The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Amid the financial turmoil, Peter versus George is the key battle

Stand by for a mighty clash between two politicians, says Fraser Nelson. The now infamous dinner between Mandelson and Osborne was a cordial parting for power-brokers of different generations who will fight each other savagely for electoral advantage

Maybe Polanski was right to flee America

P.G. Morgan goes in search of the truth about the great director’s flight from the US courts — and uncovers some uncomfortable truths worthy of a scene in Chinatown

An evening with the Muslim Facebook crew

Sarfraz Manzoor celebrates an iftar meal with homeless people and his fellow Muslims, a web-generated ‘flashmob’ observing an Islamic tradition of generosity to the needy

Strictly Come Dancing is not the BBC’s core broadcasting

Rod Liddle — a former editor of the Today programme — says that the Corporation must stop pretending to be democratic if it is to keep the licence fee. Unashamed elitism is the only chance that the Beeb has in the new media world

Only Abba can save the world financial markets

Martin Vander Weyer says that the collapse in the markets reflects a loss of confidence that is out of proportion to all reason: a trip to Mamma Mia! is the answer to this hysteria

‘You grow up with footballs. We grow up with kukris’

James Delingpole meets the Gurkha veterans seeking citizenship rights in the courts and says that, this time, the government has picked the wrong fight

Here’s how McCain can beat Obama to the White House

The acclaimed young Republican writer, Reihan Salam, says that McCain can win the presidency if he appeals relentlessly to the non-college-educated white middle class, pursues family-friendly tax reform and stands for global peace through American strength

America is still the nation whose eyes say ‘yes’

Douglas Murray tours a country despondent about its presidential race and increasingly uncertain about Barack Obama. Yet the world still needs America’s strengths

Our lazy firemen must make a radical change

Britain’s firefighters are under-worked and inflexible, says Leo McKinstry. It’s time we created a unified emergency service

Don’t mention the Afghan–Pakistan war

Both Britain and America are reluctant to admit it but, says Fraser Nelson, our most pressing foreign policy problem is what to do about Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state in which terrorists have taken sanctuary