The latest culture as recommended by our staff

I will always defend a big spender like J.M. Keynes

Nancy Dell’Olio makes an impassioned case for Keynesian economics as the necessary remedy for the global crisis. It is to the Cambridge economist that we should turn once more

How I became Bulgaria’s etiquette guru

Dylan Jones is astonished to find in Sofia that the former communist country has embraced his guide to the mores of modern life — and that not everybody looks like Borat

Rudd has lurched from indecision to phoney war

Matthew Castray looks back on the Australian Prime Minister’s first year in office and audits an administration which has reviewed much and done very little

Incompetence is fine: but being offensive is sure to get you sacked

Rod Liddle says that something has gone wrong when 15 South Lanarkshire social workers are sacked over a dodgy Gary Glitter joke while none of their counterparts in Haringey has even been reprimanded over the ‘Baby P’ case

Brown has played into the hands of the Tory Bullingdon Boys he loathes

Fraser Nelson says that the Pre-Budget Report killed off New Labour without landing a punch on the Tories. It has paved the way for a new Conservatism, in which Cameron woos aspirational voters, focuses on government debt and looks for responsible spending cuts

I loved Oliver Stone’s Bush film — and I know why the critics hated it

The movie W. did not provide the crude anti-Bush agitprop that the reviewers craved, says Rod Liddle. This was precisely its strength: we need to get inside the minds even of those we most deplore

Myth-maker at work

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington, by Jennet Conant

Thank goodness we can have a run on the pound when we need one

Martin Vander Weyer looks ahead to next week’s Pre-Budget Report and reflects on George Osborne’s contentious remarks about the devaluation of sterling. It looks like Gordon Brown is getting away with his borrowing binge — leaving the Tories isolated

Kabul Notebook

David Tang writes from Kabul

There is nothing magic about this Keynesian fad

Last week, The Spectator said that ‘Keynesianism is not the answer’. Here, Tim Congdon says the government’s economic recovery strategy is a sham based on outmoded leftist thinking