Taking care of Toby Sir: Kirsten Dunst never insisted that I ban Toby Young (Status anxiety, 6 September) from the set of How To Lose Friends & Alienate People. Toby’s piece stemmed from a recent article of mine in Empire magazine. In his opening paragraph, he says he learned from it that ‘the reason I
Last week, at a cost of a billion pounds or so, the Chancellor announced a package of measures to boost the housing market, including a temporary raising of the stamp duty threshold and some tinkering with shared equity schemes and social housing budgets. In response, the pound — already depressed by Alistair Darling’s observation that
Here are some of the posts made over the past week on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson shows that Balls still hasn’t got the right schools policy and highlights Brown’s immigration and jobs fudge. James Forsyth shows how Cameron and Osborne differ on Iraq and explores the dangers of a Tory Brown bubble. Peter Hoskin picks
A self-standing quote from a Telegraph story entitled “Gordon Brown takes part in children’s reality show”: “Broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby is the Sir Alan Sugar figure in the 10-part [children’s TV] series Election, which is being filmed at the moment for CBBC. [Gordon] Brown will meet the victor in the final episode and hear their thoughts on democracy
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On the latest Spectator letters page you’ll find a response by Robert Weide to Toby Young’s Status Anxiety column last week. Weide’s the director of the forthcoming film of Toby’s semi-autobiographical book How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, and he objects to Toby’s account of the actress Kirsten Dunst’s on-set behaviour. As Weide puts
The Strategist section of the latest Spectator Business has now gone live. In association with IBM, Strategist brings you in-depth analysis of the latest business issues. You can access the new articles here. Do also check out Strategist Online – an exclusive vodcast concentrating on one of the articles. You can watch the latest episode
Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no
…here are some of the posts made over the weekend at spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson picks apart the British reaction to VP nominee Sarah Palin and shows how another Brown critic gets struck by lighning. James Forsyth questions whether Nick Clegg’s tax plans will appeal to his party’s supporters and shows that Stephen Carter won’t go
Heartbeats of delight Sir: Few would disagree with Paul Johnson’s view that prolonging the human lifespan is of little value if it merely gives us extra years of Alzheimer’s and debility (And another thing, 30 August). But we do not all live for the average span, and one reason for the increase in average age
Politicians, like novelists, are obsessed by posterity. Practitioners of the here and now — tomorrow’s headline, the latest poll, the next electoral hurdle — they nurse secret and often vainglorious hopes that their greatest plaudits will come in the future. Before New Labour swept to power in 1997, senior Blairites used to joke about the
Here are some of the posts made over the past week on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson reports for Americano from the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. He gives his take on Sarah Palin’s speech here, and on John McCain’s speech here. Also on Americano, James Forsyth suggests that McCain has to sell himself as a reformer.
Comments haven’t been working across the site since yesterday evening. We’ve got the techies working on it, so hopefully the problem will be fixed soon. Apologies to everyone who may have made a comment overnight, or who would like to submit one now. We can’t be sure, yet, whether we’ll be able to salvage the
Have Labour become the new nasty party? Ross Clark certainly thinks so, and he outlines his reasons why in this week’s Spectator cover piece. You can read his article here, but – as a taster of what to expect – here’s an extract: “It used to be backbench Tory MPs who made up the ‘hang
We did it, not the state Sir: I am not a social historian but surely Liam Byrne fatally undermines his whole argument when he praises the founding of various organisations and movements 150 years ago to deal with the ‘huge change which swept millions from the countryside to the cities’ (‘Give us back our Big
Demoralised Labour backbenchers, watching helplessly as their government disintegrates and the prospect of electoral humiliation looms, have at last found a cause to which they can rally: higher taxes on the ‘super-rich’, both private and corporate. In the first of those categories, the target is anyone with an annual income of £250,000 or more. In
Here are some of the posts made over the bank holiday weekend on Spectator.co.uk: A Coffee House poll asks whether the Tories should pledge to cut public spending. Fraser Nelson says it’s getting harder for first-time buyers, and claims a big state means a spying state. James Forsyth picks up on how an MI5 report
Spectator readers respond to recent articles Bombast in Beijing Sir: David Tang is right (Diary, 16 August) that Zhang Yimou, the choreographer of the Olympic ceremony, produced ‘maniacal… bombast…’. Mr Tang suggested Pyongyang as a model. But years ago Mr Zhang told me that he could get his films on screen in China, where they
When R.A. Butler, quoting Bismarck, described politics as the ‘art of the possible’, he was spelling out the pragmatist’s creed. Yet, if nothing else, Barack Obama’s rise to become the Democrats’ candidate for the White House shows that ‘the possible’ can still be extraordinary. Only four years ago, Obama was a mere state senator in
Dominic Grieve wants your questions Fraser Nelson outlines Brown’s Bubble, and describes Boris’s gift to Labour. James Forsyth wonders who the PM’s siding with in the Brown-Miliband dispute, and reports on another poor poll for Labour. Peter Hoskin reflects on the lessons of history, and gives his take on the latest economic growth figures. Brian Cullen