November 2010 Issue 27

C A R R I L HO

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/C OV E R

pudles daniel

BY

I L LU st R AT ION

Manchester Square 3 CounterpointsWholeLlosalove; Unfair to Naipaul; China’s firewall; University College lightweights; Gramsci lessons; Tracey loves Spinoza 8 Columns TheOutsider Douglas Murray deplores the unfairness of an official report into fairness 14 Living History Michael Burleigh traces the tangled history of the human rights industry 16 Points East &West Emanuele Ottolenghi exposes the pettiness of European leaders’ approaches to the Middle East 18 European Eye MaraDelius celebrates the generosity of American university alumni 19 Marketplace Tim Congdon dispels the myth of excessive debt 20 Jurisprudence Joshua Rozenberg says the international prosecutor needs to be disciplined 21 Letters Defending Father Fenlon; Talking Rubbish; Extreme Excuses 22 TheMole Our Labour Party insider sizes up Red Ed’s new team 24 WebSightings Frances Weaver wonders about the real power of cyber-activism 25 Dispatches Geoffrey Blainey in Australia observes a political balancing act 26

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Obama’s ancestral voices Why the US President’s Kenyan father is still influencing him Dinesh D’Souza believes Obama’s presidency has been marked by his deep-rooted anti-colonialism 34 Features A cure for our national amnesia Michael Nazir-Ali warns that the Judaeo-Christian tradition must be central to Michael Gove’s reforms 42 Critique Flouting (not flaunting) the rules of English Simon Heffer says the teaching of correct grammar should be at the heart of the school syllabus 54 On the contrary Lionel Shriver thinks welfare benefits benefit nobody 15

Dialogue Incurable Romantics Tim Blanning and Jonathan Bate consider the legacy of Romanticism and its attractiveness today 28 Features The death knell of the British Empire Patrick Heren recalls Britain’s  accidental role in the Indonesian war of independence 38 BBC plays by the Kremlin’s rules MashaKarprevealsMoscow’ssubtle influenceovertheBBCRussianService 44 The future’s free—for all of us now Jonathan Margolis identifies a new web-based communitarianism 48

Civilisation Books Daniel Johnson on The German Genius: Europe’s Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution and the Twentieth Century by Peter Watson, Fame by Daniel Kehlmann, The Box by Günter Grass and Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius; Tibor Fischer on La carte et le territoire by Michel Houellebecq; Anna Aslanyan on Letters from London and Europe by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, translated by J. G. Nichols; and Richard Shannon on AWorld on Fire: An Epic History of Two Nations Divided by Amanda Foreman 57

Cosmos Richard Cohen reveals how little we know about the Sun 65

Film Peter Whittle fails to connect with The Social Network 66

Television Nick Cohen wonders what is the point of Downton Abbey 67

Art Michael Prodger admires a portrait painter with a swagger 68 Theatre AnneMcElvoy lauds Rory Kinnear’s likeable Hamlet 70

Music Jessica Duchen thinks professional musicians are working too hard 71

TextMichael Burleigh Is God on our side? Morality in World War Two 72 Sarah Skwire NewPoems 76 Drawing Board Lucian Freud 78 Imagination Party Lines by Daisy Waugh; Whatever by Peter Blegvad: The Saga of Smit &Smule continues 77

Overrated/Underrated Richard Curtis/Anthony Jay by Peter Whittle 80 ChessDominic Lawson explores the advantages of Black over White 82

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