A curious thing has happened. Suddenly and, so far as I can tell, without any provocation from me I have begun to receive the Spectator at home.
I never asked for it, I haven’t paid for it and I am curious as to how this all came about.
Just when did I become part of the Spectator’s target audience? Is it something I did or said, some sin I committed? Or is a canny trick on their part to drive up their circulation figures?
Anyway I’ve put the ones I’ve received into my downstairs loo between my collection of Asterix, a Private Eye annual and a copy of Bollocks to Alton Towers. It’s something for the visiting reactionary to read – if he’s ever invited again.
Now, I’d like to apologise to my readers for my brief absence last week. I was in west Wales introducing my three-month-old daughter to the homeland.
Donald Dewar used to like to say that travel narrowed the mind and while not wholly subscribing to that point of view – give or take the average gap year student – there is a lot to be said for holidaying in the British isles.
We were lucky too with the weather and the scenery around Pembrokeshire is hard to beat. We found people to be extremely friendly. In the Welsh-speaking pub in Rosebush the landlady fielded our baby so we could eat dinner.
Now with a name like Davies you can probably guess my descent. However, I sound English and it always astonishes me how much undisguised hostility I hear about the Welsh.
If you were to replace the word ‘Welsh’ with the word ‘Asian’, ‘Black’ or ‘Jew’ in some of the derogatory remarks people make there rightly would be outrage. As it is, it is apparently perfectly acceptable to slag off the Welsh using all the tired stereotypes and jibes. Now why is that?
While we’re on the subject of racism – because there’s no other word for what I’m talking about – this week on newstatesman.com we had a great contribution to our ongoing series of articles on class from Operation Black Vote’s Simon Woolley entitled Posh and black.
He writes: “There will always be a tension being posh and Black. And so there should be.
“Many people who would be described as being posh have come from or aspired to be part of the British ‘ruling class’. A class which some 400 years ago took global slavery to an unprecedented level by forcibly transporting and enslaving 20 million Africans around the world. When, after 200 years, that grotesqueness became unpalatable for their Christian sensibilities, it was repackaged as Colonialism.”
Here’s the rest of Simon’s article.
Plus don’t miss our debate on cannabis between psychiatrist Raj Persaud and Disability Now editor John Pring.
Sian Berry meanwhile has fallen for Facebook.
Finally, a small request. We’re about to set up blog on the arts which will allow readers to write short reviews about exhibitions, plays and concerts they attend. If you’re interested please email reviews@newstatesman.co.uk
Now I’m going home to wait for my next free edition of the Spectator. They can give it away – but I’m certainly not paying for it.
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