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Sunday 7 September 2008

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The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Clemency Burton-Hill

Clemency suggests

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Cameron is still the best option

Fraser Nelson

25th July, 2007

It is horrible to imagine. It would be a tragedy, for party and country. Even contemplating it seems lurid and, given recent events, deeply mischievous. It is certainly not something for loyal Tories to discuss in public. But, in their darker moments, few Conservative politicians will have not asked themselves the question in the past turbulent week: if David Cameron were to be run over by a bus tomorrow, who would lead the Conservative party?

'I'm prejudiced in his favour'

Stanley Johnson

18th July, 2007

Stanley Johnson says that his son is no buffoon, that his ability to make people laugh doesn’t mean he’s a lightweight, and that he should not get bogged down in ‘consultation’

On the road with Boris

Toby Young

18th July, 2007

Toby Young, our campaign correspondent, says that the candidate’s prospects
in the London mayoral election hinge on his appeal as a great communicator,
and on the hysteria of the Left, which completely misunderstands him

Sex and the City has nothing on screwball comedy

Sarah Churchwell

18th July, 2007

Sarah Churchwell says the romantic comedies of the 1930s have more glamour, wit and sexual equality than the smash-hit television series now destined for the silver screen

Brown’s stand on Russia is a welcome correction

James Forsyth

18th July, 2007

Tony Blair was one of many Western leaders duped by President Putin, writes James Forsyth, but the new British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary must stand their ground

‘British successes like The Queen are freaks’

Clemency Burton-Hill

18th July, 2007

Clemency Burton-Hill talks to the British director Stephen Frears and hears his strong views on the film industry in this country which, he says, barely exists now

The Cold War is back

Fraser Nelson

11th July, 2007

Fraser Nelson says that Putin’s bellicose strategy — spending his oil millions on a deadly new arsenal — is more dangerous than the actions of his Cold War predecessors because Russia is so vulnerable to economic and social collapse

The politicians we deserved

Stephen Pollard

11th July, 2007

Stephen Pollard, who as David Blunkett’s biographer longed to see Alastair Campbell’s journal, says it tells us as much about the nation as it does about New Labour

Stop making sense

Drew Westen

11th July, 2007

Drew Westen’s book on the political brain is the talk of Washington. Here, he explains why the path to electoral victory is not governed by reason

London is the new Venice

Ross Clark

11th July, 2007

Ross Clark says that our capital has the geographical, economic and social conditions that made the Venetian city-state of the 14th century — but all this is vulnerable

Boris is the kind of Tory I’d vote for: which means he can win

Rod Liddle

11th July, 2007

Rod Liddle urges his friend to stand for Mayor of London and demonstrate
what modern Conservatism can do — if you let it

Rupert Everett:defying respectability

Tim Walker

11th July, 2007

Rupert Everett tells Tim Walker that there is nothing wrong with being a bimbo, that political correctness has been ‘a disaster for everyone’ and that gay adoption is wrong

We are up against 20 years of planning

Saira Khan

4th July, 2007

Saira Khan recalls the moment she met relatives in the hijab for the first time and one of them told her: ‘We are not British, we are Muslim

The public know how these attacks happen — unlike the politicians

Rod Liddle

4th July, 2007

Rod Liddle says that the car-bomb plot was the predictable consequence of multiculturalism, lax immigration, mad human rights laws and neocon aggression. Shame the government can’t see this

Please can we have our Enlightenment back?

Hywel Williams

4th July, 2007

Hywel Williams says the faddish atheism of Hitchens and Dawkins is a subplot of the war on terror that misrepresents the true spiritual context of the 18th-century Enlightenment

A letter from Planet Fayed

Katharine Witty

4th July, 2007

In 1986 a BBC producer approached Mohamed Al Fayed and asked him to contribute to a programme called The Uncrowned Jewels.

Live Earth is Al Gore’s campaign launch

James Forsyth

4th July, 2007

The eco-concert is the apogee of Gore's reinvention as a non-politician celebrity, says James Forsyth. But this advantage would evaporate if he were to re-enter conventional politics

For the Islamist doctor, terror is healing

4th July, 2007

Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say that radical Islam is less the product of extreme deprivation than of the thwarted aspirations of the Muslim middle classes and professionals

Jihad amid the dreaming spires

Alex Lewis

4th July, 2007

Alex Lewis investigates claims that the Islamists are recruiting at Oxford University and talks to the exiled Omar Bakri who happily confirms his fears.

All bets are off

Fraser Nelson

27th June, 2007

Fraser Nelson says that the new Prime Minister has positioned himself in territory that the Tories have left vacant, and is ready to fight a cultural battle to defend the ‘British way of life’ and win over the C1 voters who decide elections