Spectator

Friday

The Spectator

The great books Spectator writers and others hate

Find out which books PD James, Sam Leith, Susan Hill, Mark Amory, Barry Humphries and many more hate, then tell us about yours in the comments section. Craig Brown Which classic work do you think this comes from? ‘Her teeth were white in her brown face and her skin and her eyes were the same golden tawny brown. She had high cheek-bones, merry eyes and a straight mouth with full lips. Her hair was the golden brown of a grain field that has been burned dark in the sun but it was cut short all over her head so that it was but little longer than the fur on a

Thursday

David Blackburn

‘Turboparalysis’ Revisited

The word ‘turboparalysis’, coined by Michael Lind (who has a brilliant piece on the subject in the Spectator Christmas double issue), is paradoxical, even illogical. And yet it is clear, perfect for our times. Lind defines his term as: ‘a prolonged condition of furious motion without movement in any particular direction, a situation in which the engine roars and the wheels spin but the vehicle refuses to move.’ Turboparalysis is a new word; but its sense is familiar. We are often warned that we ‘risk repeating the mistakes of the 1930s’. Comparison between eras is always awkward. Try to compare, for instance, unemployment in Britain during the Great Depression and the Great Recession

Wednesday

Steerpike

Pippa’s exclusive office Christmas party tips

Bestselling author Pippa Middleton has written this week’s Spectator diary*, in which she takes on her critics directly: ‘I have been much teased for my book, Celebrate. Lots of journalists are saying that my advice is glaringly obvious… It’s all good fun, I know, and I realise that authors ought to take criticism on the chin. But in my defence, let me say this: Celebrate is meant to be a guide to party planning and, as such, it has to cover the basics. If I were to write a cookery book, for instance, I would be compelled to say that, to make an omelette, you have to break at least

Wednesday

Steerpike

Leveson’s global celeb appeal

Tomorrow’s Spectator Life cover interview is with Alec Baldwin, who as any American will know, does not hold his tongue on matters political. He even has a view about Westminster: ‘The thing I follow most closely there is the Leveson inquiry, anything about Rebekah Brooks and Murdoch.’ Baldwin makes it clear he would like a Leveson inquiry in the US. ‘If they were doing that over there, you have every reason to believe they were doing that here as well. There is no market that is bigger for media outlets in terms of the tabloids and generating trash than the US. It’s a reasonable question to ask if they were

Wednesday

Steerpike

Boris, bishops and other gossip from the Spectator Parliamentarian awards

Justin Welby, the nominated Archbishop of Canterbury, accepted his Spectator award for Peer of the Year (in recognition of his work on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards) by conceding that, after the General Synod rejected women bishops yesterday, he has achieved the rare distinction of losing a vote of confidence without having assumed office. This joke was the start of a masterful comic performance in what was, clearly, an off-the-cuff speech. listen to ‘Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year – Justin Welby speech’ on Audioboo

Tuesday

Zac Goldsmith

No ifs, no buts, we need a decision on Heathrow now

The Prime Minister presumably believes we face a critical shortage of airport capacity in London. Why else would he signal a possible U-turn on what was a headline pre-election promise? He knows that one reason west London voters backed the Conservatives in the last general and local elections was his decision to rule out any prospect of building Labour’s 3rd runway at Heathrow. But if that is how he feels, why on earth would he commit to doing absolutely nothing for three years? I am yet to meet anyone who believes an airport review should take anything like so long; indeed the majority of options have been studied to death.

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

Spectator debate: No ifs. No buts. Heathrow must have a third run way

David Cameron knows that a third runway at Heathrow would be one of the most controversial and significant outcomes of his premiership, which is why he has kicked the decision into the long grass with the Davies Review. Thanks to ever spiralling passenger numbers and the bulging state of our existing airports, both London and the South East desperately need a plan to provide more air capacity. We’ve examined the numerous options on Coffee House but most immediate solution — to expand Heathrow — continues to find itself at top of the pile. The Spectator has therefore decided to instigate the debate the government continues to avoid: is expanding Heathrow the answer? I’m delighted to announce that

Steerpike Steerpike

Sir Jeremy ‘the Master’ Heywood

Mr Steerpike is back in print in today’s Spectator. Here’s a taste of what to expect: ‘Hats off to Sir Jeremy Heywood. The Cabinet Secretary’s bid to delete himself from everyone’s Christmas card list is proving a great success. Ministers were not amused by Sue Cameron’s Telegraph column hailing Sir Jeremy as ‘the only person trying to impose some order on the chaos’. She described him as the PM’s de facto political enforcer and she gushed lovingly about his capacity to ‘excite the frisson of fear’ in Downing Street. In response, the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn tweeted that Sir Jeremy had become the ‘unelected epicentre of power’. One disgruntled Downing

Monday

Steerpike

Taki competes for Lindsay Lohan’s affections

T’was not in another lifetime, but in New York last week that our very own Taki became rather smitten with Hollywood bad girl Lindsay Lohan. Writing in this week’s magazine, the old rogue recounts how he weathered Hurricane Sandy with the troubled actress, more famed for her binges than her fortitude: ‘I went to Brooklyn, to Norman Mailer’s house, now inhabited by his son Michael, got completely crocked and proceeded to the Boom Boom room, the best nightclub in the Bagel.  Once up there, I got a bit confused but chatted up a beautiful girl who seemed awfully friendly and nice. She asked me what I did and I told

Tuesday

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 – Battle of the Chancellors special

The Spectator hosted a packed-out debate last night on the motion — ‘George Osborne isn’t working: we need a Plan B’ — and you can now hear the outcome for yourself. As Isabel reported earlier, it was an evening of intense discussion and disagreement, so we have recorded the entire evening for you to listen at your leisure. The event lasted nearly two hours, so here are the timings for the individual speakers: 03:12 – Alistair Darling (for) 10:25 – Jesse Norman (against) 19:04 – Matthew Oakeshott (for) 27:42 – Fraser Nelson (against) 36:10 – David Blanchflower (for) 47:13 – Norman Lamont (against) 54:30 – Question and answers with Andrew Neil 1:39:08 – Final

Thursday

Steerpike

Breakfast of champions

Peter York, the ageing Sloane Ranger and style guru, ditched his popped collar and brogues this morning and took to the stage in a Gaddafi-style dictator’s outfit to present the Editorial Intelligence Commentariat the Year Awards. A wistful David Davis proclaimed that he would have ‘loved to be able get away with wearing that’. The metropolitan liberal elite gathered at 7.30am to heap praise upon itself and toast departed friends like Marie Colvin and Christopher Hitchens. Luckily, there was champagne, tiny bacon sandwiches and poached quails eggs to ease the horrendously early start. Winners included sketch writer Ann Treneman, Conservative Home’s Tim Montgomerie and a near clean sweep for the Times’

Thursday

Steerpike

Dre departing?

Mr Steerpike is now available weekly in the magazine. This one’s been getting them talking today: It’s a hat-trick! Word reaches me that Dave may be about to lose his third spin doctor in a row. First Andy Coulson left to spend more time with his Fingertip Guide to the Criminal Law. Then Steve Hilton legged it to California. Now Craig Oliver, Coulson’s replacement, is said to be heading for the chop. Mr Oliver, once a BBC news chief, enjoys the rare distinction of being completely unknown to the general public and his friends tell me he’s been doing a superb job as the PM’s communications tsar. But Andrew Mitchell

Friday

Andrew Watts

Alex Salmond’s wind farm delusion

Last year, in an interview with the Today programme, the chief executive of National Grid told the show’s no doubt stunned listeners that they would have to get used to not having electricity as and when they wanted it. That here in the developed world we should be wondering whether the lights will be going out in a few years time, whether our children will go to bed in the cold or whether we will spend our evenings shivering around log fires is rather amazing. That our political leaders have achieved this — if achieved is the right word — in the face of the shale gas revolution with its

Wednesday

Steerpike

Andrew Marr very sorry for that ‘awful’ photo

So who was that woman with Andrew Marr in Soho? In tomorrow’s Spectator, he reveals all. Blaming ‘utter exhaustion’ from completing his new History of the World series after ‘two years, about two dozen countries, a blur and daze of airports, and hundreds of thousands of words’, Marr said he was celebrating ‘no doubt excessively’ when he ‘embraced a colleague too enthusiastically and was snapped – or papped – or whatever.’ Leaving his family home with a suitcase on the day the Sunday Mirror ran the pics was not the greatest PR move, but Marr tells this week’s magazine that he was off to the States rather than being booted

Sunday

David Blackburn

Bookbenchers: Philip Davies MP | 12 August 2012

Over at the books blog, Tory MP Philip Davies has answered our Bookbencher questionnaire. Davies is the present holder of the Readers’ Representative at the Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year Awards. He believes that 1984 is the book that best describes now; and he would rescue the three volumes of Margaret Thatcher’s autobiography from the burning British Library. Davies is known by some as the ‘darling of the right’, but after this he should be nicknamed The Gruffalo.

Friday

Peter Robins

Max Hastings, John Keegan and Falklands – Spectator Blogs

In a notebook from Iceland in this week’s magazine, Max Hastings pays tribute to the late Sir John Keegan with, among other things, a notable anecdote: ‘One day at the beginning of 1986, he rang to gossip. I told him an implausible announcement was due that night: I was becoming editor of the Daily Telegraph. John instantly said: ‘Can I be your defence correspondent?’ He was half joking, but I seized on the notion: he became one of the new regime’s first appointments. He knew nothing about journalism, but adapted brilliantly to its discipline and indiscipline.’ It’s true that Keegan had little journalistic experience when took the Telegraph job. But

Thursday

Peter Robins

Butlins and the return of the apostrophe – Spectator Blogs

When you begin in subediting – the odd little craft of preparing other people’s journalism for publication – certain things, or pairs of things, are drummed into you. St James’ Park is where Newcastle United play; St James’s Park is where the band of the Grenadier Guards play. Lloyds is the bank; Lloyd’s is the insurance market. Pontin’s has an apostrophe; Butlins doesn’t. Unfortunately for subeditors, times change. St James’ Park is now the Sports Direct Arena, although a similar deal has yet to be done for St James’s Park. Lloyds has acquired TSB and been acquired, in turn, by the government. Pontins has emerged from financial difficulties, but it

Friday

Sebastian Payne

Comments closed for maintenance

UPDATE: Comments are now open again. Historic comments are trickling through and should all appear within the next 24 hours. As part of our transition to our new home for Spectator Blogs, we are closing comments while we transition the system back over to Disqus. Please bear with us, and they will be back soon.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

The EU referendum, you read it here first

Many Spectator subscribers, picking up today’s newspapers, will be a bit puzzled. Is it news that David Cameron has come round to the idea of an EU referendum? Haven’t they read that somewhere before? This sensation is called Déjà Lu, and it I’m afraid afflicts all Spectator subscribers. Cameron’s decision to change his position on the EU was revealed by James Forsyth back in May. As so often, his weekly political column gave real-time updates of the No10’s decision-making process as it happened. He wrote then:  ‘A referendum on Europe is the obvious answer. It is one the leadership seems set to embrace. The popularity of Cameron’s EU veto made

Thursday

Fraser Nelson

The Union is safe

The Union is safe — at least if last night’s Spectator debate was anything to go by. The motion ‘It’s time to let Scotland go’ was defeated by 254 votes to 43. The SNP weren’t present (they demanded two representatives on the panel, and we refused), but independent nationalist Margo MacDonald opened the debate. I thought CoffeeHousers may be interested in a summary of proceedings.   1) Margo MacDonald (for the motion) focused on foreign misadventures: Scottish soldiers should not fight American wars with British guns that were a greater threat to their own side than to the enemy. Money saved would go to essential social security. She explained that