The Spectator
28 June 2014 Aus
The real God wars
The West’s politicians generally aren’t interested in religion. Increasingly, that means they don’t understand the world
Australia
Mugged by reality
When American neoconservatives rose to intellectual prominence in the 1970s, they were invariably described — not least by themselves —…
Australian Columnists
Brown Study
A column like this cannot ignore the terrible events in the Middle East as Iraq falls apart from bloody-mindedness, Islamic…
Australian notes
The back page of the New York Times put it well. It was an empty broadsheet page except for the…
Diary Australia
Everyone who appears on the cover of a magazine feels angst about how they look. As the editor of a…
Australian Features
Recognise what?
For our $10 million, we deserve a more coherent case for Constitutional change than motherhood statements
Let’s learn from the mess-in-potamia
The hawks were wrong about every aspect of Iraq, so why on earth should we still listen to them?
Features
Farage’s strange new ally
Italy's stand-up populist has some alarming statements in his record – and some even more alarming supporters
The end of estate agents
If ever there was a business model ripe for disruption, it’s theirs
Thailand’s next fix
The rise of China is giving the developing world a new, authoritarian model
The Week
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, fought a last-ditch battle against the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the…
Fishing with Plutarch
A new call to include sea life in our 'moral circle' finds an echo in Plutarch
Columnists
Osborne is finally spreading his wings
The man at No 11 feels on top of his brief – and ready to tackle other people's
The Spectator’s Notes
Plus: The secret of Prince Philip's tie revealed, and some marketing advice for Coutts
Rebekah Brooks takes her place in a perfect picture of modern Britain
An asphixiated badger? An obese burger eater? No, this is my Britain…
A bacon bap isn’t Miliband’s problem. We are
Boris Johnson could eat a bacon sandwich tomorrow – and turn it to his advantage
I may not know much about khat, but I know banning it is crazy
Prohibition is a failed policy. We’re tackling that by doing more of it
Osborne’s northern ‘super-city’ looks like a cynical vote-grab – but I’m all for it
Plus: The UK drug company that’s not scared of a takeover bid, and remembering Felix Dennis
Books
A rake’s progress
A review of Blazing Star: The Life and Times of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, by Alexander Larman. You wouldn't have wanted to meet him, but he deserves a biographer who can write
A fool’s paradise
A review of Empire’s Crossroads: A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present Day, by Carrie Gibson. A vivid and thought-provoking synthesis of the disparate histories of the islands of the West Indies
The kindness of strangers
A review of Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France, by Caroline Moorehead. Parallel to the squalid map of Vichy was a map of decency
Recent crime novels
Plus: The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair? It's not a Great American Novel. But it is a decent thriller
Seeing Dante anew
A review of Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity, by Prue Shaw. This companion to the life and work of the Italian genius will make you blink in wonder
More ugly truths
A review of Think Like a Freak: How to Think Smarter About Almost Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. The authors of Freakonomics want to teach you to think less like the kind of people who read books
Extreme poetic licence
On the author's centenary, Jeremy Treglown wonders how his legacy stands up
Gossip with a kind heart
As a result, Robert Galbraith's The Silkworm is a toothless and inept novel
Labor renewal?
Ben Chifley once spoke about a shining light on the hill. By the time that Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard…
Arts
Tears of a clown
On the eve of his UK tour, the stand-up comedian tells Matthew Stadlen how depression triggered his career – and rescued his marriage
Black comedy
British comic strips were nothing if not subversive, as this new British Library exhibition shows
Sleazy does it
Plus: a post-apocalyptic take on Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Linbury Studio Theatre
Hit and miss
It’s as if the director and screenwriter looked at Mamma Mia! and thought: ‘Let’s do that again, but make it horrible and bad and ill-considered’
Out of this world
Plus: a diary of 1914 – as Richard Strauss and the Ballets Russes hit London, Archduke Ferdinand prepares to visit Sarajevo
Modern manners
Hogarth’s famous ne’er-do-well is given a modern twist by David Hockney, Grayson Perry and Yinka Shonibare at the Foundling Museum
Life
Blitzkrieg
Chess, unlike football, appears to confer little or no home advantage. In a recent article for Kensington & Chelsea Today,…
No. 320
White to play. This position is a variation from Mamedov-Carlsen, World Blitz 2014. Here White played 1 hxg5 and Carlsen…
Ground work
In Competition No. 2853 you were asked to incorporate the following words (they are real geological terms) into a piece…
2168: History exam
Each of twenty-two clues contains a superfluous word. Initial letters of these words spell three specimens of 5; these are…
to 2165: Not far off
According to Fred HOYLE (24), SPACE is ‘only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards’ (10…
Has my negative charisma doomed free schools?
In the end, I'm convinced, even my negative charisma can't doom this good cause
England’s World Cup: the post mortem
Plus: Why I reckon we can beat the All Blacks next time
Dinner with the paparazzi
David Cameron was seen here. But then he has no taste of his own and must be told where is fashionable




























































