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Fannie, Freddie and Gordon
The SpectatorL ast week, at a cost of a billion pounds or so, the Chancellor announced a package of measures to boost the housing market, including a temporary raising of the stamp duty...
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T here are many things I’ll miss about my year with
The SpectatorDavid Cameron, not least my regular visits to Portcullis House, the ugly upside-down cow’s udder opposite the Commons (it was designed by Michael Hopkins, although it looks as...
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politics
The SpectatorJAMES FORSYTH When the Tories get complacent, they should think of what Palin has done to Obama I f Labour does dump Gordon Brown before the next election, then each of the...
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� s�ra�rs �arEs
The SpectatorCHARLES MOORE T his column and its readers have just won our first battle in our long war. The BBC Trust has announced that it will investigate the way in which the television...
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By Tamzin Lightwater MONDAY Look! There is no question of
The Spectatorus doing a U-turn on our pledge to match Labour’s spending plans. You can’t do a U-turn if you were never going to go a particular way in the first place. Or if you went for a...
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Brown has exploited immigration to hide from deep problems
The SpectatorThe PM’s claim to have created three million British jobs is a grave deceit, says Fraser Nelson . Strip out immigrants from the picture, and Labour has barely dented the problem...
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How I became a world record holder
The SpectatorAt a Google conference in Rhodes, Matthew d’Ancona finds himself part of a bid to break the world record for Zorba dancing — and to relive one of the greatest scenes in cinema...
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Moscow’s secret war in Ingushetia
The SpectatorRussia’s President, Dmitry Medvedev, pretends that this republic is a haven of stability. Not so, says Tom Parfitt : the Ingush are subject to a campaign of murder and...
Mind your language
The SpectatorMy husband’s club was closed in August, which meant, paradoxically, that I saw less of him, because he enjoyed the chance to exercise reciprocal rights at other clubs, which I...
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Advertisement Feature
The SpectatorDubai as an entrepôt O ver the past thirty years, the Dubai economy has been boosted by the general rise in oil prices. But with its oil reserves likely to run out over the...
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The laureate of intractable conflicts
The SpectatorClemency Burton-Hill talks to the American playwright Christopher Shinn about his new play about a US presidential election night in the era of MySpace and YouTube L ooking...
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Have we ever faced an enemy more stupid than Muslim terrorists?
The SpectatorThese narcissistic adolescent halfwits should not fill us with fear, says Rod Liddle . The aircraft plot trial showed yet again that those who wish to murder us with fizzy pop...
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State education has outlawed difficulty
The SpectatorBut private schools, private tutors and bestselling books are filling the vacuum, says Harry Mount . Larkin was right: there is a hunger in us all ‘to be more serious’ T he...
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Taking care of Toby
The SpectatorSir: Kirsten Dunst never insisted that I ban Toby Young (Status anxiety, 6 September) from the set of How To Lose Friends & Alienate People . Toby’s piece stemmed from a recent...
Many a diamond jubilee
The SpectatorSir: Robert Hardman believes that ‘Up to now, only one monarch in history has celebrated a diamond jubilee’ (‘Never mind the Olympics — get set for the Jubilee’, 6 September)....
One-sided history
The SpectatorSir: M.A. de A Brandao is right (Letters, 6 September) to draw attention to the brutality of the Germans and Japanese in the second world war, and he is probably right to assert...
tory are virtually neglected in school syllabuses. We can only
The Spectatortruly honour our heroes if we acknowledge our villains as well. Leo Quirk Via email
Lidl luxuries
The SpectatorSir: Judi Bevan is mistaken (‘Nice pork, pity about the pizza’, 6 September) in thinking the middle class don’t shop at Lidl; I modelled green corduroys in the first Boden...
Alpine monsters
The SpectatorSir: According to Taki (High life, 6 September), quoting the Victorian secretary of the Alpine Club, ‘goblins and devils’ had long vanished from the Swiss Alps by the middle of...
Lines of duty
The SpectatorSir: Peter Cooch (Letters, 6 September) is correct: the line ‘What we need at this stage of the war is a futile gesture’ first appeared in Beyond the Fringe , not Blackadder ....
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First the housing market collapsed. Now I fear the trade in llamas will be next
The SpectatorI n these straitened days, when the international money markets teeter nervily between relief and panic, and stock exchanges hang upon the slightest twitch of one of Alistair...
Page 28
Should a widowed mother aged thirteen be a saint?
The SpectatorW hen is too old? When too young? Almost every day I hear a story of someone, at the height of his power and energy, being compulsorily retired at 60. Or there is a fuss because...
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Greener than thou: the carbon tax contest
The SpectatorLabour’s climate change levy has led to lower emissions, says Elisabeth Jeffries , but can the Conservative alternative yield better results — or command business support? T...
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Who are housebuilders trying to fool?
The SpectatorRichard Northedge I f Britain’s housebuilders really want to sell more homes, they ought to slash their prices rather than lobby the government for packages like last week’s...
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When we lost our mojo
The SpectatorSam Leith O UR T IMES by A. N. Wilson Hutchinson, £25, pp. 720, ISBN 9780091796716 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 W ith Our Times , A. N. Wilson concludes the sequence of...
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More nattering please
The SpectatorFrancis King T HE O THER G ARDEN AND C OLLECTED S TORIES by Francis Wyndham Picador, £7.99, pp. 403, ISBN 9780330457200 ✆ £6.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T here are...
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Perhaps the greatest?
The SpectatorAndro Linklater A LASDAIR G RAY : A S ECRETARY ’ S B IOGRAPHY by Rodge Glass Bloomsbury, £25, pp. 341, ISBN 9780747590156 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I t would be...
A fascinating woman, ill-served
The SpectatorSarah Burton S TAR OF THE M ORNING : T HE E XTRAORDINARY L IFE OF L ADY H ESTER S TANHOPE by Kirsten Ellis Harper Press, £25, pp. 464, ISBN 9780007170302 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p)...
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Stepping-stones of his past self
The SpectatorLee Langley G HOST T RAIN TO THE E ASTERN S TAR by Paul Theroux Hamish Hamilton, £20, pp. 485, ISBN 9780241142530 ✆ £16.79 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 W hen Paul Theroux set...
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All things to all men
The SpectatorJohn Michell M ICHAEL X: A L IFE IN B LACK AND W HITE by John Williams Century, £11.99, pp. 281, ISBN 9781846050954 ✆ £9.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 P oor Michael. His...
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Adventures of a lost soul
The SpectatorPhilip Ziegler E TTIE : T HE I NTIMATE L IFE AND D AUNTLESS S PIRIT OF L ADY DESBOROUGH by Richard Davenport-Hines Weidenfeld and Nicolson, £25, pp. 450, ISBN 9780297851745 ✆...
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A city frozen in time
The SpectatorRaymond Carr POMPEII by Mary Beard Profile, £25, pp. 315, ISBN 9781861975164 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I n the early morning of 25 August AD 79 Mount Vesuvius blew...
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Of zyzzyva and syzygy
The SpectatorCaroline Moorehead L ETTERATI : A N U NAUTHORISED L OOK AT S CRABBLE AND THE P EOPLE W HO P LAY IT by Paul McCarthy ECW Press, £12.99, pp. 240, ISBN 9781550228281 ✆ £10.39...
Alternative reading
The SpectatorSurprising literary ventures Gary Dexter U NDERMINING THE C ENTRAL L INE (1989) by Ruth Rendell and Colin Ward R uth Rendell, it turns out, as well as being the queen of...
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‘Booming, beaming waves of noise’
The SpectatorIgor Toronyi-Lalic looks back to the early 20th century when organs were in their heyday ‘A s in England, in America the organ is King,’ wrote the French organ-composer Louis...
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Masochists and miserablists
The SpectatorLloyd Evans Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress Leicester Square Theatre Liberty Globe Sons of York Finborough organ curator of the Royal Festival Hall. But...
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Abbreviate into intensity
The SpectatorAndrew Lambirth Francis Bacon Tate Britain (sponsored by Bank of America), until 4 January 2009 A t Tate Britain is a glorious centenary show of paintings by one of our...
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Best left in the attic
The SpectatorGiannandrea Poesio Matthew Bourne’s Dorian Gray Sadler’s Wells I often wonder whether in a society so greedily obsessed with the commercial acquisition of good looks Dorian...
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Unbridled talent
The SpectatorPeter Phillips A lthough I spend my time working with counterpoint, and know jazz is as capable as any other sort of music at yielding the greatest delight in it, how jazz...
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What a drag
The SpectatorDeborah Ross Pineapple Express 15, Nationwide until, midway through the film, my niece sought me out to ask: ‘Deb, what’s an orgasm?’ Naturally, I sat her down and very calmly...
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Opera
The SpectatorLacking colour Michael Tanner Saint Frangois d’Assise Royal Albert Hall A s the climax of the Proms centenary of Messiaen, The Netherlands Opera brought his vast opera Saint...
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The magic of science
The SpectatorKate Chisholm I f you’re able to read this magazine on Saturday in an unchanged world, it’s probably safe to assume that Wednesday’s gigantic experiment with particle physics...
Save the last waltz
The SpectatorTaki Regensburg T he mighty Danube begins in the park of the Furstenberg Palace and flows eastward for a distance of 2,000 miles across ten countries on to the Black Sea. Last...
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Wild at heart
The SpectatorJeremy Clarke I first came across the book Iron John: Man and Masculinity by Robert Bly when I saw it being clutched in the bony old fingers of the man that used to chair...
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Don’t be fooled
The SpectatorMelissa Kite A t last, I’m starting to enjoy the downturn. The key was realising that by buying less of everything I’m annoying people in positions of power and calling a lot...
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Time is of the essence
The SpectatorAlex Bilmes says vintage watches have come of age D eep under the Royal Arcade in Mayfair, in a tiny room reached by a death-trap staircase, I’m holding a pretty but, to the...
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Flaunting the fizz
The SpectatorJonathan Ray C redit crunch? What credit crunch? The Champagne Bar at St Pancras — at 90 metres, reputedly the longest in Europe — is doing a brisk trade in champagne...
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The diamond dash
The SpectatorJames Sherwood • 1998 Nicolas Feuillatte Palmes d’Or Brut, £75. The Nicolas Feuillatte co-operative makes one of my favourite standby NVs (£17.99 if you buy two at Majestic)...
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You really are what you eat
The SpectatorCharlotte Metcalf W hen Marks & Spencer first began using that treacly voice to advertise food on television, it was a signal to the mass market that ‘just’ any old food was no...
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The HAVs have it
The SpectatorJames Delingpole B efore I head off to meet Angus Gibson, I find myself simmering with bitterness and resentment. Gibson is the man you go to see if you want a state-ofthe-art...
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If I die this weekend, at least I will breathe my last in the name of a good cause
The SpectatorSTATUS ANXIETY B y the time you read this I may be dead. I have been pressganged into taking part in the London Duathlon this Sunday in order to raise money for the Chelsea and...
Ancient & modern
The SpectatorThe military-backed President Musharraf of Pakistan has been dragged, screaming and kicking, into retirement. He doesn’t know how lucky he is. How power maddens people! In...
Toby Young is associate editor of The Spectator .
The SpectatorForum, challenging anyone to hold him to account. That’s class. And that, too, is the point. No one became or stayed emperor without blood on his hands. Sheer terror at losing...
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Spectator Sport
The SpectatorR emember the Wightman Cup? For anyone under 40, this was the annual women’s tennis tournament between Britain and the US, which eventually passed away, largely unmourned, at...
Q. When my husband retired two years ago I was
The Spectatorpleased that I would no longer be obliged to be polite to his colleague, Bob. Now my husband says the reason he’s so restless at night is that he keeps having hectic...
Q. Further to your letter from J.W. in Phnom Penh
The Spectatorwho asked where, in the absence of a mantelpiece, he should display invitations, you may tell him that many ambassadors without fireplaces use their windowsills. P.W., East...
Q. I am one of a group of six young
The Spectatorwomen who have known each other since college and we plan much of our social calendars around each other. In recent years, however, one of our group has fallen by the wayside...
Q. My boyfriend is great in all respects but he
The Spectatorhas a habit of eating with his mouth open. He stops when asked but it is a problem when we have guests to dinner as I am obviously unable to remind him that he is doing it...