Oxford University has become headline news again, with everybody chipping in to say how they think it would best be run. The reasons for this new-found interest are radical proposals put forward by its vice chancellor, John Hood, which suggest replacing the traditional system of governance with a more ‘top-down’ managerial approach. Vice chancellor Hood
The author salutes the 1847 vintage of the legendary sweet wine from the Gironde, Château d’Yquem, a bottle of which recently became the most expensive wine ever sold in the United States and is now the most expensive white wine in the world The author salutes the 1847 vintage of the legendary sweet wine from
For billions of people around the world, these are the best of times to be alive. From Beijing to Bratislava, more of us are living longer, healthier and more comfortable lives than at any time in history; fewer of us are suffering from poverty, hunger or illiteracy. Pestilence, famine, death and even war, the Four
Andy Burnham is appalled. I had only asked whether there is any truth in the popular Westminster rumour about the ‘Primrose Hill Set’ — where he and other young Labour ministers allegedly meet on Sunday afternoons in the north London home of David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, to discuss life and politics. It sounded plausible
On Sunday, Venezuela goes to the polls. The likely triumph of Hugo Chávez, writes Daniel Hannan, reflects a phenomenon sweeping Latin America that feeds not on hope but on hatred There aren’t really any proper dictators left in South America, but Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez is getting close. His first attempt at power was through an
The opening of the season at La Scala in Milan on 7 December is always a grand affair, and this year will be no exception. Franco Zeffirelli, 83 years old, is directing a new production of Aida, a work that has not been staged at this theatre for more than 20 years. It is noon
The resemblance first struck me when, spotting Cameron’s waxy forehead on the front page of a newspaper recently, I unfolded the paper to find that the forehead belonged to French Socialist party candidate Ségolène Royal. It got me wondering whether similarities between the two extended beyond their oddly embalmed complexions. Politically, of course, they should
Neil Barnett recalls his encounters with the poisoned spy who has had the bearing of a marked man for years. The Russian intelligence services, Litvinenko told him, are purely political organisations, whose only purpose is to shore up Putin’s power The hotel off a main square in a central European capital was a seedy, low-budget
If you need reminding why France is so aggravating, pay a visit to the political hometown of Ségolène Royal, newly selected as the Socialist candidate for next spring’s presidential elections. Melle, a small market town between Poitiers and the port of La Rochelle, has been Royal’s political base camp since 1988, when she was first
A man I know who works for a large multinational corporation recently took the decision to trade in his people carrier for a Toyota Prius. Very eco-friendly, you might think, but as with so many apparently ‘green’ consumer choices, there’s more to it than meets the eye. For one thing, his girlfriend was so cheesed
In this exclusive article, Nursultan Nazarbayev presents a different picture of his homeland to the caricature of Sasha Baron Cohen’s film. It is a thriving, optimistic nation. We like! As the task of reconstructing Iraq has turned out to be more difficult and more bloody than Western governments anticipated, I believe that the recent history
The government is, on behalf of you and me, involved in the worst type of man’s inhumanity to man — torture. Yet with the honourable exceptions of William Hague and Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative party, the party I wholeheartedly support, the party that talks of compassionate conservatism, is failing to speak out about it when
First it was peanuts; now Jesus Christ has been banished from the cabins of British Airways aeroplanes. What will be next to fall victim to the apparently arbitrary scythe of censorship of the BA executives? The airline — which once enraged Margaret Thatcher by replacing the Union flag on the tail fins of its fleet
As part of a six-month tour of the main wine-producing countries of the world, the author stopped long enough in South Africa to discover the hidden treasures of Hamilton Russell Standing on Cap Agulhas gazing at the ocean, aware of the fact that we were on the very tip of Africa, it seemed unlikely that
Fraser Nelson reveals the mounting fury within the intelligence community at ministers’ failure to set in place a serious framework for smashing Islamic terrorism. Too little too late is the angry verdict of the spooks Throughout their history, James Bond films have shown an eerie ability to predict national security threats. Dr No (1962) looked
Karl Pilkington stares balefully at my tape recorder. ‘How long have you got on it? Six hours! Bloody hell.’ The unexpected star of The Ricky Gervais Show is fretting about why The Spectator wants to interview him. ‘I don’t understand why I’m in it. I normally read magazines which do things in little bite-size bits,
Allister Heath talks to Don Brash, leader of New Zealand’s National party, and finds him much more robust than Cameron on tax cuts, welfare and the environment If you were to cross Clark Kent with Josiah Bartlet of The West Wing, you would end up with somebody very much like Don Brash, leader of New
Washington On Monday afternoon, President Bush addressed a crowd of several thousand Republican supporters in Pensacola, Florida. The appearance was meant to shore up the sputtering campaign of Charlie Crist, the Republican candidate to succeed Mr Bush’s brother Jeb as governor of Florida. Crist was one of the rare Republican candidates willing to appear with
When Mohammed al-Ureybi, the presiding judge at the trial of Saddam Hussein, started reading out that the court sentenced Saddam to death for killing 148 inhabitants of the Shiite village of Dujail in 1982, Saddam interrupted him. Just as the learned judge got to the part about the punishment for ‘crimes against humanity’, the deposed
Paddy Ashdown spent more than three years trying to reconstruct Bosnia. He was asked by Donald Rumsfeld to do the same in Iraq. Here, he tells Matthew d’Ancona that such reconstruction must be at the heart of 21st-century geopolitics You send an ex-Lib Dem leader to the Balkans for three and a half years, and