fair LY 1024 Basra 46115 Sunny Funchal 23 73 Fair Mexico C 22 72 Fair St P’burg 15 59 Cloudy 1000 1008 Cold front Beijing 29 84 Fair Geneva 19 66 Sunny Miami 31 88 Cloudy Stockh’m 15 59 Sunny Warm front Belgrade 25 77 Fair Gibraltar 24 75 Sunny Milan 25 77 Thunder Strasb’g 17 63 Thunder Occluded fron t 1016 Berlin 18 64 Fog Harare 25 77 Sunny Mombasa 28 82 Cloudy Sydney 22 72 Cloudy 1008 Trough Bermuda 28 82 Fair Helsinki 15 59 Sunny Montreal 16 61 Sunny Tel Aviv 30 86 Sunny High 24 Low 10 High 25 Low 7 High 23 Low 5 High 21 Low 6 High 19 Low 5 Low Y will deepen. High L will decline south. Bordeaux 19 66 Cloudy H Kong 32 90 Fair Moscow 12 54 Showers Tenerife 29 84 Fair Boston 21 70 Sunny Innsbruck 21 70 Sunny Mumbai 25 77 Rain Tokyo 30 86 Fair Brussels 20 68 Fog Istanbul 25 77 Sunny Munich 18 64 Cloudy Toronto 21 70 Cloudy Budapest 23 73 Cloudy Jerusalem 28 82 Fair Nairobi 23 73 Cloudy Tunis 31 88 Sunny Cairo 29 84 Sunny Jo’burg 26 79 Sunny Naples 26 79 Fair Vancouv’r 17 63 Sunny Weatherwatch Calcutta 30 86 Fair K’mandu 28 82 Sunny New Delhi 33 91 Fair Venice 25 77 Sunny Cape Town 23 73 Sunny Karachi 29 84 Thunder N Orleans 31 88 Sunny Vienna 20 68 Cloudy Chicago 32 90 Fair K Lumpur 34 93 Fair New York 26 79 Sunny Warsaw 26 79 Cloudy Christ’rch 948Fog Kingston 32 90 Fair Nice 24 75 Sunny Wash’ton 27 81 Fair At this time of year everyone hopes for from the south producing warm settled description in his 1855 poem, The Song C’hagen 18 64 Cloudy Larnaca 30 86 Sunny Oporto 20 68 Cloudy Well’ton 17 63 Fair Corfu 28 82 Fair Lima 18 64 Fair Oslo 13 55 Sunny Zurich 18 64 Cloudy an Indian summer, or what an inspired days and cold nights. Native Americans, of Hiawatha. Reports for noon yesterday (previous day in the Americas) tabloid subeditor once called “The last of described the phenomenon to the first More quirkily, the British lay claim to the Phew”. These are the warm sunny European settlers and attributed it to the the term from the Empire shipping trade days that unexpectedly prolong the sum- good graces of the God of the South in the Indian Ocean. During the predomi- Weathercall mer, or revive it when pessimists expect West. Allegedly it was first called the nately fair weather season, outside the 10-day regional outlook forecasts – 0901 471 00 + area code 10-day regional forecasts by fax – 09065 2600 + area code a wet autumn to slide into winter. “Indians' summer” and then shortened. monsoons, ships would carry extra car- Greater London 01 West Mids, Staffs & Warks 11 Central Scotland & Strathclyde 21 Kent, Surrey & Sussex 02 Notts, Leics & Derbs 12 Fife, Lothian & Borders 22 South East 91 Scotland 96 But where does the Indian bit come Added weight is given to this explana- goes and, as a result, be deeper in the Dorset, Hampshire & IOW 03 Lincolnshire 13 Tayside 23 South West 92 Northern Ireland 97 Devon & Cornwall 04 Mid Wales 14 Grampian & East Highlands 24 Wales 93 Midlands 98 from — America or Asia? Most dictionar- tion by suggestions that the tribal habit water. To avoid danger the mariners Wilts, Glos, Avon & Somerset 05 North Wales 15 West Highlands & Islands 25 North West 94 East Anglia 99 ies, in a US-dominated world, favour the of burning off the prairie in these warm marked a line on their hulls with the ini- Barks, Bucks & Oxon 06 North West of England 16 Calthness, Suthlnd, Orkneys North East 95 Bedfordshire, Herts & Essex 07 Yorkshire & York 17 & Shetland 26 American explanation. The Indian sum- autumn days added a haziness to the tials IS for Indian Summer to indicate the Norfolk, Suffolk & Cambs 08 North East of England 18 Northern Ireland 27 5-day holiday sun forecasts – 0901 471 0028 South Wales 09 Cumbria, L’District & I’ of Man 19 0901 costs 60p/min. 09065 costs £1.50/min. iTouch (UK) Ltd. EC2A 4PF. mer often occurs after the first frosts in light which gave it an “Indian” feel. safe loading limit. Shrops, Hereford & Worcs 10 Dumfries & Galloway 20 Helpdesk 0871 200 3985 America when an anti-cyclone pushes up Henry Wadsworth Longfellow used the Paul Brown

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Across 6 Dissolute client upset over debts (10) 8 9 8 Business award in force 7 Providing back-up when (8) company is a failure (6) 9 Miracle drug for backside 13 Mineral water enjoyed by 10 11 in trouble (6) Londoners in the park (10) 10 Where they teach only ten 16 The basics of meteorology letters of the alphabet? (4) (8) 12 13 14 11 Revealing form of 18 Shouts out various num- bers in course of tests (8) NASA/JPL-CALTECH/R. HURT (SSC/CALTECH) NASA/JPL-CALTECH/R. entertainment (10) 12 Female at unusually close 19 A whip-round held by the junior diplomat (7) 15 16 17 18 quarters to the crew (6) 14 These days an alternative 21 Park in Indian city — or 19 to fostering (8) Greek city (6) 15 Went around in female 22 One big transport aircraft 20 21 22 dress? (7) (6) 17 Mistake made by a baker 24 Corporation band (4) (7) 23 24 20 Supporter seen here and there, on the move (8) This stunning new view is based on data Representing waves of increased den- 22 Provide two servings of gathered by Nasa's Spitzer Space Tele- sity, the arms look bluish because of the 25 26 dry wine in a jiffy (6) scope and reveals our Milky Way galaxy predominance of large short-lived hot Stuck? Then call our solutions line on 23 Identical, nevertheless 09068 338238. Calls cost 60p per minute as we have never seen it before. No blue stars. The stars in the bar, though, (3,3,4) at all times. Service supplied by ATS longer can we regard the Milky Way as a are more reddish and ancient, dating “bog standard" spiral galaxy, a flattened from closer to the Milky Way's forma- 24 Second son of Noah was a No 23,557 set by Rufus phoney (4) Winners of prize puzzle 23,550 formation of stars and dust whose spiral tion 13bn years ago. They also trace This week’s winners of a Collins English arms unwind from a circular central much more eccentric orbits around what 25 Agreeable question (3,3) Dictionary Desktop Edition are : Philip Clive 26 Fair and square, initially, of London; Violet Corin of Connor Downs, bulge. Instead, the Sun is but one of is thought to be a supermassive black Hayle; Audrey and Harold Hartley of Aigle, some 300bn stars that form a barred spi- hole at the centre. The alignment of in accommodation (8) VD, Switzerland and Mike James of ral; so called, because the arms spring these orbits through resonance effects Sheffield, S Yorkshire. Please allow 28 days for delivery from the ends of a straight bar-like struc- may create and perpetuate the bar, ture that lies across its centre. In fact, which, in turn, may channel gas towards Down L E O P A R D B A C C H U S barred spirals are not rare and may out- the core to feed the black hole or fuel the O U H E I L E E 1 It's for grappling with a C U T I E N O S T A L G I C number their more regular cousins by birth of new stars. A R A O O S E O two to one. In the latest research, a team from the curse in volume (8) R O U N D T U R N S O L O N Radio studies of the natural hiss of University of Wisconsin surveyed 30m 2 Possibly mean to have the N N N L D last word (4) O U N C E C U S H I N E S S hydrogen had long ago mapped the local stars at infrared wavelengths to cut E X E T S X spiral arms and located the Solar System through the obscuring effect of inter- 3 Off course, he was ship- F O R E T A S T E T U T O R near the inner edge of the Orion Arm, stellar dust. They find the Milky Way's wrecked (6) A E I R E about 28,000 light years from the Galac- bar to be about 27,000 light years long 4 Panda giving a turn in D O Z E N S A N D B L A S T E I U T B O P R tic Centre. At 217km per second, the Sun and inclined at 45° to our line of sight to cabaret (7) O R P H A N A G E O Z O N E takes 220m years or so for each of its the centre. 5 Get neither hot nor both- U U T I C Z S A roughly circular orbits. Alan Pickup ered (4,4) T O P G E A R K E Y S E A T