Shadow defence secretary will use speech in Washington to call for European Nato members to contribute more Britain must adopt a new, pragmatic approach to the “special relationship” with the US that is based neither on ideology nor nostalgia, the shadow defence secretary, Jim Murphy, will tell Americans in a speech in Washington. He will also challenge a growing assumption that Britain should merely buy military equipment off the shelf from the US and say that European members of Nato must contribute far more to defence and to making their armed forces more effective. “In the new security landscape we must assess where and when the UK-US partnership adds value. It is neither a prerequisite nor a luxury,” he will warn. “We have vital and historic links which foster an undoubted and important solidarity. Neither ideology nor nostalgia, however, will ensure we benefit from our close links in today’s world, and so pragmatism should define our approach.” Murphy will tell an audience of American defence industrialists on Wednesday: “Our publics are wary and weary. The US is experiencing international reticence … At the same time the financial crisis has strengthened protectionist instincts, and so while multilateralist internationalism is more necessary than ever our scope to pool power is limited by sceptical domestic populations.” Murphy is conducting a review of Labour’s defence policy, including the procurement of equipment and weapons. The government’s default position was to “buy off the shelf”, and that principally meant “buy American”. The UK will regularly buy with or from the US because of its cutting edge technology and investment in very expensive systems. Murphy says his default position is “that for our core sovereign capabilities I want to make and buy British. Rather than buy from America, I want to learn from America.” However, reinforcing comments by Liam Fox, the defence secretary, Murphy will tell his American audience that Europe must pull its weight in Nato. “We’re either all in this together, committed to playing our full parts, or we’re not an alliance that will last,” he plans to say. The EU spends about £200bn on defence a year, more than any country except the US, and has 2 million European troops in uniform, but only 5% deployable at any one time. It is important for Britain to make the case that Europe must do more on defence since the UK gained “power and influence in our relations across the world through our being a strong partner with European nations”. Murphy will add: “Contrary to much conventional wisdom back home, the UK’s transatlantic and European alliances are not alternative paths to influence – they should be mutually reinforcing.” Jim Murphy United States Nato Defence policy European Union Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Shadow defence secretary will use speech in Washington to call for European Nato members to contribute more Britain must adopt a new, pragmatic approach to the “special relationship” with the US that is based neither on ideology nor nostalgia, the shadow defence secretary, Jim Murphy, will tell Americans in a speech in Washington. He will also challenge a growing assumption that Britain should merely buy military equipment off the shelf from the US and say that European members of Nato must contribute far more to defence and to making their armed forces more effective. “In the new security landscape we must assess where and when the UK-US partnership adds value. It is neither a prerequisite nor a luxury,” he will warn. “We have vital and historic links which foster an undoubted and important solidarity. Neither ideology nor nostalgia, however, will ensure we benefit from our close links in today’s world, and so pragmatism should define our approach.” Murphy will tell an audience of American defence industrialists on Wednesday: “Our publics are wary and weary. The US is experiencing international reticence … At the same time the financial crisis has strengthened protectionist instincts, and so while multilateralist internationalism is more necessary than ever our scope to pool power is limited by sceptical domestic populations.” Murphy is conducting a review of Labour’s defence policy, including the procurement of equipment and weapons. The government’s default position was to “buy off the shelf”, and that principally meant “buy American”. The UK will regularly buy with or from the US because of its cutting edge technology and investment in very expensive systems. Murphy says his default position is “that for our core sovereign capabilities I want to make and buy British. Rather than buy from America, I want to learn from America.” However, reinforcing comments by Liam Fox, the defence secretary, Murphy will tell his American audience that Europe must pull its weight in Nato. “We’re either all in this together, committed to playing our full parts, or we’re not an alliance that will last,” he plans to say. The EU spends about £200bn on defence a year, more than any country except the US, and has 2 million European troops in uniform, but only 5% deployable at any one time. It is important for Britain to make the case that Europe must do more on defence since the UK gained “power and influence in our relations across the world through our being a strong partner with European nations”. Murphy will add: “Contrary to much conventional wisdom back home, the UK’s transatlantic and European alliances are not alternative paths to influence – they should be mutually reinforcing.” Jim Murphy United States Nato Defence policy European Union Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
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Environment secretary says farmers will be allowed to kill badgers if pilot schemes confirm shooting is humane and effective A controversial cull of England’s badgers was announced at lunchtime on Tuesday in parliament, when the environment secretary told MPs she was “strongly minded” to allow farmers to shoot badgers in a controlled fashion. Animal campaigners reacted furiously, and are likely to mount a legal challenge to the plans, but farming representatives welcomed the proposals. Caroline Spelman said the cull was needed to bring down the rates of infection of tuberculosis in cattle. “This is a comprehensive, balanced set of measures to tackle this terrible disease,” she said. She announced that two pilots would take place to confirm that controlled shooting would be humane and effective, and the government would consult on licensing. Once this stage is complete and, if it is deemed successful, farmers would be able to apply for licences to shoot badgers under strict limits on how it can be carried out. The location of the pilots has not yet been decided. Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), said farmers “would heave an enormous sigh of relief”. Many farmers have been calling for a cull for more than a decade, as TB infection rates in cattle have risen rapidly, with the west and south-west of England worst affected. Badgers, though not endangered, are a protected species, and the efficacy of a cull in protecting cattle from TB is widely contested. Lord Krebs, who as a government adviser in 1997 was the architect of a 10-year experimental cull, recently rejected culling as “ineffective” . He said other measures would be more productive, such as improved security for cattle to prevent them coming into contact with badgers, and the use of a vaccine when one becomes readily available. Culling badgers, according to the trials, resulted in a 16% reduction in “confirmed new incidence” of TB in cattle herds – an outcome that farming leaders and the secretary of state hailed as a useful strategy, but that Krebs said was not enough to justify a widespread cull. He said: “You cull intensively for at least four years, you will have a net benefit of reducing TB in cattle of 12% to 16%. So you leave 85% of the problem still there, having gone to a huge amount of trouble to kill a huge number of badgers. It doesn’t seem to me an effective way of controlling the disease.” However, the NFU favours a cull, citing evidence from Ireland, where experimental culls have been allowed, and from Australia and New Zealand, where culls of other wild animals have been credited with reducing disease rates. Bovine TB causes £90m of damage annually, with affected farmers forced to discard milk, meat and other products from infected beasts, and sometimes to abandon livestock farming altogether. The worst affected areas are in the south-west of England and Wales, but “hotspots” for the disease occur around the country. Under the plans, farmers would be allowed to kill badgers using “free shooting”. This would mean trained marksmen targeting badgers, a method that would be paid for by farmers and is likely to be cheaper than the alternative of trapping and killing badgers. Farming leaders said free shooting would enable groups of farmers and landowners to club together to target areas of at least 150 sq km, the minimum to be allowed under any new culling rules, and they would only be granted a licence if it can be proven the area is a TB “hotspot”. Badgers Bovine tuberculosis Rural affairs Animals Wildlife Conservation Green politics Farming Fiona Harvey guardian.co.uk
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• Interest rate on 18-month bond nears 4% • Relief that buyers could at least be found • Soros warns ‘real crisis’ requires euro bonds • UK banks claw back some of Monday’s losses Spain saw its borrowing costs leap to a nine-year high on Tuesday as the eurozone debt crisis continued to dominate the financial markets. Although Spain found buyers for €661m (£581m) of 18-month bonds, it had to agree to pay a yield, or interest rate, of 3.912%. This is the highest yield on such bonds since 2002, according to Reuters, and a significant rise on the 3.26% agreed at the last sale of 18-month bills. This 18-month auction was heavily oversubscribed – with Spain receiving offers for 5.5 times as much debt as it sold. Spain also sold €3.7bn (£3.25bn) of 12-month bonds at a yield of 3.7%, up from 2.695% at the previous auction in June. Its bid-to-cover ratio – the measure of how oversubscribed the auction was – was 2.2. The auction was the first measure of investor confidence since last week’s EU stress tests . There was some relief in the City that the auction had not failed, and that buyers were still prepared to take on Spanish debt despite fears that the country will have to seek a bailout. The yield on 10-year Spanish debt, seen as the key indicator of market confidence, eased back to 6.2%. Italian 10-year bonds also strengthened, with the yield dropping to 5.7%. But economists remain concerned that Europe is struggling to get to grips with the ongoing debt crisis, ahead of a crucial emergency meeting scheduled for Thursday . Gary Jenkins of Evolution Securities believes European leaders must announce a “comprehensive package which will have elements of a fiscal union”, if they are to persuade international investors that Italian and Spanish bonds are safe. “Whatever resolution is put in place for Greece will probably be taken as the template for Ireland, Portugal etc and there is a chance that the EU announces something that gives the market some short-term relief. But the number of cans that now need kicking down the road would challenge the left foot of Lionel Messi,” wrote Jenkins in a research note. Around €160bn of Italian bonds mature this year, with a further €250bn coming up for repayment in 2012. This far exceeds the current resources of the existing European financial stability mechanism. Banks shares claw back losses In London, bank shares staged a small rally following Monday’s heavy losses. Barclays topped the FTSE 100 risers , up 4.5% in morning trading, recovering some of its 6% decline as investors balked at last week’s European banking stress tests. UK government debt was also in demand on Tuesday, at an auction of five-year gilts. The yield on the securities fell to 1.78%, down from around 1.95% in June. The euro rose against the dollar on Tuesday, gaining over half a cent to $1.417 after a survey of German economic sentiment came in above forecast. But billionaire financier George Soros warned that the single currency was still at risk, and argued that further integration is needed to hold the EU together. “The euro is a real crisis. It’s a crisis of the European Union, not just of the euro,” Soros told the Today programme . Soros said that Greece’s troubles – the country is still shut out of the international money markets and needs a second bailout – have shown the problems of the European Union. He argued that so-called “euro bonds” need to be created, so that weaker members of the region can still borrow. “In order to deal with Greece, you have to strengthen the arrangements for the euro. The trouble is that the European establishment is now sticking to the status quo.” Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University and chairman of Roubini Global Economics, has argued that banks across the eurozone need to be recapitalised to prevent the contagion spreading further. “The eurozone’s current muddle-through approach is an unstable disequilibrium: kicking the can down the road, and throwing good money after bad, will not work,” Roubini wrote on Project Syndicate . “Either the eurozone moves toward a different equilibrium – greater economic, fiscal, and political integration, with policies that restore growth and competitiveness, including orderly debt restructurings and a weaker euro – or it will end up with disorderly defaults, banking crises, and eventually a break-up of the monetary union.” European debt crisis European banks Bonds Euro Greece Europe Spain Italy Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Piers Morgan, the former editor for Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World , dedicated a segment of his CNN show Monday to defending the media mogul. Former New York Post reporter Vicky Ward, who is a personal friend of Murdoch’s, joined Morgan. “Piers, I just got a call an hour ago, and Rupert wanted to tell me personally that, you know, he’s not okay,” Ward reported. “Ever since he met with Milly Dowler, the murdered girl’s parents, he hasn’t felt the same. His voice has been cracking, people around him are very concerned, his children are very concerned. This is a man who is more devastated than he has ever been in his entire 80 years, and you know, he is appalled at what’s gone on on his watch, and I think he’s as anxious to get to the bottom of it as we all are.” “I just cannot accept — although there is this huge witch hunt going on to bring him down personally — I don’t accept that he himself would be party to illegal activity,” Morgan asserted. “I completely agree with you, Piers,” Ward replied. “He became a friend to me when I was at The New York Post , he would stop by my office and talk to me. He wanted to know what tomorrow’s headlines were. He would not in any way want to interfere with a story. This is a man who cares so much about his legacy. He once said to me, ‘All I want is for my kids to be decent people.’” “I wouldn’t want this to become a kind of valedictory, he’s perfect kind of segment,” Morgan said finally. “The one thing about Rupert is that — yes, he can be ruthless, but actually we can just talk about this, he’s ruthless, but also entrepreneurial. He built an empire, often at great personal risk. But tomorrow I expect to see a very, very sincerely contrite person [when he appears before parliament],” Ward concluded. The CNN host was drawn into the News Corp. phone hacking scandal when Liberal Democrat MP Adrian Sanders called for Morgan to be questioned . The following entry from Morgan’s diary had made Sanders suspicious: “Apparently if you don’t change the standard security code that every phone comes with, then anyone can call your number and, if you don’t answer, tap in the standard four digit code to hear all your messages… I’ll change mine just in case, but it makes me wonder how many public figures and celebrities are aware of this little trick.” UPDATE: John Amato Digby wrote up some transcript of Gordon’s post from Newstalgia where Piers Morgan makes an arse out of himself: Morgan: I have a lot of sympathy for the people at the top because I don’t think they had a clue what was going on. And I think it’s one of those situations where until you know exactly what the scale of the problem is it’s very hard to deal with it. But what I do find stomach churning was your mate Hugh Grant on here the other day.A guy who has used the media. This is my problem with all the phone hacking victims. They’ve all used the media over the years to feather their nests, buy their houses flog their movies, sell out their concerts and now they’re squealing like little pigs ove them edia and I just think it’s perspective time again. The Guardian is leading the charge on phone hacking. They believe it’s wrong for any newspaper to publish material that has been gained unlawfully and yet the Guardian was the newspaper that published Wikileaks, which is openly an illegal form of material that’s been acquired illegally that was very dangerous to many parts of the security services and the armed forces. They knew that and willfully published it and their arguments is well it was all in the public interst. Really? Colonel Ghadaffi’s lovers? Which is one of the Wilileaks revelations? That’s in the public interest? There is no difference. It is sanctimonious, hypocritical bilge by the Guardian by the BBC — sorry, they’ve piled in too — by stars like Hugh Grant. The BBC, in my experience when I was a newspaper editory, you break a big juicy story, a big old scandal, and then what would happen is the Guardian and BBC the next day would say, “there are disgusting revelations in the Daily Mirror or news of the World so repellant that we are now going to talk about them for the next 20 minutes” and in the case of the Guardian we are going to run 17 pages. You can’t have your cake and eat it. If the BBC and the Guardian feel so strongly about this pruriant form of journalism then they should never cover it again. He’s right about the mainstream media being perfectly happy to run with scandals, but I think he’s rather purposefully missing the point. Hacking into celebrities’ answering machines is criminal. Hacking into crime victims’ answering machines is just sick. And turning it all into a backscratching exercise with the police is a threat to a free and democratic society. Yes, the Ghadaffi lovers story exposed in Wikileaks was not really a matter of national interest. But “big juicy scandals” of the tabloid variety are hardly the main thrust of Wikileaks. And as far as I know, Wikileaks hasn’t been blackmailing politicians with threats to expose their dirty personal laundry if they refuse to play ball. (It’s possible, but I haven’t heard of it.) Piers Morgan is a prick. And sooner or later CNN is going to have to deal with this. At the very least the celebrities who are his bread and butter should ask themselves if it’s worth whoring themselves out to someone who clearly has no respect for them whatsoever. He apparently thinks that if you use the media to sell something you’ve completely given up your rights CNN hasn’t had to face the chin music of hiring Morgan in the first place after he was part of News of The World hierarchy and has been beating his chest in defense of Murdoch–nonstop.
Continue reading …Esquire Magazine Genuflects: Obama’s a ‘World-Historical Soul,’ ‘He is What We Hope We Can Be’
July 19, 2011 No Comment
Barf. “We sometimes forget just how in the tank much of the press is for Obama,” the Wall Street Journal ’s James Taranto observed last week in catching an effusive, to put it mildly, love letter to Barack Obama published in the August edition of Hearst’s Esquire magazine. “2011 is the summer of Obama,” gushed Stephen Marche, genuflecting “‘I am large, I contain multitudes,’ Walt Whitman wrote, and Obama lives that lyrical prophecy.” More sophistry: “Barack Obama is developing into what Hegel called a ‘world-historical soul,’ an embodiment of the spirit of the times. He is what we hope we can be.” Speak for yourself. Taranto suggested “you may want to pop a Dramamine before reading this passage, which brings back memories of 2008:” [C]an we just enjoy Obama for a moment? Before the policy choices have to be weighed and the hard decisions have to be made, can we just take a month or two to contemplate him the way we might contemplate a painting by Vermeer or a guitar lick by the early-seventies Rolling Stones or a Peyton Manning pass or any other astounding, ecstatic human achievement? Because twenty years from now, we're going to look back on this time as a glorious idyll in American politics, with a confident, intelligent, fascinating president riding the surge of his prodigious talents from triumph to triumph. Whatever happens this fall or next, the summer of 2011 is the summer of Obama. That’s from Marche, a Canadian writer who pens Esquire ’s monthly “A Thousand Words” column. “ How Can We Not Love Obama? Because like it or not, he is all of us ,” appears on pages 56-57 of the August issue and was posted July 12 on Esquire.com. Marche recited Obama’s latest “masterpieces” of a “political triptych” which have supposedly propelled him above and beyond Ronald Reagan and even liberal hero Bill Clinton: But even if you disagree with him, even if you hate him, even if you are his enemy, at this point you must admire him. The turning point came that glorious week in the spring when, in the space of a few days, he released his long-form birth certificate, humiliated Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and assassinated Osama bin Laden. The effortlessness of that political triptych — three linked masterpieces demonstrating his total command over intellectual argument, low comedy, and the spectacle of political violence — was so overwhelmingly impressive that it made political geniuses of the recent past like Reagan and Clinton seem ham-fisted. Marche’s awe extended to how, “amazingly,” Obama’s life story contains “every narrative” of the “master plots.” He opined: According to literary scholar Christopher Booker, every narrative in the world, from Gilgamesh to War and Peace to Water for Elephants, can be reduced to one of only seven master plots. Amazingly, the story of Obama contains every narrative. Those plots: “Quest,” “Comedy,” “Rags to Riches,” “Tragedy,” “Killing the Monster,” “Voyage and Return” and “Rebirth.” If you can stomach it, check the fawning article for the presumed evidence.
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Institute of Economic Affairs dismisses Cameron-backed £32bn High Speed Two proposal as a ‘political vanity project’ The proposed £32bn north-south high-speed rail link is “economically flawed” and based on bogus calculations, a leading free-market thinktank has warned. The Institute of Economic Affairs added some intellectual weight to the vociferous local criticism of the High Speed Two route, whose first phase between London and Birmingham is due to open around 2026, followed by a link to Manchester and Leeds in 2032. In a scathing assessment of the plans, which originated under the previous government but have the full backing of David Cameron, the IEA dismissed the scheme as a “political vanity project” that will require a contribution of £1,000 per taxpayer. The report’s co-author, Dr Richard Wellings, said the project was a “recipe for disaster”. Drawing comparisons with Concorde and the Millennium Dome, he said: “Its environmental credentials are questionable, its projected passenger figures suspect, and its proposed regenerative effects highly dubious. Proceeding with HS2 plans is a recipe for disaster and, as always, it will be the forever-embattled British taxpayer who will end up footing the bill for this latest white elephant.” According to the government, the west coast mainline will be overwhelmed by passenger demand if HS2 is not built. Its high-speed rail consultation forecasts that the line between London and Manchester will produce passenger growth of 60% by 2024, while demand on the east coast and midland mainline will increase by 70% over the next three decades. The Campaign for High Speed Rail group said the IEA research was weak. Referring to the £1,000 claim, the group said: “This is a massively misleading oversimplification because it doesn’t take into account the significant financial returns that will be generated from an investment in high-speed rail.” The government estimates that HS2 will generate net economic returns of £44bn. Rail transport Transport Transport policy Dan Milmo guardian.co.uk
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Stepping Hill hospital chief executive speaks of staff shock over revelations of saline being contaminated with insulin The chief executive of a hospital where police are investigating the deaths of three patients spoke of the staff’s shock over revelations of saline contamination, as a fourth patient fell ill. Chris Burke, chief executive of Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, told a press conference at Stepping Hill hospital that “malicious intent” was behind the deaths. The critically ill patient, a man in his 40s, now forms part of the police investigation at the hospital in Hazel Grove, Stockport. Burke said: “Our staff are shocked, horrified and angry at what’s happened. They are alarmed that a place that should be for care has become a crime scene. “This is a criminal act, perpetrated by someone with malicious intent. We do not believe it could have been anticipated. “This is a bad person doing a malevolent thing. This is about someone wanting to inflict harm, pain and, possibly further, as a deliberate malicious act. That is nothing to do with care.” Three people have died at the hospital after a batch of saline was deliberately injected with insulin. Police were called a week ago after an experienced nurse realised that a large number of patients had had a sudden, unexpected drop in blood sugar levels. The critically ill patient is one of 14 people on wards A1 and A3 who have been affected after the saboteur tampered with 36 ampoules of saline in a store room. In a statement, Greater Manchester police said: “A fourth person is currently critically ill after suffering low blood sugar levels. Their family are also being provided with support by specially trained officers.” The three patients who died – Tracey Arden, 44, George Keep, 84, and Arnold Lancaster, 71, – had all been given the contaminated saline but investigators still do not know for certain that this was the cause of their deaths. A fifth patient who was affected by the tainted saline – a woman who became seriously ill and suffered a seizure – is recovering. But officers on Tuesday ruled out any quick arrests and described their work as a “complex investigation” with 60 detectives focusing on people who either work at or visit the site in Stockport. Police said they could not rule out the possibility that the person responsible was at the hospital. Detectives believe the insulin was deliberately injected into the saline containers that were used in drips by at least two wards, but they say the deaths remain unexplained as they await postmortem examination results. The inquests for the three dead patients were briefly opened and adjourned to a later date by South Manchester coroner John Pollard. Crime NHS Health Helen Carter guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Liberal Celebrities, Radio Hosts Make Baseless Jokes and Accusations That Marcus Bachmann Is Gayer Than Richard Simmons
July 19, 2011 No Comment
The gay blog On Top reported that “comedian” Janeane Garofalo is the latest in a string of celebrities and activists suggesting Michele Bachmann’s therapist husband Marcus must be gay, including Cher, Jon Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld, and sex columnist/”It Gets Better” bully Dan Savage. Cher even said she wanted to strangle him. This Marcus-is-gay line has also been a regular trope of liberal talk radio, from openly gay Stephanie Miller to Randi Rhodes to even Ron “Junior” Reagan, who knows something on this subject of aspersions from his ballet-dancing days. On Saturday’s July 16 edition of the radio show Both Sides Now with Huffington and Matalin , Reagan was sitting in Arianna’s left-wing chair and disparaged the Bachmanns:
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There’s a big difference between an author’s best-known work, and their best Why is it that the book for which an author is best known is rarely their best? If history is the final judge of literary achievement, why has a title like Louis de Bernières’ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin risen to the top, overshadowing his much better earlier novels such as Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord ? It’s not, I hope, the simple snobbery of insisting that the most popular can’t be the finest. (After all, who would dispute that Middlemarch is George Eliot’s peak? … You would? Great, there’s a space for you in the comments below.) If someone reads Kurt Vonnegut’s most famous book, Slaughterhouse-Five, and doesn’t like it, I’ll want to shout to them, “But it’s rubbish! Cat’s Cradle is much better ! That’s the one you want to read!” It’s not just me, I’m sure. Geoff Dyer takes the view that it is John Cheever’s journals , not his stories, which represent his ” greatest achievement, his principal claim to literary survival”. Gabriel Josipovici says that it is not Kafka’s The Trial or “Metamorphosis” – not any of his novels or stories – which “form [his] most sustained meditation on life and death, good and evil, and the role of art”, but his aphorisms . So here I am going to list a few instances of a writer being famous for the wrong book, and my suggestions for where their greatest achievement really lies. Below, you can make your own suggestions (someone, please tell me I’ve just been reading the wrong Peter Carey or Emily Brontë), or let me know just how misguided I am. Joseph Heller Catch-22 is too long, messy and takes 100 pages to get going. Heller’s second novel, Something Happened , took even longer to write and justified the time. From its opening line (“I get the willies when I see closed doors”), it is a supremely controlled and meticulous masterpiece, grounded in the horror of daily living. The first time I read it I was overwhelmed. The second time I thought it was hilarious. The third time – getting closer to the age of the horribly honest narrator Bob Slocum – it was terrifying. It’s the book that keeps on giving. Kazuo Ishiguro Hard to say exactly which book is his most famous these days. Is it, bafflingly, the inchoate Never Let Me Go, probably his weakest novel? Or the reliable The Remains of the Day, a lovely book to be sure, but really just a refinement of his first two novels? The big one, surely, is The Unconsoled , his bold and brilliant epic of one man’s anxiety, via family expectations, dream-logic, and growing up and growing old. It has always been a controversial novel, to be sure: one writer recently called it “unreadable”, while another said it was “one of the few readable English novels of the 1990s”. Still, when The Unconsoled was featured on Late Review (as it then was) on publication in 1995, Tony Parsons called for copies of it to be burned. What greater recommendation do you need? Evelyn Waugh In the preface to Brideshead Revisited, written 15 years after its first publication, Waugh comments that the book was written in the “privation” of wartime, and that “in consequence the book is infused with a kind of gluttony, for food and wine, for the splendours of the recent past, and for rhetorical and ornamental language which now, with a full stomach, I find distasteful.” Quite so. Waugh’s strength is as a humorist, the blacker the better, and so A Handful of Dust must be his best work. This is the novel which, in a pivotal scene nobody will forget (“Oh thank God”), taught me what Isaac Babel meant when he said that no iron can pierce the heart with the force of a full stop put at just the right place. Jeanette Winterson Heaven knows Jeanette Winterson has had her literary ups and downs – Gut Symmetries or The PowerBook, anyone? No, didn’t think so – but she’s always an interesting writer in an age when a willingness to experiment is rarely welcomed. It’s sad then that her most famous work remains her only mildly ambitious debut, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Despite the fairytale insertions and Winterson’s revisionist application of a “spiral narrative” to it, it’s a straightforward and warm autobiographical novel. For me her finest work – before those “difficult” but still rewarding mid-period novels – is Sexing the Cherry . Written at the disgustingly young age of 29, it’s funny, lyrical, clever and surprising, features the massive and memorable Dog Woman, and not incidentally, is very short. John Wyndham The Day of the Triffids is a fine book, albeit tethered unfortunately both to its times (the Commies did it) and a credulity-stretching premise (to make walking plants dangerous, Wyndham had to blind almost everyone on earth). But Wyndham’s reputation, coined by Brian Aldiss, as a purveyor of “cosy catastrophes” , is unjustified. His masterpiece is The Chrysalids , a tale of religious extremism and social otherness, but most of his novels feel like landmarks of speculative fiction: the creepy kids in The Midwich Cuckoos (famous as its film adaptation Village of the Damned ); media and society’s responses to disaster in The Kraken Wakes; obsession with youth and beauty in Trouble With Lichen. When I raised this subject on Twitter, other suggestions were: * Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy over Brave New World * Salman Rushdie: Haroun and the Sea of Stories over Midnight’s Children * William Golding: The Spire over Lord of the Flies * Gustave Flaubert: Sentimental Education over Madame Bovary * James Kelman: A Disaffection over How Late It Was, How Late Now, who could argue with any of that? Fiction Joseph Heller Kazuo Ishiguro Jeanette Winterson Kurt Vonnegut Evelyn Waugh John Wyndham John Self guardian.co.uk
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