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James Forsyth

Risky Business

The Spectator/KPMG conference explored investment opportunities in today’s uncertain geopolitical climate We live in an age of uncertainty. The predictable threats of the Cold War have been replaced with more nebulous dangers: great power politics might be stable but across large parts of the world instability rules. The Spectator’s ‘Global Risk and Opportunity’ conference in

Post-racial America? Forget it

The United States is almost as segregated under Obama as it was in the time of Martin Luther King As I arrived in New Orleans this summer, there was a juicy racism row blazing across the airwaves and the blogosphere. Like lots of the juiciest rows, it was over a little thing. The question was,

City of fear

A day in Juárez – once a party town, now the murder capital of the world ‘We’re not going to die, are we Dan?’ asked my friend Joe, a CBS radio reporter, shortly before we crossed from El Paso into Juárez, Mexico, murder capital of the world. ‘Nah,’ I replied. ‘Our guide is a priest.

Gut reaction

Hookworms are parasites. But could they also be a revolutionary medical treatment? In a bright modern office in the University of Nottingham’s complex of bright and modern buildings, Dr David Pritchard has fallen silent and is sitting staring at his hands. It’s been a few minutes since he stopped talking. In the first 30 seconds

Waving while drowning

With or without global warming, Britain is disappearing into the sea. We must invest more in coastal and river defences I have an idea for saving public money: replace the Department for Energy and Climate Change with one man and a sandwich board carrying the words: ‘Prepare to Meet Thy Doom’. It shouldn’t cost much

From the trenches to the stalls

The writer Sebastian Faulks exudes a sense of calm accomplishment. But even he seems tense about the stage adaptation of his bestselling novel Birdsong ‘I’m not excited. I don’t do excitement,’ says Sebastian Faulks. Which is probably just as well. Four years have elapsed since the project he’s currently involved with, a dramatisation of his

The night our house burnt down

Murray Sayle, who died last weekend, wrote regularly for The Spectator. Here is an edited extract from his column of 13 May 1989. Aikawa, near Tokyo The night of 19 December last was cold and starry. Our house stood in a clearing in a pine forest halfway up a mountainside, and the flames could be

Labour’s coming up on the rails

Even leaderless and without fresh ideas, Labour has surged in the polls. Think what the party might be able to do with someone – anyone – in charge The Labour leadership contest has been easy to mock. It has set brother against brother, lasted for months and shown that the party has no heir to