Page 5
Cutting logic
The SpectatorT he hint of tax cuts made by Gordon Brown this week is a piece of political audacity which could only be matched were the Conservatives suddenly to commit themselves to the...
Page 9
O ver the weekend I took part in the Free Thinking
The SpectatorFestival in Liverpool. As well as my own talk the organisers asked me to fill in for the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who had cancelled at the last minute. This gave...
Page 11
M y old friend âPosh Edâ Stourton begins his new book
The Spectatorabout political correctness ( Itâs a PC World , Hodder and Stoughton) with an anecdote about the Queen Mother. She told him, in private, that the EEC would never work, because...
Page 12
DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY
The SpectatorMONDAY I canât believe people are saying that tax cutting is Gordonâs idea! This is an unbelievable cheek!! Dave has been banging on about cutting taxes for three years now....
Page 14
Want to cut taxes? First cut spending. Hereâs how
The SpectatorAfter a week of clamorous competition between the parties over tax cuts, Fraser Nelson offers a guide to paying for them: a programme of spending cuts that would preserve core...
Page 16
I n the end, it really was a fairytale. A story
The Spectatorof hope conquering belief. The journey few believed would be completed. One man â aided by the most advanced viral campaign in history, and carried along on a mantra...
Page 18
Britain cannot afford a failed Pakistan
The SpectatorElliot Wilson says that the near-collapse of the Islamic state should focus minds in this country, which is inextricably linked to Pakistan. Its implosion would stoke extremism...
Page 20
The loss of health visitors is a true scandal
The SpectatorSusan Hill recalls how much she relied on her health visitor and bemoans the decline of this once-universal service: the victim of bureaucratic âtargetingâ and government...
Page 22
Who put a sock full of cocaine in my drawer?
The SpectatorVenetia Thompson , who has never taken the drug, was shocked to discover a stash in her house. What to do? Her friendsâ response was a collective shrug as if it were nothing...
Page 24
The Republicans are where the Tories were in 1997
The SpectatorThis is bad news for the Conservatives, who have always feasted on US right-of-centre ideas, says James Forsyth . But the GOP can learn from the Cameroons Cambridge,...
Page 25
A nyone who doubts that, at least from the cultural point
The Spectatorof view, the Soviet Union won the Cold War in Britain hands down should attend a conference organised for doctors about impending organisational changes in the National Health...
Page 26
Mind your language
The SpectatorMy husbandâs remarks are sounding more and more like those of Jack Woolley in The Archers , but this week one of his questions proved quite useful. Iâd been reading the very...
IQ 2 debate:
The SpectatorâItâs wrong to pay for sexâ Lloyd Evans I t was back to basics at Intelligence Squared last Tuesday as we debated the morality of prostitution. Newspaper executive...
Page 27
The licence fee is good value
The SpectatorSir: Charles Moore has really talked himself into a corner this time with regard to his pathological dislike of the BBC (The Spectatorâs Notes, 8 November). Like many other...
They died for this?
The SpectatorSir: Today, in Ipswich, young girl cadets were selling poppies. I bought one. âWould you like a pin to go with it?â âYes please.â âWe canât actually give you a pin...
Unrecognisable birds
The SpectatorSir: I write this on a sunny Sydney afternoon, not far from Hunters Hill, listening to the shrieks, carols, twitterings and scoldings of the local bird population that now...
A man of many parts
The SpectatorSir: Sinclair McKay gives an excellent introduction to William Le Queux as the forgotten pioneer of the modern spy novel (âA quantum of respectâ, 1 November). Also neglected...
Gordo and the Golden Rules
The SpectatorSir: Why should anyone be surprised (âNo fiscal Holy Grailâ, 8 November) that Gordo discarded the Golden Rules? Have they forgotten that HM Treasury discarded our gold...
Black and white qualities?
The SpectatorSir: In his, to my mind, patronising remarks about Barack Obama (âhis blackness seems skin deepâ) Charles Moore seems to regard âthe intelligence, the historical sweep and...
Not the real Italy
The SpectatorSir: I feel sorry for Lisa Hilton (âLa dolce vita is a mythâ, 8 November). Milan is not really Italy: the Romans called the region Cisalpine Gaul, and all those years...
Page 28
Iâm not saying these are bad people. Just that they are fat
The SpectatorT hey say that Eskimos have 50 words for âsnowâ. Like a lot of the things they say, this isnât true, but should be. Right now, Iâm a good few thousand miles from both...
Page 30
And a large glass of the Invariable, taken hot
The SpectatorN ot long before he died, Simon Gray and I discussed the extraordinary paradox: why was it that New Labour does everything in its power to discourage smoking and everything in...
Page 31
Certainly. Or does it?
The SpectatorIt is clear that the ferocious competition of interests and passions, the mad rule of money, and materialism as the measure of all things â in short, the free market, released...
To the contrary.
The SpectatorI can attest from personal experience that, if you try to talk about the free market on todayâs university campuses, you will be buried in an avalanche of criticism of...
Weâd rather not know.
The SpectatorMost of us are consumers who try to get the best possible deals in the market. Most of us are also moral beings who try to do the right things in our communities and societies....
Not at all.
The SpectatorThere is little consensus on what is moral, let alone on what corrodes morality. A man of faith measures moral character by oneâs ability to abide by the demands of his God. A...
It depends.
The SpectatorFree markets corrode some aspects of character while enhancing others. Whether the result is good, on balance, depends on how one envisions a good life. Much also depends on...
Page 32
What the US Treasury needs: magician and economic genius
The SpectatorJames Doran assesses the qualities needed to be Obamaâs Treasury secretary at a time of unprecedented crisis, and wonders whether the front-runners measure up New York A s...
Page 34
So many ways to say weâre in trouble
The SpectatorRichard Northedge W ithout an Inuit thesaurus I have no way of checking how many words the Eskimos really have for snow, but each dayâs newspapers reveal just how large a...
Page 36
Are the Turks ready to be part of Europe?
The SpectatorBrussels says no but Kylie says yes I t was Kylie Minogue who made me think Turkey and Europe might just about be ready for each other. There was the pop poppet â well,...
Page 38
Sam Leith
The SpectatorR ichard Priceâs meaty and fabulously enjoyable police procedural, Lush Life (Bloomsbury, £12.99), is a book I have pressed on a lot of friends. The new Robert B. Parker,...
Philip Ziegler
The SpectatorW ith The Private Patient (Faber, £18.99) P. D. James has written a book which, for masterly evocation of place and understanding of human nature, is as good as anything she...
Rupert Christiansen
The SpectatorM ick Imlahâs exploration of the culture of Scottishness, The Lost Leader (Faber, £9.99), is brilliantly witty and intellectually supple, a worthy winner of this yearâs...
Anita Brookner
The SpectatorA s I spent a large part of the year writing, my actual reading was rather restricted, and limited to fact rather than fiction. I very much enjoyed Ferdinand Mountâs Cold...
Page 39
Alan Judd
The SpectatorJ eremy Lewis, biographer, critic and former publisher, has perpetrated a third enjoyable volume of memoirs, Grub Street Irregular (HarperCollins, £20). He writes so well, with...
Jonathan Mirsky
The SpectatorM y Fatherâs Roses by Nancy Kohner (Hodder, £18.99) recalls the bourgeois, non-observant Jewish world of central Europe from which Ms Kohnerâs father, an émigré to...
D. J. Taylor
The SpectatorT he tiny independent firm of London Books, founded last year, specialises in reprints of hard-boiled thrillers from the interwar years. Two I particularly enjoyed were James...
P. J. Kavanagh
The SpectatorI n the winter of 1896, on a barrow in Charing Cross Road, a mid-17th-century manuscript found by a scholar was eventually proved to be by Thomas Traherne. This was Centuries of...
Sebastian Smee
The SpectatorI was excited to see the publication this year of Peter Schjeldahlâs Letâs See: Writings on Art from the New Yorker (Thames & Hudson, £18.95). Schjeldahlâs is not typical...
Byron Rogers
The SpectatorT he Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales , (University of Wales Press, £65) for its scholarship, also for its sense of proportion, as in comments such as this on Roy Jenkins,...
Page 40
George Osborne
The SpectatorI n the fashionable rush to re-read Keynes, Galbraith and Friedman on the 1929 Crash and the Great Depression, donât neglect an emerging batch of modern writers on the current...
Christopher Howse
The SpectatorT wo biographies changed my view this year of people who already command a wide appeal. William Oddieâs Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy (Oxford, £25) gives a deeper...
Nicky Haslam
The SpectatorF or Ferdinand Mount, in his masterly memoir Cold Cream (Bloomsbury, £20), memoryâs madeleine is the cosmetic his titled mother advertised, with unorthodox audacity, in...
Justin Cartwright
The SpectatorT he best book of the year for me was The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross (Fourth Estate, £20), a revelatory account of the rise of modern music. Two books which disappointed were...
Charlotte Moore
The SpectatorC an Any Mother Help Me? by Jenna Bailey (Faber, £16.99) is the story of the Cooperative Correspondance Club , a secret magazine started in 1935, in which a group of women...
Bevis Hillier
The SpectatorF or Alan Bennett fans, a rare treat is in store this season. His former Oxford college, Exeter, has produced a selection from the Junior Common Room (JCR) suggestion book of...
Page 41
âThe college of Godâs giftâ
The SpectatorCharles Sprawson D ULWICH C OLLEGE : A H ISTORY , 1616-2008 by Jan Piggott Dulwich College Enterprises, £24, pp. 408, ISBN 9780953949328 T he only man from Dulwich College I...
Page 42
T RACHEOTOMY
The SpectatorSummer peels him, his last rice-paper skin, Who plays his throat like a tin whistle, Stops the brown hole with yellowed finger, And makes a note like a tin whistle â Wanting...
Out of his shell
The SpectatorAdam Nicolson N OTES FROM W ALNUT T REE F ARM by Roger Deakin, edited by Alison Hastie and Terence Blacker Hamish Hamilton, £20, pp. 309, ISBN 9780241144206 â £16 (plus...
Page 43
The mannikins donât walk
The SpectatorByron Rogers A LL IN THE M IND by Alastair Campbell Hutchinson, £17.99, pp. 297, ISBN 9780091925789 â £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I t was a good idea. You start...
Page 45
Doing good and doing well
The SpectatorLinsey McGoey PHILANTHROCAPITALISM by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green A & C Black, £16.99, pp. 304, ISBN 9781408111529 â £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 S ome say...
Page 46
Strength in numbers
The SpectatorPhilip Ziegler M Y T HREE F ATHERS by Bill Patten Public Affairs, £16.99, pp. 352, ISBN 9780571216932 T he mother to m a t c h Bill Pattenâs t h r e e fathers was Susan Mary...
Page 47
T AKING THE E DGE O FF
The SpectatorTraining the bellows on a splinter of sparks one early morning of poxed snow a low moon malingering in blue-haggard light and every cell recoiling in the hollow of the year on a...
Tough love
The SpectatorP.J. Kavanagh A P RICKLY A FFAIR by Hugh Warwick Allen Lane, £14.99, pp. 279, ISBN 978184614065 â £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 A t a time when most of his...
Page 48
Nine-year wonder
The SpectatorAndro Linklater T HE C HICAGOAN : A L OST M AGAZINE OF THE J AZZ A GE edited by Neil Harris University of Chicago Press, £34, pp. 385, ISBN 9780226-17618. â £27.20 (plus...
Page 49
Money? Itâs only human
The SpectatorChristopher Fildes T HE A SCENT OF M ONEY by Niall Fergusson Penguin, £25, pp. 441, ISBN 9781846141065 £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 N ew from Niall Ferguson: the...
Page 50
Author! Author!
The SpectatorM alcolm Lowry liked to quote the Spanish philosopher, Ortega y Gasset, who saw Manâs life as a sort of novel, made up as you go along. Certainly there are times when life...
Page 52
Putting criminals on stage
The SpectatorF elicia âSnoopâ Pearson was a drug dealer, with a five-year stretch for murder behind her and no nice future ahead. But then a random meeting in a Baltimore nightclub, with...
Page 55
Up close and personal
The SpectatorAndrew Lambirth Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque: Aimé Maeght and His Artists Royal Academy, until 2 January 2009 Sponsored by BNP Paribas T he role played by dealers in...
Page 56
Thrills amid the gore
The SpectatorMichael Tanner Elektra Royal Opera House For You Linbury Studio T he revival at the Royal Opera of Straussâs Elektra in the production by Charles Edwards, who is also...
Page 58
Blast of real life
The SpectatorLloyd Evans Yard Gal Oval House Lucky Seven Hampstead L ast week I saw a little-known play, Yard Gal , which Iâm pretty sure is a classic. Written ten years ago by Rebecca...
Page 61
Horribly powerful
The SpectatorDeborah Ross The Baader Meinhof Complex 18, Key Cities T he Baader Meinhof Complex is, well, just horrible really. Horrible, horrible, horrible and for those of you who are...
Page 62
Taking risks
The SpectatorCharles Spencer I had what reformed alkies call a moment of clarity last week. On one of my regular trawls through the Amazon website, I clicked the One-day 1-Click button and...
No surprises
The SpectatorGiannandrea Poesio Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of shakespeare Mark Morris Dance Group Barbican L ike child prodigies, enfants terribles do not last forever. As both epithets...
Page 63
Communication breakdown
The SpectatorKate Chisholm T hereâs been a lot of huffing and puffing about the BBCâs World Service in the past week as cuts were announced in the Russian service. Isnât it a bad time...
Page 64
Russian revenge
The SpectatorJames Delingpole Y ouâre a middle-class Pole living in modest bourgeois comfort in a detached house in the handsome AustroâHungarian city of Lwow in 1939 when thereâs a...
Twelve to watch
The SpectatorRobin Oakley âL ook here, Sunshine,â I remember Eric Morecambe responding to a raised eyebrow from André Previn about the comedianâs musical efforts. âI am playing the...
Page 65
All change
The SpectatorTaki New York E lection nights in the Bagel were always spent at 73 East 73rd Street, in Bill and Pat Buckleyâs house, more often than not described as palatial by...
Page 66
Private view
The SpectatorJeremy Clarke L ast Thursday I was volunteer driver for the day for a Heartbeatersâ outing. Heartbeaters is a local exercise and social club for people recovering from heart...
Page 67
Flying high
The SpectatorAlex James I t was a rainy morning on Friday when I woke up warm as toast in a small castle in Northumberland, surrounded on all sides as far as the eye could see by the...
Page 69
SPECTATOR WINE CLUB C hristmas is coming. Enjoy it while you
The Spectatorcan. The falling pound means that the cost of wine is certain to increase next year. The trade is fiercely competitive in a genteel kind of way, and most merchants have been...
Page 70
Put a brave face on it
The SpectatorItâs official: make-up is recession-proof, says Lindy Woodhead B e honest now. Isnât there just the teeniest bit of schadenfreude in the hearts and minds of those of us who...
Page 71
VIEW MODERN ART IN A NEW LIGHT.
The Spectator(THE ONE IT WAS CREATED IN.) P AUL Signac was first seduced by the Côte dâAzur when he moored his yacht in St Tropez during May 1892. His enthusiastic reports attracted...
Page 78
Was my decision to appear on Have I Got News for You a colossal error of judgment?
The SpectatorâW ow, thatâs brave,â said John Kampfner, the former editor of the New Statesman . âIâd never do that.â I had just told him Iâd agreed to be on Have I Got News for...
Ancient & modern
The SpectatorIt is a relief that there is one magazine in which one will not be hauled up on a charge of libel or sexual harassment for writing that Barack Obama, the President-elect of the...
Page 79
A fortnightly column on technology and the web
The SpectatorT he most powerful storyline of the US election, which the fawning media did nothing to challenge, was the idea that Barack Obama was an underdog who had miraculously triumphed...
your problEMs solvEd
The SpectatorQ. I am 44 and, for various reasons, have been single for about five years, but I now have a girlfriend. When people ring to invite me to dinner, I would like to say, âI have...