Christmas

The Christmas issue of the Spectator is in the shops now, but if you don’t yet have a copy, here are the contents in full:   Features In defence of Blairism – Tony Blair Michael Gove interviews the Archbishop of Canterbury James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson interview David Cameron Mark Clarke, Bercow, Sewel: 2016 was a vintage year for the cad – Quentin Letts Yes, Eddie Redmayne played a transsexual. Does that make him qualified to speak for them? – Tom Hollander Our uniting kingdom: how opinions in Scotland and England are fast converging – Leading article If it’s Trump vs Clinton then Hillary’s path to the White House is clear. She can’t be

A vicar called Paul Eddy has argued, in the Oxford church newspaper, that carol services should be more manly. For there are many men who only get this annual glimpse of church, and they should be challenged in their assumption that religion is a soppy women-and-children thing. He suggests showing a clip from an action film, emphasizing the heroic nature of Jesus’s post-infant life, and keeping the sermon, and indeed the whole service, short. I sympathise. Church attendance is disproportionately female (the official figure is 59 percent, but it can feel a bit higher). And church culture can feel pretty alienating to younger men. Vicars should bear this in mind

From Nicky Dunne, Heywood Hill bookshop Q. A much admired actor rang our bookshop to send a hardback copy of Don Quixote, with an appreciative handwritten note, to a very distinguished fellow board-treader. Unfortunately we sent a children’s illustrated edition by mistake, thereby putting a backhand slice on what was meant to be a compliment. How can I make it up to them both? A. Obviously you should send a complimentary copy of the real version – but don’t apologise too much. Actors have the most fragile of egos and you must not risk fomenting heightened paranoia. Instead blame the mistake on your intern, explaining that, since colouring-in books for