Monday Books has just posted the first essay from Second Opinion on their new blog. The piece illustrates something Dalrymple once said in a speech: that while the prisoners didn’t exactly love him (he was, after all, known as “Dr. No” for his reluctance to accede to their demands for sick notes or drugs), he at least had their respect.

More arguments against Kenneth Clarke in this piece at The Social Affairs Unit:

Mr Clarke was quite right to say that short prison sentences are not effective but, with the practised lack of logic of a man who has spent far too long in politics for the good of his own mind, he has drawn precisely the wrong conclusions from it. His error will cause much unnecessary suffering.

I have only just begun to read Spoilt Rotten, so I can’t be sure, but it looks as though Dalrymple’s new piece in the Spectator touches on many of the themes of his new book. The essay is a powerful argument against the recent push by Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke to reduce rates of imprisonment, in particular for those crimes that now receive short sentences. Dalrymple argues that Clarke’s thoughts reflect a sentimental view of incarceration that is all too common among the Western intelligentsia: that prison is for the benefit of the criminal and not the victim, that prisoners can be rehabilitated via technical means and that criminals not imprisoned will devote their attention to their families.

But he also says that Clarke’s views illustrate a devotion to a wider sentimental outlook, one that he explains here:

Sentimentality is hardness of heart, or even contempt, masquerading as feeling. It is to sympathy what incontinence is to urination (except, of course, that it is voluntary, and is vastly more destructive). It is mental and emotional laziness, a refusal to discipline the gratifying glow of self-regard by deeper reflection. It has rotted us through and through; it is the reason why it is necessary to remind our rulers that the protection of the population from crime is not an optional extra for the state once it has paid for the sex-change operations of those who want them, etc, but comes very close to the state’s whole raison d’être, and that rulers who fail in this regard are no longer legitimate, but parasites upon the body politic.

A brief comment on Jon Venables in the Daily Express.

Dalrymple tempted by book thievery? Maybe that’s why he understands the psychology of it so well.

Dalrymple has a short piece at City Journal that draws social conclusions from the performance of three World Cup teams: France, England and Germany. As with seemingly everything else right now, the Germans seem to have a better handle on things.

For those who haven’t read The New Vichy Syndrome, The New Humanist has published an excerpt from it, focusing on an argument that separates Dalrymple from many fellow conservatives: that “Westernisation is in fact far advanced among Muslims in Europe”. The argument relies in part on evidence Dalrymple obtained from perusing Islamic dating websites, which some reviewers have noted is an excellent idea. I love the closing paragraph:

The great majority of humanity everywhere is unwilling to risk much for philosophical principles. This means that there will remain outward adherence even by the fun-loving and humorous Muslims, who will never go to the trouble of exposing their scepticism or incipient unbelief. Why bother, when the alternative is an easy life, lived high in the regard of others? Hypocrisy and dissimilation are what keep social systems strong; it is intellectual honesty that destroys them.

In justifying his “war” on the police, Mr Moat appealed to sentimentality. He described a policeman in a car waiting at a roundabout, “to bully a single mum, who probably can’t afford her car tax.” Poor single mother, who doesn’t know where babies come from, and who can afford a car but not the tax.