At last there’s the sound of an upstairs window opening, and a woman’s tousled head reveals itself. ‘Stand back, where I can see you!’ it shouts down to me. I pad around for a moment or two on the nicely trimmed front lawn. And then, remarkably, the door is opened. ‘You’re not the man who
Allister Heath has gained access to the inner circle of France’s interior minister. Here, he offers a unique portrait of the presidential hopeful Paris It was the ideal vantage point, a large room overlooking the magnificent Place de la République, the starting point of the rally. I sat watching all afternoon as hundreds of thousands
Mary Wakefield looks back at our issue of 24 April 1926, and finds The Spectator reflecting on Mussolini, the brewing General Strike — and the off-side rule It was press day at The Spectator when Queen Elizabeth II was born. The printers had set the lines of type for the edition of 24 April 1926,
Sarah Bradford, the Queen’s acclaimed biographer, hails her 80th birthday, reflects on an astonishing life — and looks forward to Her Majesty’s ninth decade The Queen will be 80 on 21 April, an appropriate time to reflect on the changes which have taken place during her 54-year reign. She was born in the difficult aftermath
Liam Fox could have been designed by a committee of Tory modernisers. He was brought up in a council house, educated at a comprehensive and worked as a hospital doctor in the deprived east end of Glasgow. He has met Mother Teresa, still buys pop music and has long campaigned for the unfashionable cause of
Character, not ideology, is the key to understanding this remarkable politician, says Anne Applebaum, who has seen the US Secretary of State’s cool charm up close A long time ago, before George W. Bush was elected, and before ‘Condi’ was an internationally recognised nickname, someone who knew Condoleezza Rice in one of her previous incarnations
Irwin Stelzer says that Condoleezza Rice’s trip to Britain reflects Tony Blair’s high standing in America and Bush’s need to keep him on side Potholes. America’s ambassador to Britain, Robert Tuttle, was sure that one of the shocks for his boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during her visit to Blackburn, would be potholes. Or
Close friends of the Prime Minister say that he knows that the cash for peerages crisis goes very deep, and may even finish him off. But they insist that he is ‘determined to fight on, if at all possible’. In the face of formidable evidence to the contrary, the Prime Minister still believes that he
Brussels Almost the first thing you see, on entering Peter Mandelson’s office at the European Commission, is a bound set of photographs of Siberia resting on the coffee table. Are they a signal, a discreet protest from this most British of politicians at being sent into exile? Mr Mandelson would insist not. He had, by
Last week my four-year-old son gained a new classmate. She arrived in the middle of term as her mother has just walked out of Zimbabwe, leaving everything behind to start again from scratch here. I don’t just mean financial scratch — ‘we couldn’t bring a single penny’, she told me as she dashed off to
Matthew d’Ancona recalls a very odd meeting with the two men who have dared to take Dan Brown to court — and their spooky theory about the European Community Much the strangest journalistic encounter I have ever had took place more than a decade ago at the Westminster restaurant known in those days as L’Amico.
Fraser Nelson meets the former chancellor, reborn as Cameron’s ‘ambassador for trust’, who calls for a coalition of Tories and Lib Dems An interview with Kenneth Clarke is not for the asthmatic. His office commands arguably the best riverside views in Westminster, but sights like the London Eye and the Saatchi Gallery must compete with
Pink Floyd — Leicester — 1972. You will always recall the first time you saw your favourite bands. Pink Floyd were not then mainstream — still less known all around the world. Dark Side of the Moon was one continuous piece of music that filled the first half of the show before they went on
John Laughland on a memorable encounter with the butcher of the Balkans at the UN detention centre in The Hague — and his claims of innocence to the last I was one of the last Western journalists to meet Slobodan Milosevic. It was early last year. A fierce wind was whipping the cold rain straight
On 20 March, the Iraq conflict reaches its third anniversary. Con Coughlin defends the decision to invade, explores the impact of Blair on Bush’s second term — and reveals what Condoleezza Rice thinks of David Cameron Squabbling generals, political score-settling and a country reportedly on the brink of civil war. The third anniversary of the
There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted.Schopenhauer Next week marks the deadline that has been set for reactions to the less than satisfactory discussion paper that has emerged from the government’s belated review of the
It was Colin Welland who first uttered those terrible words ‘The British are coming!’ at an Oscar ceremony, back in 1982 — clutching his gold-plated statuette in his northern paw and grinning from beneath his deeply northern moustache. Colin had won an Oscar for having written the screenplay to Chariots of Fire, a film about
As David Cameron completes his first 100 days, the man he defeated for the leadership gives his first interview to Fraser Nelson — and foresees policy battles to come As I wait for David Davis in the corner of his huge House of Commons office, it’s easy to forget that he was the loser of
Matthew d’Ancona says that the Jowell Affair has revealed the loneliness of New Labour’s once-omnipotent Godfather, as the Cameron and Brown families prepare for their own bloody turf war when he is gone One evening at dinner with Tessa Jowell and David Mills, Tony Blair spotted an unsightly paint stain outside their Kentish Town house.
Douglas Davis says that George W. Bush’s drive for global democracy may hand the Hashemite kingdom over to Hamas If unintended consequences are the progeny of political activism, then the fate of King Abdullah of Jordan is a lesson to us all. The West’s best friend in the Arab world is now the region’s most