What's happening to the Spectator?

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): My subscription copy of the Spectator seemed riddled by an Xmas and New Year hangover. It announced Michael Gove on the Roots of Kenya's Evil, but instead Clemency Burton-Hill's article on The Palace appeared twice, once in Gove's place. A welcome relief, no doubt, except that it apologised for the monarchy and even suggests that it provides "vital" constitutional checks and balances - come off it, Clemency! Meanwhile, Willy Shawcross responds to Bhutto's assassination by proclaiming that we must fight "Islamists" everywhere, showing no weakness in our war on terror (a theme taken up by a shallow editorial) indeed it promises that we must even declare war on despair only, before it could get to our vital fluids it ended abruptly in mid-sentence - definitely a relief. Meanwhile, in  mid-magazine Matthew Parris, who helped John Major with his speeches, takes up the former prime minister's claim that under him sleaze was not "systemic" and agrees. Tell that to those who advised on rail privatisation! Parris mentions the Scott Report in his list on non-systemic 'one-offs', where, as I recall, the evidence shows Margaret Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe discussing the need to sell weapons in secret to Saddam Hussein because he had been gassing Kurds. That only opened the way to sleaze under Major, of course, though it was he who won the vote on the Scott Report but lost the argument. At least Parris uses evidence to make a case, does not go on about 'evil' and is worth responding to. But overall it's no way to publish an issue on "The War for the World", no less. The marvellously energetic Matt d'Ancona has created a brilliant and professional blog at the Coffee House perhaps he needs to push some of it back into the magazine.