No Jews. No hint of Jewishness anywhere. That was Howard Jacobson’s instruction to himself when he sat down to write his new novel, The Act of Love. ‘I took the restriction very seriously,’ he told Peter Florence in a discussion for Intelligence Squared on 22nd October. ‘I nearly set about writing the book without using
Mr Brown’s bank recapitalisation exercise has been portrayed in the British media as a financial and political coup. The Financial Times has been particularly enthusiastic, describing it as ‘a global template’. Mr Brown’s admirers apparently believe that the British government’s programme is both intellectually original and a real-world success, and is therefore being copied in
Melissa Kite says that the shadow chancellor should have known better than to cross the most brutal spin-doctor in Westminster, or flout the conventions of the super-rich. But we should not be distracted from the Business Secretary’s true role in this saga If George Osborne survives the spectacular fallout of his now notorious Corfu adventure
The market needs speculators who are willing to challenge the big battalions, says Patrick Macaskie. Don’t believe the hype: short-sellers were not the villains of this financial crisis People everywhere have been grappling with what has befallen them. Like the closing stages of A Midsummer Night’s Dream we are waking from a reverie and human
It is difficult to think of anything more depressing than the recent photographs of a smirking Lord Mandy in his ermine drag flanked by two of yesterday’s major groupies, Lord Falconer and Baroness Jay, she who gleefully masterminded the removal of the hereditary peers, but couldn’t resist a title for herself. At the very moment
It’s very difficult to get one’s head around the moral and ethical implications of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill on a damp and frowsy October afternoon after perhaps one too many stiffeners. I came away from my research with a vague notion that the Roman Catholic Church wishes to prevent scientists from experimenting on
Bingo is a game that I have never really seen the point of — despite recent advertising campaigns attempting to market it as the new raucous ‘girls’ night out’ of choice. It was thus with trepidation that I climbed Home House’s grand staircase and entered one of their private rooms along with 30 other guests
James Forsyth on how the two candidates earned their party’s nominations and how the final stages of the campaign are playing out It was on the eve of the Iowa caucus, 2 January, that it became clear that Barack Obama’s candidacy was more than just a form of political entertainment. Obama’s last speaking engagement was
Dan Gilgoff on how Barack Obama has narrowed the ‘God gap’ Virtually no political experts saw it coming, but religion was one of the biggest factors in George W. Bush’s 2004 election victory. Bush, who had used evangelical Christian language and championed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage — a cause pushed by the Christian
Michael Steinberger says a hefty defeat might be the best result for the Republicans Political parties exist to fight elections, and with the presidential campaign now in its climatic weeks, Republicans are gamely battling to keep the White House. Barack Obama has opened a large, possibly insurmountable lead over John McCain, whose every gambit, not
States with their respective electoral college votes — 270 votes are needed to win Click here to download the map which featured in the US Election supplement. Nevada:This has been the fastest- growing state in the union since the second world war. McCain used to have a comfortable lead here but with almost half of
Erica Grieder follows the US Presidential campaign My favourite souvenir from the campaign season is a nine-page handout on ‘The Nature & Activity of Demons’. This was provided during a sort of adult Sunday school at John Hagee’s mega-church in San Antonio, Texas. Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and Baptist pastor and candidate
Why have Barack Obama and John McCain run such drearily conventional campaigns? Hard though it is to remember those halcyon days, informed observers once believed that Obama and McCain would barnstorm the country together, flying on the same plane and taking part in Lincoln–Douglas-style debates over war and peace and the meaning of life itself.
An important question of etiquette. Is it ever permissible to boo, barrack or hurl abuse at an English sportsman when he is representing his country in some battle against wily and devious foreigners? This is what happened to Ashley Cole, an England defender, who was playing at Wembley for his country against the might of
Charles Leadbeater, the acclaimed innovator and new media analyst, predicts a transformed landscape: a new ‘networked’ capitalism in which the state plays a part but cannot pick winners — a system that is chastened, subdued and fraught with social danger We should be searching for a new kind of capitalism, and not just according to
I am an elder statesman, but I’m a versatile old bugger. In about a month’s time I’m hitting the boards in Austin, Texas as a support act for Dame Edna. She’s not a happy lady about it because we’ve never hit it off, or got it off for that matter, and she’s got this bee
If you ever want to get in touch with the real world, try pretending to be a second world war GI. This is what I did the other weekend and it was quite an eye-opener. I don’t mean the stuff I learned about the correct procedure for debussing and advancing to contact from an armoured
‘I was born for this moment,’ Gordon Brown is said to have told a small group at a recent dinner party. The Prime Minister is too keen a student of history not to have known that he was parroting Winston Churchill’s famous remark on becoming Prime Minister in 1940, ‘I felt… that all my past
Thomas Friedman, the influential American commentator, addressed Intelligence Squared on his new book, ‘Hot, Flat and Crowded. Why the world needs a green revolution and how we can renew our global future.’ A star turn visited Intelligence Squared on 13th October. Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer prize winning journalist and columnist on the New York Times, came
Sarfraz Manzoor celebrates an iftar meal with homeless people and his fellow Muslims, a web-generated ‘flashmob’ observing an Islamic tradition of generosity to the needy It is sundown in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a large outdoor square behind London’s Holborn Underground station. I am here to meet a man called Miqdad Asaria who had invited me