Politics
Oona King’s return to the spotlight
The Lords’ terrace was transformed into a theatre yesterday evening to stage an adaptation of Blair Babe Oona King’s House Music diaries, which recount her career as MP for Bethnal Green… Continue reading
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The Adventures of Ed
Steerpike is back in this week’s edition of The Spectator. Here is a sneak preview, as ever: ‘Ed Miliband, meeting Denmark’s prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, gobbled up his Danish pastry… Continue reading
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Bigmouth Strikes Again
Johnny Marr’s at it again. ‘David Cameron is not allowed to like my music,’ he fumes. He revives his disgust for Cameron’s love of The Smiths at least once every three months. God… Continue reading
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The battle for credibility: David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Hilary Mantel edition
Why can’t politicians resist the temptation to comment? Hilary Mantel’s piece in the LRB is about as political as the pasta I was eating when David Cameron stopped darkening Indian… Continue reading
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National Socialism: the clue’s in the name
How can conservatives ensure they always lose? A good place to start is to concede every lie of the left. The Conservative Party appears to be doing what it can… Continue reading
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Redistribution, Toynbee style
On Monday, Polly Toynbee told her shrinking Guardian audience that ‘Britain is a country profoundly ignorant about the distribution of its wealth.’ Well, allow Mr Steerpike to do his part… Continue reading
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Stanley Johnson calling. Calling Stanley Johnson
When stranded in an airport, most of us open a trashy book. Not Stanley Johnson. He was delayed overnight at the Simon Bolivar Airport at Guayaquil in Ecuador and turned to… Continue reading
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Peter Stringfellow: Why wasn’t I hacked?
Peter Stringfellow made headlines last week when he threatened to run against the Liberal Democrat leader in his hometown of Sheffield. He made more headlines last night when he gathered… Continue reading
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You must read this book
I was delighted to be one of the judges (along with John Rentoul, Heather Brooke and Tony McNulty) who selected Nick Cohen’s You Can’t Read This Book as the polemic… Continue reading
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Engagement in Libya was and remains the right answer
In 2008, I packed my bags to head off to Tripoli, where I began my current vocation of advocating for Western diplomatic, economic, cultural, and humanitarian engagement in Libya. Ethan Chorin was… Continue reading
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Google maps North Korea
Google has mapped North Korea. The Washington Post has useful selection of before and after images. Compare the images for North Korea with a map of the county in which… Continue reading
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Abraham Lincoln ‘somehow’ became the great redeemer
Abraham Lincoln, in Walt Whitman’s celebrated phrase, contained multitudes. M.E. Synon showed yesterday quite how many there might have been. There is evidence of prejudice, callousness and corruption. Yet there… Continue reading
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Do we need George Orwell Day?
I doubt that George Orwell needs ‘George Orwell Day’. Aldous Huxley, Henry Green, J.G. Ballard, each of those dead writers might benefit from a bit of sponsorship, and so might we.… Continue reading
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Do political correctness and the culture wars make us less tolerant?
I have a confession. I saw a report on the Suzanne Moore row, and fled immediately for the safety of the sports pages. A lot of self-important people making a… Continue reading
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Which words would you ban?
Which words in current use would you ban? Lake Superior State University answers this question each year, with its famous ‘List of Words to be Banished from the Queen’s English… Continue reading
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Sean O’ Brien: Poetry is political, all writing is political
Sean O’ Brien was born in London in 1952. Shortly afterwards, he moved to Hull, where he grew up, thus firmly cementing an allegiance to the North of England: a… Continue reading
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Mo Yan’s malignant apology for ‘necessary’ censorship
The Chinese writer Mo Yan collected the Nobel Prize for Literature last night. In his acceptance lecture, he reiterated his view that a degree of censorship is ‘necessary’ in the… Continue reading
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Simin Daneshvar, Persia’s first female novelist and hope for Iran’s future
There is a Persian proverb which states that ‘books are a man’s best friend.’ Persian literature from the kings of antiquity to the last Shah of the Peacock Throne has,… Continue reading
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Barack Obama’s best voice: Michael Grunwald
No Obama policy – not even ‘Obamacare’ – has been derided quite as much as his stimulus package and the $787 billion Recovery Act passed in February 2009. It became… Continue reading
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Kate Middleton pregnant, the world reacts
Ask not where I was when I heard that the Duchess of Cambridge was pregnant, ask rather where I was when Miss Khloé Kardashian, of the Californian Kardashians, shared her… Continue reading
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