April 2010 Issue 21

Manchester Square 5

Counterpoints Palestine’s tragedy; Seat cheats; Winning formula; Footpath to peace; Gourmet grubs; Trollope on euthanasia 10

Columns On the Contrary Lionel Shriver is fed up with TalkTalking to Bangalore 17

Marketplace Tim Congdon says Keynesian economists will be proved wrong yet again 18

Jurisprudence Joshua Rozenberg sets up shop as a legal mediator 19

Living History Michael Burleigh sketches the outline of an emerging world order 20

Points East & West Emanuele Ottolenghi derides Western media hypocrisy over Mossad 21

European Eye Mara Delius witnesses the pernicious influence of identity politics 22

The Mole Our advertising insider says his colleagues are obsessed with webtoys 24

Web Sightings Frances Weaver defends a netizen’s right to surf 25

Letters Teacher targets; Life sentence; True blue; Bank bail-outs; Class politics; Uncovering tradition 26

Dispatches Ben Judah in Kaliningrad, Russia’s forgotten European outpost 28 Karen Horn in Havana paints a bleak picture of Cuba’s socialist anti-utopia 30

COVER ILLUSTRATION byandrécariliho

Coverlines The Toepfer files Michael Pinto-Duschinsky reveals the Nazi past of a major international benefactor 38

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Election Special Dialogue Is the party really over for Labour? Andrew Rawnsley and Nick Cohen pick over the bones of New Labour but wonder how different the Tories will be 32 Anthony Howard thinks the election is too close to call 50 Douglas Murray believes David Cameron deserves to lose 16

Overrated/UnderratedMyronEbellonArnold Schwarzenegger: why the Governator won’t be back this time 80 Robert Fox on General David Petraeus: will his surge take him to the White House? 81

Party lines Daisy Waugh finds the sisterhood critical of footballers’ wives 77

Features Is the Obama presidency failing? Julia Pettengill in Washington analyses the backlash against the President only a year into the job 46

If England had remained Catholic Peter Stanford imagines a country untouched by the Reformation 52

Standpoint

Civilisation Critique Allan Massie salutes Sir Walter Scott, master of historical fiction 56 Books William Rubinstein on Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England by Anthony Julius; Michael Nazir-Ali on The Rage Against God: Why Faith is the Foundation of Civilisation by Peter Hitchens; Eric Ormsby on True Friendship: Geoffrey Hill, Anthony Hecht, and Robert Lowell under the Sign of Eliot and Pound by Christopher Ricks; Robin Shepherd on Choose Your Weapons: The British Foreign Secretary — Two Centuries of Conflict and Personalities by Douglas Hurd; David Womersley on The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis 59

Cosmos John Stein calls for the reinstatement of Susan Greenfield 67

Music Jessica Duchen gets Chopin overkill on the bicentenary of his birth 68

Art Michael Prodger admires Christen Købke, Danish master of light 69

Film Peter Whittle is not amused by the gutlessness of religious comedy 70

Wireless Nick Cohen hails journalism at its purest on BBC Radio 5 Live 71

Theatre Minette Marrin finds Jerusalem thoroughly worth the hype 72 Text I David Pryce-Jones The View from Panorama Road 74 Text II Jeff Chaucer/Robert Conquest Limericks 76

Imagination Whatever by Peter Blegvad: The Saga of Smit & Smule continues 77 Drawing Board The legacy of R. B. Kitaj 78 Chess Dominic Lawson recommends six of the best books about the game 82

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