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Freddy Gray

Meet the real Joe Biden: Vice-President Plonker

It has become fashionable to blame Sarah Palin for John McCain’s election defeat. Sure, say Washington insiders, Palin invigorated the conservative base — add contemptuous sneer — but she alienated the independents and undecideds. The God-fearing mother-governor of Alaska was not fit for high office. Her television performances were an international embarrassment. In choosing Palin

Remembrance day salutes man’s ancient instincts

War has a fatal attraction for men, says James Delingpole. Those who fall in combat are indeed the best and the bravest — and we shall certainly need their like again Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, and I’m sorry to repeat such a hoary cliché, but the reason

As Orwell warned, children now spy on adults

Brendan O’Neill says that New Labour is deploying Maoist tactics to use children’s ‘pester power’ to crack down on the ‘eco-crimes’ and alleged anti-social behaviour of their parents When I was a child, ‘pester power’ meant stamping one’s feet in a shop. It involved little more than begging one’s mum in an irritating voice for

The Tory quest for a fiscal Holy Grail is doomed

Brown’s golden rules have been exposed as a sham, says Irwin Stelzer, but the Tory response has been feeble. Their target should be the PM’s feathering of Old Labour nests The good news is that Gordon Brown’s golden rules are no more. These rules did not stop the then chancellor from launching a spending binge.

I don’t miss Italy. The dolce vita is a myth

Mention to most people that you have recently quit Italy for London and you become an instant object of sympathy. ‘Oh, poor you,’ they coo, ‘don’t you mind?’ Cue effusions about that darling trattoria in Lucca, those hidden della Francescas in Arezzo and enthusiastic reiterations of the word ‘bella’ as last seen in Gregory’s Girl.

Obama has changed the world just by being elected

Washington, D.C. In 1968, as Washington burned in the riots that followed Martin Luther King’s assassination, few would have predicted that in 40 years’ time America would elect a black president. But on Tuesday night, a diverse crowd gathered on the same street where the rioting had reached its height in 1968 to celebrate Obama’s

Obama’s America will be more equal but less mighty

Reihan Salam says that the President-elect is no socialist and it was desperate of McCain to claim as much. Obama’s policies more closely resemble European social democracy — with the attendant risk of economic sclerosis in the face of Asian competition While walking to work on the morning of Election Day, I was struck by