David Jones

David Jones is a former MP. He chaired the British Council for Iran Freedom

Tuesday

David Jones

The Shah can’t save Iran

From our UK edition

When authoritarian regimes start to wobble, outside observers often reach instinctively for the single, familiar idea of ‘the alternative’. It is a human reflex, but a dangerous one. In Iran, as the clerical theocracy shows signs of fracture and the country’s crisis deepens, some Western voices have begun to flirt with a thought that feels neat and historically legible: the return of the Shah’s son. That would be a profound mistake. Iran doesn't need a restoration Iran’s tragedy since 1979 has been that an autocracy was replaced by another autocracy. The lesson should be plain: changing the personality at the top is not enough. What matters is the nature of the state and the source of its legitimacy. Iran does not need a restoration.

Monday

David Jones

Want to know what the UK will look like under Miliband? Look at Wales

From our UK edition

Today, Labour in Wales celebrate 15 years in power. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, party members will congratulate themselves on what a fantastic job they’re doing. First Minister Carwyn Jones claims his administration represents a ‘living, breathing example of what the party can achieve in power’. Labour leader Ed Miliband agrees. He says ‘we have a great deal to learn from the things that Carwyn and his government are doing’. On housing, on health, on education, on people’s spending power – Labour certainly talks the talk. But in Wales, where they have had ample time to prove themselves, are they living up to Labour's big promises?

Saturday

David Jones

Bookends | 24 September 2011

From our UK edition

Joan Collins first came to public notice in the 1950s, as a Rank starlet and sex kitten. In the 1970s she starred in film adaptations of her younger sister Jackie’s novels The Stud and The Bitch, and in the 1980s as Alexis Carrington in the American soap opera Dynasty. More recently she has reinvented herself, in these pages and elsewhere, as a grande dame and moral arbiter, bemoaning the debased standards and general vulgarity of our times. The World According to Joan (Constable, £12.99) finds her in full Lady Bracknell mode. ‘Chivalry is dead,’ one chapter begins, ‘manners have been thrown out of the window and politeness is an arcane word…’ Quite. O tempora! O mores!

Friday

David Jones

Bookends: Chivalry forsaken

From our UK edition

David Jones has written the Bookends column in this week's issue of the Spectator. Here it is for readers of this blog: Joan Collins first came to public notice in the 1950s, as a Rank starlet and sex kitten. In the 1970s she starred in film adaptations of her younger sister Jackie’s novels The Stud and The Bitch, and in the 1980s as Alexis Carrington in the American soap opera Dynasty. More recently she has reinvented herself, in these pages and elsewhere, as a grande dame and moral arbiter, bemoaning the debased standards and general vulgarity of our times. The World According to Joan finds her in full Lady Bracknell mode.