25 FEBRUARY 2006

Page 5

Lock up your chickens

The Spectator

A grim inevitability hangs over the country as we go to press. Some time over the next week or two the first dead swan of spring will be pulled from the rushes in the south of...

Page 9

PORTRAIT OFTHE WEEK A clause to criminalise the ‘glorification’ of terrorism,

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which had been removed from the Terrorism Bill by the Lords, was reinstated when the Bill was passed in the Commons by a majority of 38, with only 17 Labour MPs voting against...

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T he story goes that my greatgrandfather Murray Finch Hatton, MP

The Spectator

for Lincolnshire in the 1880s and later 12th Earl of Winchilsea, shot an African tracker in the leg while big-game shooting in Kenya. Mortified by what he had done, he rushed...

Page 12

Publish the Prince’s diaries: they would become an instant classic

The Spectator

P rince Charles was low in the water during the early 1990s. The collapse of any marriage is painful. In the case of the Prince the agony was magnified beyond endurance by a...

Page 13

T ory criticism of David Cameron has begun. Robin Harris gives

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the best articulation so far of the case against the new leader in the latest issue of Prospect . This attack was inevitable, and some of it is correct. It is wrong, for...

Page 14

How big government has swallowed the Tory party

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Fraser Nelson says that David Cameron has given up on tax cuts and will now concentrate on advancing the frontiers of the state by matching Labour’s high spending T he secret...

Page 16

Local villains

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Alasdair Palmer discovers that the dream of localism soon becomes a nightmare when you have to deal with council bureaucrats A ll politicians appear to be in favour of...

Page 17

The Greatest Political Thinkers in History The Ideas that Shape our World

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Power over People: Classical and Modern Political Theory offers 16 audio or video lectures by one of America’s most prominent scholars W hy is the world the way it is? What...

About Our Sale Price Policy

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Why is the sale price for this course so much lower than its standard price? Every course we make goes on sale at least once a year. Producing large quantities of only the sale...

Page 18

Mind your language

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A semantic challenge of the genuine kind comes to me from the distinguished geographer Professor Alice Coleman. She has been responsible for a survey of the whole country’s...

Cowboy justice

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Rod Liddle asks why American prosecutors have been allowed to demand the extradition of three British citizens who have committed no crime on US soil T hings are looking a bit...

Page 22

Out of tune

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Jane Kelly finds that the BBC’s ‘UK Theme Tune’ divides children as much as it does adults T he only time I have ever enjoyed singing was when my class in Staffordshire...

Page 24

Cruel, unusual — and stupid

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Malcolm Rifkind says that the United States has damaged her cause by using ‘coercive interrogation’ in the war on terrorism T o be fair, extraordinary rendition was not...

Page 28

Toilet talk

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Brendan O’Neill discovers that public lavatories are plastered with government propaganda, much of it telling us how disgusting we are U nder the Blair terror, you can’t...

Page 29

A divided kingdom

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Charles Haviland on the struggle between the King of Nepal and the Maoist insurgents Kathmandu, dawn on Sunday U nder the early sun, a silver disc in a grey sky, candles...

Page 30

From Philip Freeman

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Sir: I expected a more robust defence of our liberty from the Spectator (Leading article, 18 February). Just because a majority of the snivelling puritans who populate...

Commandments à la Clough

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From Terry Saunders Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 18 February) asserts that Arthur Hugh Clough is only remembered for one poem, ‘Say not the struggle naught...

Unspeakable usages

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From Steven Poole Sir: In his review of my book, Unspeak (Books, 18 February) Graham Stewart asks rhetorically, ‘Can it be — as the casual reader might assume — that...

Page 31

Flooded by facts

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From Peter Hall Sir: Paul Johnson writes that if all the water in the ice caps and the glaciers melted ‘the sea level would not rise much’ (And another thing, 11 February)....

Public transport pollutes

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From Bruce van Biene Sir: Your correspondent Richard Laming (Letters, 11 February) believes that airlines benefit from an irrational tax policy since they do not have to pay...

Vae victoribus!

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From Arthur Hamilton Sir: David Kidd is wrong (Letters, 18 February). The first world war had to be fought to resist German domination. But once stalemate had arrived on the...

Polyglot Peter

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From Michael Henderson Sir: Toby Young wonders (Theatre, 18 February) whether Peter Stein, the great German director responsible for the production of David Harrower’s play,...

Cynical retort

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From Ruth Chambers Sir: Whether or not the publication of the cartoons of Mohammed was ‘a case of appalling insensitivity and bad manners’ (Mark Glazebrook, Arts, 18...

Rapacious Rabat

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From Joseph Palley Sir: Tom Walker (‘Render unto Dubya’, 18 February) makes no mention of Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara. Rabat is nakedly imperialist; its war...

Split screen

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From Robert Vincent Sir: Miriam Gross (Diary, 4 February) tells us that we have ‘again become a two-nation state’ because of ‘those who watched Big Brother and those that...

Page 32

Why not share Anglican churches among Catholics, Muslims — and Anglicans?

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S uppose a public body owned tens of thousands of acres of real estate across England, mostly in prime residential areas. Suppose it showed little inclination to rationalise its...

Page 33

Back from the grave and ready to party — that’s the London Stock Exchange

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A sked what he did in the French Revolution, the Abbé Sieyes explained that he survived it. Against all the odds, this has been the London Stock Exchange’s achievement. It is...

Page 34

Who was the most right-wing man in history?

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T he recent death of Michael Wharton, aged 92, raises the interesting question: who was the most right-wing person who ever lived? Many thought he was. I am not sure he did...

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A very loose canon

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Philip Hensher 1001 B OOKS Y OU M UST R EAD B EFORE Y OU D IE edited by Peter Boxall Cassell, £20, pp. 960, ISBN 9781844034178 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 P...

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The wobbly Anglo-French tandem

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Frank Johnson T HE A LMOST I MPOSSIBLE A LLY by Peter Mangold I. B. Tauris, £18.99, pp. 275, ISBN 1850438005 ✆ £15.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 ‘Oscillations...

Page 37

Finnish but not yet free

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Olivia Glazebrook H OUSE OF O RPHANS by Helen Dunmore Fig Tree/ Penguin, £17.99, pp. 330, ISBN 9780007135080 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 F inland, 1902. The...

Where time has had a stop

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Nicholas Fearn P LEASE M R E INSTEIN by Jean-Claude Carrière Harvill/Secker, £12.99, pp. 186, ISBN 18443433044 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 J ean-Claude...

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Reports from discomfort zones

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Anthony Daniels C ONTACT W OUNDS : A W AR S URGEON ’ S E DUCATION by Jonathan Kaplan Picador, £17.99, pp. 278, ISBN 0330492586 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 S...

Page 39

Keeping one jump ahead

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Donald Michie C OLOSSUS : B LETCHLEY P ARK ’ S G REATEST S ECRET by Paul Gannon Atlantic, £25, pp. 562, ISBN 1843543303 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 O ver half a...

Ups and downs of Bankside

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Clive Aslet T HE H OUSE BY THE T HAMES AND THE P EOPLE WHO L IVED T HERE by Gillian Tindall Chatto, £20, pp. 258, ISBN 0701175931 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 W...

Page 40

Ten years of climate change

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William Brett T HE N EW H OLLYWOOD by Peter Kramer Wallflower, £12.99, pp. 329, ISBN 0670914517 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T he relationship between Hollywood...

Page 41

A far from plodding pedestrian

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Simon Courtauld W ILFRED T HESIGER : T HE L IFE OF THE G REAT EXPLORER by Alexander Maitland HarperCollins, £25, pp. 528, ISBN 0002556081 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429...

A glorious road to ruin

The Spectator

Jonathan Sumption T HE P ERFECT K ING : T HE L IFE OF E DWARD III, F ATHER OF THE E NGLISH N ATION by Ian Mortimer Cape, £20, pp. 560, ISBN 022407301X ✆ £16 (plus £2.45...

Page 42

The discreet shape of tears

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Salley Vickers K EEPING M UM by Brian Thompson Atlantic, £12.99, pp. 232, ISBN 1843544970 V £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 M others and memoirs are fashionable at the...

Page 43

Nothing to lose but freedom

The Spectator

Ariane Bankes on Tsotsi, a film about violence and redemption — in a South African township I t’s a rare thing to find a film subtitled even in its home country, without a...

Page 44

Crossing continents

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Andrew Lambirth Americans in Paris 1860–1900 National Gallery, until 21 May Sponsored by Rothschild Winslow Homer, Poet of the Sea Dulwich Picture Gallery, until 21 May W...

Page 46

Return flight

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Robert Gore-Langton I f you are seriously rich, leaving lavish things in your will must be one of life’s great pleasures. Few writers can match Sir James Barrie’s...

Page 47

Irritating triumph

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Michael Tanner Der fliegende Holländer Wales Millennium Centre W elsh National Opera’s Der fliegende Holländer is a triumph, despite the considerable irritations of the...

Page 48

The write stuff

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Lloyd Evans Southwark Fair Cottesloe Steam White Bear Other Hands Soho S outhwark Fair by Samuel Adamson. Ever heard of it? Nor me but it sounds like a sprawling comedy of...

Page 49

Bizet’s delight

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Robin Holloway W here have I been all these years? A listed Francophile managing to miss the utter delight of Bizet’s la jolie fille de Perth ! Not averse to Carmen , tickled...

Murder he wrote

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Olivia Glazebrook Capote 15, selected cinemas I t is hard to imagine the author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood as the same man. In 1958, Truman Capote wrote the...

Page 50

Housework on ice

The Spectator

Simon Hoggart W here do the commentators on the Winter Olympics (BBC2) go for the other three years and 50 weeks? I imagine them living in caves. Then, just after Christmas,...

Page 51

Filthy lucre

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Michael Vestey T he historian Bettany Hughes, presenter of Amongst the Medici on Radio Four this week (Wednesday), seemed in her first programme — one of three — a bit...

Singing in the rain

The Spectator

Robin Oakley I s there perhaps at the bottom of the Thames, slithering back and forth with the tides, a muddy heap of mobile phones, glowing faintly in the dark, some emitting...

Page 52

Peter and friends

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Simon Courtauld I t is some years since I saw, in a Paris bookshop, a translated copy of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit , but I still enjoy recalling the French...

Page 53

Union blues

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Taki T o Oxford for a Union debate: This house believes that Hurricane Katrina blew away the myth of US racial equality. Naturally, I was against the motion, but, students...

Page 54

Groundhog day

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Jeremy Clarke T he coach journey from the airport to the city centre took three quarters of an hour. Slumped in my comfortable seat near the back, I looked glumly out of the...

Take the plunge

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Susanna Gross A mong the keenest bridge players I know are Harold Pinter and Antonia Fraser. The other day they told me about an extraordinary hand that Harold picked up...

Page 63

Blaming the blazers

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FRANK KEATING S ix Nations’ rugby resumes this weekend. Still all to play for. The first two rounds of the tournament, which ends on 18 March, produced a generally grey show...

YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED

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Dear Mary Q. A dear friend has been going to Pilates classes. She is very proud of her newly taut torso, but I fear she has been taking the discipline too seriously. She now...

Q. A friend of mine who enjoys cigars asked another

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friend who lives in Spain if on his next trip to London he could buy 100 cigars in Gibraltar and bring them to London. The cigars retail in Gibraltar at about one third of the...

Q. My two daughters have gone to university, and although

The Spectator

they are both within driving distance of home and have cars, I find it very hard to pin them down to coming home for weekends. What do you suggest? O.A., Suffolk A. Take a tip...