In this week’s Spectator | 4 February 2011

What to think about Egypt? Pick up most newspapers and you see a flood of words, but a trickle of information. Not so with this week’s Spectator, which has everything you need to know – and nothing more. Here are some pieces that I thought may interest CoffeeHousers.

1.  What you need to know. Our lead feature is an interview with a dozen people who know their onions. Anne Applebaum on whether it can be compared to Poland, Charles Glass on fifty years of Egyptian dictators, Douglas Murray on neo-conservatism and Islamism, Professor Stephen Walt on the geopolitical fallout and Andrew Roberts on the alarming power of the Cairo mob.

2. What to make of the Muslim Brotherhood. John R Bradley didn’t just predict the Egyptian uprising but wrote a book on it. We ask for his take on the Brotherhood. Beware the claims that they have mellowed, he says, its mainly due to their hiring adept English-speaking spin doctors.