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The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Labour’s U-turn on social housing for non-immigrants is welcome but too late

Rod Liddle says that metropolitan liberal ideology is too deeply ingrained in local councils, social services and the judiciary to be overturned by one panic measure driven by Labour’s sudden fear of the BNP

To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with

Cass Sunstein — co-author of the hugely influential Nudge and an adviser to President Obama — unveils his new theory of ‘group polarisation’, and explains why, when like-minded people spend time with each other, their views become not only more confident but more extreme

Who would have thought a herd could moonwalk?

The acclaimed web theorist, Mark Earls, says that the death of Michael Jackson unleashed the extremes of collective action: mass mourning and sick jokes

A splendid lunch with Jimmy McNulty

In the first of an occasional series of interviews over meals, Deborah Ross talks to Dominic West about The Wire and the challenge to an Old Etonian of playing an American cop

What Jacko needed was someone to say ‘No’

My defining memory of Michael Jackson — vulnerable, brilliant, otherworldly — is of watching him dance to the soundtrack of a movie.

Entrance tests repay close examination

It is usually not enough merely to be able to afford to send a child to an independent school.

The first compassionate conservative

Toby Young on how his old pal rebranded himself in order to become President of the Oxford Union

‘Let’s melt down the railings to make bicycles’

Boris Johnson talks to Mary Wakefield about being Mayor, playing God and beating David Cameron (at ping-pong)

A granny in the front line against New Labour

Charles Clover hails the courage of Elizabeth Pascoe, who has fought against the compulsory purchase of her Victorian home, and the laws that enable such state vandalism

The Spectator's Notes

Charles Moore's reflections on the week