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PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK M r Tony Blair, the Prime Minister,
The Spectatoron holiday in Italy, called for ‘time for reflection’ after the French referendum’s rejection of the proposed European constitution. ‘What emerges so strongly from the French...
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A new Europe
The SpectatorT his magazine has a good record of opposing the centralising treaties of the EU. Alone in the media, The Spectator came out in 1985 against the Single European Act, which...
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A m I losing my puissance or has something gone disastrously
The Spectatorawry with the nation’s young women? It used to be at this time of year — just as the sun started to shine and the first green blob of plum showed itself upon the twig — that...
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What’s ‘nasty’ about the Tory party?
The SpectatorNothing — except the modernisers T here is a weirdness about the Conservative predicament. The Conservative party has won all the great intellectual and political battles of...
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I wish I could share the widespread joy at the great
The SpectatorEuropean ‘No’. Yes, the word ‘No’ is good. Yes, I feel the normal human pleasure at the discomfiture of the politicians. I have enjoyed seeing Peter Mandelson trying to worm...
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Now for the British revolution
The SpectatorAnthony Browne says the French model has failed. Britain must now show the way forward — and save the European Union by her example Brussels Y ou might feel safe reading your...
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A landslide in the Midi
The SpectatorFrank Johnson on how (and why) they voted in his part of rural France Dept d’Hérault O ur TGV, slipping through La France Profonde from Lille to Montpelier three days before the...
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The counsel of Trent
The SpectatorDamian Thompson says that the new Pope wants to promote the Latin Mass — and radical purification B enedict XVI is the first pope in history to have gone about his daily life as...
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Reading for pleasure
The SpectatorOlivia Stewart-Liberty finds that the British Library is buzzing with sexual tension T he first time I went to the British Library, I was waiting to collect my reader’s card in...
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Mind your language
The SpectatorI have been enjoying in a way a book my husband gave me for my birthday called Shop Horror (Fourth Estate, £10). This compilation by Guy Swillingham of colour photographs of the...
The worst of both worlds
The SpectatorRoss Clark says that the government’s PFI deals allow private companies to prosper at the public’s expense I magine you are a left-leaning Guardian reader with a social...
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Thabo’s tantrum
The SpectatorRod Liddle is amazed that the South African President should take offence at Gordon Brown’s efforts to help Africa D oes our Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, think...
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Mexican wave
The SpectatorPeter Brimelow says that immigration is out of control in the United States Washington, Connecticut I f you read the conservative press in the United States — which in effect...
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ID charade
The SpectatorFrom John Hunter Sir: You seem to believe that Conservatives have spent the last four years ‘standing up for local and national democracy, and against the tendency of the...
From Richard Rex Sir: In the unlikely event of the
The SpectatorPrime Minister’s being able to bulldoze through his proposals for identity cards before the levers of power are prised from his frenzied grasp, I propose to refuse compliance...
Not from nowhere
The SpectatorFrom Neil Glanfield Sir: Martin Vander Weyer’s article (‘Stagnant Britain’, 28 May) on declining social mobility might have been even more powerful if he had known a little more...
middle-class, educated and expectant ‘somewhere’. Jamie is not the exception
The Spectatorto prove the rule, but rather the rule to prove the increasingly rare exception. Neil Glanfield Harlow, Essex End of a ‘panacea’ From Denis Mollison Sir: There is a good...
Episcopal contrasts
The SpectatorFrom Timothy O’Sullivan Sir: In later life Cardinal Hume regretted choosing the cloister over training for mortal combat in 1941 (Books, 28 May). He would tell anybody who cared...
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From Robert Triggs Sir: It is greatly to the credit
The Spectatorof the late Cardinal Hume that he believed in people’s freedom to buy private education. The late Bishop of Liverpool David Sheppard was much more politically correct. More than...
A burger to read
The SpectatorFrom Wynn Wheldon Sir: I’m afraid I must take exception to Lloyd Evans’s defence of The Da Vinci Code (Arts, 28 May). While Dan Brown may well be smarter and better informed...
Clarke’s your man
The SpectatorFrom David Meikle Sir: I often find myself in agreement with Charles Moore, but we diverge when it comes to his views on the Conservative party (The Spectator’s Notes, 28 May)....
A biased system
The SpectatorFrom John Maloney Sir: Your editorial of 21 May says the Tories must fight street by street with the Boundaries Commission to eliminate Labour’s rotten boroughs. I’m sure they...
Painterly pique
The SpectatorFrom Dr J.W. Millar Sir: I enjoyed Michael Prodger’s article on George Stubbs’s magnificent equestrian portrait of ‘Hambletonian Rubbing Down’ (Arts, 14 May). As a child I...
Tasty trees
The SpectatorFrom Martin Kidd Sir: I was amused by Nigel Farndale’s piece (Diary, 28 May) concerning the disposal of his Christmas tree. Here in Berlin everything is recycled and nothing...
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It’s an overdue jolt for Europe’s tram on the line to ever-closer union
The SpectatorT here has to be a first time for everything, and now the French have taken my advice. ‘ Allez France ’, so I urged them last week, ‘ votez Non, votez souvent ’ — and they did....
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When coughing drowns the parson’s saw
The SpectatorF arewell, the merry, merry month of May. Most of it, in my case, was taken up in catching a cold, feeling it concrete-up my nose, torch and lacerate my throat, twist and file...
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Putting the ghosts to rest
The SpectatorJohn Weston M AO : T HE U NKNOWN S TORY by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday Cape, £25, pp. 814 ISBN 0224071262 ✆ £23 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 I n 1976, the year of Mao’s...
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Birds in the hand
The SpectatorNicolas Barker T HE L IFE AND T IMES OF A LLEN L ANE by Jeremy Lewis Penguin/Viking, £25, pp. 484, ISBN 0670914851 P ENGUIN B Y D ESIGN by Phil Baines Penguin/Allen Lane,...
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Brillo boxes and marble nudes
The SpectatorRupert Christiansen W HAT G OOD A RE THE A RTS ? by John Carey Faber, £12.99, pp. 298, ISBN 0571226027 ✆ £11.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 P rofessor John Carey is at his...
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Jazzing up the Wilson years
The SpectatorAlan Watkins E NOUGH I S E NOUGH by Mark Lawson Picador, £16.99, pp. 371, ISBN 0330438034 ✆ £14.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 S ex, as Philip Larkin famously told us, began...
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On the scent of the rose
The SpectatorRoy Strong T HE T UDOR H OUSE AND GARDEN by Paula Henderson Yale University Press, £38, pp. 288 ISBN 0300106874 ✆ £38 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T HE G ARDENS AT H AMPTON...
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When men were blokes
The SpectatorLucy Hughes-Hallett HEROES+VILLAINS photographs by David Steen Genesis, £150 (regular edition), £250 (deluxe leather edition, signed by Roger Moore) ISBN 00104351939...
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Lost in translation
The SpectatorHenrietta Bredin on the prevalence and pitfalls of opera surtitles T hey’re here to stay. There is no longer any point in discussing whether or not opera performances in...
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‘How various he is’
The SpectatorAndrew Lambirth Joshua Reynolds: The Creation of Celebrity Tate Britain, until 18 September T he first question: why isn’t this Reynolds show at the Royal Academy, of which Sir...
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Rare Tallis
The SpectatorPeter Phillips I n thinking about Tallis in this his anniversary year, I have come to realise that performances of even his most famous works are so rare that we are still at...
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Exquisite torture
The SpectatorCharles Spencer C onsulting my records, as Dr Watson used to say, I find that it was in June 2003 that I first wrote here about the iPod. My former colleague Caspar, now...
Mean and sleazy
The SpectatorMark Steyn Sin City 18, selected cinemas W hat’s black and white and red all over? Sin City . Shot in noir-hommage monochrome, it breaks into colour only for its frequent...
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Rossini subdued
The SpectatorMichael Tanner La Cenerentola Glyndebourne La Clemenza di Tito St John’s Smith Square G lyndebourne began in what is now the traditional manner: high winds and driving rain....
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Choreogra p hic
The Spectatorkaleidoscopes Giannandrea Poesio Rambert Dance Company Sadler’s Wells Theatre A t first, the idea of a dance work based on Albert Einstein’s theories, including the...
Pleasures denied
The SpectatorToby Young Theatre of Blood Lyttelton Hedda Gabler Duke of York’s Some Girls Gielgud W ell, it wasn’t quite the theatrical event of the year I was expecting. Theatre of Blood...
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Philosophical consolations
The SpectatorPatrick Carnegy Believe What You Will Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon A t Stratford’s Other Place, the RSC is putting on an excellent new play by David Grieg in which a...
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Dictators’ legacies
The SpectatorMichael Vestey T he propaganda myths surrounding Mao Tse-tung have been exposed this week with the publication of a biography, Mao: The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang, the author...
Glimmer of hope
The SpectatorJames Delingpole T o be honest, I haven’t been watching an awful lot of TV lately. It gets in the way of bedtime reading and an early night. You think you’re safe watching a...
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Woody and Mike
The SpectatorTaki New York R obert Wood Johnson IV is the billionaire owner of the New York Jets, an American football team which plays in New Jersey, as its crosstown rivals, the New York...
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Onwards and downwards
The SpectatorJeremy Clarke I was running on the treadmill in the gym in the new custom-built trainers I’d bought in Oxford Street. I’d popped my foot on a sensor, the assistant had pressed...
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SIMON HOGGART
The SpectatorI f you’ve never been there, get yourself to Waddesdon Manor, the vast French château in one of the loveliest parts of Buckinghamshire built by Ferdinand Rothschild as his...
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T he rarity of a British Lions rugby tour (England, Wales,
The SpectatorScotland and allIreland combined as one) makes it so resonant, so keenly anticipated. They kick off today against a Bay of Plenty XV in Rotorua, whiffily sulphurous...
Q. Two friends of mine would be great as a
The Spectatorcouple but despite having often sat next to each other at dinner, and even been out to dinner alone together at least three times, nothing has happened. I can tell that they...
Q. A friend of mine has recently acquired a helicopter
The Spectatorand comes to visit me in our small hamlet, landing in the field opposite our house. Am I right in thinking this is something of a feather in my cap? P.R.E., Pewsey, Wilts A. It...
Q. I am a single mother with two children. I
The Spectatorwould like to repay the great hospitality I have received from neighbours in the six months since I moved to Cornwall from London, but cash flow crises have left me stumped....