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Hugo Rifkind

Shared Opinion

‘Sleaze’ is such a nasty word. How much nicer to call it ‘anti-parliamentary activity’ Sometimes, the answer is staring you right in the face. As the Speaker begins to wonder how he can tighten up rules on parliamentary finances without admitting that the day of the Honourable Member is past, the Guardian reports that the

The Spectator's Notes

The Spectator’s Notes | 9 February 2008

Derek Conway maintains his position. ‘I still believe I have done nothing wrong,’ he told the Mail on Sunday. To understand why he could possibly think that, one has to dig deeper into British class feeling. In wanting to become a Conservative MP, Mr Conway, a working-class boy from Gateshead, seems to have believed not

Any other business

Farewell to Scottish & Newcastle …

Usually the passing of a major UK company into foreign ownership — and with it the ending of British pretensions to global leadership in another industry — is the cue for national soul-searching and recrimination. Not so the demise of Scottish & Newcastle, which finally agreed last month to be carved up by Denmark’s Carlsberg

The entrepreneur’s art: buying, building, selling

Judi Bevan meets David Young, who served in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet before chairing Cable & Wireless and creating his own successful private-equity business Few 75-year-olds supply and programme their grandchildren’s computers or keep in touch with the younger generation by text. But Lord Young of Graffham — the businessman who was parachuted into the cabinet

And Another Thing | 9 February 2008

There is more writing about food now than ever before, most of it feeble. There are exceptions. My Somerset neighbour Tamasin Day-Lewis descants admirably on the subject because she knows everything about the raw materials and has a stunning gift for turning that knowledge into noble repasts. She is quick and graceful too in cooking: