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Saturday

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Letters | 3 October 2009

The task ahead Sir: Am I alone in finding the Tories’ pre-election triumphalism nauseating (Finkelstein et al, 26 September)? When I last walked past my local constituency association, the grubby frontage still had the old logo. Tony Blair at least built a modern political party. David Cameron hasn’t even begun to build a dynamic political organisation. If I were still a Tory, my feeling would not be swaggering confidence but intense trepidation at the scale of the task ahead. Brian Jenner Bournemouth Sir: David Selborne tells us that in 1997 Labour ‘gained office but lost its sense of direction’ (‘How can Labour save itself?’, 26 September). The Tories should learn from their example.

The Spectator

Final frontiers

Five travel writers journey far and wide to find the world’s last unexplored wildernesses Patagonia Lucinda Baring Arriving in Patagonia, the region spanning Argentina and Chile at the southernmost tip of South America, I really felt I’d reached the end of the earth. The journey is an epic but rewarding one – this was the most spectacular scenery I’d ever seen. My destination was Hotel Salto Chico in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. This small enclave of comfort, surrounded by wide green lagoons and sheltered by snow-capped mountains, is designed specifically to cosset you after a day spent amongst the elements.

Friday

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The week that was | 2 October 2009

Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk this week. Fraser Nelson can’t believe the lines Labour MPs are coming out with, and says it’s game over for Labour in Brighton. James Forsyth says that getting shirty with the media won’t do Labour any favours, and sees Brown’s speech fall flat in Brighton. Peter Hoskin believes that Brown’s fightback is already over, and reckons Brown’s drinking in the last chance saloon, again. David Blackburn argues that the banks are our route to salvation, and observes Labour begging for the return of Blair. Martin Bright asks why say it if you won’t act. Rod Liddle wants to eradicate his inner racist. Alex Massie wonders if Labour’s next leader will be Darling.

Thursday

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This week’s issue of The Spectator<br />

The latest issue of the Spectator is released today. If you are a subscriber you can view it here. If you have not subscribed, but would like to view this week’s content, you can subscribe online now. Three articles from the latest issue are available for free online to all website users: Fraser Nelson interviews with David Cameron Bruce Anderson asks whether the Tory leader can transform Britain. And Rod Liddle gives his take on Andrew Marr's infamous interview with Gordon Brown. Additionally, all of last week's issue has now been uploaded to the website. Here are a selection of articles from it: Daniel Finkelstein tells Peter Mandelson how to revive the Labour party. Douglas Murray remembers Irving Kristol. Matthew Parris is thrilled by go-getters.

Wednesday

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Parliamentarian of the Year | 30 September 2009

The Spectator/Threadneedle Parliamentarian of the Year Awards are fast approaching. As we did last year, we are inviting you to nominate a reader’s representative. This should be the elected official who you believe has best pursued the noble art of politics, putting the public interest ahead of everything else, especially expenses. All you have to do is click here and – in no more than 250 words – nominate your choice. We’ll print a selection of the best nominations in the magazine throughout October. Then, on the 28th October, the reader who has submitted the best-written nomination will be revealed. The closing date for entries is Monday 26th October 2009. Good luck.

Monday

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CoffeeHousers’ Wall 28th September – 4th October

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers' Wall. For those who haven't come across the Wall before, it's a post we put up each Monday, on which - providing your writing isn't libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency - you'll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there's no need to stay 'on topic' - which means you'll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There's also no constraint on the length of what you write - so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything's fair game - from political stories in your local paper, to chat about the latest football results.

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Just in case you missed them… | 28 September 2009

...here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson revisits the BNP conundrum, and profiles Labour’s choice to take on Nick Griffin. James Forsyth examines Labour’s latest dividing line, and says the Tories are planning operation tumbleweed. Peter Hoskin wonders if Alan Johnson’s feeling a little more confident, and catches Ed Balls trying to force the tax debate. David Blackburn can’t imagine the Tories would ever work with Peter Mandelson. Daniel Korski argues that Iran is operating ‘threshold power’. Martin Bright observes the true extent of Labour’s financial collapse. Clive Davis says learning foreign languages has become a case of us and them.

Saturday

The Spectator

What would Jesus buy?

The Bishops of England and Wales have excelled themselves in their efforts to promote the Church of England’s ‘Back to Church’ day (this Sunday). The Bishops of England and Wales have excelled themselves in their efforts to promote the Church of England’s ‘Back to Church’ day (this Sunday). The Bishop of Sheffield has recorded a video on YouTube, Canterbury has presided over a rap-style radio ad: ‘No need to make no innovation. Please accept this as your invitation.’ But the Bishop of Reading, the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell, has done best: he has opened up a theological can of worms.

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It wasn’t all bad

The Labour party typically disembowels itself after an election defeat, but this time it hasn’t waited to be beaten. The Labour party typically disembowels itself after an election defeat, but this time it hasn’t waited to be beaten. The party which gathers in Brighton next week is already at war, and many of its brightest prospects have already left the field. The likes of John Hutton and Alan Milburn have despaired, and are quitting parliament altogether. The trade unions, who have long dreamed about capturing Labour, may soon buy it for scrap. This magazine sheds few tears for the demise of a party which is now as bankrupt morally as it is financially. But it may fall to us to deliver a brief elegy, a tribute to what Labour got right.

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Letters | 26 September 2009

Money down the Tube Sir: Andrew Gilligan’s assessment (‘Chucking millions down the Tube’, 19 September) that for much of the public sector ‘the spending of money has become an end in itself’ is a timely one. Increased investment in public services is both the No. 1 thing Gordon Brown believes he can offer the country and the No. 1 thing he claims to have achieved. As Sir Humphrey put it in Yes, Minister, the Treasury does not work out what it needs and then think how to raise the money. It pitches for as much as it can get away with and then thinks how to spend it. Politicians selling themselves in elections need a way to quantify unquantifiable things, like how good our schools are, or how well our hospitals work, and billion-pound figures sound impressive.

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How can Labour save itself?

Here at The Spectator, we take no pleasure in the misfortunes of others. Here at The Spectator, we take no pleasure in the misfortunes of others. Watching a once great political party flounder in this undignified manner is almost as painful to us as it must be to them. So in the spirit of comradely concern, we asked some of the country’s brightest minds to come up with one idea each to help Labour get back on its feet. Here are their suggestions: Tony Benn They must bring back into public ownership essential goods and services necessary for the development of a fair economy. Boris Johnson They are stuck with Gordon so they have no choice but to transform him in the public imagination.

Friday

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The week that was | 25 September 2009

Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week Fraser Nelson argues that the BBC and mainstream political parties need to think very carefully about how they will handle Nick Griffin on Question Time. James Forsyth sees the Lib Dems’ incoherence embodied in Nick Clegg, and says that the Tories are cockahoop about the Lib Dem disarray. Peter Hoskin thinks that the Tories must ready themselves to talk about tax, and believes that the Tories are preparing for the post-election period. David Blackburn describes Brown’s submarine announcement as clever diplomacy, and urges Nick Clegg to accept David Cameron’s overtures. Lloyd Evans reviews Nick Clegg’s conference. Daniel Korski analyses the McCrystal plan.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Last week’s magazine is now available across the site

Last week’s magazine is now available across the website and can be viewed without a subscription. There is a selection of articles below to get you started. If you would like immediate access to tomorrow’s magazine and have yet to subscribe, you can do so here. Alasdair Murray reviews the week in politics.  Boris Johnson opens his diary. Fraser Nelson reports on how a revamp of the benefits system could finally end the scourge of Britain’s mass and hidden unemployment. Rod Liddle says that celebrity adoption has become an unsavoury game of Top Trumps. James Delingpole asks if Daphne du Maurier was responsible for the attempt to cross the ‘bridge too far’.

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LIVE BLOG: Clegg’s speech

15:00: Clegg opens up by praising the tenacity of British soldiers' in Afghanistan and damns the government's record on defence. 15:17: "I want to be PM because I have spent half a lifetime imaging what a better society would look like and I want to spend the next half making it happen" - listing prejudice, civil liberties and inequality among his targets. 15:21: Clegg attacks the "old politics", connecting the financial crisis with the expenses scandal. "Labour betrayed the hopes of a generation". 15:25: Now the attacks on the Tories begin. Clegg claims that he chose the Lib Dems because it was what he believed in; Tories, by contrast, chose their party because it was the "fastest route to power".

Monday

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall September 21st – September 27th

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers' Wall. For those who haven't come across the Wall before, it's a post we put up each Monday, on which - providing your writing isn't libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency - you'll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there's no need to stay 'on topic' - which means you'll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There's also no constraint on the length of what you write - so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything's fair game - from political stories in your local paper, to chat about the latest football results.

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them…<br />

…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson examines the budget’s bombshells, and illustrates why Vince Cable is not too sexy for his party. James Forsyth says there’s another entry in the Blair and Brown saga, and argues that the Iranian opposition mocks Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric. Peter Hoskin wonders if Baroness Scotland is finished, and asks if George Osborne is worth it. David Blackburn is surprised that the Liberal Democrats seem not have learnt from the failure of their ‘Decapitation strategy’, and thinks that is a moment of dilemma for the Liberal Democrat. Clive Davis profiles Alan Clark. Rod Liddle ponders the connections between smoking and “petting farms”.

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters | 19 September 2009

From our US edition

Clever culling Sir: As the chairman from 1995 to 2000 of the government’s biggest and most worthwhile quango, the Environment Agency for England and Wales, I would like to make two comments on Dennis Sewell’s article (‘Cameron must cull the quangos’, 5 September). Sewell seems to think that the Nolan Principles introduced by John Major’s Conservatives have banished cronyism in public appointments. I am afraid that exactly the opposite is the case. The shortlist review which is passed to the minister is so general that it positively invites the use of patronage and personal preference. When I and my independent colleagues tried to order our shortlist from one to three, we were told that wasn’t necessary.

The Spectator

Heels over head

From our US edition

The news that union members at the TUC Congress are eager to ban high heels in the workplace, for health and safety reasons, confirms a number of our long-held theories. First, that dreaming up health and safety hazards is more of a hobby than a job for union officials. Rather than focus on real risks, it’s much more fun for them to fantasise about un-usual and exciting scenarios: what if a high heel were to snag on a phone wire? What if an earring were to hook onto the spoke of a passing umbrella? Second: any old statistic will do in the service of health and safety. Leading the charge against stilettos was a foot expert called Lorraine Jones, who pointed out that two million working days are lost every year due to ‘lower limb problems’.

The Spectator

Summit about nothing

From our US edition

As a rule of thumb, it is wise to ignore anything said at any summit beginning with the letter G. When Harold Wilson went to the G6 summit in 1975 there was a point: there had just been an oil crisis so Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States got together to discuss it. The meetings continued without an agenda. The admission of Russia, with its appalling record on civil economic liberty, turned the G8 summits into a biannual joke. So when the G20 meets in Pittsburgh next week, the world knows precisely what to expect. The last summit, in London, ended with Gordon Brown triumphantly claiming to have brokered a $1 trillion deal to kick-start the world economy. The figure was entirely concocted by the Prime Minister, without so much as a penny of new money.

Friday

The Spectator

The week that was | 18 September 2009

Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week Fraser Nelson asks why the high-priests of climate change alarmism fear debate, and wonders if it wise for the Tories to be more angry about the public finances. James Forsyth thinks Vince Cable doesn’t receive anywhere near enough scrutiny, and sees Peter Mandelson losing his touch. Peter Hoskin believes that all the political parties aren’t facing up to the debt crisis’ severity, and reads a report that should influence welfare reform for years to come. David Blackburn isn’t sure the government’s coffin can take anymore nails, and doubts that an attack on middle class benefits will enable Labour to re-engage with its core vote.