The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Vive la France! Everyone else, led by Obama, is capitulating to Iran

From our UK edition

President Obama’s flagship foreign policy of ‘leading from behind’ has had some surprising consequences. Not least among them is that France now appears to be leading the free world. During the current set of negotiations in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1 countries, America, Russia, Britain, China and Germany seem eager to declare a breakthrough. Iran is seeking an alleviation of the tough international sanctions against it and the right to continue what it calls its ‘peaceful’ nuclear programme. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has warned of Iran benefiting from ‘the deal of the century’. Last weekend it took the government of François Hollande to call time on this.

The Spectator

Spectator writers pick their books of the year

From our UK edition

Mark Mason JFK’s Last Hundred Days by Thurston Clarke (Allen Lane, £20) brilliantly captures Kennedy’s entire life through the prism of his final months. Deliberately thrusting his crotch for an official portrait, musing about assassination (he even acts it out in a game of charades, covered in ketchup), folding his monogrammed handkerchiefs to hide the initials because he disliked ostenatious wealth, putting a black marine at the centre of a ceremonial line-up … the hero, like the devil, is in the detail. Emailing my friend Travis Elborough about his and Nick Rennison’s A London Year (Frances Lincoln, £25), I wrote simply: ‘You bastard.’ Great idea, expertly researched and beautifully packaged (it’s even got a ribbon!

Monday

The Spectator

Lest We Forget

From our UK edition

One remarkable fact of recent years is that even as the veterans of the first world war have died and as those who served in the second world war have headed through their eighties and beyond, the memory of the 20th century’s two most devastating wars has continued to be honoured with thoughtfulness and devotion. The idea of commemorating those who defended and saved this country has lost none of its potency. This year, as we head towards the 100th anniversary of the start of what was meant to be the war to end all wars, there are more British poppies in evidence than ever. Our part in the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in particular has become one of the few indisputable moments of our history about which all British people can feel legitimate and unalloyed pride.

Friday

The Spectator

John Cole: ‘An institution cherished by the viewing public’

From our UK edition

The BBC’s former political editor, John Cole, has died aged 85. As their political reporter during the Thatcher era, he covered many major stories concerning her, including the miners' strike and the Brighton bombing. We have dug up from the archive a review, by John Campbell, of Cole’s memoir, ‘As it seemed to me’, from April 1995.  John Cole's Ulster accent was a shock to metropolitan ears when he became the BBC's Political Editor in 1981. Scottish or Yorkshire voices were no problem, but there was unfamiliarity amounting almost to incongruity in hearing that particular accent discoursing on subjects wider than the tribal politics of Northern Ireland.

Thursday