Features

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

Every Tory leader needs a William

William Hague tells Fraser Nelson that the Tory party has changed completely since he led it — and that the best advice he has given David Cameron is dietary William Hague had almost cracked Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata when David Cameron called him back to front-bench politics. He has been teaching himself to play the piano since he resigned as party leader; he drank a bottle of champagne that night and woke up to find that a concerned neighbour had left him a teach-yourself book so that he could fill his time. In those five years he learnt not just how to play, but how to sail and how to make £630,000 a year advising companies and giving speeches. He has given this up to become shadow foreign secretary, and returns to front-line politics a changed man.

David Rennie

A Cold War card index is Romania’s best hope

Bucharest In 1950s Romania, as Stalinist terror descended, a mania evolved for hunting down ‘foreign spies’. Early victims included former staff at the British military mission in Bucharest, some of whom were shot for their services between 1944 and 1947. Even doormen at the mission, or secretaries, were sentenced to hard labour. As the terror spread, to have frequented the British Council library in Bucharest was enough to bring charges of ‘espionage’. A minimum sentence might involve two years’ canal-digging near the Black Sea. Half a century on, Romania is set to join the European Union. Stalinist evil is supposed to be long gone, replaced by the improving banalities of life in the modern EU.

Rod Liddle

A big thank you to Guy Goma: the wrong man in the right place

This year’s most compulsive television viewing came on BBC News 24 last week, when they interviewed the wrong man. They were doing a story about the legal battle over registered trademarks between the computer company Apple and the Beatles’ record label, Apple Corps. They intended to speak to an acclaimed information technology expert, Guy Kewney, but some hapless researcher went to the wrong reception area and somehow brought into the studio Guy Goma, a Congolese business graduate with an extremely limited grasp of the English language. One of those identikit, bloodless and chirpy News 24 anchor babes carried out the interview regardless: Mr Goma’s answers were wonderfully uninformed and, because of his accent, almost unintelligible.

Alec Russell

Was this the day McCain won the White House?

Lynchburg, Virginia John McCain has definitely had happier days than last Saturday. As he mounted the podium at Virginia’s Liberty University, once memorably described by its founder, his long-time enemy, as a ‘bible boot camp’ he had a wistful, almost haunted expression. When it was his turn to address his audience of starry-eyed Christian students, there was none of the usual McCain passion and verve. ‘Let me just say that I wish you all well,’ he said. It was hardly the speech to send them out afire to change the world. Rather it was his host, the university’s founder and chancellor, the Revd Jerry Falwell, resplendent in academic robes, who was doing all the beaming — and no wonder. Six years ago when running against George W.

Jemima Lewis

Go on: buy a tomato plant, not a frock

My fiancé is engrossed in a book called Happiness by the economist Richard Layard, from which he reads aloud pertinent statistics. ‘People are happiest in the year they get married,’ he will lugubriously announce, ‘and after that it’s downhill all the way.’ Or: ‘Having children does make you happy, but only for two years.’ Or, plangently, as the evening light begins to fade: ‘Most people are happiest at the end of the day.’ His normal bedtime reading is The Lawn Expert by D.G. Hessayon which, it seems to me, has a rather more uplifting effect on his mood. But the study of happiness is very au courant, having recently been upgraded to a political science.

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

Change inevitably upsets people

David Cameron’s first full interview since the local elections Evidence of the hardship suffered by the Conservative party over the last decade can be found on the right foot of the Churchill statue which guards the entrance to the House of Commons chamber. His toecap is gleaming, thanks to the tradition of Conservative politicians giving it a rub for luck as they pass. Last month this practice was banned: anxious Tories have been rubbing it so ferociously for so long that a hole has appeared in the bronze. Meanwhile a statue of Lloyd George stands opposite with his feet almost mockingly undamaged by left-of-centre MPs. But after all this time, the great man’s luck may finally be working for David Cameron.

Tim Walker

‘It seemed to me that Tony was suffering’

Sir Cliff Richard has sold his palatial home on the St George’s Hill estate in Weybridge, Surrey, but the entertainer is not forsaking Britain for America, as you might have heard, but merely downsizing. Indeed, he has already put in an offer for a smaller place scarcely 20 minutes away. At 65, Sir Cliff is at an age when most men have completed the metamorphosis into a fully formed Victor Meldrew and are only too happy to talk about the sense of despair they feel for their country and its people. The traditional next stage is migration to Spain — or anywhere else in the world but Britain — where disgruntled expats are wont to gather and moan and talk about the way things were.

Wednesday

Rod Liddle

Who needs UFOs when you can play Sudoku?

Your chances of being abducted by a grey-skinned, blank-eyed alien creature have receded very greatly over the last decade or so. If you haven’t already been abducted, bad luck — it might never happen. Your chance has probably gone. Last week a report into UFO activity over Britain was made public by the Ministry of Defence (because it was forced to do so under the Freedom of Information Act). It seems that the whole subject of flying saucers had, for a while, been taken very seriously by our defence intelligence chiefs; the report took four years to prepare.

Saturday

Madsen Pirie

A short guide to winning arguments

When I taught logic at an American university, the chief problem was to entice students to take the course. The smorgasbord approach they used to build a degree meant that students wanted things which might be useful to them, or ones they might be good at. Logic, alas, was perceived as neither, and classes were largely made up of very bright students who were not afraid of it and who thought it might be fun. It would be difficult to show that it is a valuable life skill, given the remarkable number of successful people who happily get by without it.

Rod Liddle

More than Madonna’s mother-in-law

I am wandering the gilded streets where it all began. A few hundred yards from here a handful of clever, public-school-educated young men met of an evening to discuss how best to transform the thing they loved, the Conservative party. They would meet for something called ‘supper’, apparently. Yes, I am in that little, extortionately expensive triangle of west London between Kensington and Notting Hill and I have the scent of history in my nostrils. Well, it’s either history or truffled polenta — hard to tell at this time of day. I’m here to meet a woman called Shireen Ritchie.

Alan Dershowitz

We can’t attack Iran

Alan Dershowitz says that the pre-emptive assault on Iraq has given a bad name to a good idea — and will leave Iran the most dangerous nation in the world Face it. Iran will get the bomb. It has already test-fired rockets capable of targeting the entire Middle East and much of southern Europe. And it claims to have 40,000 suicide volunteers eager to deploy terrorism — even nuclear terrorism — against its enemies. With a nuclear capacity, the Islamic Republic of Iran will instantly achieve the status of superpower to which Iraq aspired. Nothing will deter Iran. Sanctions are paper protests to an oil-rich nation. Diplomacy has already failed because Russia and China are playing both sides.

Michael Ashcroft

Conspicuous bravery celebrated

Michael Ashcroft, a devoted collector of the Victoria Cross, marks the 150th anniversary of the medal’s creation and salutes its simple beauty The concept of bravery intrigues me as much today as it did when I was a schoolboy. What is the crucial factor that makes some people more courageous than others? Is it in their genes, their upbringing or their training? Are they motivated by patriotism, religious conviction, respect for those who fight with them or simply an old-fashioned sense of duty? Is the bravery of most people premeditated or is it a spur-of-the-moment response to the heat of battle? These are the sorts of questions I started to pose when, nearly half a century ago, I was a 12-year-old boarder at Norwich School.

Boris Johnson

They love capitalism, but not elections

Boris Johnson goes to Beijing on a mission to sell democracy, but finds his hosts — as wedded to authority as they have been for the last 4,000 years — politely declining his offer It was towards the end of my trip to China that the tall, beautiful communist-party girl turned and asked the killer question. ‘So, Mr Boris Johnson,’ she said, ‘have you changed your mind about anything?’ And I was forced to reply that, yes, I had. Darned right I had. I had completely changed my mind about the chances of democracy in China. Before flying to Beijing I had naively presumed that the place was not just exhibiting hysterical economic growth, but was about to enter a ferment of political change.

Saturday

Allister Heath

I’ve seen the future and it’s grey

When Benjamin Franklin remarked that all would live long, but none would be old, he could hardly have known how apt a description of today’s pensioners this would turn out to be. Fitter, healthier and more in tune with the times than any previous generation, they are determined not to allow their age to hold them back. For the lucky few, including many baby-boomers, the first of whom are turning 60 this year, this means spending their golden years trekking in the Himalayas, dune-bashing in Dubai and generally showing us youngsters up as the lazy, unadventurous bunch we really are; for others it means something even more radical but usually less exotic — going back to work.

Fraser Nelson

The man who would be Gordon’s guru

On Gordon Brown’s bookshelf stands a new title likely to stand out from the others: In Our Hands: a Plan to Replace the Welfare State. It is a detailed proposal to abolish all benefit payments, from pensions to child support, and instead make a cash payment to every adult in the country. Its author is Charles Murray, the controversial American academic who firmly believes that the Chancellor’s welfare policies are destroying the social fabric of Britain with calamitous results. Infuriatingly for his army of critics, Murray has become too influential to be ignored. His first book, arguing that benefits were breeding rather than alleviating poverty, set the intellectual framework for America’s acclaimed welfare reform.

Michael Moorcock

Why I am becoming an American

Michael Moorcock writes in praise of the Texan preference for bolshie individualism over social conformity, and hails the true ‘fundamentalism’ of the US Constitution Lost Pines, Texas This year in the US they’re holding an election and I’m planning to become an American citizen. Happily, as a dual national, I can now also remain a loyal subject of the Queen. It’s as if, after the Declaration of Independence, the British shook hands with the colonists and said, ‘Jolly good, chaps. Great idea! Now let’s just beg to differ on a few details and carry on as normal, shall we?

Interconnect

Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

At Easter, Christians bear witness to the Resurrection. But, as The Spectator has discovered, some are more robust than others in their belief — and some prefer not talk about it at all Easter is the most important feast in the Christian calendar. ‘If Christ be not risen,’ wrote St Paul, ‘then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.’ The Spectator approached politicians, churchmen, media folk and entertainers — and members of its own staff — and asked them a simple question: ‘Do you believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead?’ Some did not answer the question: Tony Blair, Ruth Kelly, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Sir Menzies Campbell. Those who did reply gave some surprising answers.

David Rennie

Paralysis is now Europe’s default setting

Luxembourg A sleeping sickness is sweeping the chancelleries of Europe. This Monday, in the space of a single day, Italy and France became the latest nations to succumb to the symptoms of this nasty disease — headaches, confusion, and finally a descent into paralysed slumber. As this article goes to press, the Italian election results are still being disputed by all sides. But one thing is already clear. Tony Blair will never again enjoy the strong backing of his ally, holiday host and fellow tanning enthusiast, Silvio Berlusconi. The Italian billionaire — a staunch, if improbable, ally for Mr Blair in Europe and Iraq — has either lost his job, or kept it by a margin so tiny that he has lost his mandate to rule with any hint of boldness.

Peter Oborne

Beware: the voters Blair neglected are angry — and looking elsewhere

Next month’s local elections will be a grave test of the Prime Minister’s authority. Peter Oborne goes on the stump with BNP campaigners who believe they are heading for great gains — and Labour politicians who fear they are right Phil is wearing an England football shirt. He lives in a quiet crescent in central Dagenham. He’s shaven-headed and has two small children. He regrets voting for Margaret Thatcher: ‘She lost me my business, she did.’ In 1997 Mark moved to Tony Blair. Next month he will switch again, with immense enthusiasm, to the British National Party. ‘I want to make a statement about what’s going on,’ he states. ‘Half the world is getting dumped round here. I’m a retailer. I work 50 to 60 hours a week.

Saturday

Roger Scruton

Hail Quinlan Terry

Since the early 20th century, Western society has been in the grip of a culture of repudiation — rejecting one by one the institutions, offices, traditions and achievements of the past, while having often little but sentimental emptiness with which to replace them. The most telling instance of this is modern architecture. For three millennia Western builders looked back to their predecessors, respecting the temple architecture of the ancients, refining its language, and adapting it to the European landscape in ways that are subtly varied, entirely memorable and above all humane. Then Le Corbusier burst on the scene. His plan was to demolish Paris north of the Seine and to put all the people into glass boxes.