Features

The key to No. 10

There is a piquancy. Back in 1997, Michael Howard launched a confident challenge for the Tory leadership. He had influential supporters, a good team and a strong case: that his experience and political stance made him the best qualified candidate. Yet his campaign never left the runway. The plane had too much baggage. Suppose he

Sam Leith

‘I been born to play domino’

The sound in the Grand Hall is like the chattering of sparrows. Milling at the door, most wearing bright yellow T-shirts with plasticky decals so big they practically double the weight of the cotton, are the domino sharks, kibitzing and waiting their turn for the tables. Inside, at the far end, a dais is decorated

Britain is furious with America

A distinguished American writer reported after visiting Iraq: ‘The troops returning home are worried. “We’ve lost the peace,” men tell you. “We can’t make it stick.” Friend and foe alike look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly disappointed they are in you as an American…. Instead of coming in with a

Guardian of the nation’s treasures

Exhibitions celebrating the nation’s art treasures have a habit of backfiring. Within 50 years of the great Art Treasures of the United Kingdom show held in Manchester in 1857, for instance, around half the works of art exhibited in this inadvertent shop window had been sold by their owners and had left the country. What

Pig business

We ignored the ‘No Entry’ sign at Smithfield hog factory, near Szczecinek, west Pomerania, in northwest Poland. Clambering over wire barriers, we wrenched open the ventilation shaft of one of three vast concrete and corrugated iron sheds. Inside, 5,000 squealing pigs were crammed into small compartments. Outside, effluent from concrete cesspits had overflowed, sending a

The oldest fresher in town

He may have caught your eye at the Freshers’ Fair for first-year undergraduates, held in the examination schools on the High Street. He was signing up for the rugger club and the law society; he was a tall, athletic student wearing a navy jersey, chinos and black loafers. Or he may have caught your eye

The cult of treachery

For the greater part of the last two centuries it was axiomatic that three great institutions upheld a large part of the structure of our national life. These were the monarchy, the established Church and the Conservative party. In different ways all three were expressions of identical values: loyalty, decency, tolerance, service, respect for tradition.

Lonely confessions

The 2003 Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize winner.There were more than 100 entries from a total of seven countries. The runners-up were Henry John Elsby Sanderson, Enrico Boerger, Gregory Lourens, Matthew Lawrence Holmes, Simon Rew, Kevin Barry and Joanna Elizabeth Streetly. Harry was eight, and he bore the mark of a victim. It wasn’t that he

Matathir knows best

An outburst from Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad is, like the appearance of rainclouds over Kuala Lumpur, an unpredictable but regular event. Soon the sun comes out again and life goes on as normal. The Malaysian Prime Minister has a long history of disengaging the diplomatic filter before opening his mouth to pronounce on matters

Ross Clark

GM may be good for you

Ross Clark says we should ignore the eco-brigade’s hysteria over genetically modified food After years of trampling crops, the anti-GM food lobby believes that it has finally drawn sap. Its b

Mary Wakefield

The mystery of the missing links

A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend, a man who has more postgraduate degrees than I have GCSEs. The subject of Darwinism came up. ‘Actually,’ he said, raising his eyebrows, ‘I don’t believe in evolution.’ I reacted with incredulity: ‘Don’t be so bloody daft.’ ‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘Many scientists admit that

SPECTATOR CITY AND FINANCE

Since it has become clear that the Great Bubble of 1999–2000 is dead and not subject to resurrection, information technology has become boring. The limitless promise of a New Internet-Enabled Web-Architected Economy where Everything Is Different appears to have failed. In the United States, the voices that now command media attention range from that of

Why do politicians lie? Because they have to

Tony is fighting Gordon while fending off Robin and Clare and trying to shaft Geoff while Jack beats him up about David. Iain is being knifed by Michael and Vanessa, egged on by MPs who are furious that he hasn’t laid a glove on Tony and has made them vulnerable to Charlie, so that instead

Terminal depression

In all its long history, the parliamentary Tory party has never been so depressed. If a doctor were to observe its current behaviour, he would put the patient on suicide watch. When I spoke to Conservative MPs this week it was hard to find any spark of optimism, breath of hope or relish for the

My fight is for the British people

Iain Duncan Smith defends himself — and his wife — against the plotters and the smear campaign, and calls on the Tories to get on with the work of promoting freedom and choice In the early years of the New Labour government, it was widely believed that the Conservative party was finished. Confined, apparently, to

Is this the end of painting?

Some arty readers may have been concerned by the recent news about Monet and Rolf Harris. A substantial section of the population, it seems, is unable to tell the difference between them — some thinking that the Australian entertainer depicted the waterlilies at Giverny. Admittedly, both have or had grizzled beards, but even so the

The road to revival

Iain Duncan Smith is fatter and pinker in the face these days, perhaps the result of too many dinners. He is more assertive. Media training over the summer has given him a certain bravado and made him more tactile. He looks people in the eye more often. His handlers were pleased by the way he

The Georgian way of death

The last days of the great essayist and dictionary-maker Dr Johnson were recorded in vivid detail by his biographer, James Boswell. Breathless and in pain, Johnson, aged 75, prepared himself for death with admirable courage. He had been plagued all his life by a fear of the dark, by the insomniac’s dread of not waking