The slide towards extinction in Scotland has persuaded the Tories to draw up a blueprint for separation, says Fraser Nelson. The Scottish Tories would split off — and Cameron’s Conservatives would become the English party For the son of an Aberdonian stockbroker, David Cameron has had an uneasy relationship with Scotland. It is a land
I meet Ian McEwan for lunch at Elena’s L’Etoile near his Fitzrovia home. He is greeted like a member of the family, and he tells me with relish that the restaurant features in The Dean’s December by one of his literary heroes, Saul Bellow. McEwan’s last book, Saturday, was explicitly influenced by Bellow, and in
In Westminster Cathedral a dozen or so deaf mutes are doing the Stations of the Cross. They have reached the 14th station, ‘Jesus is laid in the tomb’. A priest leads the prayers in sign language. ‘We, too, O God, will descend into the grave whenever it shall please Thee, as it shall please Thee,
Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess is a masterpiece, whatever other category one finds for it. It is bursting with vitality, it has a larger number of memorable, indeed unforgettable tunes than any work of comparable length in the 20th century, whether opera or musical. And what counts still more for its stature is that the great
