Society

Putting Lord Mandelson into an electric Mini may not seem to bear much comparison with putting a man on the moon, but there are interesting parallels. In 1961, the US government embarked on the Apollo space programme, with the ambition of landing astronauts on the moon by the end of the decade. By 1969, it had achieved exactly what it set out to do. But it was a risky project, with no guarantee of success. To land on the moon, scientists had to solve three problems: how to rendezvous and dock with another spacecraft, how to work outside a spacecraft, and how to survive prolonged periods of time in space.

In an exclusive interview, Sir Michael Lyons, the BBC chairman, talks to Matthew d’Ancona about the licence fee, the Ross-Brand affair — and hints at flexibility over funding If there is a stereotype of the BBC chairman, Sir Michael Lyons does not match it. Marmaduke Hussey, for instance, was the archetypal establishment patrician, while Gavyn Davies was one of the original New Labour cronies (felled by the Hutton Inquiry). Sir Michael, in contrast, has a beaming, technocratic countenance, the look of a brand manager at Sunshine Desserts who has good news for C.J. about tapioca sales. Which is probably a good thing, given the scale and the nature of the

The Eighties mantra ‘greed is good’ may be unfashionable, says Fraser Nelson, but it is still true. We have forgotten that wealth generates revenue, while high taxes crush prosperity and pauperise nations. Will the Conservatives have the guts to declare this economic truth? Before Gordon Brown was writing books about political courage, the subject that fascinated him most was greed. He detected plenty of it when the Thatcher revolution was in full bloom. In 1987 he wrote a polemical book entitled Where There’s Greed, denouncing both the Conservatives and the ‘sinister insights of Adam Smith’. The surge in wealth on both sides of the Atlantic had that year been brilliantly