You recently raised questions for Janet Daley. ConservativeHome selected some of them and Janet answers them below.
Kathy: What is Ms Daley's opinion on Ann Coulter?
She is an interesting phenomenon from a British
point of view. Her confident defiance of what Americans call the
liberal (by which they mean left-wing) mindset, and her piss-taking
approach to its fatuities, would be very difficult to replicate here.
Almost everyone on the Right in Britain feels obliged to address the
Left in its own terms – which is to say, to take its assumptions
seriously. The more robust response of right wing commentators in the
US is a reflection of the relative strength of right-of-centre media.
There is an overweening consensus of pious left-liberal opinion in
Britain reflected particularly by the broadcasting media – and not just
the BBC – which turns rightwing opinion formers into defensive
outsiders.
Penultimate Guy: Or on Ms Coulter's British equivalent, Melanie Phillips?
I certainly do not see Melanie Phillips, who is a perfectly admirable,
and quite courageous, commentator as being anything remotely equivalent
to Ann Coulter.
Malcolm: What do you think President Bush should do about Guantanamo?
Because of the necessary secrecy of the
operations, it is very difficult to assess the usefulness of the
intelligence that US security forces are getting out of the inmates at
Guantanamo, but there is good reason to believe (judging by the success
with which they seem to have averted further major incidents) that it
is of significant importance. The obvious question is, how can the
value of this information be measured against the clear damage that is
being done to America’s position in the world by the existence of this
camp? The irony is that it is just because the US takes the
constitutional guarantee of civil liberties so seriously, that it must
hold these prisoners in an off shore no-man’s land. Once they set foot
on American soil, they immediately come under the protection of the
Bill of Rights, even as non-citizens. In Britain, the government can
simply suspend traditional rights – such as habeas corpus – if it
chooses. I do suspect that the pressure of international opinion is
already causing the US to run the number of prisoners being held at
Guantanamo down to an absolute minimum, and that some alternative
solution will be found for the last remaining ones before long.
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