Re: “Supreme misleader”, TNW #474
I looked at your cover once, twice and three times before I worked out what you had done. It’s deeply disturbing (and brilliant).
What the hell are you trying to do, give us all even worse nightmares?
Martin Griffiths
Re: “Bombing for the bloodline” by Matthew d’Ancona, TNW #474
Most of the commentaries of Trump’s behaviour that I have seen focus on the lack of strategy or the short-term headline-grabbing behaviour of someone obsessed by his need to be in the news, and on the incoherence of his behaviour. This article offers a cogent explanation of his actions and behaviours. They are anti-democratic, corrupt and obscene, but this article demonstrates a clear coherence.
But Trump as “the apex of American polity” is not just about Trump. It is the apex of a structure that has been built since the 1960s, when the ultra-rich, far right began to organise to restructure American politics so that it operated in their interests. The development is clearly documented by Jane Mayer in her 2016 book Dark Money.
Arguably our efforts should not be concentrated just on Trump but on the whole framework of anti-democratic actions such that the whole edifice is taken apart brick by brick, until it crumbles.
Richard Hartley
Re: “The quislings of the right have abandoned patriotism” by Paul Mason, TNW #474
Paul Mason reports: “The Mail called Keir Starmer ‘desperate and deluded’.”
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Michael Day
I suspect I wasn’t the only reader to choke on their cornflakes when seeing Paul Mason’s article illustrated by a photo of Kemi Badenoch pointing an automatic weapon at a British soldier. As every gun owner will say, outside of conflict one never, ever points a firearm at anyone, supposedly unloaded or not. And certainly not in the sloppy pursuit of a photo opportunity!
Bob Hale
Portishead
Re: Alastair Campbell’s Diary on Iran (TNW #474)
Alastair refers to Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage being in favour of the UK supporting the US and Israel in the war against Iran, but omits to mention that Tony Blair also berated our government. Was this a typing error?
Rose-Marie Adams
Greater London
It’s easier to understand the position of Farage and Badenoch, as they saw an opportunity to pile pressure on Keir Starmer, and they are both idiots. Presumably Blair chimed in with his two penn’orth because he actually believed that Starmer was in the wrong.
Mark Blagden
Re: “Before it all went wrong” by Ros Taylor, TNW #474
Ros Taylor refers to “Blair’s warning that ‘we don’t do God”’. Surely the person who actually said that was one of your columnists?
Nick Langley
Cambridge, Cambs
Suggested Reading
The moral sewer of Louis Theroux’s Manosphere
Re: ‘The moral sewer of the manosphere” by Ros Taylor, TNW #474
The women who go along with the degrading rubbish spouted by the arrogant men in Louis Theroux’s new series – and who can bear to have ANY kind of relationship with them – must be indoctrinated, or abused, or see some way of exploiting their own degradation.
And these men of the “manosphere” aren’t nearly as highly regarded by most people as they seem to imagine. Speaking as a woman at home with the visual arts, I have always found the musclebound naked men of Michelangelo quite repulsive. I find the vaunted physique of these men equally repulsive: in line with their disgusting views of women as objects.
I think it takes women who already feel worthless – constantly reinforced in any relationship with these men – to tolerate being anywhere near them. And women too scared to try to escape their coercive control.
Gabrielle Mills
Re: Letters (TNW #474)
Nine of the published letters this week are from men, only one from a woman. The dominance of men on the letters page may be a blip, it may be that mainly men write in, or it may be that there is some unconscious bias in whoever selects the letters. Or maybe the majority of your readers are men. I don’t know. I hope you will take this constructive criticism in the spirit it is intended and widen your perspective to include more women at all levels.
Dr Pennie Roberts
Hayfield, Derbyshire
[Editor’s note: When compiling this page, we always prioritise emails and comments from women. More, please!]
Re: Marie Le Conte “on smug Dubai ‘expats’”, TNW #474
It’s not the fault of Brits in Dubai that war has broken out, but maybe, having avoided all that HMRC tax, they should pay for their own repatriation flights?
Isabel Radage
A friend visited Dubai on business and I asked him how he liked it. He replied: “You know how you can always tell what people are like by how they treat the staff in a restaurant?” I nodded. “I’m never going back to Dubai,” he said.
Steve Henry
I recommend the episode of The Rest is Entertainment podcast on Dubai influencers. I had no idea they’re hired and groomed by the government. They promote “free market entre-preneurism” while being totally subsidised by the state and paying no taxes anywhere. You really couldn’t make it up.
Leona Merclova
This article demonstrates a simplistic approach and attitude. I had to move to Dubai for a few years to set up a division of our business, which ultimately became our biggest turnover operation, leading to local recruitment but also enlarging our UK design office to cope with demand. I shuttled between the Middle East and the UK, nominally living in Dubai (which you seem to judge from a tourist perspective).
It was painfully hot in summer, and the hours were very long. I knew many locals in the Gulf states, all proud of their countries, humble and kind. Does this mean I’m not entitled to protection? Would your attitude change if you knew that I still had a sizeable part of my taxed salary paid in the UK? Is there a spectrum of UK expats?
Mike Harrison
Re: Rats In A Sack on the Telegraph takeover, TNW #474
I’m loving the idea of the increasingly bonkers Telegraph and the hysterical Allister Heath being taken over by, horror of horrors, the Germans they so fear and hate. Donner und Blitzen und Gott in Himmel, where will it all end?
Alexander Blackburn
Re: Rats In A Sack on GBNews, TNW #474
Shouldn’t the extreme right “news channel” take a leaf out of Len Deighton’s book and rebrand itself SSGBNews?
Paul Nugent
BELOW THE LINE
Re: “Badenoch’s far right rhetoric” by Patience Wheatcroft (TNW #474)
Soon after Kemi Badenoch first became my MP, I wrote to her with (what seemed to me) a legitimate request, and got a very rude, dismissive reply that amounted to “I don’t know why you’re wasting my time with this”.
I don’t think Badenoch has any concept of what “being nice” is, or why anyone would want to.
David Monksfield
Badenoch has been having a high old time at PMQs (until last week), but that is about it. A total sell-out to Trump, just like Farage but actually worse, since she should know better. The voters loathe her. Keep going, Kemi.
John Price
Re: Puzzles (TNW #474)
I had a frisson of pleasure on decoding clue 11 across in this week’s Cryptic Crossword: “Unhappy with record on temporary accommodation (10)”… neat, but for me an old joke. Some years ago I was at a fancy dress party with a winter theme. I constructed a miniature pup tent of cardboard and attached it to a cap on my head. On the tent roof, I fixed a CD. I went to the party as “Now is the Winter of our Discontent”.
What goes around comes around…
Peter Kennedy
