Spectator articles from November 2007

Spectator archives from November 2007

How to save the Union.
November 3, 2007... When Nigel Lawson was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he liked to say that the problem with tax simplification was that you always end up complicating tax, too. The same is true of much constitutional reform: any attempt to remove an anomaly will...

Diary.(rollover fund)
November 3, 2007... Can anyone lend me quid or two? For the first time in my life I'm borrowing money. Mortgaging property. Scrabbling around for cash so I can live my lavish lifestyle. In case any of the firms I have accounts with are getting worried, please...

Immigration policy can 'swamp' a party's message. But Cameron knows this.(POLITICS)(David Cameron)
November 3, 2007... The government's failure to count up the number of foreign workers in this country rightly reinforces the public's fear that control of the borders has been lost, that an unstoppable tide of migrants is flowing into the country. It is in these...

The Spectator's notes.
November 3, 2007... This week, Policy Exchange, of which I am the chairman, produced a survey, 'The Hijacking of British Islam', of literature found on the premises of more than 100 mosques. In about a quarter of the mosques, often 'mainstream' ones, some blessed...

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody.
November 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] MONDAY Dear me! How are we supposed to have a grown up argument about immigration when silly Lithuanian ambassadors can't see the funny side of a little joke about one-legged dance troupes? If you ask me,...

Cameron means business on welfare: the Tories are the radicals again: few noted the significance of the Conservative leader's pledge in Blackpool to import Wisconsin's benefit reforms. But, says Fraser Nelson, the implications of this promise are huge and could transform Cameron's image.(Conservative Party's David Cameron)
November 3, 2007... There is something about impending doom which focuses the mind. That is why the Tory conference in Blackpool was perhaps the most effective brainstorming session in the party's history--albeit inadvertently. David Cameron arrived facing an...

The Saudis are in the global saddle: Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say that the state visit of King Abdullah dramatised the obeisance of Britain--and the West as a whole--to a country crying out for reform.
November 3, 2007... The state visit of the King of Saudi Arabia to Britain came at a time of growing internal and external crisis for the desert kingdom, and was surely intended to bolster international confidence in the Riyadh regime. All the indications are that...

'There are unfortunately a lot of us old guys around': Tim Walker talks to Peter Vaughan--made famous by Porridge and still on screen at 84--about Joe Orton, Arthur Miller and Sam Peckinpah, and the actor's longing 'to be real'.(Biography)
November 3, 2007... Peter Vaughan has been delivering fine performances for decades--Grouty in Porridge and Robert Lindsay's prospective father-in-law in Citizen Smith, among many others--but it is only lately, since he became a pensioner, that a large swath of...

I am facing up to the fact that I may be a Marxist: James Delingpole is alarmed to discover he agrees with the rationalist, empiricist position adopted by many revolutionary Marxists against the tyranny of the state. So be it, he says.
November 3, 2007... Help! I think I might be turning into a Marxist and I know exactly when it started. It was in January last year when I was watching Question Time, despising most of the panellists for their cant-riddled idiocy as per usual, when I suddenly...

[Intelligence.sup.2] debate report: Capitalism can save the planet (with carbon trading we can solve the climate change crisis without damaging economic growth).
November 3, 2007... 'It's about my cappuccino.' No one expected the great environmental debate--Capitalism can save the Planet--to be reduced to mere refreshments, but Tim Harford, leading for the motion, used the coffee he buys outside his FT office as a symbol...

I beg to differ ... briefs.
November 3, 2007... The recent muliplex blockbuster 300, an historical epic concerning the Spartans fighting King Xerxes's Persian forces at the Battle of Thermopylae was remarkable in one chief respect: it subliminally projected the message that briefs are...

All Hezbollah lacks is a group on Facebook: Lauren Booth tours Beirut as a guest of Hezbollah's media arm and discovers a slick spin operation that still needs to 'drop the Islam stuff for Western journalists'.
November 3, 2007... Beirut A year after Israel's failed attempt to bomb Hezbollah into the Middle Ages, the 'war' of 2006 is now known as the 'Divine Victory' in these parts. With November's general election on hold, politics in Lebanon is as complicated as...

I beg to differ ... boxers.(Brief article)
November 3, 2007... About 20 years ago, while on a business trip to the Gulf, I unthinkingly proposed to a male colleague that we visit the souq together. I told him that I wanted to buy some silk with which to have some boxer shorts tailor-made, as if it...

The royal blackmail story is remarkable for the absence of outrage: the collapse of the mystique surrounding the royal family means that these tawdry allegations are met with a collective shrug rather than a national outcry.(LIDDLE BRITAIN)
November 3, 2007... I suppose there must be someone left in Britain who is surprised or shocked that a minor member of the royal family has alleged homosexual tendencies and is partial to the odd snort of cocaine. Lord Charteris of Amisfield, for example--formerly...

The nightmare of 'precrime' is already with us: Patrick West says that the science fiction of Philip K. Dick's Minority Report has become alarming fact in the powers given to police to take against people who have committed no crime.
November 3, 2007... Those who express concern about the onset of a dystopian surveillance society in Britain, in which the boundary between public and private is being erased, and in which the state malignly uses new methods of monitoring, usually invoke the...

Has the smoking ban reduced heart attacks? Tessa Mayes draws on the latest research from the US to show that there is no necessary correlation between bans and declining heart-attack trends.
November 3, 2007... It's four months since the smoking ban was imposed in England, and most smokers I've met in that time seem to be quietly adapting. A friend wants to buy Suck UK's unisex Smoking Mittens. If you have not come across them before, they are gloves...

Mind your language.
November 3, 2007... When Gisela Stuart was talking to the dear old editor on the wireless the other morning, she used the phrase 'between a rock and a hard place'. People say this almost as if it were a well-known quotation from the Bible or Shakespeare. This...

In Dostoevsky time, you worry about stuff like heavy swing doors and Britishness.(SHARED OPINION)
November 3, 2007... St Petersburg The first two things that grab you about Russia are the women's clothes and the health and safety laws. Or, at least, that is what grabbed me. Wander the streets of St Petersburg, and you don't see much of either. Wander the...

Gregory and the inquest.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 3, 2007... Sir: We read once again an attack on Mohamed Al Fayed by Martyn Gregory over the inquest into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed ('No "flash before the crash"', 27 October). As it happens, Mr Gregory has rarely appeared at...

Appeals for a ref.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 3, 2007... Sir: Sir Malcolm Rifkind ('A trap for Eurosceptic Tories', 27 October) declares that the Conservatives must not offer a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty if it has already been ratified before they come into office. He glosses over the...

The propaganda problem.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 3, 2007... Sir: What Philip Stevens calls in his letter last week 'a vast amount of unimpeachable evidence' [about the alleged Armenian genocides] was actually produced as part of the British government's propaganda campaign during the first world war....

Sex scandals overlooked.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 3, 2007... Sir: Paul Bew's generous and perceptive review of my Luck and the Irish (Books, 20 October) gently chides me for inaccurately stating that Vincent Twomey's book The End of Irish Catholicism? never mentions sexual scandals. But the single...

Are famous writers accident-prone? Some are.(AND ANOTHER THING)
November 3, 2007... I don't want to know too much about writers. The endless revelations about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes have put me off their poetry. Nothing can shake my love of Keats's Odes but I don't have any desire to see his full medical records. Nor do I...

Putin's game in European energy: divide and conquer: Neil Barnett identifies the hidden hand of Gazprom, the Russian state oil and gas giant, in a takeover tussle between Austrian and Hungarian energy companies.(BUSINESS)(Vladimir Putin)
November 3, 2007... Vladimir Putin's efforts to divide the West may be on the back foot now that Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel have decided to stop being beastly to the Americans, but his most effective attack dog--Gazprom--is gleefully setting EU countries...

The City's fascination with farming.(INVESTMENT)
November 3, 2007... Everyone's an expert on agriculture these days. Talk to anyone in the City: when they're not boring you with how much copper wire it takes to build a satellite city outside Shanghai and what that means for mining shares, they're telling you...

Slums for the masses, fortunes for the few: Elliot Wilson says tension between China's rich and poor is increasingly evident in a booming real estate market.(CHINESE PROPERTY)
November 3, 2007... Hu Bin is your archetypal Chinese real-estate entrepreneur. Built like a bull, with a huge, moon-shaped head, a permanent grin and tiny, nicotine-blackened teeth, he is also the embodiment of Beijing's sudden determination to use its huge...

The tale of Grand Central's ghost train--and why I'm right behind Chris Huhne.(ANY OTHER BUSINESS)
November 3, 2007... Rail delays are a daily fact of life, but Grand Central's ghost train has set new records. Due to depart from Sunderland last December, it has yet to pass York en route to King's Cross. I've read the timetable--three services a day north and...

Heaven scent: Michael McMahon on the extraordinary and varied uses for lavender.(LUXURY GOODS)
November 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 'Let's go to that house, for the linen looks white and smells of lavender, and I long to lie in a pair of sheets that smell so.' Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler On the seventh day, while God was resting, He...

Know your mind.(ART ON A BUDGET)
November 3, 2007... Collecting art on a budget can be daunting. The galleries are snide, the auctions confusing, the whole apparatus seems to have been set up as a conspiracy against the decent, normal, interested punter. Well, it needn't be. Here are a few...

Light is might.(BICYCLES)
November 3, 2007... Do you remember that ad for the Citroen 2CV years ago? It was along the lines of: number of wheels--four; number of steering wheels--one; top speed--the British speed limit; price--something very low. You get the point. Given that you spend...

Crowning glory.(HAIRCUTS)
November 3, 2007... How much should a sensible woman pay for a hairdo? 20 [pounds sterling]? 50 [pounds sterling]? In most provincial salons one would be hard pushed to spend much more than 80 [pounds sterling] on even the most dramatic of hairstyles. But if...

Mega box.(HAMPERS)
November 3, 2007... This year, the prize for the most lavish hamper goes to Fortnums for their 20,000 [pounds sterling] compilation of inessentials. Nothing in moderation here. 'For one year only, we've pushed the galleon out,' reads the literature. 'This is no...

Heel thyself.(HANDMADE SHOES)(Kilgour )
November 3, 2007... I am buying a pair of shoes. And this is something I have never done before. Not really. Not at a Savile Row tailors where the shop assistant asks you questions such as: 'Would you say you are conservative by nature or are you more of an...

Thanks for the memories.(VISITORS BOOKS)
November 3, 2007... Sir Roy Strong's eyes widened; his nostrils twitched; his pen hovered as though the horror of what confronted him had momentarily robbed him of the power to write. The offending object was the visitors book of Helmsley Arts Centre in North...

A sensitive bounder.(Kipling Sahib: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... KIPLING SAHIB: INDIA AND THE MAKING OF RUDYARD KIPLING by Charles Allen Little, Brown, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 426, ISBN 9780316726559 [telephone] 16 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 He was a noisy boy...

Guru to five presidents.(The Age of Turbulence)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... THE AGE OF TURBULENCE by Alan Greenspan Allen Lane, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 531, ISBN 9780713999822 [telephone] 20 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Seated next to her at dinner, I was prepared for a dull...

Pioneer of the studied casual.(Norah Lindsay: The Life and Art of a Garden Designer)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... NORAH LINDSAY: THE LIFE AND ART OF A GARDEN DESIGNER by Allyson Hayward Frances Lincoln, 35 [pounds sterling], pp. 287, ISBN 9781845132576 [telephone] 28 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Norah Lindsay had...

The bad boy comes of age.(Polanski)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... POLANSKI by Christopher Sandworth Century, 18.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 480, ISBN 9781844138791 [telephone] 15.19 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 As the biopic comes back into fashion--think Kinsey, think A...

Master of the masquerade.(Old Men in Love)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... OLD MEN IN LOVE by Alasdair Gray Bloomsbury, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 311, ISBN 9780747593539 [telephone] 16 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Not even the Akond of Swat in all his whoness, whyety, whichery...

Deadened by shock.(The Almost Moon)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... THE ALMOST MOON by Alice Sebold Picador, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 291, ISBN 9780330451321 [telephone] 13.59 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold's first novel, sold 2 1/2...

The story behind the story.(Why Not Catch 21?: Fifty Book Titles and their Origins)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... WHY NOT CATCH 21? FIFTY BOOK TITLES AND THEIR ORIGINS by Gary Dexter Frances Lincoln, 9.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 228, ISBN97807611227965 [telephone] 7.90 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 And so we enter...

People keep appearing.(The Man in the Picture)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... THE MAN IN THE PICTURE by Susan Hill Profile Books, 9.99 [pounds sterling], pp.160, ISBN 9781846680755 [telephone] 7.90 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Susan Hill knows exactly how to please. This small,...

No mean feat.(Shanghai Tango: A Memoir)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... SHANGHAI TANGO: A MEMOIR by Jin Xing, with Catherine Texier Atlantic Books, 10.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 195, ISBN 9781843546320 [telephone] 8.79 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 Rows of black suits filled...

Joan of Arc with connections.(Through the Darkness: A Life in Zimbabwe)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... THROUGH THE DARKNESS: A LIFE IN ZIMBABWE by Judith Garfield Todd Zebra Press, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 460, ISBN 9781770220027 [telephone] 11.99 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 This is a book long...

The artist as a middle-aged man.(A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932, vol. 3)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... A LIFE OF PICASSO: VOLUME III: THE TRIUMPHANT YEARS, 1917-1932 by John Richardson Cape, 30 [pounds sterling], pp. 555, ISBN9780224031219 [telephone] 24 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 It's perhaps worth...

The curse of riches.(Diamonds, Gold and War)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... DIAMONDS, GOLD AND WAR by Martin Meredith Simon & Schuster, 25 [pounds sterling], pp. 569, ISBN 9780743286183 [telephone] 20 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 When the second half of the 19th century began,...

Old wine in new skins.(book reviews)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... WHERE THREE ROADS MEET by Salley Vickers Canongate, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 195, ISBN 9781841959863 [telephone] 10.39 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.45 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 429 6655 GIRL MEETS BOY by Ali Smith Canongate, 12.99...

Surprising literary ventures.(Alternative reading)(The Fixed Period)(Brief article)(Book review)
November 3, 2007... THE FIXED PERIOD (1881) by Anthony Trollope [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Fixed Period is the most un-Trollopian thing Trollope ever wrote. It is a first-person futuristic narrative set in the state of Britannula, an island somewhere near...

Glutton for punishment: Mary Wakefield on why Tom Hollander is about to put himself through a terrifying ordeal again.(ARTS)(Play)
November 3, 2007... Act one, scene one The curtain opens on the offices of The Spectator magazine, London SW1, where a woman stands, stage left, staring at a telephone. A clock on the wall says 7.15. Something about the woman's demeanour suggests it to be...

Glowing in the dark.
November 3, 2007... Renaissance Siena: Art for a City National Gallery, until 13 January 2008 Sponsored by Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena The latest exhibition in the grim dungeon of the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing actually looks rather splendid. After...

How others see us.
November 3, 2007... British Vision: Observation and Imagination in British Art 1750-1950 Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, until 13 January 2008 This stunning, and constantly surprising, exhibition is the brainchild, or love child even, of the Flemish art...

New order.(Siegfried)(Opera review)
November 3, 2007... Siegfried; Gotterdammerung Royal Opera Siegfried is in some ways the most complex of the Ring dramas, showing us alternately, and then simultaneously, the old order recognising or/and resisting its need of replacement, and the new order...

Losing the plot.(The Country Wife and Rent)(Theater review)
November 3, 2007... The Country Wife Haymarket Rent Duke of York's A rarity at the Haymarket. A new production of a straight play. Such is the despair over the creeping musicalisation of the West End that this feels less like a review and more like a...

Anyone who likes the work of Craigie Aitchison will appreciate the nuanced colour fields of Milton Avery (1885-1965), one of the subtlest of American modernists and as such one of the last to achieve widespread recognition.(ARTS)(Brief article)
November 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Anyone who likes the work of Craigie Aitchison will appreciate the nuanced colour fields of Milton Avery (1885-1965), one of the subtlest of American modernists and as such one of the last to achieve widespread...

Do it yourself.(Music)
November 3, 2007... Vanity publishing is all the rage these days. Not long ago the idea of putting out something by yourself under an independent label, owned by yourself or one of your many dependents, was considered to be rather shoddy. There was really no...

Poor Cate.(Elizabeth: The Golden Age)(Movie review)
November 3, 2007... Elizabeth: The Golden Age 12A, Nationwide Already, the word is out that Elizabeth: The Golden Age isn't up to much, and it isn't. It may even be a dog's dinner although, I should stress, not our dog's dinner. Our dog, Woofie, likes sushi,...

Pause for thought.(Pop)
November 3, 2007... With ever longer gaps between albums, it's becoming difficult to identify which rock stars are just having a quick lie-down, and which are actually missing in action. Retirement: now that is a bold career move. There must be a few old rockers...

Blinking marvellous.(The Visible Men)(Dance review)
November 3, 2007... New Art Club: The Visible Men The Place: Robin Howard Theatre Andreja Rauch: Weavers Greenwich Dance Agency According to Tom Roden, one half of New Art Club's dynamic duo, 'audience participation is s**t'. I could not agree more,...

Conversation pieces.(Radio)(Radio program review)
November 3, 2007... There's an endless amount of 'chat' on radio and TV, but how much 'conversation'? A recent book by an American, Stephen Miller, reminds us of the difference between them, and how much we have lost by our obsession with argument, obfuscation,...

Young Muslim Britain.(Television)(Britz )(Television program review)
November 3, 2007... Peter Kosminsky's Britz (Channel 4, Wednesday and Thursday) was heavily flagged beforehand as a drama that was going to annoy a lot of people. Naturally, I assumed that one of those people would be me. It came in two parts, the first telling...

Crowded country.(High life)
November 3, 2007... 'Nobody would be happier than me if, in 50 years' time, the Prime Minister, the Archibishop of Canterbury, the Poet Laureate, the Lord Chief Justice, the Regius Professor of History at Oxford and the editor of the Times were all non-white.' So...

Never trust a lady.(Low life)
November 3, 2007... The estate agent was hopelessly late--stuck in traffic, she said--so I gave the couple the tour of our home instead. It was clear that they had no intention of buying: they lived nearby and were just being nosy. What's more, I caught them...

Mid-life crisis.(Wild life)
November 3, 2007... I had an epiphany at 5.30 a.m. the other day in a Shanghai club packed with gangsters, prostitutes and flat-bellied Thai transsexuals. I watched a little guy, in his forties like me, dancing with two women dressed as schoolgirls. Then he...

Love thy neighbour.(Real life)
November 3, 2007... The curtain of my upstairs neighbours' flat has been hanging by a single hook for three weeks, and if something is not done about it soon I am going to call the police. There must be a part of Blair's legacy, a piece of legislation on a statute...

Ethical eating.(The table)
November 3, 2007... Since I wrote in The Spectator a fortnight ago about the 'Say no to foie gras' campaign, my email has been flooded with protests. Animal-rights groups have claimed that I am wet, limp, cravenly judicious; I should have said that force-fed geese...

Pip power.(Bridge)(Brief article)
November 3, 2007... Never overlook the power of the pips. That's been my mantra this week, having read the analysis of a hand defended by Gunnar Hallberg and Andrew McIntosh during last week's prestigious Lederer tournament (which they went on to win). Pips is a...

Spectator wine club.(Buyers guide)
November 3, 2007... I cannot imagine anyone who looks less like Father Christmas than Adam Brett-Smith, the managing director of Corney & Barrow. Adam is slender instead of fat, his face clean-shaven rather than covered in a fluffy white beard, and he would no...

Good food down under: Tim Heald goes to Brisbane and discovers an excellent chef with a smart city attached.(STYLE AND TRAVEL)(Bruno Loubet)
November 3, 2007... The question has, over the last few years, been persistent and the answer elusive. Bruno Loubet was a successful chef in London during the 1990s. He belonged to the period just before the celebrity of cooks such as Gordon Ramsay and Rick Stein,...

Puzzling times: Sinclair McKay lets the pieces fall into place.(STYLE)(Wentworth)
November 3, 2007... When I was a lad, in the tawdry, tatty 1970s, a jigsaw was a thing of thin cardboard that came in a big box and featured, as the picture, the Houses of Parliament (soot-blackened) against an unnaturally vivid blue sky, with violently red buses...

Vishy's victory.(CHESS)(Vishy Anand)
November 3, 2007... This week, as a homage to the new world champion Vishy Anand, I give a game and a puzzle from his illustrious career. Although he showed tremendous early promise, Anand always seemed preternaturally cowed in the presence of Kasparov. Now that...

Growing pains.(COMPETITION)
November 3, 2007... In Competition 2518 you were invited to provide an extract from the adolescent diary of a famous historical figure. Teenagers today publish their diaries online as blogs. How they can bring themselves to do this is beyond me--my own adolescent...

1839: discord.(CROSSWORD)(Brief article)
November 3, 2007... Born in 1839, he boasted he would 23/1A/31/32 (five words in all). Remaining unclued lights give the boaster's name and three names linked with another 1A by a golden 32. Ignore an accent and all apostrophes. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

'Yes,' I said, punching the air. 'Daddy got the highest score'--and other triumphs.(STATUS ANXIETY)
November 3, 2007... What are the two words guaranteed to fill any parents of young children with terror? School fees? Chicken Pox? Gina Ford? The answer, I'm afraid, is half term. My daughter, Sasha, only started going to 'big school' in September so I wasn't...

Flash Gordon.(Cartoon)
November 3, 2007... Give me a minute... It's on the tip of my tongue... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Rrrreffff... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Refffeeerrrr... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Referend... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Happy as Harry.(SPECTATOR SPORT)(Harry Redknapp )
November 3, 2007... With league fixtures into double figures, the autumn's general-excuse-me overture has finished and the long winter slog is really underway. The eight-some reel at the top of the Premiership comprises natch the four usual suspects (Arsenal,...

Dear Mary.(YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED)
November 3, 2007... Q. We live in a small flat and when we have visitors for a weekend or a few days we arrange for them to sleep in a spacious bedroom made available by a neighbour, who is also a good friend. She charges only a nominal amount, which so far we...

The vision thing.
November 10, 2007... Gordon Brown managed to keep a straight face last month when he claimed that he was abandoning plans for a snap election because he needed time to spell out his 'vision for change'. The rest of the country, it must be said, was laughing at this...

Diary.(Diary entry)
November 10, 2007... When will the Americans withdraw? I don't mind how long they stay in Mesopotamia but it's high time they got out of Grosvenor Square. They've been muttering about relocating their embassy, but will it happen? Mayfair, my favourite English...

What's so special about 2020? Brownism is all about postponement.(POLITICS)
November 10, 2007... It took the Queen only eight minutes to read the speech Gordon Brown's advisers had prepared for her and even she looked bored by the end of it. The Prime Minister may have waited ten years for this chance to set the parliamentary agenda, but...

The Spectator's notes.(Column)
November 10, 2007... Why is it good to make pupils stay on at school until they are 18? Under the Bill promised in the Queen's Speech this week, state education will be compulsory for two more years unless the pupil is employed under an apprentice or training...

Will the economy collapse?(Cartoon)
November 10, 2007... We put the question to four average voters [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I would be very surprised if anything went wrong now that Alistair Darling is in charge, say Jackie and Jo [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] We're not worried. We've just...

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody.(Diary entry)(Column)
November 10, 2007... MONDAY Whisked to Oxfordshire with Jed and Wonky Tom as part of Queen's Speech preparation team! Spent whole day in outer inner sanctum!! Dave was in kitchen with his River Cottage apron on making slow-roast organic pork sandwiches when we...

The taxpayer is being stung so this Lord can live in Admiralty House: James Forsyth and Claudia Rosett unravel the astonishing tale of Mark Malloch Brown, the most controversial recruit to the ministry of all talents, the deal he struck with Gordon Brown--and the questions being asked in Parliament about his grand grace-and-favour home.(Cover story)
November 10, 2007... In February 2006 Mark Malloch Brown, then the UN Secretary General's chief of staff, was interviewed by Claudia Rosett at the UN, and found himself increasingly furious at the line of questioning about his housing arrangements in New York....

The big Russian bear just wants to be loved; Con Coughlin says that the paranoia in the Kremlin should not be confused with aggressive intent: Putin and his minions feel embattled, a perception that could have terrible consequences.
November 10, 2007... Moscow There's no reason to be afraid. The growl of the Russian bear is worse than its bite. Forget the new generation of ballistic missiles that can punch a gaping hole in Washington's defensive shield before it's even been built. Ignore...