I’m told that the new production of Dvorˇák’s Rusalka at the Royal Opera House is controversial. There were boos at the first night and reports of audience members walking out in disgust. I too walked out in disgust. Mine, however, had nothing to do with what was happening on stage. It was prompted by the
Perhaps the least important aspect of Sunday night’s events in international waters off Israel is what actually happened. In the world in which Israel operates, the rights or wrongs of what Israel actually does are irrelevant. Reaction to Israeli behaviour is no longer governed by facts or by rational responses. The country is judged —
It’s time to drop the myth of Lord Mandelson as a political genius, says Stephen Pollard. No one has done more to wreck the Labour party Whatever the election result, one thing is sure: industrial quantities of obloquy will be heaped on Gordon Brown as the man responsible for Labour’s result. But if the party
Richard Curtis’s films — rose-tinted, upper-middle-class parodies of modern Britain — are bad enough, says Stephen Pollard. But his politics are even worse There are few film-makers whose name instantly conjures up a style, an atmosphere, a set of recognisable characters, even a plot. Richard Curtis is one of them. From Four Weddings and a
Last week, the Department for Communities and Local Government announced that it was lifting its ban on Whitehall contact with the Muslim Council of Britain, the self-proclaimed umbrella group of British Muslims. Quite apart from the tactical mistake of such a move — far from being an ally in the fight against extremism, the MCB
The past week has seen history repeating itself, skipping the tragedy and moving straight to farce. Two weeks ago a Scottish MP, tipped from his first days in the Commons as a future leader of his party and hyped for years as his party’s one true statesman, stood exposed as a leader with a reputation
Stephen Pollard says that if embryonic stem cell research is banned in some parts of Europe — as it might be under the new EU treaty — old hostilities will resurface I wouldn’t care to estimate how many words have been written so far on the draft EU reform treaty. If and when it becomes
Stephen Pollard, who as David Blunkett’s biographer longed to see Alastair Campbell’s journal, says it tells us as much about the nation as it does about New Labour Alastair Campbell may be no Chips Channon or Alan Clark, but his diaries are at least readable. Very readable. And that is not something one can take
It is clear from the Prime Minister’s new year message (issued somewhat surreally from the Florida home of the Bee Gee Robin Gibb) that he has already entered elder statesman mode. His theme was that Mr Brown must continue along the path which Mr Blair claims to have set: ‘[Labour] is dominating the battle of
The image of Tony Blair and David Cameron exchanging frilly skirts and pearls is certainly arresting, but the Prime Minister’s reference in California last weekend to rampant cross-dressing was, disappointingly, political. For all the comment that his remarks have engendered, however, we have been here before. When the Economist coined the term ‘Butskellism’ in 1954,