Six months ago, the Spectator prematurely ran an obituary of New Left Review. . . . Fittingly, the Spectator’s recent metamorphosis, after a period of declining sales, has seen the funeral of its distinctive brand of fellow-travelling Conservatism, petty-radical demagogy, and Cold War cultural klatsch. The times have changed, a Labour government threatens. Throwing off the mask, the paper has now become the open and aggressive voice of Tory neo-capitalism. Macleod’s simultaneous assumption of a directorship of the parvenu Lombard Bank (biggest hire-purchase bankers in England) and militant propagation of the trading-stamp interest throws into ironic light the previous ‘liberal’ regime. The discomfiture of the former frontmen has been public and complete. . . .