Welcome To Standpoint

ONLINE ONLY: Thoughts from a Hospital Bed

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:34:40 +0100

Author:Lincoln Allison

ONLINE ONLY: Academic Boycotts Teach Us Nothing

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:52:47 +0100

Author:Charlie Laderman

Antonio Munoz Molina

Earlier this year an internationally renowned intellectual was invited to Israel. When his intention to accept the invitation was made public, he was showered with insults, accused of providing succor to Zionism and urged to disinvest from involvement with Israel. By interacting with the Israeli state he was marked as an enemy of the Palestinian cause and warned that he would be indelibly defiled if he shook the bloodied hand of his host, President Shimon Peres.

Professor Geza Vermes, 1924-2013

Thu, 09 May 2013 12:24:33 +0100

Author:Daniel Johnson

It is with great sadness that we must inform readers of the death of Professor Geza Vermes FBA. His towering academic achievements will endure, above all in the two fields that he made his own, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Jesus. More recently he extended his range to cover the history of the early Church and the lives of major Jewish figures such as Herod the Great and Josephus.

ONLINE ONLY: Send in the Clowns

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:45:35 +0100

Author:Kenneth Minogue

Nigel Farage: The victor in last week's local elections

When in the May local government elections, a party of "clowns" and "fruitcakes" got about a quarter of the vote, commentators went giddy with polling projections in search of what such voting would mean for the main political parties. They were missing the point. Here was a mass expression of derision for the whole British political establishment. In a small democratic way, it was nothing less than a revolution against the "soft despotism" that has prevailed in British politics for more than a generation.

ONLINE ONLY: Ferguson's Fact of Nature

Mon, 06 May 2013 08:59:45 +0100

Author:Laura Keynes

John Maynard Keynes: He and his wife, Lydia, tried for children

Book Now: "Conservatism from Burke to Boris"

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:25:16 +0100

Author:

Too many magazines are happy to feed their readers the journalistic equivalent of fast food. We like to use a recipe that's rather more edifying and effervescent.

Join Standpoint for its first political salon on June 17, 2013 at Hardy's Brasserie and Wine Bar in Marylebone, London W1.

The evening's theme is "conservatism from Burke to Boris".

A prize of two tickets to the event will be awarded to the designer of our "Civilisation cocktail"

ONLINE ONLY: Thatcher, Reagan and the Dictators

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:22:07 +0100

Author:Brendan Simms

Thatcher with Reagan: The Cold War leaders were, above all, democrats

May Issue Out Now

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:59:04 +0100

Author:

Who will wield her handbag now?

Paul Johnson, Andrew Roberts, Douglas Murray and Daniel Johnson on Mrs Thatcher's legacy

Charles Moore celebrates the Letwin Salon

John Bolton: America's new isolationism

Mary Eberstadt: Faith depends on family

Ed West: The intolerence of diversity

From Hegel to Hagel

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:48:11 +0100

Author:Daniel Johnson

Hero-worshipper: Hegel lionised Napoleon

In 1806, after Napoleon Bonaparte’s crushing victory over the Prussians at Jena, a still obscure professor at the university there, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, reported to a friend: “I saw the Emperor, this World Soul [Weltseele], riding through the town reconnoitring. It is indeed a wonderful feeling to see an individual of this kind, who, concentrated here to a single point, sitting on horseback, reaches out over the entire world and masters it.” Thus did the great philosopher pay tribute to the greatest warlord of the age, then at the zenith of his power.

First in Line

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:42:26 +0100

Author:Alice Cockerell

Tongue-tied: The Princess of Cambridge may have revealed the gender of Britian's future heir while greeting her admirers

If Only

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:25:46 +0100

Author:Christopher Fildes

The latest in if-only economics comes from Japan. The central bank’s new governor, Haruhiki Kuroda, plans to print more yen until the rate of inflation reaches 2 per cent — on its way up, that is. There, with any luck, it will meet our own rate of inflation, coming down. Then we can all relax.

It is to Sir Kit McMahon, who was deputy governor of the Bank of England, that we owe the concept of if-only economics. This consisted (he said) of picking one economic indicator and hanging policy on it like a hat-peg, or using it as a target, in the belief that if only we could hit it, everything would be all right. If only.

Poetry in Motion

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:22:16 +0100

Author:C. P. Nield

Dial M for Tennyson: Judi Dench in “Skyfall”

Skyfall continued the comeback for the James Bond franchise. It has provided a more surprising renaissance for Alfred, Lord Tennyson. When M battles for her job in front of an acid-tongued parliamentary committee, her reputation in tatters and her country under attack from the cyber-terrorist Silva, what does she reach for? Bond’s trusty Beretta 418? One of Q’s exploding pens? No. She unleashes a far more potent weapon: the immortal rhetoric of Tennyson’s “Ulysses”.

Heavenly Bodies

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:09:47 +0100

Author:Jacob Willer

His sweetness was sympathy: “The Charity of St Thomas of Villanueva” (c.1670) by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

The recent Murillo exhibitions at the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Wallace Collection prompted critics to coo, “Not as kitsch as we thought.” Perhaps they never had thought. Many of the exhibited paintings usually hang in London museums, but it has taken dedicated exhibitions to make people look at them.

Wotan's Trolley

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:00:27 +0100

Author:Mark Ronan

In Berlin to review Wagner’s Ring (Barenboim conducting), I found myself in more down-to-earth surroundings needing a trolley in a supermarket. A €1 deposit was required, which was no problem at all, except there were no trolleys in the rack immediately outside the store. Momentarily perplexed, I saw a man exit with an empty trolley, and held out my hand offering him a €1 coin. He politely declined.

Warning Notes

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:56:29 +0100

Author:Daniel Johnson

Banned by the Nazis: Composer Arnold Schoenberg

An Unlikely Acolyte

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:46:59 +0100

Author:James Wharton

Under one banner: Margaret Thatcher was a divisive figure, but she had a steely resolve worth saluting

Underrated: Søren Kierkegaard

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:29:34 +0100

Author:Daniel Johnson

Overrated: Karl Marx

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:24:31 +0100

Author:Daniel Johnson

The Boadicea Principle

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:07:58 +0100

Author:Daniel Johnson

"I am fighting as an ordinary person for my lost freedom, my bruised body and my outraged daughters." Thus Boadicea addressed her Iceni army, facing the Roman legions, from her chariot — the first articulation of what we may call the Boadicea principle. "Consider how many of you are fighting — and why. Then you will win this battle, or perish. That is what I, a woman, plan to do. Let the men live in slavery if they will."

Americans Know Her True Worth. Do We?

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:05:35 +0100

Author:Andrew Roberts

The very special relationship: The Thatcher revolution laid the foundations for the Reagan revolution in the United States

The American response to the death of Margaret Thatcher was worthy of the admiration she felt for the country whose free enterprise system, can-do attitude and staunch support for democracy — at least in the era of Ronald Reagan — she was determined that Britain would emulate. She has been revered here for many years, and her death brought an avalanche of affection and praise for her on both the Right and, much more surprisingly, the Left.

Union Disunity

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:01:32 +0100

Author:Joshua Rozenberg

Ronnie Fraser is a sincere and passionate, though not uncritical, supporter of Israel. Now in his mid-sixties, he has spent the past decade or so teaching mathematics in schools and colleges. In 1998, Fraser joined a trade union representing teachers in higher education. Following the merger of his union with another in 2006, he became a member of the University and College Union.

The UCU is far from being a supporter of the Jewish state. Fraser's view is that his union did nothing to stop institutionally anti-Semitic acts over several years. At its policy-making conferences in 2007 and in 2009, members supported academic boycotts of Israel. On legal advice, neither motion was implemented by the union's executive.

Tweet Value

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:55:01 +0100

Author:Tim Congdon

A well-known passage in Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution on France cast aspersions on economists, and bracketed them with "sophisters" and "calculators". To be precise, "The age of chivalry is gone; — That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever."

Pyongyang's Ballistic Bluff

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:51:45 +0100

Author:Emanuele Ottolenghi

Since conducting a third nuclear test in February, North Korea has been escalating its rhetoric and actions ever closer to the brink. Suddenly, the possibility of a second Korean war appears real — except this time nuclear weapons will not be lurking in the distant background, as the ultimate superpower instrument of dissuasion. Such a threat demands prudence, which may be part of the reason why the North feels cocky about its bellicose posture.

Experts have been poring over the details of the latest crisis, predicting that North Korea is threatening to escalate its nuclear capacity to extract concessions. But is this just a bluff?

The Beige of Beijing

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:41:02 +0100

Author:Lionel Shriver

I did myself no favours at China's Bookworm Literary Festival in March when I announced on stage that Beijing was "the ugliest city I'd ever seen". Even the expats were offended. Yet the problem wasn't simply my typical tactlessness. After a few days of trudging through that dingy fug, as ranks of monotonous, cheaply constructed tower blocks foreshortened into the gloom, I didn't think I was venturing an opinion, but stating a self-evident fact.

Though I'm no China expert, there may be some modest value to the fresh eye. The native Chinese and expats alike had over-adapted to their dystopic town and could no longer see it.

Turkish Wrath

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:37:00 +0100

Author:Mara Delius

Europe's reputation stands and falls with its attitude towards bureaucracy. One regulation gone wrong, and we're back to bendy bananas and the Eurocrats grimly destroying the freedom of countries with their rulers. Or such is the British perspective. For Germans the opposite is true. The European idea has always been seen as a way out of trouble: a gateway out of the small-mindedness associated with domestic bureaucracy, a path to more freedom, not less.

Perhaps unexpectedly, bureaucracy is something of a pet hate for Germans: we love our lives to be structured and organised, but we're also afraid of Kafkaesque tendencies, where order doesn't make life easier, but leans towards the downright sinister.

Thatcher Bashing

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:33:03 +0100

Author:Douglas Murray

I was born in 1979, just a couple of months after Margaret Thatcher won her first general election, and I remember clearly the moment when the news came through to the school playground that she had stepped down as prime minister. Most of all I still remember the shock. I had rather assumed that, like the monarch, Mrs Thatcher would have the job of prime minister for life because she was the only person who could do it. As I have watched her successors come and go I think my childhood intuition was correct. It is self-evidently ludicrous to place Major or Callaghan — let alone Cameron — in her class.

The Lady Was For Leaving

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:27:25 +0100

Author:Gerald Frost

Following David Cameron's long-awaited "big speech" on Europe of January 23, the Conservative press office told journalists that it went considerably further in its Euroscepticism than Mrs Thatcher's 1988 Bruges speech.

Cameron, it should be remembered, had explained his failure to live up to his "copper-bottomed guarantee" to offer a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty by explaining that a great deal of water had passed under the bridge between the time of his promise in 2007 and the 2010 election campaign. His press spokesmen appear to have forgotten the much greater volume that has passed under the bridge during the quarter of a century since Mrs Thatcher's landmark speech.

Two for Mrs T

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:24:18 +0100

Author:Daisy Waugh

I never liked her.

No! God no! Well, you couldn't, could you . . .

No way.

The unions and everything . . .

That's right.

She completely destroyed the unions.

Apparently. And then of course there was . . .

. . . Well there was the poll tax wasn't there?

Goodness, yes! The poll tax! . . . Oh dear . . .

You had to hate her.

Everybody did.

Imagine turning up at the Poly one day and suddenly saying, "I love Maggie!"

Or "I heart Maggie" as the kids say! . . . I don't suppose they even know who she is, now.

They're not really into politics, are they?

Not like we were.

That's right . . . Because you had to hate Maggie. Didn't you? It was sort of a "rule". If somebody actually "liked" Maggie-

They were completely uncool-io! Persona non grata and everything!

Why Was There No Holy Roman Project?

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:21:33 +0100

Author:David Abulafia

The Emperor strikes back: "Napoleon on the field of Eylau" (1807) by Antoine-Jean Gros (detail)

Who said: "It must therefore remain the objective of our struggle to create a unified Europe, but Europe can only be given a coherent structure through Germany"? It was not one of the founders of the current "European project" but Adolf Hitler, who also opined that "whoever controls Europe will thereby seize the leadership of the world".

Constitutional Ignoramus

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:18:24 +0100

Author:Joseph Loconte

James Madison: He understood that civic freedom begins with religious freedom

In what seems a curious way to begin a book advancing a more "principled" and "morally defensible" approach to religion in public life, the Chicago philosopher and legal scholar Brian Leiter makes little effort to conceal his contempt for people of faith. It was, he confesses, "the pernicious influence of reactionary Christians" — a charge never explained or defended — that prompted his inquiry.

The result, Why Tolerate Religion?, is a slim polemic that would unleash its own version of religious zealotry: a brooding, merciless, and militant secularism.

High-Minded Or Hot Air?

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:14:23 +0100

Author:Violet Hudson

Julian Barnes: He has written a magestic three-part book

Julian Barnes has written a book about death. Well, death and life. Death, and life, and love. Death, life, love, and hot air ballooning. Yes, this last seems incongruous; but such is the mastery of his voice that he persuades the reader of the vertigo of all the central life-experiences. It's not called "falling in love" for nothing — and while Barnes is too subtle an examiner to make this point, his little exposition, though hardly uplifting, is concerned with height and depth.

Past Times of a Present Master

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:10:49 +0100

Author:Jeffrey Meyers

James Salter: Like Hemingway and Tolstoy, his themes are war and love

Through sensual portrayals of the ideal life, James Salter's novel of manners follows the glamorous tradition of Scott Fitzgerald. The hero, Philip Bowman, has rapturous dreams and wants to achieve perfection. He devotes himself to the fleeting hedonistic pleasures of landscapes, water, houses, views, parties, talk, taste, food and drink. Suggesting the allure of travel and evoking the spirit of place, the book moves restlessly from Manhattan, Long Island and the Hudson River Valley to lively scenes in England, France, Italy, Greece and Spain. En route to Granada, he sees "the sunbaked country float past the window of the train, through his own reflection. There were hills, valleys, thousands upon thousands of olive trees."

Poe's False Friend

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:56:38 +0100

Author:Saintsbury

There is no doubt that Edgar Allan Poe, like his father and his brother, drank a lot, and that he drank indiscriminately. His cousin, William Poe, would later warn Poe about the "great enemy to our family . . . too free use of the Bottle". At 16 Poe was enrolled at the University of Virginia, studying ancient and modern languages. Although his academic reports were very good, he had already acquired the habit, which would stay with him throughout his life, of turning to drink to calm the nervous excitability to which he was prone. One of Poe's fellow students recalled his fondness for a local mixture of peach brandy and honey.

Vlad the Virtuoso

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:52:59 +0100

Author:Dominic Lawson

The chess world has got the championship decider it wanted. The opponent for India's Viswanathan Anand in November will be Magnus Carlsen, after the 22-year-old Norwegian last month won the great London tournament between the eight qualifying challengers.

Yet it could so easily not have happened. As this column noted ahead of the event,while Carlsen was the favourite, the Russian ex-world champion Vladimir Kramnik "is an awesome competitor, who will not yield an inch, even under the most extreme pressure". So it proved: Carlsen (five wins, seven draws and two losses) tied with Kramnik (four wins, nine draws and one loss) for first place, and since they drew their two games against each other, the Norwegian won the tie-break on the basis that he had scored more wins. As Nigel Short pointed out, this was somewhat perverse as it meant that Kramnik was eliminated for having lost fewer games than Carlsen.

Jerusalem the Golden

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:45:20 +0100

Author:Simon Heffer

Sir Hubert Parry: Teacher, philanthropist and composer of one of England’s finest songs

The Legacy of John Maynard Keynes

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:42:21 +0100

Author:Karen Horn

Bloomsbury bohemian: Keynes painted by Gwen Raverat in 1908, the year he left the India Office and returned to Cambridge

At Home with the Letwins' Salon

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:38:24 +0100

Author:Charles Moore

They created something tremendous: Bill and Shirley Letwin with Margot Walmsley and Peter Vansittart

Kingsley Amis, A.J. Ayer, Keith Joseph, Friedrich von Hayek, Sybille Bedford, Peregrine Worsthorne, Elie Kedourie, John Gross, V.S. Pritchett, Frank Johnson, Irving Kristol, Maurice Cowling, Ferdinand Mount, Michael Oakeshott, Colin Welch and Daniel Bell were all people whom I met for the first time at 3, Kent Terrace, the house in Regent's Park lived in (though not, to their regret, owned) by Bill and Shirley Letwin. With little money, excellent cooking (Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking was the Bible) and endless ingenuity, Shirley and Bill, two American academics in London, created something tremendous.

Lords of the Prairie

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:34:18 +0100

Author:Michael Prodger

Catlin’s “noble savage”: “Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe Blackfoot/Kainai” (1832)

George Catlin (1796-1872) was as much an anthropologist as an artist. The portraits he painted in the 1830s and 1840s of North American Indians were made to record a "vanishing race". "The history and customs of such a people, preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy of the lifetime of one man," he wrote, "and nothing short of the loss of my life, shall prevent me from visiting their country, and becoming their historian." So, in a race against time, he set about recording them.

Not In Front of the Parents

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:30:31 +0100

Author:Anne McElvoy

Alex Jennings as Alan Bennett: The British stage’s finest imitative talent

Alan Bennett occupies a role in British cultural life not far short of absolute monarch. Much is forgiven on the way. His character Hector's enthusiasm for gay flirtations with youths in The History Boys and portrayal of W.H. Auden's fondness for rent boys in The Habit of Art are treated with an old-school nod and wink out of kilter with today's no-excuses mood towards sexual exploitation of the young.

But quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi, as Hector doubtless told his sixth-formers.

A Managerial, Not a Creative, Crisis

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:26:10 +0100

Author:Nick Cohen

Not coming to a television near you soon: Kevin Spacey in Netflix’s online-only series “House of Cards”

As successive director-generals have found out, running the BBC is no laughing matter. If Tony Hall is to make a success of it, he must get "the reporter and the editor in the Sahara" joke. Allow me to share it with you.

A plane crashes in the Sahara. Only a reporter and an editor survive. At first they hope that rescuers will see the smoke rising from the wreckage. But the fire dies, and no one comes. They are lost and alone under a merciless sun, and start walking.

Are you excited? I prefer oblivion

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:23:00 +0100

Author:Peter Whittle

A return to fluffiness: From left to right, Carlos Areces, Raúl Arévalo and Javier Cámara in “I’m So Excited”

Pole Position

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:18:41 +0100

Author:Norman Lebrecht

Andrzej Panufnik: Musically, he had a constant preoccupation with Poland

If the musical world was not up to its ears in Wagner, Verdi and Britten, it would probably spend this year contemplating the more troubling question of what, if anything, is meant by Polish music.

Two men who sought an answer to that conundrum are celebrating back-to-back centenaries — Witold Lutoslawski this year, Andrzej Panufnik next. A third, Andrei Tchaikovsky, is being plucked from oblivion with a major operatic premiere in the summer. They add vastly to our appreciation of what it was to be a Pole in the century of its nationhood, and what it means today.

The Resolute Courage of Margaret Thatcher

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:13:03 +0100

Author:Paul Johnson

The key to Margaret Thatcher is simplicity. By comparison with the Big Ten of English history, alongside whom she must surely be ranked, she was a straightforward person. Whereas King Alfred, Edward I, Henry V, Elizabeth, Cromwell, Chatham, William Pitt, Gladstone, Lloyd George and Churchill were all, in varying degrees, complex and many-sided people capable of surprising, confounding and shocking close admirers, Thatcher was simple, consistent and reliable.

America's New Isolationists Are Endangering the West

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:09:03 +0100

Author:John Bolton

Paragon of the new conservative isolationism: Republican Senator Rand Paul is a vocal opponant of America's foreign policy

The spectre of isolationism is stalking the Republican Party. It is still far from dominant, but we would be ignoring reality to underestimate the risks evident in today's turbulent political milieu. Ironically, Republican isolationism is in many respects attributable to Barack Obama. His palpable lack of concern for foreign and defence policy issues, and the public's false sense of security thereby generated, combined with his massive federal expenditures and consequent budget deficits that threaten the vitality of America's economic system, have created an unexpected and deeply troubling reaction among Republicans, heretofore America's national-security stalwarts.

An Alternative To Our Reckless Energy Gamble

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:03:06 +0100

Author:Patrick Heren and John Constable

Fossil fuels sparked the industrial revolution and took society from laborious poverty to unprecedented wealth: An illustration from the Morgan Bible, c.1240, left, and an illustration of the Imperial Gasworks, King’s Cross, London, 1824

The Family is the Key to the Future of Faith

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:53:22 +0100

Author:Mary Eberstadt

Who's going to church?: Commentators have assumed that faith is now the preserve of poorer communities. The opposite is true

Persecuted Muslims Who Love Life in England

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:45:08 +0100

Author:Ed West

“We like it here, everyone is free”: Rafiq Hayat (right), with Philip Breeden, Press Counsellor at the US Embassy, London

As Friday prayers end thousands of believers stream out of the mosque. Keen-eyed men with Pashtun cheekbones hover by a convoy of cars, many of them wearing the traditional hats of Pakistan's North-West Frontier province. Were it not for the Tube depot in the background, one could be in that exotic land with its long and sometimes unhappy links with Britain. Departing last, and driven safely away, is Hadhrat Mizra Masroor Ahmad, the fifth leader of the worldwide Ahmadiyya community.

They Were the Future of the Tory Party, Once

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:16:39 +0100

Author:Laura Freeman

Their days were numbered: Members of the Young Conservatives promote a recruiting rally on the Whitechapel Road in 1961

All who were there agreed that the first annual fashion show of the South Hammersmith branch of the Young Conservatives had been a triumph. Although the February day in 1964 had dawned cold and foggy, the damp air did not deter the local MP William Compton Carr nor his wife Mrs Compton Carr from attending. The Reverend Sullivan was also in the audience at the Constitutional Hall.

The Parable of the Stupid Samaritan

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:11:58 +0100

Author:James Mumford

James Mumford at Euston station: “She was gone, with my bag. I’m panicking, darting in and out of people trying to spot her”

The woman came up to me as I was rushing from the Victoria Tube line to the Piccadilly, deep below King's Cross railway station. It was 6pm on Maundy Thursday and the walkways were packed.

"Can you help me?" she said.

Her blondish hair was long and unkempt; she had carrier bags underneath each arm; she looked highly disorientated. And her haggard appearance made her age difficult to determine.

"I'm trying to get to King's Cross station."

"This is King's Cross," I replied, pointing to the red National Rail logo on a nearby sign.

Reader Competition: Design the "Civilisation Cocktail"

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:31:15 +0100

Author:Robert Low

This magazine exists to defend the principles of Western civilisation. Now the question arises: can this concept be expressed in liquid form? We invite you to help us find out the answer.

What ingredients should go into a "Civilisation cocktail"? On June 17, we are holding the first Standpoint Salon at Hardy's Brasserie and Wine Bar near our offices in Marylebone, central London. Three distinguished writers plus Conservative MP Jesse Norman and our Editor, Daniel Johnson, will discuss "Conservatism from Burke to Boris" over dinner. Rashly, we have promised to supply a Civilisation cocktail to get proceedings off to a flying start, but as yet its contents are as mysterious as the next Conservative election manifesto. Which is where you come in. What ingredients should it contain?