Delta variant, p34
The horror, p24
THE WEEK
3 Leading article 6 Portrait of the Week 9 Diary Life in isolation
Sajid Javid 10 Politics The tax-and-spend Tories
James Forsyth 11 The Spectator’s Notes
What Dominic Cummings gets wrong Charles Moore 14 Barometer Japan’s Olympic history, nightclubs and racehorses 15 Rod Liddle Will England pull out of the World Cup? 19 Douglas Murray
Get ready for the Boring Twenties 21 Ancient and modern
No time for losers 27 Sam Leith
World gone lazy 29 Letters School reports, royal jubilees and the joy of Jeremy 30 Any other business
The clever radical who led the City’s transformation Martin Vander Weyer
Achingly meta, p47
12 Party time
The price of freedom Kate Andrews 13 Anthony Costello
‘The saddest thing I ever saw’: a poem 14 Now what do we do?
The government’s Covid optimism is fading fast Katy Balls 16 Fuelling the fire
Lebanon is trapped in a nightmare of its own making Paul Wood 20 Game changer
The uncomfortable truth about the Nazis and the Olympics Nigel Farndale 22 Dishing the dirt
The case against organic food Matt Ridley 24 Losing the plot
Real gardens are dying out James Bartholomew 26 Cricket notebook
How ‘Wooders’ gave me my big break Henry Blofeld
BOOKS & ARTS
BOOKS 32 Damian Thompson
The Storm is Upon Us, by Mike Rothschild; Pastels and Pedophiles, by Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko 33 Candy Neubert
‘lawn’: a poem 34 Hugh Thomson
The Nile, by Terje Tveldt Isabel Hardman
Heavy Light, by Horatio Clare 35 Roger Lewis
The Art of Living, by Stephen Bayley 36 Dea Birkett
The Cambridge Companion to the Circus, edited by Gillian Arrighi and Jim Davis 37 Sarah Ditum
The Great Mistake, by Jonathan Lee Nicholas Shakespeare One Blade of Grass, by Henry Shukman 38 Madeleine Feeny
China Room, by Sunjeev Sahota John Maier
Drunk, by Edward Slingerland 40 Max Décharné
Two Hitlers and a Marilyn, by Adam Andrusier David Patrikarakos
Beirut 2020, by Charif Majdalani
Cover by Morten Morland. Drawings by Michael Heath, Castro, RGJ, Tim Bales, Paul Wood, Bernie, Nick Newman, Robert Thompson, Grizelda, Matt Percival, K.J. Lamb, Wilbur. www.spectator.co.uk Editorial and advertising The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP, Tel: 020 7961 0200, Fax: 020 7681 3773, Email: letters@spectator.co.uk (for publication); advertising@spectator.co.uk (advertising); Advertising enquiries: 020 7961 0128 Subscription and delivery queries Spectator Subscriptions Dept., 17 Perrymount Rd, Haywards Heath RH16 3DH; Tel: 0330 3330 050; Email: customerhelp@subscriptions.spectator.co.uk; Rates for a basic annual subscription in the UK: £111; Europe: £185; Australia: A$279; New Zealand: A$349; and £195 in all other countries. To order, go to www.spectator.co.uk/A263A or call 0330 3330 050 and quote A151A; Newsagent queries Spectator Circulation Dept, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP, Tel: 020 7961 0200, Fax: 020 7681 3773, Email: dbrown@spectator.co.uk; Distributor Marketforce, 161 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9AP. Tel. 0203 787 9001. www.marketforce.co.uk Vol 346; no 10,065 © 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 | 24 july 2021 | www.spectator.co.uk
