17 APRIL 2004

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M r Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said, in reaction to

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violence in Iraq, `Our response to this should not be to run away in fright or hide away, or think that we have got it all wrong. Our response on the contrary should be to hold...

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A loss of respect

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M argaret Thatcher is to blame for the abominable rudeness with which parents and children nowadays treat schoolteachers. So said Pat Lerew, president of one of the main...

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I t was our last day in Courchevel, and everyone was

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having a snowball fight by the lifts at 1850, when my friend Charlotte said in urgent tones, 'You know you've been looking for Posh Spice?' Too damn right I had. Le tout...

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The last act of a desperate Prime Minister to bring back the Hunting Bill

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A s Tony Blair mulled matters over last week at Government House, Bermuda, where he and his family spent Easter at a very reasonable £27 per night, the future must have looked...

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L et us, briefly, return to the happy old game of

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War Cant Bingo. Was ever there prose so replete with the guff-inflated set phrases of war cant as the Prime Minister's article in the Observer at the weekend: 'Why we must never...

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The sound of rockets in the morning

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Iraq is a disaster in the making, says Andrew Gilligan, unless the Americans learn to stop playing into the hands of their enemies Baghdad T welve months after the war which...

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The deadly Mail

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Michael Cove says that the Daily Mail has been taken over by Tory appeasers who detest Americans, and the fight for Western civilisation in the Middle East C ould the Iraq war...

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Mind your language

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Here's a modish metaphor that is dead but hasn't stopped breeding: 'If! had taken cannabis, I would be transparent about it,' said Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary. 'I want...

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Things were better under Saddam

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The coalition has destroyed Baathism, says Rod Liddle, and with it all hopes of the emergence of secular democracy I write this as an armchair appeaser of terrorism and fascism...

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The hogs of war

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Mercenaries make big money in Iraq but, says Sam Kiley, the 'outsourcing' of security work is adding to the chaos in the country T hey bustle through the Palestine Hotel lobby...

THEODORE DALRYMPLE

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Whenever I go into a second-hand bookshop, which is often, I regret that I shall not live to be a thousand. There is so much I should like to read, and so much I should like to...

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Majority misrule

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This week's elections in South Africa mark the tenth anniversary of the end of apartheid, but racism still governs the republic. Andrew Kenny on the dream that faded Cape Town...

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Globophobia

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A weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade Slaves transported from Africa to the New World in the 18th century had a wretched time, but does the same apply...

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The pluperfect is doing nicely

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The dean of Wadham College, Oxford, James Morwood, says Harry Mount is wrong to despair of classical learning Iv e classicists like to think that our subject is one of the...

THE SPECTATOR CUP

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In order to do what little we can to turn the clock back, The Spectator hereby announces a monthly prize for composition in Latin or Greek, Readers are invited to submit...

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Criterion of culture

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From Colin Sowden Sir: David Lovibond (`The real racists', 10 April) is quite right in his assertion that culture rather than race and ethnicity is what determines whether an...

From Ernest Gardner Sir: Having read David Lovibond's excellent article,

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may I stand up and be counted? It is time that we who are proud to call ourselves English and/or British made our views known. By the same token, my congratulations to you for...

Predictive piffle

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From Lord Hanningfield Sir: It is a shame that your magazine did not make a link between Rod Liddle's excellent article on central government's 'predict and provide'...

Sad, sad, sad

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From Herb Greer Sir: Mark Steyn ('Murderous rhetoric', 10 April) is right on the money about the anti-Bush hatred which infects the Democratic party like a sort of metastasising...

Out of touch

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From Michael Hirst Sir: At least, unlike Richard Perle, William ICristol and the other neocons who per suaded Bush to invade Iraq, Mark Steyn has the same commitment to the...

From Nolan Walker Sir: David Lovibond says that we should

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welcome migrants prepared to share an anglocentric world view. I'm sure that, like you, he thinks Eastern Europeans are an essential part of our economy, as they are willing to...

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Blair's bungling toadies

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From R.E. Bland Sir: Peter Oborne's account of Tony Blair's ever increasing list of personal failures makes sickening reading (Politics. 10 April). He also touches on Jack...

We must have ID cards From Jack Colson Sir: Peter

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Hitchens's implication (`Contempt for liberty', 10 April) that terrorists will be able to fake any form of ID is wrong and therefore an unconvincing argument for not introducing...

The fruits of torture

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From Oliver Miles Sir: 'None of us,' writes Brendan O'Neill ('Some luvvies will believe anything', 3 April), 'knows for certain what goes on inside . . . Guantanamo Bay.'...

Trapping Napoleon

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From Andre Zaluski Sir: It is not true, as Christopher Woodward writes in his review of Adam Zamoyski's book 1812 (Books, 10 April), that the Russian plan to draw Napoleon into...

Different class of cabby

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From Sir James Mellon Sir: Petronella Wyatt has a sophisticated grasp of Central European mores and American quirkiness. Alas, nearer home she is something of a London...

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Let's not be too hard on the old Fakir of Ipi

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T he recent death in his nineties of Brigadier Young, the distinguished army vet, struck a faint but clear chime of bells in my mind. He was famous for his skill with mules and...

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The press has every right to invade the privacy of Posh and Becks

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T he Sun is very unhappy with Der Spiegel. According to the German magazine, Britain is a land of `declining moral fibre, public services and law and order'. Our hospitals are...

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Cut out VAT, cut out the middleman hail to the fixer from Harwich

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T wo of our least efficient and most tiresome systems of taxation are the council tax and Value Added Tax, so anyone who offers to fix them both has a great future in politics....

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Three founding fathers of the media

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Philip Hensher THE HACK'S TALE by David Hughes Bloomsbury, £16.99, pp. 205, ISBN 074754591X Nv e had all probably agreed by now that the whole memoir thing was getting out of...

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One damned funny thing after another

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Alexander Chancellor THE SMOKING DIARIES by Simon Gray Granta, £14.99, pp. 230, ISBN 186207688X S imon Gray is 65 and is unwell. It's not clear from this brilliant book q uite...

What makes us unique?

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Mary Furness So You THINK YOU'RE HUMAN? by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto OUP, £14.99, pp. 179, ISBN 0192804170 W hat does it mean to be human? The many possible answers to this...

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His cup runneth over

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Sebastian Smee THE LINE OF BEAUTY by Alan Hollinghurst Picador. £16.99, pp. 616, ISBN 033048320X N ick, the central character in Alan Hollinghurst's wonderful new novel, is a...

So What's New?

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Lying awake, I correct to straight the crooked neck that's caused me years of pain by tilting my head off true. A minuscule adjustment, but one I must make. 'Doctor, will it...

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The foundering ship of state

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Philip Ziegler WHO RUNS THIS PLACE? by Anthony Sampson John Murray, £20, pp. 418, ISBN 0719565642 H enry Fairlie may have coined the phrase 'The Establishment' but it was...

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Led by donkeys

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Byron Rogers THE CRIMEAN WAR by Clive Panting Chatto, £20, pp. 280, ISBN 0283073551 THE NATIONAL ARMY MUSEUM OF THE CRIMEAN WAR by Alastair Massie Sidgwick &Jackson, £25, pp....

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A rather ferocious person

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Eric Christiansen CHRISTINA QUEEN OF SWEDEN by Veronica Buckley Fourth Estate, £20, pp. 479, ISBN 184115704X C hristina became queen of Sweden because her heroic father...

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Where are today's heroes?

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Josie Appleton believes the Trafalgar Square fourth plinth project is wrong headed T he Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group has retired to seek private sponsorship for the next...

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Stalking the moment

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Andrew Lambirth Bill Brandt: A Centenary Retrospective V&A, until 25 July photography is doing well at the I moment: 2004 is not only the centenary of Cecil Beaton. billed as...

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Race relations

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Mark Steyn Hidalgo 124, selected cinemas A ccording to the late Osama bin Laden, ri.when people see the strong horse and the weak horse, they're naturally drawn to the strong...

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Dark night of the soul

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Charles Spencer I T found myself in the depths of fear, guilt depression the other week, three old companions I thought I had put behind me when I gave up the drink, but who...

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Shostakovich on the rampage

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Michael Tanner Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Royal Opera House The Mikado Coliseum I l ad) , Macbeth of Mtsensk, Shostai kovich's scandalous opera, is the most successful thing that...

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Safely does it

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Patrick Camegy Romeo and Juliet Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford A s extreme, provocative productions of the classics tend now to be the rule rather than the exception,...

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All smoke and no fire

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Lloyd Evans Audience and Protest Etcetera All For Nothing Menier Three on a Couch King's Head I 've always admired Vaclav Havel, poet, president and puffing-billy. His two...

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Fear and outrage

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Michael Vestey T he Nigerian playwright, poet and political activist Wole Soyinka would talk a geat deal of sense were he not so antiGeorge W. Bush as he appears to be in the...

A beautiful mind

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James Delingpole W hen I told the Fawn that our evening's compulsory viewing was to be my preview tape of Hawking (BBC2, Tuesday) she wasn't happy. 'Oh, God,' she said. 'It's...

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Crustacean catch

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Simon Courtauld T heproliferating number and variety of uncooked prawns to be found in the shops put me in mind of the words of the foul-mouthed Australian, Barry McKenzie, in...

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Best and the rest

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Alan Judd W hat do you think is the best car in the world?' asked my fellow rail sufferer as our train approached London Bridge like a reluctant glacier. I, too, have a stock...

Foes and fans

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Taki Av ording to Mr Michael Winner, the rench people are less than zero, a miserable bunch of rude pikers whose food he cannot stand — 'over-fussed and overpresented' — and,...

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Vital statistics

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Jeremy Clarke Q baron's latest, Mickey, is so happy L./about the way things are going since Sharon accosted him in the pub and asked him how he broke his nose, he keeps on...

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Straight talking

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Petronella Wyatt I wasn't aware of the news this week that .Robbie Williams's sexuality has been the subject of speculation, as one newspaper put it, throughout his pop career....

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Follow your nose

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Jonathan Ray takes a tour through New Zealand's wine country F orgive me if I state the obvious, but New Zealand is a very long way away. No, really, it is. If you go with the...

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Honesty island

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Rachel Johnson hoah! I'm going to Jamaica! Whoah! In the sunny Caribbean sea!' I hummed, as I sat in the lounge waiting to board my Air Jamaica flight, in the company of...

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A majestic serenity

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FRANK KEATING "E' or such a sublimely beauteous batsman he has a vulgarian's gluttony for runs. Brian Lards monolithic 400 not out mercilessly upstaged England's victory parade...

Q. I recently went business-class, for the first time in

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my life, to New Zealand and back. On the second lap of the long return journey, from LA to London, I returned to my correct seat, one of two near a window, to find a couple in...

Q. I have found the perfect remedy for driving off

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charity muggers when they waylay me. I just firmly say, 'Not in the street, thank you,' and walk on. They fall back astonished, while I can continue with a priggish satisfaction...

Q. Can you just remind me how to do a DIY temporary necklift?

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A.W., London NW10 A. Thanks to my American correspondent, B. T, lam currently sampling ready-made neck-lift devices. Until I can recommend a brand, why not use a large-eyed...