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A novice with the right ideas
The SpectatorF or all its stunts, vacuities and plain deceptions, there was something undeniably compelling about Gordon Brown’s conference speech in Manchester. Here was an old stager,...
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I am deeply depressed about my children’s capacity to connect with
The Spectatorthe Old Country should we ever come back to England. My effort to begin the process of toughening them up for the rigours of the British education system (uniforms, etc) met...
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I t is a fascinating feature of this great financial disaster
The Spectatorthat everyone — or at least everyone sensible — is confused. I do not mean the basic, widespread confusion about terms and processes — about what is shortselling or a...
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SUNDAY What more compassionate way to open than by allowing
The SpectatorMrs Spelperson to lead us in prayer at an inclusive service for all faiths and none at Birmingham’s historic yet modern town hall? (Some of us need to pray harder than others of...
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Welcome to the new austerity era, Mr Cameron
The SpectatorFraser Nelson says that the Tory leader must not be tempted by a ‘safety first’ strategy at his conference in Birmingham. The global financial crisis has transformed the...
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The Insider’s View
The SpectatorJohn Redwood joins the Coffee House team for the Conservative Party Conference. For the latest news and analysis from Birmingham, log on to: www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse...
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How Dave and George can avoid a terrible rift
The SpectatorAndrew Tyrie says that root-and-branch reform of the Treasury will be needed when Brown is gone, including weekly minuted meetings. Past friendship is not enough T he Treasury...
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The modern Tory hero should be Jefferson
The SpectatorDaniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell unveil their plan for radical reform to decentralise power, make voting count and challenge apparats from Brussels to town halls I n theory,...
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If Miliband becomes PM, I’ll join the right-wing coup to topple him
The SpectatorRod Liddle is outraged by the Foreign Secretary’s alleged comparison of himself to Michael Heseltine: like comparing a Big Beast to a stumpy little Muntjac deer. Where have all...
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Mind your language
The SpectatorThere is no reason to disallow the phrase aside from (instead of apart from ), but I know I shall never use it. Hearing it, with slight annoyance, set me wondering why people...
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This charming man: an audience with the Gover
The SpectatorFraser Nelson meets the shadow schools secretary and finds him bracingly radical and disarmingly polite: a recipe for success in government T here are two reliable tricks which...
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The Tory lead is more solid than you might think
The SpectatorAnthony King T he Conservatives last won a general election in 1992. That was also the year when the opinion polls met their Waterloo. The results of 50 nationwide surveys were...
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Face it: Marx was partly right about capitalism
The SpectatorRowan Williams , the Archbishop of Canterbury, says that the financial world needs fresh scrutiny and regulation. In our attitude to the market, we run the risk of idolatry R...
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Zardari is even more afraid than Musharraf
The SpectatorStephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say the Marriott bomb in Islamabad shows how weak the new Pakistani President is in the face of the Talebanised sectors of this failing state...
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Your chance to vote in the Spectator awards
The SpectatorAfter a gripping week of political theatre in Manchester, James Forsyth invites readers to submit nominations for a new category in our Parliamentarian of the Year Awards: the...
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Storing up more trouble
The SpectatorSir: Your leading article (20 September) calls for a ‘kick up the backside’ to the banking industry. That kick should be aimed elsewhere. The British and American governments...
Impeach Brown
The SpectatorSir: If the problem with removing Brown is that Labour’s front bench don’t want the responsibility (Politics, 20 September), and if the scale of Brown’s financial duplicity is...
Kremlin methods
The SpectatorSir: Tom Parfitt’s article (‘Moscow’s secret war in Ingushetia’, 13 September) is a grim yet wholly accurate description of the techniques used by the Russian leadership to...
Canada’s example
The SpectatorSir: John Kampfner (Diary, 20 September) relates an anecdote suggesting the Labour party might suffer the same fate as Canada’s Conservatives in the early 1980s, which dropped...
‘Too modest’ Toby
The SpectatorSir: Toby Young’s piece on how he came to be admitted to Brasenose is, like most of his writings, a beautifully elegant piece of fiction (Status anxiety, 20 September). He was...
Dot’s warning
The SpectatorSir: I am besotted by Dot Wordsworth, but you and she have let me down. Does nobody in your office check the copy that is sent in? You allowed her to open her piece (Mind your...
Mysterious whale?
The SpectatorSir: It was refreshing to read Adam Nicolson’s review of Philip Hoare’s book Leviathan (Books, 20 September). Of course, the whale is no more gentle or mysterious than any other...
The speed of lava
The SpectatorSir: In his review of Mary Beard’s Pompeii (Books, 20 September), Raymond Carr is incorrect to describe ‘a burning lava, flowing at great speed’. To the best of my knowledge,...
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I find Miliband’s fridge and its contents more interesting than the Foreign Secretary
The SpectatorD id you see David Miliband’s fridge? It was massive. I saw it in a photograph in a Times magazine article about the brainy young Foreign Secretary. The pictures were intended...
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Stop throwing bricks! You might hit a bishop’s niece
The Spectator‘D amn! Another bishop dead!’ said Lord Melbourne in 1834, adding, ‘I think they do it to vex me.’ The departure of one bishop meant he had to make a new one, and that involved...
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The parable of The Golden Calf
The SpectatorEdie Lush attends the record-breaking Sotheby’s sale of Damien Hirst’s artworks, and wonders whether it is all a metaphor for the recent madness of financial markets L ast...
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A catalo g ue of
The Spectatorcredit-crunch cant Simon Nixon challenges the new conventional wisdom that all bankers are greedy, share traders are spivs, governments know best and capitalism is doomed W e...
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E veryone knows what the Hollywood autobiography is like. It contains
The Spectatorthe assurance that the author has been made to feel exceptionally ‘humble’ exactly at those points where someone ordinary might expect to feel smug and triumphant — a...
Getting even
The SpectatorPhilip Hensher J UST M E by Sheila Hancock Bloomsbury, £18.99, pp. 288, ISBN 9780747588825 ✆ £15.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 M Y W ORD IS M Y B OND by Roger Moore Michael...
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That worthless piece of paper
The SpectatorGraham Stewart MUNICH by David Faber Simon & Schuster, £20, pp. 528, ISBN 9781847370082 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 D avid Faber’s account of the Munich crisis has...
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Dubai
The Spectatordiversification S ince 2000, the Dubai economy has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 13%. Despite this success, Dubai has recognised the danger that oil price...
Meet the disposable family
The SpectatorCharlotte Moore T HE S TEPMOTHER ’ S D IARY by Fay Weldon Quercus, £16.99, pp. 265, ISBN 9781847242044 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 ‘T hese modern, all-inclusive...
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A furious, frazzled youth
The SpectatorSimon Baker INDIGNATION by Philip Roth Jonathan Cape, £16.99, pp. 233, ISBN 9780224085137 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I ndignation , Philip Roth’s 29th book, is...
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Out of the frying pan . . .
The SpectatorJudith Flanders S TRANGER IN THE H OUSE : W OMEN ’ S S TORIES OF M EN R ETURNING FROM THE S ECOND W ORLD W AR by Julie Summers Simon & Schuster, £18.99, pp. 363, ISBN...
A jealous addiction
The SpectatorJerome de Groot T HE A CT OF L OVE by Howard Jacobson Cape, £17.99, pp.306 ISBN 9780224086097 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 F rom ‘Readers’ Wives’ to Molly Bloom, the...
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Slippery slopes
The SpectatorLucy Hughes-Hallett T HE W HITE W AR : L IFE AND D EATH ON THE I TALIAN F RONT 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson Faber, £25, pp. 454, ISBN 9780571223336 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870...
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Surprising literary ventures
The SpectatorGary Dexter U SING THE O XFORD J UNIOR D ICTIONARY (1979) by Philip Pullman B efore Lyra, before polar bears and His Dark Materials , and before his first children’s book,...
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Ayckbourn’s unflinching gaze
The SpectatorVeronica Lee profiles the playwright as the Old Vic revives his best-known work A lan Ay e ckbourn, so theatre lore has it, is the scond-most performed British playwright after...
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Man as machine
The SpectatorAndrew Lambirth Cold War Modern: Design 1945–1970 V&A, until 11 January 2009 I t’s difficult not to admire the ambition of the V&A in mounting exhibitions which summarise and...
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A cliché too far
The SpectatorDeborah Ross Taken 15, Nationwide T aken is the latest film from the French film-maker Luc Besson and is about American, ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) who turns Paris...
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Peak performance
The SpectatorLloyd Evans Ivanov Wyndham’s Theatre Now or Later Royal Court Rain Man Apollo G reat directors have the power to alter taste. Michael Grandage’s avowed aim with this revival...
Nanny knows best
The SpectatorCharles Spencer A lthough I waste a lot of time these days gazing longingly at advertisements for luxury cruises in the Daily Telegraph , I don’t think I could ever leave...
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Make do and mend
The SpectatorMichael Tanner Otello Welsh National Opera, Cardiff La fanciulla del West Royal Opera House O tello , for me the most perfect though not the greatest of Verdi’s operas,...
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A unique acoustic
The SpectatorRobin Holloway T here was no space in my report last month, on a first visit to the Bayreuth Festival, for what was in retrospect its most exciting quart d’heure , a privileged...
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Other people’s lives
The SpectatorSimon Hoggart T here was a sad moment in The Family (Channel 4, Wednesday) this week when Dad, the very long-suffering Simon Hughes, is inspecting his daughters’ bedroom, and...
Sense of occasion
The SpectatorAlan Judd T he first Rolls-Royce I drove was a 1960s Shadow, across the Cairngorms on the glorious A939 to Tomintoul. It was a memorable drive, clear skies, snowcapped...
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Opportunity knocks
The SpectatorTaki The party’s over, it’s time to call it a day. They’ve burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away. It’s time to wind up the masquerade. Just make your mind up, the...
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Contemplative moments
The SpectatorJeremy Clarke T he bride was several minutes late arriving at the church. Her side of the congregation were farming people, and while we waited, and the choir sang, the bloke...
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Calm before the storm
The SpectatorMelissa Kite Q uite out of the blue, the insurance company rang to say that the Polish driver has admitted liability and my car is to be fixed. This came as a shock and forced...
Paint a picture
The SpectatorJanet de Botton W ednesday nights have begun to loom large in the London bridge calendar. TGR’s has just started a weekly ‘Super-League’ where ten invited teams are battling...
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Home suite home
The SpectatorJames Waldron investigates the new fashion for buying your own hotel room W hen I was ten, one of my classmates invited me to his birthday party at the Dorchester. Nothing...
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The scars of war
The SpectatorAndrew Roberts is moved by the battlefields of southern Italy and the sacrifices made there I suspect that most Spectator readers want more from a holiday than simply a beach...
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After two decades of being fired, I have some handy tips for my sacked banker neighbour
The SpectatorT o my astonishment, the tsunami that swept through the global financial markets last week actually affected one of my neighbours. When the credit crunch extends as far as...
Ancient & modern
The SpectatorA group of 200 pagan worshippers gathered recently at the Parthenon to beg Athena not to allow material to be removed from her temple and relocated in the new, specially...
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S o what was Nick Faldo blubbing about a week ago
The Spectatorwhen he was talking to the media about his European Ryder Cup team’s meeting with Muhammad Ali on the Valhalla course at Louisville, Kentucky? He doesn’t strike one as the...
Q. I am visited by my 30-year-old godson who, quite
The Spectatoroften, brings a girlfriend to stay for the weekend. As I live in the country and have a septic system, I would like to remind him not to flush prophylactics down the lavatory. I...
Q. My parents have hosted my cousin’s children at their
The Spectatorcountry estate for the last two summers at an enormous cost to them — four weeks one summer and five weeks the other. Bizarrely they (my parents) have not had a word of thanks...
Q. I have a close friend of whom I am
The Spectatorvery fond, but who has the unfortunate habit of perpetual name-dropping. She is intelligent, highly educated, rich and wellconnected, but it seems is still socially insecure. If...