Spectator articles from February 2005

Spectator archives from February 2005

Portrait of the week.
February 5, 2005... Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, was reported to have warned ministers that plans to allow the Home Secretary to put suspected terrorists under house arrest were likely to be challenged and ruled illegal by the courts. A man known as 'C',...

Baghdad spring.
February 5, 2005... For a negative interpretation of events in which the rest of the world can see nothing but good, the Guardian's editorial pages are much to be recommended. Sure enough, on Monday, while millions of Iraqis were waking up with stained fingers to...

Diary.
February 5, 2005... It has been a most nerve-racking week, whose trauma has seemed quite impervious even to the ministrations of Valium. I speak, of course, of my concern for Katy Harris and Martin Platt, the Mandy Smith and Bill Wyman of Coronation Street, who...

There are good reasons for selling arms to China, but better ones for not doing so.(Politics)
February 5, 2005... The USA is not always right, nor is it an easy ally. The Americans regularly forget the difference between an alliance and an empire. Sometimes, a partnership with America is a bit like being in bed with an elephant. There would appear to...

The Spectator's notes.
February 5, 2005... The main reason that Charles Clarke has now decided to impose powers of house arrest upon the British people is 'human rights'. Even this authoritarian government would not have gone so far without the decision of the Law Lords before Christmas...

Can Iraq make it? The election brought joy to the streets of the Iraqi capital, says Andrew Gilligan. Everything now depends on whether the Americans are willing to hand real power to the people.(Cover Story)
February 5, 2005... Baghdad The election-night special on Iraqi TV, rather like the election itself, bore little resemblance to anything that British viewers might be familiar with. There were few candidates to interview (too scared), no counts to visit (too...

A crushing military defeat for the insurgents: Toby Harnden on the failures of the increasingly stupid terrorists.
February 5, 2005... Tikrit Sitting beneath a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt pinned to the wall of his office deep inside a former Baathist presidential palace, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Stockmoe lolled back in his chair and roared with laughter at the fatal idiocy of so...

Mind your language.(etymology)
February 5, 2005... Radio Four had a trailer programme for a series it will run in August called Word 4 Word. (Yes, it is a bit silly to have a visual pun on the wireless.) It is intended to contribute to Leeds University's new dialect map of the United Kingdom, a...

No tolerance, please, we're Dutch: Rod Liddle says that Islamic terrorism has turned the liberal Dutch into hard-headed neocons, almost.
February 5, 2005... Amsterdam They've been doing a spot of mosque-burning recently, the Dutch. Couple of petrol bombs through the front door and woof --that's Friday prayers postponed indefinitely. I don't suppose they bothered to take their shoes off,...

Science is for posh kids: Terence Kealey says the disappearance of grammar schools means that science is now the preserve of public-school children.
February 5, 2005... There was once a stereotypical figure at our universities called the Northern chemist. He wore a college scarf, spent hours in the bar, had NHS spectacles and Biros lodged in his breast pocket. He very probably came from a grammar school, and...

The end of left and right: Andrew Kenny says that the only purpose political labels serve is to allow fools to argue furiously.
February 5, 2005... Is Osama bin Laden left-wing or right-wing? How about Robert Mugabe? Who has a more left-wing approach to women's sexuality: Pope John Paul or Hustler magazine? Consider Fidel Castro. He persecutes homosexuals, crushes trade unions, forbids...

Carry on bribing: Martin Vander Weyer on how the government has been forced to water down its anti-bribery rules.
February 5, 2005... Amid all the razzmatazz in Toulouse a couple of weeks ago for the unveiling of the Airbus A380--all those superlatives about the double-decker super-jumbo, all the Chiracian hyperbole about the triumph of European co-operation, all that...

Forgotten heroes: Max Hastings on the courage and stoicism of the British soldiers who fought--with little thanks--in Korea.
February 5, 2005... A lot of public emotion has focused recently upon the predicament of British troops fighting in Iraq, and their casualties. Half a century ago, another British army fought far from home in another controversial cause. It suffered far more...

Paper wars.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 5, 2005... From Ken Livingstone Sir: I find it bizarre that the editor of the London Evening Standard should labour under the illusion that I am proposing to put a statue of Nelson Mandela 'on the last empty plinth in Trafalgar Square' (Diary, 22...

Don't quota me.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 5, 2005... From Matthew Richards Sir: Your leader last week rightly highlighted the economic weakness of Michael Howard's anti-immigrant stance. You might have added that it will cost him many votes at the next election. Next Tuesday my wife will...

Immigration myths.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 5, 2005... From N.E. Heywood Sir: Charles Moore states, 'People may say they want a ban on immigration, but... they would quickly discover that they could not find enough building workers, waiters, cleaners, plumbers...' (The Spectator's Notes, 29...

Generosity, not PR.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 5, 2005... From Henry Porter Sir: Ross Clark ('Tsunami balls', 29 January) may have a jaundiced view of tsunami fundraisers but he is certainly not entitled to say that celebrities or any other group are using the catastrophe as an excuse for a...

One fine day.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 5, 2005... From Bob Gardiner Sir: I very much sympathise with Miriam Gross about her 50 [pounds sterling] fine (Diary, 29 January). Recently, I went into London during a public holiday and stayed at a hotel in Piccadilly. I left in the morning at...

Glorious beasts.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 5, 2005... From N. Davies Sir: I am impelled to challenge Matthew Parris's views on the goat (Another voice, 22 January) and make my plea for this splendid animal, which is loyal, affectionate, useful and, as Matthew Parris had the grace to admit,...

Grammar's wisdom.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 5, 2005... From Philip Pullman Sir: I'm grateful for the attention Charles Moore pays my Guardian article about the teaching of grammar (The Spectator's Notes, 29 January), but I don't seem to have made myself clear because he misrepresents what I...

Surprise, surprise.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 5, 2005... From David Cameron MP Sir: If Simon Heffer spent more time studying Conservative policy rather than referring to the party as 'silent, confused and uncommitted', he might be in for a pleasant surprise. In his 'Ten ways to save the party'...

A doctor gripes.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 5, 2005... From Allan Buckley Sir: Theodore Dalrymple ('A doctor's farewell', 22 January) complains that the NHS would not pay for the retirement lunch of his consultant wife. Could I suggest that, in common with less elevated staff, she might...

Is Murdoch about to cut the cover price of the dumbed-down Times?(Media Studies)
February 5, 2005... To read the mind of Rupert Murdoch is difficult and not necessarily pleasant--difficult because he is cleverer than almost any other publisher who has ever lived, and not necessarily pleasant because he is nearly always planning to do someone...

The inexorable march of censorship in New Labour Britain.(And Another Thing)
February 5, 2005... I am enjoying writing my latest book Creators because it is taking me into strange areas. It is, in essence, a series of essays on people of genius or great originality, chiefly musicians, writers, painters or designers. I don't think the...

Aids isn't prejudiced--nor are the British people.(Another Voice)
February 5, 2005... I was surprised to hear about Chris Smith. His revelation in last Sunday's papers that he had been HIV-positive for the past 17 years was news to many of his friends. Sombre, I suppose, but in a loose-tongued age it is satisfying to find a...

Get me to a nunnery: Michael McMahon tempts the convent curfews in Rome.(Travel)
February 5, 2005... I first started sleeping with nuns a little over a year ago. It is easy to get into the habit. Hotel rooms in Rome can be expensive; kipping in convents is cheap. Last month I stayed with the Presentation Sisters in Casa II Rosario, at the...

Caribbean street cred.(Tobago)
February 5, 2005... We arrived at Tobago's tiny international airport in the middle of a freak rainstorm, jet-lagged and apprehensive. 'Do you know a simple, untouristy place we can go for dinner?' we asked our taxi driver. 'I'll take you somewhere really...

Homage to Patagonia.(Chile)
February 5, 2005... Last summer I drove to the south of Chile and Patagonia in a battered jeep with two friends: Matthew, whose jeep it was and who spoke Spanish fluently and worked as a merchant banker, and Oliver, cod philosopher and all-round wise guy. ...

Going native.(Los Angeles)
February 5, 2005... There are no picturesque back-streets to wander around in Los Angeles, no churches to look at and, if the locals show any signs of friendliness, you should probably lock the car doors. So the best and safest way to have fun as a tourist in LA...

Profits lost, honour gained.(Book Review)
February 5, 2005... BURY THE CHAINS: THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT by Adam Hochschild Macmillan, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 432, ISBN 0333904915 18 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 The history of the Atlantic...

Love on the run.(Book Review)
February 5, 2005... ALL FOR LOVE by Dan Jacobson Hamish Hamilton, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 260, ISBN 0241142733 14.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 The ravishingly romantic cover of this book is very unlike the tragic...

The case of the missing parrot.(Book Review)
February 5, 2005... THE FINAL SOLUTION by Michael Chabon Fourth Estate, 10 [pounds sterling], pp. 127, ISBN 0007196024 At the centre of Michael Chabon's earlier novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, was a comic book hero known as the Escapist....

Danger behind the security gates.(Book Review)
February 5, 2005... HUMAN CAPITAL by Stephen Amidon Penguin, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 375, ISBN 0670915270 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Human Capital is set in a prosperous Connecticut suburb, just before the...

A tongue that still wags.(Book Review)
February 5, 2005... LONG LIVE LATIN by John Gray Canis Press, Little Hollies, Bonnington, Kent TN 25 7AZ, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 218, ISBN 0954887808 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Among the unexpected pieces of...

A celebration with a warning.(Book Review)
February 5, 2005... SCENES FROM COMUS by Geoffrey Hill Penguin, 9.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 66, ISBN 0141020237 Geoffrey Hill publishes books in verse rather than collections of poems. This is admirable but presents a reviewer with problems. You want to...

From heroes to hicks.(Book Review)
February 5, 2005... THE PRESIDENTS: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY FROM THEODORE ROOSEVELT TO GEORGE W. BUSH by Stephen Graubard Allen Lane, 30 [pounds sterling], pp. 927, ISBN 0713996188 The flavour of Stephen Graubard's account of the American...

The only game in town.(Book Review)
February 5, 2005... COME DANCE WITH ME by Russell Hoban Bloomsbury, 15.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 162, ISBN 0747574529 13.99 (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Early in Come Dance with Me, Christabel Alderton describes leafing through a book (of...

He didn't linger.(Book Review)
February 5, 2005... TWILIGHT OF LOVE: TRAVELS WITH TURGENEV by Robert Dessaix Scribner, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 269, ISBN 0743263383 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 The Australian Robert Dessaix, a Russian scholar,...

Losing street cred: Josie Appleton wonders why so much public art is second-rate.(Arts)
February 5, 2005... Another week, another 'landmark' piece of public art. This time it's Manchester's celebration of the 2002 Commonwealth Games, 'B of the Bang', a sculpture composed of 180 steel spikes that evokes the explosion of the starter's gun. Over...

Jokes and bitterness.
February 5, 2005... William Orpen: Politics, Sex & Death Imperial War Museum, until 2 May The first question to spring to mind concerning this most welcome and in-depth study of the Irish-British painter Sir William Orpen (1878-1931) is why the Imperial War...

Killer without menace.(Theater Review)
February 5, 2005... Macbeth Almeida The Anniversary Garrick Mission impossible for Simon Russell Beale. This brilliant, charismatic actor seems mesmerised by the notion that greatness lies in complete adaptability. He has set himself the task of scaling...

Short and sweet.(Opera Review)
February 5, 2005... A Nitro at the Opera Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House The Thieving Magpie Opera North Somehow I missed A Nitro at the Opera when it was first put on at the Royal Opera's Linbury Studio in 2003. Last week it was revived for four...

Fitting tribute.(Dance Review)
February 5, 2005... Ashton 100 Celebrations La Fille Mal Gardee The Royal Ballet No celebration of Ashton's choreographic legacy would be complete without La Fille Mal Gardee. Based on a witty revisitation of one of the most ancient titles of the classical...

Loitering with Mozart.(Music)
February 5, 2005... Evidence that we live in cliched times is everywhere about us, but I didn't think it would extend to The Magic Roundabout. The new film, for which several of my colleagues have recently been recording the title music, is being trailed as...

Spendthrift fever.(Olden but golden)
February 5, 2005... I'm trying to write a novel at the moment, which means, of course, that I am spending a great deal of time looking for other things to do. It's amazing how attractive the washing-up seems in comparison with sitting in front of a computer...

Master orator.(Radio)
February 5, 2005... Apart from a strange and silly piece on Today accusing Sir Winston Churchill of being a racist over his attitude to India --he was, after all, a product of the age of Empire--it was a good week on Radio Four for our greatest prime minister. To...

Load of mumbo-jumbo.(Television)(Television Program Review)
February 5, 2005... 'It's neat, it's authentic, it makes sense. The trouble is, it's rubbish,' said Tony Robinson, speaking about the research behind The Da Vinci Code, the book which has, judging by the numbers of people I see clutching it on the Tube, more or...

Happy faces.(The turf)
February 5, 2005... 'Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will,' said the philosopher. 'But, remember, it didn't work for the rabbit.' On the whole, I ignore superstition. I walk cheerfully under ladders, unless occupied by a decorator holding a pot of paint,...

True courage.(High life)
February 5, 2005... I keep writing about how London has gone downhill, yet the moment I'm there I have the time of my life. Starting with a wonderful party at Annabel's given by Jason and Amos Courage and Bassa Aspinall to celebrate their mother Sally's 60th...

Under a lowering sky.(Low life)
February 5, 2005... Back on track with the abstinence regime after the debacle at the dog lunch, I treated myself last weekend to a guided walk on Dartmoor. The walk, advertised in the Dartmoor Visitor, was called 'Crock of Gold and Childe's Tomb'. Twenty...

Grace and favour.(Singular life)
February 5, 2005... The Prime Minister may be accused of many things. Mistakes in some people's eyes, lies or 'crimes' in others. But the latest thing of which Mr Blair stands accused is of such enormity that it merited a page in the newspapers. Mr Blair said...

Gentle touch.(Bridge)
February 5, 2005... LAST week was the first time I've played in the annual National Women Pairs Championship in Coventry without ending up with a sore neck and a tension headache. I'm sure the reason is that I was playing with Rhona Goldenfield, as patient and...

Restaurants.
February 5, 2005... Off to the Gun, the Docklands gastropub. It's a brisk walk from Surrey Quays station. Well, I say brisk but of course it is impossible to get anywhere briskly these days, what with the swarms of swarming immigrants swarming all over the streets...

Armenian ambush.(Chess)
February 5, 2005... A couple of weeks ago, I bade farewell to the year of Tigran Petrosian, 2004 being the 75th anniversary of his birth. However, I cannot resist one last tribute giving two games and a position from three of his most attractive wins. ...

Peccavi.(Competition)
February 5, 2005... In Competition No. 2377 you were invited to supply a poem describing your regrettable failure to keep a recent New Year's resolution. 'Indeed, indeed, repentance oft before/ I swore--but was I sober when I swore?' asks FitzGerald's Rubaiyat, or...

1700: Vanessa.(Crossword)
February 5, 2005... The unclued lights, including two of two words, three with hyphens and two when paired, are of a kind. Half the clues are normal and half contain a definition and a hidden consecutive jumble of the light including one extra letter. These extra...

Six of the best.(Spectator Sport)
February 5, 2005... Spring is springing... and the ancient rugby rituals are under way once more. Cardiff is en fete and the little land on tenterhooks, for surely the brightest of all dawns has truly risen at last and we are bound to beat England this time,...

Dear Mary.(Your Problems Solved)
February 5, 2005... Q. I am becoming increasingly annoyed by friends and acquaintances who think it is acceptable to snort coke. At civilised dinner parties, we find increasingly that someone will bring it out in a pathetic attempt to show they are still young and...

Portrait of the week.
February 12, 2005... Mr Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, proposed a points system, measuring desirable skills and suchlike qualities, to determine which immigrants from outside the European Community would be allowed to settle permanently in Britain. The Special...

A model Prince.
February 12, 2005... The Prince of Wales, it is said, employs a manservant for the task of squeezing toothpaste on to the royal toothbrush. The servant cannot have the most demanding of careers, but he is almost certainly providing greater public utility than are...

Diary.
February 12, 2005... As the result of a hip operation (arthritis, but I encourage people to think it was made necessary by a riding accident), I won't be able to follow hounds again before the ban comes into force next Friday. I used to hunt as a child but gave up...

Labour's heavies make the Sopranos look like the Vienna Boys' Choir.(Politics)
February 12, 2005... Watching Labour's 2005 election campaign unfold, I'm afraid words fail me. The great Democrat governor of New York Mario Cuomo once remarked that "we campaign in poetry but we govern in prose'. And even though I struggle to find the language to...

The Spectator's notes.
February 12, 2005... All journalists, by our nature, tend to favour freedom of information; but it does not necessarily follow that Freedom of Information is a good thing. The behaviour of the political parties since FoI has confirmed the worst fears of civil...

Die in Britain survive in America; James Bartholomew says American healthcare is an expensive muddle that leaves millions unprotected, and yet it delivers much better results--for everyone--than the NHS.
February 12, 2005... Which is better--American or British medical care? If a defender of the National Health Service wants to win the argument against a free market alternative, he declares, 'You wouldn't want healthcare like they have in America, would you?' ...

Leave it to Hollywood; Andrew Gilligan says America's best hope of spreading freedom is to rely on the attractions of capitalism, not the 82nd Airborne.
February 12, 2005... To help us through the many longueurs of the recent Iraqi election process, some members of the Baghdad press corps devised an exciting new competition: seeing who could spot the cheesiest advertisement or trailer on any international rolling...

Give us our money back; Daniel Hannan offers the perfect way to cut taxes: withdraw Britain's 12 billion [pounds sterling] EU contribution.
February 12, 2005... I have found it: the philosopher's stone of politics, the fiscal elixir of life, the magic formula that has eluded democratic governments for centuries. There really is such a thing as a pain-free spending cut. Over the past month, the two main...

Mind your language.
February 12, 2005... Wednesday was the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, and it was also the Chinese New Year, the first day of the 'Year of the Cockerel--Year 4702 in the Chinese calendar' as a site on the Internet had it. The cockerel? What's wrong with the...

Make naivety history: Rod Liddle says debt forgiveness would merely entrench the power of corrupt Third World governments.
February 12, 2005... 'My friend Kevin says that it's as if were all living with an elephant standing in our living-rooms--but we just don't see it.'."--Richard Curtis, author of The Vicar of Dibley. So are you blind, or what? The elephant in your living-room to...

Time to rescue BBC English; Michael Henderson says that too many broadcasters have no idea how to speak our language.
February 12, 2005... Last month at the British Library, as part of the admirable series of poetry evenings organised by Josephine Hart, Edward Fox and Dame Eileen Atkins presented a reading of 'Four Quartets'. It is not eccentric to declare Eliot's long poem,...

RSPCA isn't 'anti-pets'.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 12, 2005... Sir: Jeremy Clarke's article ('Animals don't have human rights', 22 January) contains so many inaccuracies that it is virtually a fact-free zone. It is absurd to suggest that the RSPCA has an 'anti-pet agenda'. Caring for unwanted pet...

They also served ...(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 12, 2005... Sir: Max Hastings says in 'Forgotten heroes' (5 February.), 'The government decided that it would be politically unacceptable to send 18-year-old National Servicemen [to Korea].' That is news to me. I was an 18-year-old National Serviceman in...

Squabbling schools.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 12, 2005... Sir: Terence Kealey ('Science is for posh kids', 5 February) asks why learning should be restricted to the few. We all know the chief culprits: Labour politicians and some Tories in the 1960s and 1970s. But blame also attaches to the...

Double Dutch.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 12, 2005... Sir: The apparent swing from 'liberalism' to 'neoconservatism' that Rod Liddle detects among the Dutch people in the wake of the murder of Theo van Gogh ('No tolerance, please, we're Dutch', 5 February) isn't quite the pendulum shift it...

Why is the Times so down on the Tories? And is it to do with Katharine Raymond?(Media Studies)
February 12, 2005... Political parties should not sue newspapers: that would certainly be my general view. But one can understand why the Tories should have issued a writ against the Times. It follows two articles in the newspaper last month alleging that its...

Everyone benefits.(Press Release)
February 12, 2005... Government continues drive for better, more efficiently organised public services In a guidance pack sent out today to Leaders and Chief Executives of all local authorities in England, the government outlines how local authorities will...

Spin-doctor Campbell proposes a risky course of schemo-therapy.(Shared Opinion)
February 12, 2005... All of us, whatever our politics, will be sad to hear that the Prime Minister is once again undergoing treatment from his spin doctors. Mr Alastair Campbell, president of the Royal College of Spin (RCOS), has been called back to No. 10. He is...

When copulating, beware falling into deep structures.(And Another Thing)
February 12, 2005... I don't give a damn for grammar, or syntax either. Having learned to 'parse' as a small boy, and done ten years of Latin and eight of Greek, I take it all for granted. But I love semantic and grammatical niggles and rejoice in the way some...

He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for Eddie's sake.(City And Suburban)
February 12, 2005... Bill McDonough once preached to Wall Street from the pulpit of Trinity Church, taking his text from St Matthew and reminding his astonished hearers of their duty to their neighbours. Lord George (Eddie, still, in the City) prefers to take his...

The benefits of hindsight.(Book Review)
February 12, 2005... POISONED PEACE, 1945: THE WAR THAT NEVER ENDED by Gregor Dallas John Murray, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 739, ISBN 0719554780 * 23 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 There are so many ways in which the second...

The painter properly portrayed.(Book Review)
February 12, 2005... WALTER SICKERT: A LIFE by Matthew Sturgis HarperCollins, 30 [pounds sterling], pp. 768, ISBN 0002570831 * 26 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 We are continually told that biography is the dominant literary...

Tunnel of love vision.(Book Review)
February 12, 2005... VILLAGES by John Updike Penguin, 17.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 321, ISBN 024114308X * 15.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Tim Madden, the narrator of Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance (1984), offers...

Fits and starts.(Book Review)
February 12, 2005... EPILEPTIC by David B. Cape, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 361, ISBN 0224075020 * 14.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 A book with a title like Epileptic does not raise high expectations: will it be an...

A guide who opens eyes.(Book Review)
February 12, 2005... A WRITER'S VOICE by Al Alvarez Bloomsbury, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 126, ISBN 0747576289 * 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 Is there a more charming literary companion than Al Alvarez? In this...

Huddled masses yearning to breathe free.(Book Review)
February 12, 2005... HUMAN CARGO: A JOURNEY AMONG REFUGEES by Caroline Moorehead Chatto, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 336, ISBN 0701175958 * 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848 As asylum looks like being a key election issue,...