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Offer open only to registered Hyatt Gold Passport members. For complete Terms & Conditions for The Big Welcome Back promotion, please visit goldpassport.com. Void where prohibited. ©2010 Hyatt Corporation. Contents Contents Contents ContentsTheweekLeadingarticle

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New Labour’s nemesis Fraser Nelson and Ed Howker What is Charlie Whelan trying to hide?

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Portrait of the Week

Diary Simon Heffer

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The revolution will not be tweeted Andrew Gilligan Online campaigning is only of interest to a few nerds

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Politics James Forsyth

The Spectator’s Notes

Dave Michael Heath

Letters

You know it makes sense James Delingpole

Shared opinion Hugo Rifkind

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody

Any other business Martin Vander Weyer

Ancient & modern

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Barking mad — a day out with the BNP Harry Mount Nick Griffin solicits votes in an east London suburb

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The rise and fall of a young fanatic David Modell On the arrest of the BNP official Mark Collett

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A flicker of light in a dark forest Anne Applebaum Recent events may hasten a Russian-Polish rapprochement

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Labour’s strange cancer-scare mailshot Rod Liddle How were those who received it selected?

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Debate: ‘Pity Cameron’s a Heath not a Thatcher’ Lloyd Evans

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Don’t be daft, you can’t try the Pope John L. Allen Jr The campaign to put Benedict XVI in the dock is ill informed

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Books Sam Leith: Voltaire, by Ian Davidson

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Philip Ziegler: Unreliable Sources, by John Simpson

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Hugh Cecil: The Sultan of Zanzibar, by Martyn Downer

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David Crane: Blood Knots, by Luke Jennings

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Jonathan Sumption: Taming the Gods, by Ian Buruma

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Simon Baker: All That Follows, by Jim Crace

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Lloyd Evans: The South Bank Show: Final Cut, by Melvyn Bragg

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James Walton: The Dead Republic, by Roddy Doyle

Samuel Menashe: ‘The Half of It’; ‘Bipolar’: two poems

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Arts Henrietta Bredin goes backstage at the Royal Opera House and talks to the chief armourer

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Online this week

The Tocquevillian Tories Alex Massie Forget Burke. Cameron wants to bring an American Revolution here. The true cost of Brown’s borrowing Fraser Nelson Brown never mentions the flip side of borrowing: it will destroy more jobs than it saves. Still looking for the clear blue water? Martin Bright The similarities between the parties are more striking than the differences. Why Cameron is safe from Blair James Forsyth Blair claims he will never attack the serving PM — so Cameron can breathe easy.

Cover by Christian Adams. Drawings by Michael Heath, Castro, Edward Collet, Holland, Roger Latham, Dish, Adam Singleton, Ivor, Robert Thompson, Geoff Thompson, Bernie and Nick Newman. Subscribe today from £123 a year in the UK

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Vol 312; no 9477 © The Spectator (1828) Ltd. ISSN 0038-6952

The Spectator is published weekly by The Spectator (1828) Ltd at: 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP Editor: Fraser Nelson

Exhibitions: Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective; Van Doesburg and the International Avant-Garde Andrew Lambirth

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Opera: Il Turco in Italia

Michael Tanner

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Music

Peter Phillips

Theatre: The Empire; Polar Bears

Lloyd Evans

Cinema: The Ghost; Cemetery Junction

Deborah Ross

Dance: Cinderella

Giannandrea Poesio

Radio

Kate Chisholm

Television

James Delingpole

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Life The turf

Robin Oakley

High life

Taki

Low life Jeremy Clarke

Wild life Aidan Hartley

Real life Melissa Kite

Bridge Susanna Gross

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And finaly . . . Chess Raymond Keene

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Competition; Crossword

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Status anxiety Toby Young

Sport Roger Alton

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Your problems solved Mary Killen

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www.spectator.co.uk

THE SPECTATOR 17 April 2010 7