BETRAYED BY THE ONE I LOVE
23rd February 2003
I feel let down, betrayed even. I loved Prospect because it refused to tell me what to think. I could have read with interest the piece by Mears-heimer and Walt (March)-even though I reject their arguments-had they not been given editorial support.
John Yates
Ashbourne, Derbyshire
SPACE EXPLORATION
9th March 2003
While I agree with Ian Crawford (March) that the exploration of the solar system should continue in person as well as by proxy, some of his arguments seem a little tendentious. The scientific gains achieved by mending the Hubble with the shuttle have to be judged against the fact that you could buy a couple of Hubbles a year with the shuttle budget and still have a lot of small change. The argument that countries need to support their aerospace industries is debatable, and the idea that if supported through the purchase of spacecraft they produce less weaponry is silly. The companies that receive the largest sums from human spaceflight, Boeing and Lockheed, are also the largest arms producers in the world. They are not turning down armaments work because of the space stuff that they do, and they never would.
The argument that space exploration provides a focus for international co-operation is at best unproven. International co-operation has not stopped the International Space Station's development from being a tangled mess. Indeed it has exacerbated the situation; if it had not been necessary to find jobs for everyone concerned, a more feasible design might well have been preferred.
Oliver Morton
London SE10
EU'S DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT
25th February 2003
Andrew Moravcsik (March) is right to suggest that the EU's problem is not so much democratic legitimacy, but legitimacy per se. Citizens question the democratic credentials of, say, France or Britain, but rarely their legitimacy. The same is not true of the EU. Moreover, in a nation state, even one with proportional representation, citizens have the ultimate power of "slinging the rascals out." That power is greatly diluted in a multinational institution. The EU is simply too big, too strange, too complex and too far away to work as a satisfactory democracy.
Nor will it do to say that the EU deals with few "salient" domestic policies. Having been an MEP for five years, I see first hand the effect that misguided attempts at harmonisation can have. Credit unions in Britain are a young and fragile part of the financial services sector, serving people on low incomes. They are supported by all the British banks, as well as public grants, and are seen as a key means of reaching those neglected by other financial institutions. Now rules on state aids threaten their funding, and the new draft consumer credit directive will, if passed, impose on them so much bureaucracy that many may be forced to close.
We will fight these proposals and will receive support in the European parliament and from the British and Irish governments in the council of ministers. I hope that the EU will prove responsive. But it would be preferable if the commission reverted to its previous stated intention of "doing less, better," so we did not have to fight the battle in the first place.
Shaun Spiers
Assoc of British Credit Unions
defending the hours
26th February 2003
Mark Cousins (March) raises interesting issues in his exploration of the relative techniques of expression used in film and literature. However, on Stephen Daldry's film of Michael Cunningham's novel The Hours I think he misses an important point. In the book Virginia Woolf lowers her head into a washbasin and is afraid to look up and face herself in the mirror. Daldry's film cuts from Virginia (Nicole Kidman) to Clarissa (Meryl Streep) facing herself in the mirror. Mark Cousins comments, "This is getting carried away." But it captures a major theme of both the book and the film. Virginia, descending into madness, cannot face life any more. Clarissa, with her former lover and friend dying of Aids, can face life and indeed uses this tragedy as a life-affirming elixir. This theme is evoked in the book by juxtaposing the thought patterns of Virginia and Clarissa in different chapters. Daldry does not have this means available to him but his mirror metaphor serves the same function.
Henry Hubball
Redditch, Worcs
IMMIGRATION IN BRITAIN 1
26th February 2003
Nicholas Hildyard (March) found the publication of Bob Rowthorn's essay on immigration "deeply regrettable" and tells us that as a Prospect director he wishes to disassociate himself from Rowthorn's views. This suggests an illiberal attitude. Why does he imagine that anyone else would think that all Prospect board members agree with the views of Prospect authors? I have been a member of Prospect's advisory board from the beginning, but it has never occurred to me to suppose that I was associating myself with the views expressed by authors. I often disagree, but the whole point of Prospect is to help settle differences by discussion. To do so involves accepting that we might just learn from our opponents. As a result, views of all types should be published and subjected to critical debate.
Hildyard calls for "cool heads and sober analysis" but then uses extreme language. Rowthorn is associated with "racist politics" and the BNP. He is accused of not being "straight" with statistics and of a "slanted" approach to economic migrants. Rowthorn's article is "riddled with inaccuracies" but the one alleged error is not incorrect at all-the Metropolitan Police did offer an alternative cap badge to a Muslim traffic warden who was taking them to an employment tribunal to argue that wearing the Christian cross amounted to racial discrimination. (He withdrew his case and the police later backtracked, but the offer was made.)
Prospect has become one of the pillars of a genuine liberalism, based on the idea that what is true and good is found not in a sacred text, or the pronouncements of the authorities, but in public debate, openness to contra-diction, and self-criticism. Hildyard's view owes more to a kind of tribalism that demands loyalty than to the mutual respect and awareness of human limitations which are the hallmarks of liberty.
David G Green
Civitas, London SE1
IMMIGRATION IN BRITAIN 2
28th February 2003
Nicholas Hildyard's over-reaction to Bob Rowthorn's arguments on immigration is all too typical of a view that damages not only the efforts of the home office to manage migration into Britain but also the welfare of genuine refugees. Hildyard claims, without evidence, that the vast majority of asylum seekers in Britain want to return home as soon as they can. I know from my own experience that this is not the case. Many people who have nothing to fear from returning home (other than the lack of a welfare state) cling on as long as they can, making absurd and unfounded claims.
Contrary to what Hildyard asserts, many asylum seekers are "in it for the money." The window of my office overlooks the queue to claim asylum in the UK, once people are already here. It used to be at least 50 people long all day every day, most of whom had obtained illegal entry from that terrible tyranny-France. Then, when the Restriction of Access to NASS Support (Rans) was introduced, there was a surge the day before it began and then for the two weeks it ran the queue was almost non-existent. Since the Rans policy was called into question in the High Court the queue has sprung back up from almost zero to the usual few hundred a day.
For the record, I am British, and my ethnicity is extremely mixed. I have relatives all over the world and my skin colour is like that of a nice cup of tea.
Isabel Rance
Bookham, Surrey
IMMIGRATION IN BRITAIN 3
3rd March 2003
My article on immigration (February) provoked a variety of responses. Those published in last month's Prospect were all negative, although I also received many positive comments from people of diverse nationalities and ethnicities.
Some of my critics are simply unable to read what I say. Imran Ahmed says in his letter that I "claim that many immigrants are economic leeches." I cannot see how anyone can draw such a conclusion; I went out of my way to say just the opposite. Ahmed claims that many of the national symbols that I refer to, such as the monarchy, have been abandoned by this country's youth-both indigenous and immigrant. This is an exaggeration, but there is some truth in it. He also supports my contention that many British children are ignorant of their history. Ahmed may regard this with satisfaction but I think it bodes ill for the future. However, I am glad to see that he describes himself as a proud Briton. If he were white and said that he would risk being accused of racism.
Nicholas Hildyard's response to my piece is both insulting and tendentious. He says that my projections regarding the future composition of the population assume that 100 per cent of the people who come to Britain remain here. In fact, these projections are based on net immigration-the excess of migrant inflows over outflows. His claim is therefore wrong. Hildyard also warns me that "freedom of expression carries with it a duty to be responsible." By this I assume he means that views he finds offensive should be suppressed and inconvenient facts ignored. Such an attitude is only too common amongst so-called liberals. It explains why the national curriculum and other official documents are saturated with half-truths and banalities about immigration and the benefits of diversity. It also explains why David Blunkett has caused such outrage by speaking his mind on the asylum issue.
My friend Chris Prendergast disputes my claim that immigration has little permanent effect on the national age structure. In reply I would cite a recent article by Chris Shaw of the government actuary's department (Population Trends, Autumn 2002). This reports official projections for the future UK population under various assumptions. The "principal" projection assumes that net immigration continues at roughly the present rate. Under this scenario, the total population increases by 5.7m over the next 50 years, and the proportion of this population who are aged 65 and over rises from 15.6 per cent in 2000 to 24.3 per cent in 2050. The article also reports a "natural change only" projection that assumes zero net migration. Under this scenario, the population of the UK falls by 4.7m over the next 50 years, and the proportion aged 65 and over rises to 27.0 per cent. Comparing the two scenarios, we find that immigration on the present scale leads to a population in 2050 that is 10.4m larger than in the case of zero net migration. The proportions of people aged 65 and over are virtually the same in the two scenarios. Thus immigration on the scale envisaged by the government will lead to a much larger population than under zero net migration, but will do little to slow the ageing of the population. This backs my claim that immigration is not an effective means of national rejuvenation.
Bob Rowthorn
Cambridge University
