April 2012 Issue 41

Manchester Square The real marriage problem 5

Counterpoints Blue-sky blunder; Alain’s atheism; Insights from Occupy; Academic anger; Finnharmonic orchestra; Krupptastic; Be lucky 10

Letters Comprehensively wrong; Cracking the glass ceiling; Forced marriages; Royal rights 16

Columns Party Lines Daisy Waugh joins the Leveson debate 18 Free at last Katharine Birbalsingh is inspired by poor children in New York 19 Points East & West Emanuele Ottolenghi explores loosening ties between prosperity and democracy 24 European Eye Mara Delius evokes the spirit of Kleist, a very German outsider 22 Living History Michael Burleigh warns against cyberwarfare scaremongers 25 Marketplace Tim Congdon tells a cautionary tale of two central bank governors 26 Jurisprudence Joshua Rozenberg sees red over the government’s secret courts green paper 27 Open Season Julie Bindel derides the Lib Dems’ record on women 29

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Drawing Board: Lucian Freud, 76

COVER bymichael daley

We’re good Europeans, yet they all hate us Christopher Caldwell reports from Berlin on Germany’s euro angst 32 I pay for the NHS—so why won’t it give me a colonoscopy? Lionel Shriver slams short-sightedness in the National Health Service 23 Universities must be freed from meddling philistines Jonathan Bate takes aim at at the technocrats’ stranglehold on campus 46 Same-sex marriage David Green sees no need to change the law because marriage is about children, while Douglas Murray wants civil marriage to be available for all 20

Dispatches Andrew Roberts in New York runs the numbers on the Republican race 30

Features Obama’s timidity risks war John Bolton lambasts the President for America’s shrinking military might 40 How the Left turned against the Jews Nick Cohen charts the history of Europe’s anti-Semitic socialists 42 Forget wind—it’s time to get Britain fracking Patrick Heren says shale gas could solve our energy supply problems 50 WhyMelvyn Bragg misses the art of the matter Peter Whittle argues that culture is not as flourishing as the media elite thinks 52

Civilisation Critique George Walden pleads for scepticism about the overblown claims of neuroscience 57

Books Hugh Thomas on The Spanish Holocaust by Paul Preston; Brendan Simms on Hitler: A Short Biography by A.N. Wilson; Daniel Johnson on Deception: Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the West by Edward Lucas; Robert Low on Peace, They Say by Jay Nordlinger Fiction: David Womersley on Capital by John Lanchester; Hephzibah Anderson on The Innocents by Francesca Segal 61

Text Democracy in danger: The origins of European technocracy Richard Griffiths 66

Critics Music Norman Lebrecht applauds Venezuelan whizzkid Gustavo Dudamel 68

Art Michael Prodger sees the worst of Damien Hirst 69

Theatre Anne McElvoy lauds a new troupe’s deviation from convention 70

Film Peter Whittle celebrates British cinema’s golden oldies 72

Television Nick Cohen warns the BBC not to go down the tabloid path 73

Cosmos Neil Scolding fears indifference to sex-selective abortion and infanticide 74

Drawing Board Tracey Emin and Lucian Freud Contemporary British draughtmanship 76

Overrated/Underrated Andrew Sullivan/Andrew Breitbart by Michael Taube 78

Chess Dominic Lawson salutes the game’s shooting stars 80

Wine Saintsbury traces the history of high society’s taste for dry champagne 81 Culture & Anarchy Simon Heffer mourns a great contralto 82

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