The The quarterly magazine of conservative thought Admitted to Mayhem A Week in an NHS Conduct & Belief America’s New Ward Theodore Dalrymple Chapter George Gittos Amol Rajan Looking for a new Tyrants & Sorcery Carnegie Tory Heroine Sophie Masson Marc Sidwell Alistair Cooke Spring 2009 £4.99 Vol. 27 No 3 Contents 3 Editorial (The Salisbury Review after 25 years) 15 Dark Matter Articles Brian Ridley 16 Mugabe and Israel 4 A Week in the Royal Gloucester Hospital Christie Davies George Gittos 18 Tory Heroine 6 America’s New Chapter Alistair Cooke Amol Rajan 19 Enter Shakespeare Stage Left 8 Tyrants & Sorcery Ralph Berry Sophie Masson 22 A Frenzy of Righteous Barbarism 11 Conduct and Belief Margaret Brown Theodore Dalrymple 24 Future Imperfect 12 Baby P and the Child Abuse Industry Myles Harris Stephen Baskerville 26 Letter from Iran 13 Looking for a New Carnegie Mark Watterston Marc Sidwell 27 An Englishman’s Home was his Castle Jan Maciag Columns Arts & Books 40 Paul Lay 32 Roy Kerridge on Political Trials 33 Conservative Classic — 34 41 Jules Stewart Stefan Zweig’s Beware of Pity on Afghanistan 35 Reputations — 23 42 Christie Davies Wyndham Lewis on The Thatcher Revolution 37 Eternal Life 43 Alexander Deane Peter Mullen on the 1948 Olympics 45 Edward Short 38 Letters on Agincourt 46 Robert Hugill on Music History 47 H E Taylor on Business Schools 48 Alistair Miller on Liberal Education 50 Katherine Szamuely on Pancakes 51 Stewart Birch on Army Heroes 52 Film: Helen Szamuely on The Baader Meinhof Complex 53 Music: Robert Hugill on Composers’ Revisions 55 Art: Andrew Lambirth on Church Murals 57 In Short The Third Marquis of Salisbury Managing Editor Merrie Cave Consulting Editors Roger Scruton Lord Charles Cecil Myles Harris Mark Baillie Christie Davies Literary Editor Ian Crowther 33 Canonbury Park South, London N1 2JW Tel: 020 7226 7791 Fax: 020 7354 0383 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.salisburyreview.co.uk ‘I cannot fiddle but I can make a great state out of a life apart from the free market, relies on subscriptions, little city.’ Themistocles. occasional donations from generous friends and people Ferocious protests from the Left greeted the appearance of discovering it by chance. It is these, and our loyal readers, the Salisbury Review in 1982. Fury erupted at the audacity who are the secret of our continuing existence. of publishing a journal which not only challenged the Left’s We rely on the dedicated, voluntary commitment of ‘smelly little orthodoxies’, but did so with intellectual our editorial board who meet four times a year but email brilliance and panache. High intelligence could never, in and telephone each other frequently. Distribution used their view, be associated with the ‘stupid party’. to take place in the Managing Editor’s home with two or In 1984 leftists saw their opportunity to brand us as three helpers but this is now done more efficiently by the a racist, fascist organ when the headmaster of Bradford printer. This still leaves a great deal of work: maintaining Middle school, Ray Honeyford, wrote in our pages the data base, chasing subscriptions and potential how multicultural educational policies were ghettoising contributors, keeping accounts, preparing the magazine thousands of immigrant school children in Bradford. for publication and many other tasks, all of which take Denied a traditional British education, they were being up more than half a working week. The Internet has brought up without a knowledge of the history and been a valuable tool and we are grateful to our readers traditions of their adopted country, and in consequence who have embraced it. It has halved the effort of putting faced a lifetime as internal aliens. Honeyford was forced the magazine together, facilitated subscriptions through our of his job for writing the article, but the Salisbury Paypal and hopefully spread the word. Review put its finger on a growing political abscess the This year will be a difficult one for us as for many others. left has never been able to lance. How can uncontrolled New Labour has successfully engineered the destruction of immigration and multiculturalism be reconciled with a Britain — and the country may now face not only bankruptcy, stable social fabric? Too late, but at last today pundits, but internal unrest and the elimination of traditions which including Trevor Phillips, admit that multiculturalism is inspired the democratic world. Cameron’s Conservative not only unworkable but dangerous. Party appears to be no more than New Labour’s shadow, In quieter times our lot is to be ignored rather than interested in power without principles not principles with openly reviled by the Left-leaning intelligentsia. This is power. The Salisbury Review must provide a platform for the reason why the Salisbury Review is still undeservedly all those questions that people are afraid to ask. Why are the unknown. Although for those readers who do know us bankers who stole the nation’s savings being rewarded by the the compensation for the Review’s small circulation is government rather than enjoying our jails? Why are millions the quality of its contributors and subscribers. Famous of people who have no right to our social security funds names grace our pages but we keep an open house; the being allowed to plunder them? Why have we lost the right magazine benefits from writers who are not professional of habeas corpus, and what new restrictions on free speech, journalists but have a story to tell, an important argument even travel, are likely to be imposed on us. There are many to make and who often speak from the heart as well as battles ahead, some of them not for the faint hearted. the head. 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Remember enjoy generous subventions, the Salisbury Review, which together ‘we may not be able to fiddle but we can make insists that there are other things in economic and political a great state out of a little city.’ The Salisbury Review — Spring 2009 3 A week in the Gloucester Royal Hospital ‘George Gittos ‘ unfire!’ This Royal Artillery command has only shipped off to Cheltenham for radiotherapy treatment. ever been given once, at the opening of the Ambulances appeared, and off I went through the GBattle of El Alamein. Normal orders require evening rush hour. Treatment was swift and efficient, the number of rounds to be specified. This scrap of after which I was shipped back to the Brown Tower. information came my way as a young artillery officer Suddenly everything changed. I was no longer an many years ago, and has lodged in my mind ever since. emergency in the care of the professionals. I became a Some years later I looked down over Gloucester for the product being processed through the system. The awful first time and my eyes fell on Gloucester’s magnificent and brutish reality of the NHS descended. On arriving in cathedral, an astonishing assertion of man’s pursuit of the a ward the first thing that strikes you is the profusion of divine. A little to one side, rose up the huge ugly brown notices and signs, most of which are written out on A4 and tower of what I later discovered to be Gloucester Royal then fixed to the wall. I cannot say how I was classified. Hospital. Mentally, I immediately set about the business This was not evident from my five fellow patients. One of deploying a battery on guns on my hillside. After a was able to communicate but chose not to. Two were so ill few ranging shots, I gave the order, Gunfire, and sat back that they were in a more or less permanent stupor, a third with a feeling of a job well done as my battery of trusty was ga-ga, and prone to call out at all hours of the day guns reduced the monster to rubble. A few weeks later I and night. All three were seriously incontinent. The fifth came across the vista of Gloucester’s Shire Hall from the was addicted to television and never turned it off. Noise river side. It is another unforgivably ugly building and I was more or less continuous, coming mostly from the wondered if I had not been a little unfair to the hospital. staff or the phones. Fortunately my son brought me in an I have pondered the choice often since. i-pod to blot out the noise. However late night Beethoven Recently I have had the misfortune to be incarcerated at full tilt does not make for good sleep. Sleep was just on the seventh floor of the Brown Tower. Unfortunately not an option. Opposite me on the wall the biggest sign I became quite ill in the early hours of the morning. of all read ‘Quiet Please’. My wife called an ambulance which was despatched The food was a disgrace. No sign of fresh food to come and get me. Now we live in a remote part — all dull grey mass-produced rubbish supplied by a of the Forest of Dean, with many steep and narrow subsidiary of an international food giant.