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| Ted and the Terror Laws |
‘I won’t let them
think I’ve got my tail between my legs’ says email missive
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Home Secretary Charles Clarke
Ted Honderich
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TALL, lanky – and sometimes combative – philosopher
Ted Honderich seemed to goad Home Secretary Charles Clarke to do
his worst last night (Wednesday) under the new Terror Bill at a
private meeting of peers at the House of Lords.
Palestinians, he thundered, are “morally right” to their
‘terrorism’ against Zionism.
As if this was not enough, he also criticised the “injustice”
of terror suspects held at the high security Belmarsh Prison.
As readers may know anyone who “glorifies” or encourages
terrorism faces imprisonment under the proposed new legislation
on terror.
And this is what Honderich – an enfant terrible in the dreamy
world of high academia – seemed to have in mind when he emailed
me an advance copy this week of his explosive speech due to be made
in a committee room at the Lords.
You have to admit that Honderich – a former Hampstead resident
and Grote Professor Emeritus of Philosophy of Mind and Logic at
London University – has always been even-handed when it comes
to Palestine. In the past Zionists have accused him of being anti-semitic
while angry Palestinian students have tried to break up his university
meetings
Typically, he is not going to allow the Terror Bill to silence him.
In a note to me on his talk to the peers last night (Wednesday)
he writes: “I don’t propose to let any of them think I
have got my tail between my legs.”
In his speech on the Principles of Humanity, Honderich told peers
that while Zionists have the right to defend Israel within its original
1948 borders, Palestinians equally have a “moral right to their
terrorism in Palestine against neo-Zionism. The latter is the expansion
of Israel since 1967 beyond its original borders. As for the Palestinians
their “self-defence is morally permissible”.
And for those peers who must have wondered what the Principles of
Humanity are, Honderich must have startled them when he seemed to
put the terror raids on the Twin Towers on 9/11, Palestinian terrorism,
the war in Iraq and the July 7 bombing raids in London all on the
same moral line of equivalence.
“Thank you for listening, perhaps with forebearance,”
said Honderich as he cheekily ended his speech to their lordships.
If Honderich’s remarks last night failed to upset Charles Clarke,
his coming new book Palestine, 9/11, Iraq, 7/7 may well draw blood
because it will surface just about the time the new Terror bill
becomes law.
Time travel will cost buttons
I NOTICED posters stuck on to trees on Hampstead Heath this weekend
offering any one with spare buttons the chance to view a time machine.
Stephen Hawking once asked: “Time travel might be possible,
but if that’s the case why haven’t we been overrun by
tourists from the future?”
Curious as to why my descendants haven’t come back to tell
me where I’m going wrong, I called the number on the poster
and found artist Cesa Milton (pictured).
Cesa, 60, has already built a ‘time machine’ – a
bamboo contraption in her front room in Brookfield Mansions, Highgate
– which, she says, makes viewers consider their relation to
time and space. Now she wants to build another one, entirely out
of quirky buttons.
Like all good artists, she doesn’t have much money, and believes
in creating her art on the cheap, or free if she can help it –
hence her button appeal.
Much of her art is created from things that are thrown away, like
chewed-up tennis balls and old jeans, she tells me.
“There’s no humour in a lot of art,” she says. “It’s
very important that the artist includes you and gives you a laugh.”
My neck on the line?
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Above: The Queen at the UCLH and below Jon Snow
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TIES can get you into all sorts of bother, whether you’re
a boy scout tangled in a tent pole or a BBC newsreader announcing
a royal death. But it was the lack of a tie that got me in trouble
at the new University College London Hospital in Euston Road on
Thursday.
Invited to cover the Queen’s official opening ceremony, I was
informed by a Buckingham Palace minion at the front door that I
would not be admitted without a piece of silk tied about my neck.
She told me: “It’s not for the Queen; it’s out of
respect for the hospital.”
I don’t normally upset anyone when I arrive tieless at accident
and emergency and, if memory serves, no such respect was accorded
the hospital when the then Health Secretary John Reid made an official
visit last year.
But to prevent a scene I jumped in a cab and fetched one. Out of
respect for the hospital, naturally.
Was I wrong to show up with an open collar?
The hospital and the palace said yes, but I checked with Britain’s
leading authority, Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow. Known for his
colourful trademark ties, Jon, of Torriano Cottages, Kentish Town,
told me: “I can understand dressing smartly for the head of
state, but I don’t see that a tie is essential to that.
“It’s a bit ridiculous. I heard they were trying to get
rid of ties in hospitals because they help the spread of MRSA when
they droop down and pick up germs.”
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Get to work on your tannin
BORDEAUX winemakers – long regarded as the world’s greatest
– are in trouble. Government health campaigns and strict enforcement
of French drink driving laws are causing a dramatic decrease in French
wine consumption.
FULL STORY
It all comes down to cash
AFTER confessing to not being able to swim the other week, I was deluged
with offers of help.
FULL STORY
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