19 MAY 2007

Page 3

Cameron fails the test

The Spectator

T he most perceptive indictment of the Blair era was delivered, in an admirably candid speech last September, by Alan Milburn (interviewed by Fraser Nelson on page 14)....

Page 7

S talin and the Rothschilds is one of the more bizarre

The Spectator

connections that I discovered while writing a book on the dictator’s early life. Stalin worked for the Rothschilds; he burnt down their refinery and ordered the assassination of...

Page 8

Here’s how Gordon Brown could sweep Middle Britain off its feet and win next time

The Spectator

A sense of stagnation has descended upon the House of Commons. The king is dead, and yet the new king will not be enthroned for weeks. Nothing much can happen in the meantime....

Page 9

T he attempt to get rid of ancient history A-Level, which

The Spectator

Monday’s appearance by Boris Johnson in a toga was intended to stop, is a little saga of how ‘dumbing down’ works. No one involved set out to undermine the subject, yet that...

Page 10

DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY

The Spectator

MONDAY Am in severe shock. Just put the phone down from the Labour press office. Someone called ‘Bev’ rang to say she had found 15 inaccuracies in stories we briefed to the...

Page 12

Shame on the white liberals and black Africans who cheer on Mugabe

The Spectator

Rian Malan is appalled that Zimbabwe has been put in charge of Sustainable Development by the UN — and says it is symptomatic of the way in which Mugabe is indulged by foolish...

Page 14

Milburn: how I can help Gordon Brown

The Spectator

The Blairite ‘outrider’ and former health secretary tells Fraser Nelson that the Tories underestimate Brown at their peril, and says that he never wanted to be prime minister...

Page 16

Yuschenko: ‘We are living in historical times’

The Spectator

In an exclusive interview, Ukraine’s President talks to Mark Leonard about his turbulent country, the Orange revolution, and living up to the ‘romantic dream’ of disillusioned...

Page 18

An open letter to Lily Allen: Don’t go changing

The Spectator

Rachel Johnson is saddened by the pop star’s MySpace lament about being ‘a bit chubby’ and tells her to keep fighting the ‘evil machine’ that forces female stars to look like...

Page 20

Was Sally Clark’s child killed by a vaccine?

The Spectator

Neville Hodgkinson asks why the jury in the Sally Clark trial was told to discount the DTP jab given to her second child, Harry, just five hours before he was found dead S ally...

Page 22

After Sweeney’s rant at the Scientologists, is it OK to kick interviewees?

The Spectator

Rod Liddle explores the subtle etiquette of BBC interviews and concludes that John Sweeney made a protocol error — quiet hostility would have been ample A h, now, this is what...

Page 24

More power to Kazakhstan

The Spectator

Sir: Elliot Wilson rails against the alleged bureaucracy, corruption and nepotism that he argues are strangling business opportunities for foreign investors in Kazakhstan...

Patient explanation

The Spectator

Sir: The health minister Andy Burnham takes me to task for my piece about the rise of the SNP in Scotland (Letters, 12 May). The average hospital operation wait is a fortnight...

Grass roots

The Spectator

Sir: Paul Johnson’s invocation of the lawn (And another thing, 12 May) as England’s contribution to European vistas was underlined recently when the Italian foreign minister,...

The fireman prince

The Spectator

Sir: Hugo Rifkind makes an excellent suggestion regarding Prince Harry entering the emergency services (Shared opinion, 5 May). The modern world probably would indeed ‘go nuts’...

History will tell

The Spectator

Sir: Edward Norman says in his review of Hans Küng’s Islam: Past, Present and Future (Books, 12 May) that ‘Küng, however, is no professional historian, which becomes clear when...

Daft mistake

The Spectator

Sir: Roy Hattersley (Letter from Arcadia, 12 May) has his mid-20th century comedians confused. The ‘over the garden wall’ comic was not Albert Modley. It was the brilliant...

Page 26

I felt sorry for the mice — and then they messed with my Chinese sea-grass carpet

The Spectator

I resisted mouse glue for a long time. ‘Mouse’ and ‘glue’ are words that should not, sanely, sit together. They speak of a world where all the parameters have changed, a world...

Page 28

Cultural revolutions come from below, not above

The Spectator

A ctive young men, going to work, now sport a new kind of uniform, part oik, part kiddy: trainers with upturned toes, baggy pseudopatch trousers of the kind worn by dustmen,...

Page 30

London’s diamond trade may not be forever

The Spectator

Richard Orange says London’s traditional dominance of global dealing in uncut stones is under threat from new players based in India, China and Dubai ‘H ow does it feel to hold...

Page 32

How cyber-vetting catches job liars

The Spectator

Matthew Vincent ‘Interests: travel, cinema, country walks, volleyball, volunteering at the pet-rescue centre... ’ Why do CVs make job applicants sound like contestants in the...

Page 34

You’d be a brave man to bet against Rupert Murdoch or Michael Bloomberg

The Spectator

C all me a sentimentalist, but when Rupert Murdoch gave a speech here last week telling News Corporation to go carbon-neutral, and to inspire its many millions of viewers and...

Page 36

After the fall

The Spectator

Sam Leith F ALLING M AN by Don DeLillo Picador, £16.99, pp. 246, ISBN 9780330452236 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 D on DeLillo really knows how to open a book. The...

Page 38

Untangling the web of deception

The Spectator

Oleg Gordievsky and Boris Volodarsky S PY W ARS : M OLES , M YSTERIES , AND D EADLY G AMES by Tennent H. Bagley Yale, £18.99, pp. 320, ISBN 9780300121988 V £17 (plus £2.45 p&p)...

Page 40

An affair to remember

The Spectator

Philip French C ANNES : I NSIDE THE W ORLD ’ S P REMIER F ILM F ESTIVAL by Kieron Corless and Chris Darke Faber, £14.99, pp. 277, ISBN 9780571230464 ✆ £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p)...

Page 41

When friends fall out

The Spectator

Jane Ridley F RIENDSHIP AND B ETRAYAL : A MBITION AND THE L IMITS OF L OYALTY by Graham Stewart Weidenfeld, £25, pp. 387, ISBN 9780297646617 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429...

Haunted by the past

The Spectator

Michael Glover DARKMANS by Nicola Barker Fourth Estate, £15.99, pp. 838, ISBN 9780007193622 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T his curious and wearisomely long novel,...

Page 42

Richness in diversity

The Spectator

P. J. Kavanagh B Y H OOK OR B Y C ROOK : A J OURNEY IN S EARCH OF ENGLISH by David Crystal HarperPress, £16.99, pp. 314, ISBN 975007235582 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429...

Page 43

Not so dumb

The Spectator

Donald Michie A NIMAL A RCHITECTS by James R. Gould and Carol Grant Gould Basic Books, £15.99, pp. 323, ISBN 9780465027828 ✆ £12.79 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 S tudents of...

Page 44

Counting the cost

The Spectator

Is the Cultural Olympiad in jeopardy from budget cuts and poor planning? Mark Fisher investigates A n estimated one in three of the world’s six billion people will watch the...

Page 45

Knight vision

The Spectator

Andrew Lambirth talks to Sir Peter Blake about his forthcoming Tate retrospective S ir Peter Blake is much in demand. A popular figure since he rose to fame with his...

Page 46

Scraps of Van Goghiana

The Spectator

Martin Gayford on food and identity in the Yellow House in Arles H aving spent a chunk of my life living, mentally, in 1888 with Vincent van Gogh in Arles I find that I still...

Page 48

Can artists save the planet?

The Spectator

Mark Glazebrook G iven his interest in the merging of blue with green, David Cameron would presumably feel at home in the United Arab Emirates while Sharjah’s 8th Biennial is...

Page 50

Aiming high and wide

The Spectator

Susan Moore ‘ t is a compelling moment in the art I world,’ says Robin Woodhead, Sotheby’s executive vice president and chief executive, Europe and Asia. ‘There has been a...

Page 52

Leave well alone

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans A Matter of Life and Death Olivier Vernon God Little Young Vic Sizwe Banzi Is Dead Pit I s the National Theatre a cemetery? Its administrators seem to think so....

Vintage quality

The Spectator

Michael Tanner Second Movement: Triple Bill London Film Studios Angela Gheorghiu Barbican Pelléas et Mélisande Royal Opera House S econd Movement is a young opera company which...

Page 54

Alas, alack

The Spectator

Deborah Ross Magicians 15, Nationwide D avid Mitchell and Robert Webb star in the Channel 4 comedy Peep Show , which is beautifully conceived, original and funny whereas this...

Trouble and strife

The Spectator

James Delingpole T here’s a really horrible stage you go through as a writer when you’re working on a new novel, and I’m in the middle of it right now. It’s called the...

Page 55

Frank exchanges

The Spectator

Kate Chisholm Y ou may have caught an extraordinary programme of interviews with Peckham’s Lost on Radio Four a couple of weeks ago. Winifred Robinson (of You and Yours ) went...

Page 56

Show time

The Spectator

Ursula Buchan O nce, a long time ago, when I was a horticultural student at the RHS Gardens at Wisley, I helped to stage an exhibit of pelargoniums at the Chelsea Flower Show....

Page 57

Spoilt for choice

The Spectator

Alan Judd W hen I was a child Bristol was a port somewhere beyond Kent. Later on I discovered that in the plural — as in a nice pair of — it referred, mystifyingly, to...

Fond farewells

The Spectator

Taki New York A hmet Ertegun was the greatest Turk since Kemal Ataturk, but unlike Mustafa Kemal he never killed anyone, especially a Greek. In brief, Ertegun was the supreme...

Page 58

Food for thought

The Spectator

Jeremy Clarke M y father was a tyrant at the dinner table. A family member briefly leaving the table to refill the water jug, perhaps, would be furiously denounced as ‘hopping...

Page 59

Dream machine

The Spectator

Richard Sennett M y kitchen cupboard is full of abandoned dreams. The electronic icecream maker can turn out tomato–dill sorbet, crème St Petersbourg , and guava icecream;...

Page 61

SPECTATOR WINE CLUB

The Spectator

SIMON HOGGART N ow, pay attention. We have a lot of wines to get through and not much time, so if you don’t mind, I’ll crack on. All the wines come from the famous City firm of...

Page 62

Photo opportunity

The Spectator

Jenny Wilhide finds that every picture sells a story ‘T o collect photographs is to collect the world,’ said essayist Susan Sontag. Judging by auction results at Christie’s,...

Page 63

Lost in translation

The Spectator

Alex Bilmes cleans up in Japan T okyo, I am not the first foreign visitor to observe, is a city obsessed by cleanliness. The streets are clean, the cars are clean, the buildings...

Page 71

Football’s coming home

The Spectator

FRANK KEATING W i th no international competition this summer, football’s curtain comes down with a clamorous abruptness in Athens on Wednesday, when Liverpool meet AC Milan in...

Q. Over the past three years a small birthday lunch

The Spectator

party has been given for me by the mother of my daughter’s best friend at school. She invites a handful of other school mothers, and as we leave for the school run she says,...

Q. May I pass on a tip to readers? Having

The Spectator

been invited to Ibiza, I found out that some friends of my parents are going out by NetJets to stay with the same people. Naturally, I wanted to blag a lift, but instead of...

Q. A friend of mine is having an affair with

The Spectator

a semi-famous racing driver. Now she regularly accuses me in front of others of having leaked stories about this affair to the tabloids. This is not something I would do. For...