Backing a winner
Julian Baggini is right to identify both solidarity and self-interest in western assistance to Ukraine, but the difference between these two has never been clear cut, and is even less so now.
No state providing military aid to Ukraine has publicly disputed the country’s right to territorial integrity. But, of course, there is a difference between official policy and policy in practice. It was clear for years before 2022 that western states were prepared to live with de facto Russian control over sections of Ukrainian territory.
The start of the 2022 invasion reshaped that conversation, and events since late August seem to have changed it dramatically. Russian aggression, which poses the most significant state-level threat to European security since the end of the Cold War, cannot be checked without defeat in Ukraine. Many, though certainly not all, Nato and EU states recognise this. In showing that its armed forces are capable of very significant military victories, and at the same time exposing the weakness and incompetence of the Russian military, Ukraine has put recovery of its territory through military means back on the table and given western states a strong incentive to support such an outcome.
This is one reason why pressure on Ukraine to negotiate has been limited. Putin’s desperate attempt at nuclear blackmail and the emerging disaster of Russian troop mobilisation underscore his failure to shape the outcome of the war, making concessions even less probable.
The difficulty for Putin of negotiating from a position of weakness, and Russia’s failure to honour past treaties with Ukraine, mean that no meaningful talks on ending the war are currently likely. Thankfully, if Ukraine extends its military success further, the solidarity and self-interest behind western support will remain mutually reinforcing.
Ruth Deyermond, King’s College London
Conflict of rights
Rowan Moore argues that gender-critical feminists have presented their arguments in an unbalanced way in the liberal press, to the detriment of trans people. Those of us who believe biological sex cannot be replaced with the concept of gender identity in law and society have, he claims, polarised the debate. One of the few examples that he offers is an Observer column on the case Miller v College of Policing that I wrote in January.
In this piece, I welcomed a judge’s ruling that it is unlawful for a police officer to warn an individual off exercising their right to free expression simply because they have tweeted something offensive. Moore accuses me of omitting “crucial detail” because I did not quote at length what Harry Miller shared on social media. But—despite my drawing his attention to this when he put the point to me before publication—Moore fails to acknowledge that I quoted the judge’s remarks on the profanity of Miller’s comments. Perhaps Moore thinks Miller’s words justified the police action, which would be a strange position for a journalist.
That Moore misrepresents me to stand up his argument reflects the overwhelming lack of balance in his piece. I agree the debate over the conflict between sex- and gender-identity-based rights is too polarised. But Moore fails to acknowledge his own part in this—he has himself made inaccurate claims about children’s healthcare and gender-critical feminists—and the role of charities like Stonewall, which has stifled dissent from those who disagree with their absolutist position by wrongly tarring them as transphobic.
Misrepresenting people who disagree with you is not the way to depolarise a conversation, or to have a fair discussion about what the courts have recognised as a conflict of rights.
Sonia Sodha, Observer columnist and member of the Prospect editorial board
Leading Labour
I entirely agree with Andrew Adonis’s interpretation of Harold Wilson’s career. Wilson was probably the last British prime minister who made a serious attempt to preserve the balance of British society and economy. Further, as Adonis notes, he ensured that the great social reforms of the 1960s successfully made their way through parliament. Had the general tendency of his government’s policies, especially on state spending, been preserved, we would not be in the mess (see the NHS) we are in now.
Yet there remain problems about Wilson’s career that we need to acknowledge. He did indeed win four of the five general elections he fought as Labour leader, but only one of those convincingly. In the 1970 election he lost the gains made since 1964. Why? One reason is that the kind of social democratic planning that Wilson favoured, typified by the National Plan, had clearly failed and he did not have much to put in its place. Equally, Wilson’s determination to preserve the value of the pound by traditional deflationary measures, even though public spending was protected, knocked the stuffing out of his technocratic, modernising rhetoric. The government never regained the electoral initiative. Labour lost an election which Wilson expected to win. He did, indeed, “win” two more elections in 1974, but the tiny majority in the second of these soon disappeared.
Adonis is critical of Wilson for using a referendum to confirm the country’s membership of the European Economic Community. I agree absolutely that, in principle, referendums should not be used in representative parliamentary systems, but that was the only way Wilson could secure Labour’s acceptance of the EEC; and he did at least make sure he won his referendum.
Keir Starmer faces a very different political and ideological environment. There are, nonetheless, problems Wilson would recognise: how far Labour should respect the result of the 2016 referendum; what weight to give the interpretation of the Treasury and the Bank of England; and then there is the question of how to manage the party’s membership, especially the left, something Wilson failed to do successfully in the end.
Ross McKibbin, emeritus fellow of St John’s College, Oxford
Seeking salvation
Thank you, Alice Goodman, for writing such a sad, beautiful piece. You are not on your own in feeling this way; reading it brought me the comfort of knowing that I wasn’t alone either. It is so surreal to have to be the voice of sanity carrying out one role, while your own fears and despair simmer gently (and sometimes not so gently) in the background, sneaking out at inopportune moments.
I imagine this piece was difficult to compose, and even harder to share, but thank you again for doing it. Sometimes, I think it is only by finding solace in our shared suffering that any of this makes any sort of sense.
Verity, via the website
Thank you to Alice Goodman; I’m a priest who retired early because of burnout, and I live with the heartache of losing my father to suicide a few days after I’d been so cross with him and despaired of him. I was 17 at the time, and all I can say is that it’s Christ’s unfailing love that helps me carry that regret every day. Through Christ’s cross I have a sense of my father having forgiven me, as I have forgiven him.
VickyGoodman, via the website
At the end of the 1980s I was a Cambridge student who ended up at Fulbourn Hospital following an overdose. I’d suffered depression since I was 12 or 13. Mental ill-health in young people is recognised now; it wasn’t then, and sadly I never received proper help until many years later.
Alice Goodman’s article has brought back many painful memories, but I am also happy to report that I am now a thriving parish priest.
Sarah, via the website
Value judgements
The distinction between risk and true (radical) uncertainty is not clear cut. Bill Emmott argues that risks are things that we can calculate while true uncertainty is something we cannot calculate at all.
However, between these extremes, there are many cases in which probabilities can still be estimated statistically. The resulting estimates are sometimes wrong: as former trader and risk expert Nassim Nicholas Taleb pointed out, inappropriate assumptions led to the chances of a financial crash being underestimated in 2008. On the other hand, estimates may often be useful: models of our chaotic weather system are used to produce probabilistic forecasts. This process is not without problems—different models produce different probabilities—but these forecasts, especially short-term ones, have become increasingly useful.
Probabilities can also be estimated using judgement. The Good Judgement Project, run by academics Philip Tetlock and Barbara Mellers, deals with people’s abilities to make probabilistic forecasts for geopolitical events (such as “shots will be fired between China and Taiwan this year”). This work showed that a few people with certain psychological characteristics (“superforecasters”) can do this well.
In their book on radical uncertainty, John Kay and Mervyn King reject statistical and judgemental probability estimation. They argue that, instead, we should use scenario planning to build up resilience against all reasonable eventualities. But developing resilience to all reasonable eventualities is much more expensive than preparing just for the most likely ones. Both the statistical and judgemental approaches are likely to continue to be used, with the choice between them depending on their relative costs and benefits in given circumstances.
Nigel Harvey, professor of judgement anddecision research, UCL
Price of forgiveness
The idea that Johnson should be forgiven is utter nonsense. After how he has behaved in the office of prime minister he should become a political pariah for the rest of his life. His apology and “taking full responsibility for” the things that happened during his time in office are meaningless—they are nothing but a way to let him continue more or less as he has always done.
So-called Christian politicians should remember the injunction about rendering unto Caesar, that is respect for the law. Johnson has not yet been brought properly to account for his breaches of law and ethics. When that has happened, then we can talk about forgiveness.
Iain Noble, via the website
Balletic bequest
Rupert Christiansen describes the failure of Diaghilev’s many imitators. He cites “Lincoln Kirstein, an introverted intellectual with a trust fund who took Diaghilev’s ideas to the US… the effete Marquis de Cuevas, who married a scion of the Rockefeller dynasty in order to finance his fantastically extravagant balletic circus; and many others, all of whom would founder.” He forgot René Blum at the Ballet de l’Opéra de Monte Carlo, who was later murdered in the Holocaust.
A case can certainly be made for the legacy of Diaghilev and his company in the seeds of brilliance planted around the world by his dancers. The School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet, which Lincoln Kirstein co-founded, are continuing some 88 years and 74 years respectively after their establishment.
However, in terms of actual works that emerged from Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, in our century it is only two of the ballets that Balanchine made, one that Nijinsky made, and two that Nijinska made that survive in any viable condition as useful repertory. The Diaghilev-commissioned Fokine and Massine repertories are, for one reason or another, not performed today, apart from special occasions or galas. And the scenic and costume designs are either in museums or were long ago consigned to dustbins.
Perhaps the great living legacy of Diaghilev is the collection of musical scores he commissioned, which symphony orchestras desire to play today independent of their staging.
Mindy Aloff, via the website
Riding rail
I do miss British Rail. Heavy trunks could be collected from your home and transported to your destination, inexpensively and without fuss. It was almost always possible to travel with a bicycle, for free. Wonderful knowledgeable staff, always someone available to help. Manned ticket offices, and clean public toilets everywhere that were actually open. Ticket pricing was straightforward. And I miss the buffet cars, especially after the introduction of the BLT sandwich. Happy days.
Yes, there was a problem sometimes with timetabling and breakdowns—but that was due to underinvestment, not the fault of the railway.
Inkspot, via the website
Medical prospects
In the radiology waiting room at County Hospital, Hereford are two gents waiting for treatment for prostate cancer, and one lady (I didn’t like to ask). I notice that the lady is reading the hot-off-the-press October issue of Prospect magazine, which I too have just received. So I exclaim: “Oh, you’re reading Prospect magazine!”
One of the gents mishears, and thinks she is reading the little-known “Prostate” magazine. Hilarity ensues.
Take pleasure in small things.
Jim Saunders, Knighton, Powys
In fact:
Forty-four per cent of Britons say there are no circumstances in which they would be willing to take up arms and go to war.
YouGov, 21st September 2022
Liz Truss took 12 years to go from new MP to prime minister. In the last half century, David Cameron had the quickest journey (nine years); James Callaghan the slowest (31 years).
Independent, 5th September 2022
On current trends, by the year’s end China—with 20 per cent of the world’s population—will have stockpiled 65 per cent of the world’s corn and 53 per cent of the wheat.
Nikkei Asia, 31st August 2022
Out of 552 Republican nominees running for office in the November midterms (House, Senate and others), 201 have fully denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
FiveThirtyEight, 25th September 2022
Samuel Beckett is the only Nobel prize-winning author to feature as a first-class player in the cricketing bible Wisden.
Financial Times, 9th September 2022
Qatar has the highest male-to-female ratio in the world (266 males per 100 females); Armenia has the highest female-to-male ratio (82 males per 100 females).
Pew Research Center, 31st August 2022
Texas’s college system makes about $6m a day from its holdings in the US’s largest oil field; its endowment (last valued at $42.9bn) may soon overtake Harvard University’s ($53.2bn) as the wealthiest in US higher education.
Bloomberg, 22nd August 2022
Old-style printsetters stored their letters in a wooden case. Capitalised letters were kept in the top portion and the rest in the bottom—hence the terms upper
and lower case.
The Millions, 24th August 2022
There are around 1,500 potentially active volcanoes around the world, about 500 of which have previously erupted.
Knowable, 9th September 2022
