Features

Monday

Peter Oborne

Letter from Zimbabwe

There is only one real subject of discussion at this weekend’s Zanu-PF Congress in Harare: when will Robert Mugabe stand down? The old man — whom party loyalists now refer to as the ‘second son of God’ — will be 86 in February. There is only one real subject of discussion at this weekend’s Zanu-PF Congress in Harare: when will Robert Mugabe stand down? The old man — whom party loyalists now refer to as the ‘second son of God’ — will be 86 in February. It would take a miracle for him to stand in the next presidential elections and if he did, everyone knows that — however much violence he employed — he would lose.

Toby Clements

Who’s afraid of Santa Claus?

Toby Clements says that there’s a good reason many children find Father Christmas an alarming figure — he’s an unresolved hotch-potch of different myths Last year in the run-up to Christmas I took my two-year-old son to get his hair cut in one of those strange hybrid toy-cum-barber shops that proliferate in north London. It was going as well as one could hope until they announced a surprise guest as a special treat, Father Christmas. In he came, roaring his ho ho hos and waggling his curly white beard. It didn’t matter to my son that it was just a local fatty wearing a lot of cotton wool and a velour hoodie. All that mattered was that he was strange.

Janine di Giovanni

La famille recomposée

It isn’t just the Sarkozys whose domestic affairs are complex, writes Janine di Giovanni. They’re all at it. Modern French life is a potage of wives, exes, new babies and grown-up kids The wan grey light at Gare du Nord at Christmastime always reminds me of my move to Paris six years ago. I was heavily pregnant, weeks away from birth in a foreign country. The train ride across the Channel with my new French husband was swift, but I was acutely aware of the 20 years of life I was leaving behind in London as we passed the wet, snowy flatlands of northern France. How naive I was. I truly believed, having spent most of my life outside the country of my birth, and even then, being the daughter of an Italian who immigrated to America, that I would adapt easily to a new culture.

Daniel Kalder

It’s the end of the world. Again

The Ancient Mayan ‘long calendar’ stops in 2012, suggesting we’re all doomed. Bring it on, says Daniel Kalder — we’ve been predicting the End for three millennia: why stop now? For two months now, Roland Emmerich’s wrathful CGI God has been killing billions in the name of the Holy Box Office in the film 2012. Having already caused carnage with aliens, an ice age and Godzilla, this time Emmerich took his cue from the Ancient Mayans, whose ‘long calendar’ purportedly stops in 2012. But not only is the End nigh, it’s hugely profitable — 2012 raked in £140 million globally in three days.

Jonathan Wynne-Evans

Short story: Black box

In March The Spectator Book Club launched its inaugural short story competition in association with Barclays Wealth. The topic was invisibility, and it seemed to appeal. We received over 500 stories, most of an excellent standard. Our judging panel comprised Mark Amory, Clare Asquith, Peter Hoskin, David Blackburn and Ravi Bulchandani from Barclays Wealth. After much heated debate, five finalists were selected: Jonathan Wynne Evans, Matthew Faulkener, K.G. Barrett, Max Dunbar and Henry Kolotas. You can read the panel’s comments on the finalists’ stories at Spectator.co.uk. All our panellists were agreed, though, that Jonathan Wynne Evans’s ‘Black Box’ should be the winner.

William Boyd

Christmas short story: The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth

The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth, by William Boyd Illustrated by Carolyn Gowdy Bethany Mellmoth is in a quandary — and she doesn’t like quandaries. It’s December 20th. Five days until Christmas. The fact that this is a Christmas quandary makes it no more bearable. In truth she thinks that this fact makes it more unbearable. Her mother and father — nearly two decades divorced — both demand her presence on Christmas Day. The quandary will be resolved — Bethany is good at resolving things — but she hasn’t quite figured out how — yet. Her father — Zane Mellmoth — texted her from his home in California. ‘Coming to London. Must see you Christmas Day lunch. Big surprise. Lots to celebrate.

Saturday

Rod Liddle

Don’t get so worked up — it’s only a blog

I’m not sure how many members of the London Labour party I’ve met over the last 20 years or so. A thousand? Must be something like that. Sitting in local authority buildings which smell slightly of gas, the night outside cold and damp, ploughing through an interminable agenda of candidate selections; or down the pub after canvassing. Nice people, largely — you’d be surprised. I’m not a member any more but a lot of my friends still are, so it’s a constituency I know very well. If you polled them on their views about the Royal Family, I suspect that somewhere between 1 and 2 per cent would declare themselves as monarchists.

Venetia Thompson

Lycra-clad assassins on wheels

Just the idea of the Copenhagen summit is enough to fill me with dread. Not because I’m frightened of global warming or enforced vegetarianism, or because I’m worried that environmental evangelists are leading us up the garden path. But, truthfully, in case all the eco-awareness encourages more cyclists. London is under siege. They can’t be seen until they’re on top of you, can’t be heard, and can kill you instantly: bicycles are taking over and it’s got to the point where just the squeal of a bike break can induce in me a moment of sudden, heart-stopping panic. It’s difficult to trace the origins of my cyclophobia.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Chutzpah, pizzazz and style — what Dave can learn from Boris

As the most powerful Conservative in Britain, Boris Johnson has plenty to teach his old schoolpal, David Cameron. But, says James Forsyth, the Cameroons are too busy criticising the Mayor’s ‘amateurish’ approach to see what they’re missing As a piece of political propaganda, the sticker issued by the Crisis housing charity at the last Tory conference came close to perfection. It had a picture of the Mayor of London in jogging gear, with the caption: ‘Boris is making the running on rough sleeping. Join the race, Cameron!’ This was how Crisis thought they could best get their message across: goading Team Cameron into action by comparison with Mr Johnson. It was a clever use of a fast-emerging narrative in Westminster: the great Boris v. Dave rivalry.

Irwin Stelzer

Who would lend to a bankrupt Britain?

Alistair Darling’s budget forecasts assume that Britain can keep borrowing all it wants for the foreseeable future.We may not be so lucky, says Irwin Stelzer Federico Sturzenegger and Jeromin Zettelmeyer are not exactly household names. They are, respectively, professor at the Universidad Torcuato di Tella, and an adviser to the International Monetary Fund. Some months ago, as I watched Britain roll up debts that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago, I moved their book, published in 2006, from a back shelf to the top of my desk. Where it sat, unmolested, until two things happened. First, rating agencies got nervous about the quality of the sovereign debt issued by the UK.

Brendan O’Neill

Call off the Tiger hunt

However he has behaved, Tiger Woods’s personal life just isn’t our business. Brendan O’Neill on the relentless erosion of the line between public and private Am I the only person who feels repelled by the naked glee with which Tiger Woods has been and is still being beaten to a pulp — no, not by his golf club-wielding wife, but by the world’s media? Ever since Woods crashed into a fire hydrant and a tree outside his home two weeks ago, his private life has been splashed across the front page of every tabloid from Tennessee to Timbuktu. It’s not over for poor Tiger. Earlier this week another clutch of girlfriends — or victims as they’re now portrayed — decided to spill the beans, including a porn star called Holly.

Stephen Bayley

Happy Kitschmas everyone

London is the creative capital of the planet. The city’s abundant talent — in design and media, in commercials and special effects, food, leisure, architecture, publishing, retailing and telly — will drive the economy from today’s precipice of the dark abyss to tomorrow’s sunkissed higher ground of recovery. Birds will sing and soft zephyrs will blow. So long dismissed as the visually illiterate of Europe, we are now known for our point and style. We are smart. And my own office is in the sturdy left ventricle of this powerfully pumping urban heart. Immediately, I am surrounded by the designers who work with me. Some of the world’s best restaurants are minutes from my door. There are even more film producers than baristas hereabouts.

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

Global warming: the truth

Last month, 1,000 emails leaked from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. The institution is more important than it sounds: for decades, it has been at the centre of the global warming debate, keeping in touch with the close-knit group of scientists who guard the various projections about global warming. Or, as the emails showed, the lack thereof. ‘The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,’ said one scientist. Another said: ‘We can have a proper result — but only by including a load of garbage.’ As the world leaders gather in Copenhagen to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto treaty it is unlikely the subject of these emails will be raised.

Samuel Brittan

Why we must dare to debate

I have no expertise on the subject of global warming; nor do I have a strong view about it. But I do know attempted thought control and hostility to free speech when I see it; and I find these unlovely phenomena present among all too many of the enthusiasts for climate action. Words such as ‘denial’ are intentionally brought into the debate and recall those who deny the reality of the Nazi Holocaust.

Amander Baillieu

The thin green line: cross it at your peril

It was when I saw an internet tweet comparing me to Nick Griffin — with 2,000 people signed up to it — that I realised just how much trouble I was in. It was when I saw an internet tweet comparing me to Nick Griffin — with 2,000 people signed up to it — that I realised just how much trouble I was in. My sin: I had written an opinion piece entitled ‘Is global warming hot air?’ I’d wanted to see if my 18,000 architect readers agreed with the line now adopted by the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) that ‘man-made’ climate change is the greatest challenge facing the profession.

Nils Axel-Morner

Why the Maldives aren’t sinking

The President of the Maldives recently held a Cabinet meeting underwater, saying his islands may be submerged. In an open letter Nils-Axel Mörner assures him his country is safe Dear Mr President, You are obviously very concerned about the effect that sea level rises may have on the Maldives. Your Cabinet has been photographed meeting underwater, and you have even declared that ‘we are going to die’ if the climate change summit in Copenhagen fails. I am now writing with what I hope will be some good news. The scientific side of the situation is quite different to that which you imagine. You are, in fact, not going to die. Before I continue, I should perhaps state my credentials. I have been a sea-level specialist for 40 years.

Rod Liddle

It’s not just the Swiss — all Europe is ready to revolt

A ban on minarets may seem racist to the BBC, says Rod Liddle, but in fact we should applaud any small battle won in the people’s war against the growing ‘Islamification’ of Europe Here’s a very short and simple pre-Christmas quiz to get you into the swing of Christmas quizzes, as they will soon be taking up almost every page of your morning newspapers. A few years ago, Angus Roxburgh — one of the BBC’s chief Europe correspondents, based in Brussels — wrote a book about the rise of right-wing or libertarian parties on the Continent. He was referring to the success of the late and decidedly liberal Pim Fortuyn in Holland, the strength of the Flemish nationalists Vlaams Blok in Flanders, the Front National in France and so on.

Matthew Hall

Requiem for the ‘people’s judge’

Jack Straw has finally got his wish: despite valiant efforts in the Lords, his Coroners and Justice Act has castrated one of our most ancient and overlooked institutions. Why? Because the ‘people’s judge’ was just too good at winkling out inconvenient truths. The office of coroner has existed in this kingdom since the year 1194. The medieval version was chiefly concerned with the protection of Crown revenue and determining responsibility for violent deaths as a means of raising fines. But seven centuries of gradual evolution resulted in a coroner rather more concerned with the welfare of the public. The modern incarnation emerged in the Victorian era when large numbers of deaths were being caused by novel hazards such as factory and train accidents.

Paul Richards

Primary schools or training camps?

When Ed Balls left a Labour fundraiser at a Westminster curry house last Wednesday to be interviewed on Newsnight, he had the look of a man with an ace up his sleeve. David Cameron’s attack on the government for allowing public funds to go to schools influenced by Islamist extremists was blunted by some slapdash research. Although understandable given their profusion, muddling up ‘pathfinder’ funds was stupid. Far more foolish was the response of ministers, who leapt on the muddle as proof that the central charge was also flawed. As a former special adviser, I understand the need for survival tactics in what Denis Healey called the ‘jungle warfare’ of Cabinet-level politics. Sometimes the best you can hope for is to go to bed in one piece.

Leah McLaren

Why do we long to be Nazis and tarts?

As the fancy-dress party season begins again, Leah McLaren wonders why the British are never more themselves than when they’re pretending to be someone else There is a popular urban legend about a British couple in New York who attended a black tie gala dressed as a pair of pumpkins. Turns out they had misinterpreted the host’s instruction to ‘dress fancy,’ as an invitation for fancy dress — something Americans only do once a year on Halloween. Did they burst into tears and run home? Not a chance. Being Brits, they put on brave faces, pulled their orange foam bellies up to the bar, and proceeded to get shamelessly drunk as the Manhattan glitterati swirled around them.