Spectator articles from October 2006

Spectator archives from October 2006

The substance of optimism.
October 7, 2006... Those Tories coming to David Cameron's first conference as party leader in search of detailed policies were always going to be disappointed. It is only ten months since Mr Cameron took the helm. Tony Blair's first ten months as Labour leader...

DIARY.(English royalty)(Column)
October 7, 2006... I embarked upon my new book, On Royalty, because, as a republican, I was genuinely baffled by the devotion monarchies seem to inspire. Yet the more I looked into it, the less there seemed to be to the republican cause: monarchy may be antique...

David Cameron has helped his party rediscover its most lethal weapon: loyalty.
October 7, 2006... For the first time in perhaps a decade, not a drop of blood has been shed on the floor of a Conservative party conference. What was for so many years a vicious gladiatorial arena this week turned into a serene botanical garden. According to...

THE SPECTATOR'S NOTES.(Oliver Letwin, government spending)(Editorial)
October 7, 2006... Bournemouth The current Tory position on tax cuts is rather like the doctrine of the Trinity. It makes no sense unless you know the questions that lie behind it. It is not really a position about tax cuts, but a position about how to go...

DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY.(United Kingdom politics)(Column)
October 7, 2006... SATURDAY Phonecalls to Dorset police: 235. Nights without sleep: 3. Double espressos: 25. Where is Dave's pass? ! ! ? ! ? We applied two months ago for-heaven's-to-Betsy-Duncan-Smith'ssake. Chief constable most unhelpful. 'How do we know...

The mean streets of Britain, where life is as cheap as food.
October 7, 2006... Instead of the heavy police presence I had expected to find at Brixton's underground station, I was greeted by a canned rendition of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. To cool tempers in the notoriously volatile south London hotspot, classical music is...

Unlike Clinton, McCain told them the truth.(Bill Clinton, John McCain )
October 7, 2006... Two very different Americans abroad, two very different messages. Bill Clinton came to sunny Manchester to share his celebrity with New Labour, and John McCain came to rain-soaked Bournemouth to share some ideas with the Tories. The former...

Ken Dodd: still happy after all these years.(Interview)
October 7, 2006... There are certain goals in life that one might accomplish, given the time and the will: climbing the Matterhorn, say, or sitting through the Ring cycle in a week (both need a head for heights). There are other things one might do in dreams,...

The History Boys film gets me all wrong.(Movie review)
October 7, 2006... I've been assaulted by a National Treasure. Alan Bennett, whose awardwinning play The History Boys premiers as a movie this week, has cited my fellow historian Niall Ferguson and me as the inspiration for the loathsome, creepy, shallow,...

The slaughter of the Amish children:just another day in America.
October 7, 2006... It was what the psychiatric services, with commendable understatement, often call a 'special' murder: obscure in its motive, repugnant in its selection of vulnerable and powerless victims, excessively brutal in its denouement. Charles C....

Special relationship spats.(Letter to the editor)
October 7, 2006... From Stephen Graubard Sir: The interview with Senator John McCain ('David Cameron has what it takes to succeed', 30 September) is both informative and interesting but I'd like to correct McCain on two points. The Senator's thought that the...

Media whore.(Letter to the editor)
October 7, 2006... From David Mayger Sir: As a longtime Spectator reader, I used to sympathise with Britain's problem. Used to, that is, until reading that your two major political parties are importing US politicians to address their conventions! John McCain to...

Where Paul first preached.(Letter to the editor)
October 7, 2006... From Tim Hudson Sir: It's odd that the Pope should think that Christianity both defines and is defined by Europe ('Pope Benedict was attacking the West, not Islam', 23 September), when its very name reveals its genesis as the fulfilment of a...

A resignation issue.(Letter to the editor)
October 7, 2006... From Andrew Sinclair Sir: I was the other Fellow of Churchill College who resigned with Francis Crick over the chapel issue ('The genetic code genius failed to kill faith', 30 September). Matt Ridley in his biography does not quite understand...

Hair today.(Letter to the editor)
October 7, 2006... From Alistair Robertson Sir: Matthew Parris has now joined Alistair Cooke as my other bathroom guru (Another voice, 23 September). Many years ago my wife heard Alistair Cooke, in one of his brilliant Letters from America, say that he always...

Bus blockade.(Letter to the editor)
October 7, 2006... From Alan Phillips Sir: Rod Liddle ('A miserable waste of space', 30 September) quotes Transport 2000, 'A bus carrying up to 90 passengers takes up the same space as three cars.' Not when it's in a mile-long bus lane it doesn't; it's...

Light truths.(Letter to the editor)
October 7, 2006... From Robert Davies Sir: Thomas Young's wave theory of light did not in fact disprove Newton's particle theory (Books, 30 September). One of science's later achievements was to realise that both were true and to reconcile them. Robert...

Why should the Queen endorse the unions' decision to choose a new Labour PM mid-term?(Labour Party)
October 7, 2006... Imagine that the prime minister of the day - whoever he might be - were to stand down as PM and leader of the majority party in Parliament. His party would choose a new leader. The new leader would presumably become prime minister. I say...

Why Google has already passed its peak.
October 7, 2006... If you happened to be scripting a James Bond movie and were looking for a role model for a fabulously sinister corporation, there can be little doubt where you would look for inspiration today. Gold no longer matters to the global economy, oil...

Don't expect a new era of cheap fuel.
October 7, 2006... Economics is not always the dismal science; sometimes it can cheer you up. Take the price of petrol. When fuel duty was first introduced in 1909, it was set at 3d a gallon and took the price to 1s 1 1/2 d, which for us decimal kids...

It's unthinkable, but Tesco is heading for trouble.
October 7, 2006... Tesco is heading for a fall. Improbable though this may sound after this week's results showing half-year pre-tax profits storming through the [pounds sterling]1 billion barrier for the first time, the omens are clear. Tesco is a...

Bear market strategies.
October 7, 2006... Ever thought of investing in teddy bears? Before you collapse in a fit of laughter, consider the fortunate person who found a large Steiff teddy bear abandoned in a skip and took it to Christie's, where it sold for over [pounds sterling]7,000....

A voice crying in the wilderness.(The God Delusion)(Book review)
October 7, 2006... THE GOD DELUSION by Richard Dawkins Bantam, [pounds sterling]20, pp. 416, ISBN 0593055489 . [pounds sterling]16 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Richard Dawkins is an evangelical. The cover of this book, with its red...

The shadow of a scandal.(Bringing the House Down)(Book review)
October 7, 2006... BRINGING THE HOUSE DOWN by David Profumo John Murray, [pounds sterling]20, pp. 304, ISBN 0719566088 . [pounds sterling]16 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 For someone famous - and still more for someone infamous, like Jack...

Fashions and passions at Westminster.(Glass Houses)(Book review)
October 7, 2006... GLASS HOUSES by Sandra Howard Simon & Schuster, [pounds sterling]10, pp. 480, ISBN 0743285557 . [pounds sterling]8 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 One gets so tired of the heavy duty plots and intricate analysis in political...

Death of a billionaire PM.(Killing Mr. Lebanaon)(Book review)
October 7, 2006... KILLING MRLEBANON by Nicholas Blandford I.B. Tauris, [pounds sterling]17.99, pp. 236, ISBN 1845112024 . [pounds sterling]14.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Rafik Hariri was Lebanon's bulldozer. A buccaneer. A bruiser. ...

Drive.
October 7, 2006... Medley of horses by the motorway untethered; the field surplus to transport or agriculture. At this speed the horses look like Travellers' horses beside a leftover wood where smoke rising sketches a caravan. As we flash by our road draws...

It was a dark and stormy night . . .(The Act of Roger Murgatroyd)(Book review)
October 7, 2006... THE ACT OF ROGER MURGATROYD by Gilbert Adair Faber, [pounds sterling]10.99, pp. 286 ISBN 057122637X It is hardly surprising if from time to time a contemporary novelist should attempt to write a pastiche of Agatha Christie, if only in the...

Having your cake, eating it and selling it.(Boris)(Book review)
October 7, 2006... BORIS by Andrew Gimson Simon & Schuster, [pounds sterling]17.99, pp. 277, ISBN 0743275845 When Boris Johnson was selected as the Conservative candidate for Henley in 2000, a year after being made editor of The Spectator, he called up...

AngloGerman attitudes.(Don't Mention the War)(Book review)
October 7, 2006... DON'T MENTION THE WAR by John Ramsden Little, Brown, [pounds sterling]20, pp. 433, ISBN 0316861227 . [pounds sterling]16 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 One of the most dangerous tastes any British politician can admit to is...

The end of the imperial line.(The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857)(Book review)
October 7, 2006... THE LAST MUGHAL : THE FALL OF A DYNASTY , DELHI , 1857 by William Dalrymple Bloomsbury, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 578, ISBN 074758639X . [pounds sterling]20 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Great events of the past tend to...

Public servant, private saint.(Leonard Woolf: A Life)(Book review)
October 7, 2006... LEONARD WOOLF : A LIFE by Victoria Glendinning Simon & Schuster, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 530, ISBN 0743220307 . [pounds sterling]20 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Leonard Woolf had a passion for animals, not unconnected...

Dreams Before Sleeping.(Poem)
October 7, 2006... The idea is to set the mind adrift And sleep comes. Mozart, exquisitely dressed, Walks carefully to work between soft piles Of fresh horse-dung. Nice work. Why was my gift Hidden behind the tree? I cried for miles. No one could find it....

Essex girl goes West.(Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins)(Book review)
October 7, 2006... RED CARPETS AND OTHER BANANA SKINS by Rupert Everett Little, Brown, [pounds sterling]18.99, pp. 405, ISBN 0316732222 . [pounds sterling]15.19 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 This highly entertaining and selfdeprecating...

The battle of the books.(A Spy in the Bookshop: Letters between Heywood Hill and John Saumarez Smith, 1966-1974)(Book review)
October 7, 2006... A SPYIN THE BOOKSHOP : LETTERS BETWEEN HEYWOOD HILL AND JOHN SAUMAREZ SMITH , 1966-1974 edited by John Saumarez Smith Frances Lincoln, [pounds sterling]12.99, pp. 176, ISBN 0711226989 . [pounds sterling]10.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p)...

The last time he saw Paris.(inspector Maigret, crime novel character)
October 7, 2006... One good reason to read Simenon is to recover Paris. It is now 75 years since Maigret made his first appearance, and, if his Paris is not yet utterly lost, you have to walk distances and search diligently to find it. The Brasserie Dauphine, for...

'Pass me a sparkler'.(instant opera production)
October 7, 2006... Would I like to attend an operatic speed-dating evening, as a librettist who might be interested in meeting some composers? Certainly one of the odder invitations I've received but tantalising, provocative and of course irresistible - all three...

Light on a master.(oil painting exhibitions)
October 7, 2006... Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius Kulturforum, Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, until 5 November It's strange that while Britain has gone fairly mad over Mozart's 250th anniversary, with vulgarities ranging from Mozart for Babies on Classic FM to...

Lines of beauty.(exhibitions)
October 7, 2006... Holbein in England Tate Britain, until 7 January 2007 Sponsored by The British Land Company Manet to Picasso National Gallery, until 20 May 2007 Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8u1543) needs no introduction: his vision of kingship in the...

ARTS.(exhibitions)(Brief article)
October 7, 2006... For those who think of Leonard McComb RA as an indoor painter of portraits and still-lifes, the revelation of his 30-year retrospective at Agnew's (43 Old Bond Street, W1. , until 20 October) will be his landscapes. While Hockney's Yorkshire...

Unforgettable fire.(Margate, Kent)
October 7, 2006... Places, like property prices, go up and down. Margate, in the most northerly corner of Kent, is just beginning the uncertain journey upwards again. The county's largest resort, it has acres of ribbed brown sand and a harbour enclosed by a pier,...

Meryl's movie.(The Devil Wears Prada)(Movie review)
October 7, 2006... The Devil Wears Prada PG, Nationwide So, to cut straight to what you really want to know without having to wade through several paragraphs of plot-rehash followed by the director's CV and his favourite seasonal vegetable, will you like...

Lessons from Tristan.(Tristan and Isolde )(Opera review)
October 7, 2006... Tristan and Isolde Welsh National Opera La Traviata ENO It's more than three years since there was a production of Wagner's ultimate masterpiece, Tristan und Isolde, in the UK, and I have been looking forward eagerly to Welsh National...

Reasons to be cheerful.(sound recordings)
October 7, 2006... I used to love the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, and when I'm kicking conkers on the way to the station or picking damsons on a sunny Sunday evening in the front garden, I can still see that it has its charms. But the melancholy...

Top of the pops.
October 7, 2006... I was never a fan of The Office, nor did I fall for its doleful star Martin Freeman (the mole-like antidote to Ricky Gervais), but I was intrigued to find out why he had chosen the Staple Singers for the first of his The Great Unknowns (Radio...

Bare cheek.(television programs)
October 7, 2006... Normally I detest people who use laptops on crowded trains, but if you're watching a DVD your elbows aren't flying, and with earphones you're no more of a nuisance to your neighbours than you would be reading a paper. So on a train crawling...

A little snack.
October 7, 2006... The countryside writer Ian Niall, a columnist in these pages some 50 years ago, told in his classic work, The Poacher's Handbook, of one of the fraternity known as Black Bill who had an affection for partridges and could never bring himself to...

Great judgment.(horse racing)
October 7, 2006... Germany, next in the European Union presidency, won't be trying anything too adventurous. We know that from the Berlin official who cautioned memorably against having too many ambitions: 'Put too many stones in your rucksack and you will not...

Party time.(organizing a bash)(Column)
October 7, 2006... The trouble with throwing a party is it only lasts for a few hours. Compared with the time and effort it takes to organise, it seems, well, a waste of time. John Aspinall spent months preparing the extravagances he used to stage at Howletts and...

On the buses.(bus travel)
October 7, 2006... 'At the age of 35, ' said Evelyn Waugh, 'one needs to go to the moon, or some such place, to recapture the excitement with which one first landed at Calais.' Well, I don't suppose Evelyn Waugh went anywhere by bus, which is a pity. If he had,...

Village life.
October 7, 2006... The northern end of my village rejoices in old age. And it is even more venerable than it looks. Sometime during the 18th century the more prosperous residents invested in conspicuous, though otherwise pointless, extensions. My own house has a...

RESTAURANTS.(L'Atelier de Jol Robuchon)(Restaurant review)
October 7, 2006... Jol Robuchon, the French chef who is variously referred to as 'a genius' and 'legendary' and 'the chef of the century' has just opened his first London restaurant, L'Atelier de Jol Robuchon. This is, apparently, 'everyone's most eagerly...

Oh, Brother.(Brooks Brothers Inc.)
October 7, 2006... Brooks Brothers have made suits for every American president since Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was wearing one of their suits when he was shot dead in 1865. Statistically, therefore, you are more likely to be assassinated if you are wearing a...

Snakeskin on a plane.(air travel, luggage)
October 7, 2006... Flying back to Heathrow from JFK on 12 August, just two days after the Draconian new hand luggage restrictions were put into place, was strangely liberating. For the last 30 years I've religiously adhered to a self-imposed, hedonistic,...

BAGS OF ROOM.
October 7, 2006... MARNI Double handle bag [pounds sterling]775 26 Sloane Street Tel: 020 7245 9520 www. marni. com JIMMY CHOO Quay travel bag [pounds sterling]450 27 New Bond Street, Tel: 020 7493 5858 www. jimmychoo. com ANYA HINDMARCH Carker bag...

Fashionable Paris.(travel)
October 7, 2006... Paris was the first capital city outside London that I ever visited. My mother and godmother took me and Suzi, my godmother's daughter, for a girls' weekend when we were about 11. We ate in Le Procope and La Coupole, we visited the...

WHERE TO SLEEP, EAT AND SHOP IN PARIS.(hotels)(Directory)(Brief article)
October 7, 2006... SLEEP Hotel Lancaster 7 Rue de Berri (Nr Champs Elysees) Tel: 33 1 40 76 40 76 www. hotel-lancaster. fr EAT La Coupole 102 Blvd du Montparnasse Tel: 33 1 43 20 14 20 Le Procope 13 Rue de l'Ancienne-Comedie Tel: 33 1 40 46 79 00 La Tour...

Hove has it again.(professional football)
October 7, 2006... Football's overblown autumn overtures have been interesting enough, I suppose; and the rugger buggers have been lining up their wicked big hits for the upcoming long stretch of mud and gloom and gloaming. The domestic cricket season was not...

Make North Korea blink.
October 14, 2006... The Korean nuclear crisis marks the bankruptcy of one style of post-Cold War diplomacy and should be the midwife of wholly new methods. It is not only essential that Pyongyang itself be punished for its flagrant act of provocation. The crisis...

DIARY.(The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists)(Column)
October 14, 2006... 'History in the making can be most exhausting.' When I first read these words - by Nol Coward - I immediately assumed they applied to the writing of it. Having just finished a long book about the loves of Louis XIV, I thought I knew all about...

Labour is losing on most fronts to Cameron, hence its new cultural war over Islam.(Labour Party, David Cameron)
October 14, 2006... The House of Commons has scarcely been back a week and already opportunities are falling from the sky for David Cameron. Government failures are spectacular and ubiquitous. Prisons are overflowing, hospital wards are closing and unemployment is...

THE SPECTATOR'S NOTES.(column)(Column)
October 14, 2006... From time to time, the parliamentary lobby journalists invite us to admire a particular politician. Minister X or shadow minister Y is suddenly presented as quite intensely able etc. For some time, Hilary Benn, the International Development...

DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY.(webcasts, David Cameron)(Column)
October 14, 2006... MONDAY NIGHT Am in spare room at Dave and Sam's! On 'webcameron' duty which means I have to follow leader everywhere, and help with that internet thingy he does. There's a huge team of people here, fussing about. As Jed says, spontaneity...

South Africa's future will not be civil war but sad decay.
October 14, 2006... When the winter rains closed in on Cape Town I thought, bugger this, I'm selling up and moving somewhere sunny. To this end, I asked the char, Mrs Primrose Gwayana, to come in and help spruce up the house. We were scrubbing and painting and...

North Korea is more of a menace than Iran.
October 14, 2006... Washington North Korea's proud announcement on 9 October that it had exploded a nuclear bomb represents a serious danger to the world, and it is dismaying to see confusion about it in many Western capitals. Although North Korean nukes and...

'Anti-Americanism is a form of fascism'.
October 14, 2006... What is most unusual about Bernard-Henri Levy is not that he wears his white shirts open almost all the way down to his bellybutton; one would expect little else of a French philosopher who grew up hooked on the deconstructionist theories of...

Cameron has substance - but it's nonsense.(David Cameron)
October 14, 2006... Maybe The Spectator will turn out to be correct that the Tories are doing everything right (Leading article, 7 October). There is always the knock-down argument against internal critics: David Cameron is following New Labour's successful...

Don't attack the veil: attack the misogyny that created it.
October 14, 2006... Here's how far things have moved in such a short space of time. Jack Straw, in an attempt to generate attention (and approval) for his quest to become deputy leader of the Labour party, lets it be known that he doesn't like talking to Muslim...

Keanu Reeves taught me the magic of Python.(Monty Python)
October 14, 2006... Some years ago I was writing a script with John Cleese in Los Angeles and we went for dinner at a buzzy brasserie called Chaya. When the waiter brought our steaks he also brought a $200 bottle of St Francis Cabernet Sauvignon. We hadn't ordered...

Taxing question.
October 14, 2006... From Lord Lawson of Blaby Sir: Pressed to promise tax cuts during the recent Conservative party conference, both Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne were anxious to point out that Margaret Thatcher didn't promise tax cuts in 1979. What the 1979...

Killer figures from the US.(Letter to the editor)
October 14, 2006... From Robert Walls Sir: The recent tendency for the British press to admire the American system of law enforcement puzzles me. Allister Heath ('The mean streets of Britain where life is as cheap as food', 7 October) describes a UK 'epidemic of...

Religion and violence.(Letter to the editor)
October 14, 2006... From Graham Barnes Sir: Charles Moore should be praised for his generous critique of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion (Books, 7 October), including the brief passages of praise or agreement with that work. But I wonder whether Dawkins,...

Expert and bully.(Letter to the editor)
October 14, 2006... From James McEvoy Sir: Congratulations to Frank Johnson (Shared opinion, 30 September) for spotting that William Dalrymple has turned into something of a bully. I like Dalrymple's writing and loved his first book (In Xanadu), but now he is an...

Andrew's revenge on Alan.(Letter to the editor)
October 14, 2006... From Alan Riley Sir: Sigh. I'm inclined to agree with the points Andrew Roberts makes about misrepresentation and the liberal/left cast of history teaching ('The History Boys film gets me all wrong', 7 October). But I and one of two others...

Homophonic acronyms.(Letter to the editor)
October 14, 2006... From Gillian Harrison Sir: Sandra Howard is quite right. Within the Civil Service at least, Parliamentary undersecretaries of state (the most junior ministers) are often acronymically called 'pusses' (Books, 7 October). This can easily be...

Boo to shampoo.(Letter to the editor)
October 14, 2006... From Duncan Blake Sir: Matthew Parris may want to put his hair affair behind him (Another voice, 23 September), but I would like to take the opportunity of confirming what he says, as I have also abstained (from shampoos) for a number of years...

Leadership, clarity and a very thick skin.
October 14, 2006... If you get up early enough you might spy the solid frame of Allan Leighton running round one of the London parks before he pays a surprise visit to a Royal Mail delivery office. The reaction of the postmen and women is usually the same. 'They...

Profit from the sins of emission.
October 14, 2006... If you were 100 per cent certain that global warming was for real, it wouldn't be hard to think of ways of making money out of it. You could buy a farm in the Shetlands, as I observed here in August - but this time with a view not to hobby...

Switching channels.(ITV PLC)
October 14, 2006... 'Have you had an accident at work that's led to a loss of income?' 'Would you like to consolidate your debt?' 'Do you want to release equity from your property?' If you've ever had the misfortune to find yourself watching ITV1 during the...

Every home should have a hedge fund.
October 14, 2006... Dave wins millions on the lottery, and the first thing he does is sprint down to the nearest Ferrari showroom and jump into the latest model with extra-deep bass woofers and a little fold-down table for his can of Red Bull. His mother spits out...

Don't leave it all to Gordon by mistake.(Gordon Brown )
October 14, 2006... If there is one thing worse than paying inheritance tax, it is discovering at the graveside that an expensive IHT-avoidance scheme has proved a waste of money, in addition to what you are going to have to pay HM Revenue & Customs anyway. A...

Never get into an airport taxi with a Kazakh who chatters like Borat.(Borat Sagdiyev)
October 14, 2006... I have been following with interest - not to say glee - the spat between the government of Kazakhstan and 'Borat Sagdiyev', the latest alter ego of the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Kazakhstan's autocratic President Nursultan Nazarbayev has...

The shape of things to come?(Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance)(Book review)
October 14, 2006... MURDER IN AMSTERDAM : THE DEATH OF THEO VAN GOGH AND THE LIMITS OF TOLERANCE by Ian Buruma Atlantic, [pounds sterling]12.99, pp. 278, ISBN 1843543191 . [pounds sterling]10.39 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 The Dutch...

A Hercules of the Isle.(Calum's Road)(Book review)
October 14, 2006... CALUM'S ROAD by Roger Hutchinson Berlinn, [pounds sterling]9.99, pp. 196, ISBN 1841584479 . [pounds sterling]7.99 (plus [pounds sterling]2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 On a good day there can be no finer view than that from the Applecross...