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McCain, please
The SpectatorW hy have the US primaries been so gripping? Partly because they are suffused with an optimism and energy that is conspicuously lacking from domestic British politics; partly...
Page 9
M y daughter telephoned to say, to my disbelief, that she
The Spectatorwas snowbound in Hangzhou, where it never snows. The city is regarded as the most beautiful in China, with swaying willows surrounding an old lagoon on the edge of which Mao...
Page 10
D erek Conway maintains his position. âI still believe I have
The Spectatordone nothing wrong,â he told the Mail on Sunday . To understand why he could possibly think that, one has to dig deeper into British class feeling. In wanting to become a...
Page 12
Diary of a NottiNg Hill NoboDy
The SpectatorMONDAY Operation Policy Surge a complete success! Slap-up breakfast with wholemeal muffins and organic bucks fizz to celebrate burial of Tory sleaze under a confusing heap of...
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Trust in politics is dead: long live âwiki-politicsâ
The SpectatorFraser Nelson says that the recent run of âsleazeâ stories has merely reinforced the publicâs contempt for the political class. Hierarchy is dead, âpeer-to-peer...
Page 16
Reasons for Barack Obama to be cheerful
The SpectatorJames Forsyth says that Super Tuesday did not give the Illinois senator the mandate he craved. But, with money, time and inspiration on his side, he can still beat Hillary...
Page 18
Inside Hamas: my journey to its secret heart
The SpectatorThe film-maker Mike Chamberlain has gained unprecedented access to the Islamist organisation. He recounts the cloak-anddagger methods that led him to its leaders and its foot...
Page 20
Essex and the City: my life as a âposh birdâ broker
The SpectatorVenetia Thompson on how she learnt to fit in with the harddrinking barrow boys on the trading floor, who live on fish and chips, pickled onions and the most expensive vintage...
Page 22
Venice is the only city on earth going backwards
The SpectatorStephen Bayley rejects the sentimentality that locks the city in the past and that resists every invasion of modernity except tourism. The place is a corpse T he peril in Venice...
Page 24
If we donât bug a conversation between Khan and Ahmed, who do we bug?
The SpectatorRod Liddle says that discussions between a radical Muslim MP and a man suspected of facilitating terrorism overseas are fair game. Extradition is a much bigger worry S hould...
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Nip terror in the bud
The SpectatorSir: Correlli Barnett would have us believe Con Coughlin is suffering from paranoia and describes George Bushâs âwar on terrorâ as stale rhetoric (Letters, 2 February)....
In my own defence
The SpectatorSir: In last weekâs editorial (2 February) about Derek Conway and âsleazeâ, you conjured up the demons of âcash for questions, the Neil Hamilton saga and brown paper...
Persuasion not coercion
The SpectatorSir: I enjoyed reading James MacMillanâs passionate and provocative article (Arts, 2 February). His disquiet seems to be based around two related areas: modern liberalismâs...
Smoked out
The SpectatorSir: In June 2006 the then public health minister, Caroline Flint, told the House of Lords economic affairs committee that âin relation to deaths from smoking and second-hand...
Funeral music
The SpectatorSir: I agree with G.W. of Pewsey (âDear Maryâ, 2 February) about variety in hymn selection at funerals. However, equal care must be taken in considering the relevance to the...
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âSleazeâ is such a nasty word. How much nicer to call it âanti-parliamentary activityâ
The SpectatorS ometimes, the answer is staring you right in the face. As the Speaker begins to wonder how he can tighten up rules on parliamentary finances without admitting that the day of...
Page 28
When gobbling brawn is caviar to the general
The SpectatorT here is more writing about food now than ever before, most of it feeble. There are exceptions. My Somerset neighbour Tamasin Day-Lewis descants admirably on the subject...
Page 30
The entrepreneurâs art: buying, building, selling
The SpectatorJudi Bevan meets David Young, who served in Margaret Thatcherâs cabinet before chairing Cable & Wireless and creating his own successful private-equity business F ew...
Page 31
... And good riddance to the beerage
The SpectatorSimon Nixon U sually the passing of a major UK company into foreign ownership â and with it the ending of British pretensions to global leadership in another industry â is...
Page 32
A crash course in survival
The SpectatorPhilip Hensher M IRACLES OF L IFE by J. G. Ballard Fourth Estate, £14.99, pp. 278, ISBN 9780007270729 â £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 N o one would be allowed to...
Gas
The SpectatorSeeing the country from a train Iâve grown convinced its gasholders in fact are used to house the spite and gloom of post-industrial towns. Arriving anywhere, I credit them...
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God and the GOM
The SpectatorJane Ridley G LADSTONE : G OD AND P OLITICS by Richard Shannon Hambledon Continuum, £80, pp. 550, ISBN 9781847252029 R ichard Shannon has been writing about Gladstone on and...
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Getting a kick
The SpectatorNicky Haslam E THEL M ERMAN by Geoffrey Mark Barricade Legend, £20, pp. 312, ISBN 1569802939 O ne frequently reads of chaps for whom their epiphany was the first sight and...
Problems of keeping mum
The SpectatorMolly Guinness G RANDMOTHER â S F OOTSTEPS by Charlotte Moore Penguin, £17.99, pp. 274, ISBN 9780670917068 â £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 G randmotherâs...
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The unwilling executioner
The SpectatorCarole Angier D ETECTIVE S TORY by Imre Kertész Harvill/Secker, £12.99, pp. 113, ISBN 9781846551833 â £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 F atelessness, Imre...
Genius under many guises
The SpectatorPatrick Skene Catling T HE C OMPLETE N OVELS by Flann OâBrien, with an introduction by Keith Donohue Everyman, £14.99, pp. 787, ISBN 9781841593098 â £11.99 (plus £2.45...
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Our deadliest secret
The SpectatorM. R. D. Foot C ABINETS AND THE B OMB by Peter Hennessy OUP for the British Academy, £19.95, pp. 356, ISBN 9780197264225 â £15.95 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T his book...
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A daunting experience
The SpectatorTom Hollanderâs first meeting with a theatrical agent didnât turn out quite how he expected I t was the late Eighties and it paid to be brash. But I wasnât brash I was...
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Be selective
The SpectatorAndrew Lambirth From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 1870-1925 from Moscow and St Petersburg Royal Academy, until 18 April Sponsored by E.ON I t is a salutary and...
Page 40
Grief and groans
The SpectatorLloyd Evans Purgatorio Arcola Happy Now? Cottesloe The Lover/The Collection Comedy P urgatorio . Hardly a seductive title and I confess it was curiosity rather than enthusiasm...
Page 41
Mozart undersold
The SpectatorMichael Tanner Die Zauberflöte Royal Opera House A Midsummer Nightâs Dream Linbury T here is a hard core of central works which any major opera house needs to have, in a...
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Pure genius
The SpectatorDeborah Ross There Will Be Blood 15, nationwide Juno 12A, nationwide T here Will Be Blood (oh, yes) stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a late19th-century American...
Reptilian reverie
The SpectatorJames Delingpole W hen I was a boy my father and I used to spend our summer holidays collecting lizards. Weâd prop a large bucket at an angle in a suitable spot, grease the...
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Missing the picture
The SpectatorKate Chisholm W hy would anyone want to listen to a programme about the Oscars? Surely the whole point is to see those ghastly frocks and gimcrack smiles, effortfully put on...
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Straight talking
The SpectatorRobin Oakley M y favourite, though almost inevitably apocryphal, story from the US elections so far: Hillary Clinton, on a school visit, invites pupils to question her. âOK,...
Page 45
Pointless penalising
The SpectatorAlan Judd B ig, lazy V8 engines, powerful and durable, are as American as Coca-Cola and Stetsons. Europeans, with smaller cars, shorter distances, dearer petrol and hightaxing...
Page 46
Secrets and lies
The SpectatorTaki Gstaad I n the good old days of the Cold War, Athenian hacks used to say that there were only two countries where secrets were safe: China and Greece. In the former nobody...
Page 47
Lighting up
The SpectatorJeremy Clarke W hat a depressingly sunless month January was, here on this rainswept Devon peninsula! No sun, and purple sprouting broccoli for lunch every day as thereâs a...
Page 48
Changing values
The SpectatorAlex James F ifteen years ago a state-of-the-art recording studio would have cost well north of a million pounds. Mix consoles were vast and needed continuous maintenance by...
Page 49
I love Stone, Vine & Sun of Winchester. They keep winning
The Spectatorawards for best independent wine merchant; they have a knack for finding delicious wines at excellent prices from places you havenât heard about yet but very soon will....
Page 50
System addict
The SpectatorChrista DâSouza finds that the wardrobe fights back W hat does one want at this time of year? Apart from £10,000 for the tax man, that is? If you are me the answer is a...
Page 51
No more Troubles
The SpectatorLeo McKinstry says that Belfast is one of the most appealing cities in Europe T hirty years ago Belfast was about as appealing a destination as Kabul or Baghdad are today....
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Falling for the flatlands
The SpectatorThomas Leveritt E very joker with a country pile has been holding himself a festival lately. So why not join? As chance would have it, my friend Hugh has such a setup in...
Charlie donât surf. Nor do I, alas
The SpectatorI n Newquay, women are taking their clothes off in the streets. Men are too, mind, though I find this less of a distraction. My brother John, who lives on the edge of the town,...
Page 53
Cider with Dave
The SpectatorMatthew Reid O ne dark, moonless January night, in an orchard at the foot of the Cotswolds, I found myself among 20 or 30 figures encircling a colossal, ancient apple tree,...
Page 62
When Arsenal got too posh, I switched to QPR. Now look whatâs happened
The SpectatorA s an angry young man in the 1990s, I used to get extremely irritated when I read articles by left-wing intellectuals in the London Review of Books about football. To my...
Mind your language
The SpectatorSee if you can understand this: âWe want tae mak siccar that as mony folk as can is able tae find oot aboot whit the Scottish Pairlament dis and whit wey it warks.â It looks...
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L ocal newspapers usually have a slightly dotty reverence for the
The Spectatorarea they serve. My own local paper recently described Winston Churchill as âthe former Westerham resident and wartime prime-ministerâ. The Evening Standard has the...
Q. We are lucky enough to be lent a chalet
The Spectatorin Verbier. My wife invited her niece and boyfriend who is showing signs of becoming a fixture. He is not blessed with a great intellect and has been brought up in a household...
Q. Many years ago my dear husband switched his addiction
The Spectatorfrom cigarettes to Nicorette gum. The first thing he does in the morning is pop a gum in, and last thing at night he takes one out and carefully places it on his bedside table...