Mutter it not in the Midlands Labour marginals, but some foreign office officials believe that China scuppered the Rover deal as revenge for Britain's role in blocking the EU plan to lift the arms embargo on China. When the US objected to the lifting, Britain and some other EU states agreed to leave it in place, angering France and Germany (as well as China). With Britain next in the EU presidency the issue won't now return until 2006. Critics say the original deal shows the EU's naivety: it won no trade or political concessions from China in return.
The battle for the Fed
Alan Greenspan's retirement date as head of the Federal Reserve is still nine months away, but the battle for the succession is getting vicious. A whispering campaign has begun against the most eminent candidate, Harvard professor Marty Feldstein, because influential folk in the White House say he is "not a good listener"—by which they mean he might not be amenable to political pleading. This is important because of growing fears that steady rises in interest rates could trigger a collapse of the property bubble that would make Republicans vulnerable in the mid-term elections, and might even put a Democrat back into the White House in 2008. Bush wants a Fed chairman who will understand the political implications of monetary policy. So the chances are rising that he will nominate Glenn Hubbard, 43, dean of Columbia Business School and former chairman of the council of economic advisers (CEA). Hubbard, who has penned some suitably servile op-eds on the marvels of Bush's plans to privatise social security, fears that his main rival is likely to be the new head of Bush's CEA, Ben Bernanke, 51, who is already a governor of the Fed. But Bernanke believes in setting inflation targets and letting the markets know what they are—a position that Greenspan opposes.
How successful was the Pope?
Pope John Paul II's death sent pilgrims rushing to Rome and unleashed a flash flood of words about his papacy. Amid the cacophony, one voice stood out. Writing in the New Republic, the disaffected Catholic Andrew Sullivan asked how we should measure the papacy of John Paul II: "Did he succeed? If, by success, we mean the maintenance of the truth in the face of error, then only God knows. If, by success, we mean asserting the truths of Christianity against the lies of communism, then the answer is an unequivocal yes. But if, by success, we mean winning the argument against secular democracy in the west, the answer must be no. This European Pope oversaw an unprecedented collapse of the church in its European heartland. Under his papacy, vocations for the priesthood barely kept up with population in the developing world and simply collapsed in the west. Protestantism boomed in South America. Mass attendance in North America fell, along with donations. And the quality of the priesthood went from mediocre to terrible. If you judge a successful leader by the calibre of men he inspires to follow him, then the judgement on John Paul II is damning."
Minor media
The Jewish Chronicle is on the brink of appointing a new editor to replace the retiring Ned Temko. It tried to attract David Aaronovitch, who politely turned it down, saying he wasn't sure if he felt Jewish enough (and that Jews were too rude, anyway). Elsewhere, Isabel Hilton has taken the helm at Open Democracy (opendemocracy.net), the leftish internet magazine started by Anthony Barnett. OD has been struggling to maintain its early momentum of late and recently had to slim down its editorial team.
Poll thieves
Australia's prestigious daily newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald recently hit upon a brilliant idea: publish a list of the country's top 100 public intellectuals and then get readers to choose their top five. The list was topped by political scientist Robert Manne, ahead of Peter Singer and Germaine Greer. By an extraordinary coincidence, Greer finished second in another poll of public intellectuals held last year—the Prospect top 100 intellectuals poll, which the SMH forgot to mention.
Kicking Antony Sher
Why did the critics savage Antony Sher's book, Primo Time, about adapting Primo Levi's memoir If This Is A Man for the stage? The critics were the two biographers—Ian Thomson and Carole Angier—who themselves had a hard time of it from critics. Angier, whose The Double Bond: Primo Levi came off worst in 2002, accused Sher of vulgar appropriation of the life, though she did point out that his interpretation was based on her thesis that Levi's depression began before Auschwitz.
