Politics

From the Beatles and Wilson to Bono and Blair, the rise of rock stars to power and influence has tempted leaders all over the world to cultivate them – even at the risk of ridicule

No novelist since Stevenson imparts so much energy into simple-seeming sentences through inch-perfect phrasing and punctuation

Jung Chang and her husband Jon Halliday are leading authorities on Mao, while Simon Sebag Montefiore has published two major works on Stalin. With Standpoint editor Daniel Johnson, they discuss the two communist dictators who were responsible for up to 100 million deaths

‘Europeans see Israel as a reminder of the demons of their own past, but it has also been presented as the cause of terrorism’

‘Some artists have finally had the courage to admit that they are scared. But we need them to do better than that. We need people with a voice to show that they aren’t scared’

‘To defend and celebrate Western civilisation is not merely desirable; it is imperative’