A £50,000 player, p42

THE WEEK

3 Leading article 7 Portrait of the Week 9 Diary Tom Hollander 10 Politics James Forsyth 11 The Spectator’s Notes 17 Rod Liddle 20 Barometer 21 Matthew Parris 23 James Delingpole 24 Letters 30 Any other business Martin Vander Weyer

How to beat the drop, p28

Smokin’ ladies, p20

12 In praise of British men The author eats her words

Leah McLaren 14 Savile Row revolutionary Bo Xilai was a charming princeling

John Simpson 16 Reasons to kill a prime minister Spencer Perceval’s many enemies

Andro Linklater 18 Roy of the readers My friend the England manager

Michael Henderson 20 Dead pretty Why shouldn’t cigarettes be pink?

Claire Fox 22 Digging deeper What Mary Beard brings to TV

Peter Jones 25 Investment special

Judi Bevan, Alex Brummer and Tim Price

BOOKS & ARTS

Books 32 Polly Toynbee The New Few,

by Ferdinand Mount 34 Margaret Drabble AnAcademic Question,

by Barbara Pym Justin Cartwright Pure, by Timothy Mo 35 Lewis Jones

Dreaming in French, by Alice Kaplan; As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh, by Susan Sontag 37 Bookends

Marcus Berkmann 38 Sophia Waugh The Red House, by Mark Haddon 39 Emma Clark Sacred Land, by Martin Palmer

Cover by Christian Adams. Drawings by Michael Heath, Castro, Ian Tovey, Nick Newman, Mazurke, RGJ, Geoff Thompson, Kipper Williams, Adam Singleton, Grizelda, Steve Way, Sally Artz, Mazurke, Tony Husband, Paul Wood, Len, Nick Downes and Bernie.www.spectator.co.uk To subscribe to The Spectator for £104 a year, turn to page 55 Editorial and advertising The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP, Tel: 020 7961 0200, Fax: 020 7681 3773, Email: editor@spectator.co.uk (editorial); letters@spectator.co.uk (for publication); advertising@spectator.co.uk (advertising); Advertising enquiries: 020 7961 0219 Advertising fax: 020 7681 3773 Subscription and delivery queries Spectator Subscriptions Dept., 800 Guillat Avenue, Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne ME9 8GU; Tel: 01795 592886 Fax: 0870 220 0290; Email: spectator@servicehelpline.co.uk Newsagent queries Spectator Circulation Dept, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP, Tel: 020 7961 0200, Fax: 020 7681 3773, Email: dstam@spectator.co.uk Distributor COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 7QX Vol 319; no 9584 © 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

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the spectator | 5 may 2012 | www.spectator.co.uk The man who built Aslan, p41

Zoffany, lusciously, p43

LIFE

Arts 41 Interview

Tom Scutt, designer of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Lloyd Evans 42 Music Peter Phillips 43 Exhibitions Johan Zoffany RA:

Society Observed Andrew Lambirth 44 Theatre

Shipwreck Trilogy Patrick Carnegy 45 Making Noise Quietly; South

Downs/The Browning Version Lloyd Evans 46 Cinema Monsieur Lazhar

Deborah Ross Dance Compass;

The Importance of Being Earnest Michael Tanner 48 Television Simon Hoggart 49 Radio Kate Chisholm Culture notes George Hull Life 53 High life Taki Low life Jeremy Clarke 55 Real life Melissa Kite 56 Long life Alexander Chancellor 57 Bridge Janet de Botton And finaly . . . 58 Chess Raymond Keene 59 Competition; Crossword 60Status anxietyTobyYoung Dave Michael Heath 61 Sport RogerAlton Your problems solved Mary Killen 62FoodTanya Gold Mind your language

A Streetcar Named Desire Giannandrea Poesio 47 Opera The Flying Dutchman;

Street lighting vulgarises a village, and the smartest places are the darkest Matthew Parris, p21

As architecture is the noblest art, so pastry is the noblest form of architecture Antonin Carême, p35

It was one of those depressing parties where the illegal drugs are taken secretly by a select few in a bedroom. I wasn’t invited in Jeremy Clarke, p53

Contributors

Leah McLaren is a columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail, and the author of a 2002 Spectator cover story on the ineptitude of Englishmen. In this week’s cover story, she explains why she was wrong.

Claire Fox is director of the Institute of Ideas and a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze. On p. 20, she defends her right to smoke.

the spectator | 5 may 2012 | www.spectator.co.uk

Polly Toynbee is a columnist for the Guardian and author of Hard Work: Life in Low-pay Britain. On p. 32, she assesses Ferdinand Mount’s views of social inequality.

Margaret Drabble’s latest book is The Pattern in the Carpet. On p. 34, she reviews the lost Barbara Pym novel An Academic Question, which its author described as ‘a sort of Margaret Drabble effort’.

Emma Clark is the author of The Art of the Islamic Garden. She reviews Martin Clark’s latest work on religion and the English landscape on p. 39.

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