David Kilcullen, the influential counter-insurgency strategist, seeks inspiration in Curzon’s experience as Viceroy of India to assess what Pakistan must do to deal with the extremist threat — and how Nato can help drive the ‘steamroller’ Britain’s eyes this week are on southern Afghanistan. US Marines have doubled Coalition troop numbers in Helmand and are
The House of Commons is not, technically, the ‘mother of all parliaments’. This phrase was coined in 1865 by the radical MP John Bright, who was referring to England. She was, he said, the ancient country of parliaments: men had held these august gatherings for 600 uninterrupted years, even before the Conquest. So of course,
I wonder what Stephen Fry would write on Twitter shortly after he’d been hit very hard on the top of the head with a large spanner? Most likely nothing: the dead don’t Twitter — they probably use Facebook instead. But what if the blow didn’t quite kill? Give him a couple of hours and he’d
‘We have told the Greek ambassador that the reason we are holding you has nothing to do with Greece, which we respect as an old civilisation,’ my interrogator announced. ‘Even if it is now in the EU,’ he added, unable to resist a little dig. ‘No, the reason you are here is because of the
Melanie Phillips is nothing if not prolific and fast. Even before Spectator readers could access my reply to her earlier criticism of me, she had written and posted her own reply, “He Still Doesn’t Get It.” In it, she selectively quotes from my article. The quotes do not do justice to the thrust of my
There is one word that frightens politicians more than any other: scandal. They know that scandal can bring about personal ruin, cut short a promising career and even bring down a government. The power of scandal is that it imprints itself on the public mind. Some are about sex, others about money, drugs or espionage.
There is a danger in writing columns that you destroy everything. You begin by gleefully attacking your enemies, then you begin to attack your friends. You end up attacking yourself, like one of those nematode worms which, in a witless sexual frenzy, stabs itself to death with its own penis. This is the fate that
On 6 December 1648, Captain Thomas Pride, an officer in Cromwell’s army, stood at the door of the House of Commons chamber. He and his colleagues on that day prevented 140 MPs from taking their seats and arrested over 40 of them. The door was then locked, and the key — together with the Mace
Joanna Pitman talks to Ferran Adrià, widely hailed as the world’s greatest chef and named as one of the 100 most influential people on the planet. He doesn’t think he is Picasso Can I interest you in some almond ice cream served on a swirl of garlic oil and balsamic vinegar? Are you game for
James Delingpole talks to Professor Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist, whose new book shows that ‘anthropogenic global warming’ is a dangerous, ruinously expensive fiction, a ‘first-world luxury’ with no basis in scientific fact. Shame on the publishers who rejected the book Imagine how wonderful the world would be if man-made global warming were just a
Hollywood The news cycle of a dead celebrity is a curious thing. One minute I am calmly watching Kelvin Mackenzie laying into Julia Goldsworthy about a rocking chair on Question Time, the next minute Michael Jackson is dead and I’m on a plane to LA. Los Angeles is a terrible place for a celebrity to
Rod Liddle says that metropolitan liberal ideology is too deeply ingrained in local councils, social services and the judiciary to be overturned by one panic measure driven by Labour’s sudden fear of the BNP The government’s new and exciting ‘No Homes for Darkies!’ policy, announced earlier this week, has, for those of you on the
Peter Hoskin and Matthew d’Ancona count down the final 25 of The Spectator’s 50 Essential Films 25. Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975) Cinema sure does work in mysterious ways. Take Barry Lyndon, Stanley Kubrick’s account of an Irish lad (played by Ryan O’Neal) who rises — and then falls — in 18th-century society. It’s a
My defining memory of Michael Jackson — vulnerable, brilliant, otherworldly — is of watching him dance to the soundtrack of a movie. My defining memory of Michael Jackson — vulnerable, brilliant, otherworldly — is of watching him dance to the soundtrack of a movie. This was early in our friendship, around ten years ago in
Dominic West is the actor who plays the homicide cop Jimmy McNulty in the HBO series The Wire and if you don’t watch The Wire you are a big, big dummy, as it has to be the best thing on television ever. And if you do? Then you will know this: while one fully appreciates
‘All character is action’ goes the old Hollywood cliché — that is, we learn far more about people by how they behave than we do from what they tell us about themselves. Whatever else you think about the internet (for good or ill), it does two really important but significantly different things to allow us
Cass Sunstein — co-author of the hugely influential Nudge and an adviser to President Obama — unveils his new theory of ‘group polarisation’, and explains why, when like-minded people spend time with each other, their views become not only more confident but more extreme What explains the rise of fascism in the 1930s? The emergence
Colin Robinson, biographer of the sage who so influenced Thatcherism, says that Seldon has no counterpart now — the Tory party is no longer receptive to such challenging ideas Arthur Seldon deserves greater recognition as a central figure in a small group of economic policymakers which started the transformation of the British economy in the
John Kampfner unveils the ignominious truth about Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq inquiry and reveals Peter Mandelson’s demand, when Brown’s future hung in the balance in early June, that the hearings be held in private. Even now Mandelson’s priority is to protect Brand Blair The charge sheet is long and yet the dock is empty. One
‘Who would ever have thought,’ asked David Hockney, ‘that drawing would return via the telephone?’ It is a typical Hockney point, wry, unexpected, connecting high-tech with low — and in this case undeniably true. Lately he has taken to drawing on his iPhone, with results that are luminous, and wonderfully free in draughtsmanship. ‘I must