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Matthew Parris

Abandon your plans if you want to get a life

Imagine that opposite this page there were to appear an advertisement under the headline ‘Free Return Tickets to Cape Town’, worded something like this: ‘Hundreds of free flights to any destination served by South African Airways! Write to us with your preferred itinerary and a brief explanation of why you would like to visit the

Any other business

The day Lord Rees-Mogg made me want to cry out in pain

If William Rees-Mogg had a fan club, I would be its president. I would lick envelopes for him and update his website, which would no doubt be full of his latest geopolitical prognostications. I would arrange coach parties of the faithful so that we could travel down to Somerset and glimpse him as he paced

Banned Wagon | 3 May 2003

Unesco’s recent Education for All week was outwardly a campaign to boost the educational opportunities for children in the Third World. On closer inspection, however, the campaigning materials betray a political motive involving one issue alone: ‘gender parity’. ‘Educating girls yields the highest return in economic terms,’ asserts Unesco. ‘Countries in sub-Saharan Africa that have