T he government has declared the scientific debate on global warming ‘closed’. A dwindling minority of scientists still contest that claim, but let us assume, for the sake...

White Emancipationist Hero in Amazing Grace . Wilberforce was a decent guy. We all need heroes; but let’s be clear, this is not, as it claims, ‘The True Story’. Ioan...

W ill the Labour party go bonkers after Blair? I only ask because the early signs are worrying — or reassuring — depending what view you take of these things. To judge by...

John Kampfner, now the editor of the New Statesman , a pleasant and able man. But his recent conduct towards one of his writers deserves a passage in the annals of editorial...

MONDAY Off to New York with Dave and DD next week! Am working flat out on preps. First priority: which hotel? It’s the Four Seasons versus Soho House. While East 57th Street...

His gang has scattered like rats After an extraordinary few days in the cash-for-honours investigation, Fraser Nelson plots the downfall of the cosy Blairite elite — and...

The conviction of Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff is a disaster for the Republican party, says James Forsyth . But the President must recognise the loyalty that Libby has...

Rod Liddle says that Comic Relief, no less than premium-rate phone-in programmes, reflects a pathetic deference to anything which happens to be on television N ext week, your...

Simon Courtauld , historian of The Spectator , says that 56 Doughty Street — now on the market — is a monument to the magazine’s glittering past and the characters who...

I was baffled when I heard last month that British troops in Iraq would be ‘drawn down’. Byron’s Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, but he didn’t need to be...

Michael White explores the past of Assistant Commissioner John Yates, the officer in charge of the cash-for-honours investigation, and the ire he provoked in the royal household...

Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran — how intelligently is the West, especially America, handling the East? The Romans may have something to say on the matter. When the Romans took on...

Toby Young is impressed by Sir David Frost’s apparently limitless appetite for his job, and by the renaissance he is enjoying after the triumph of Frost/Nixon S itting in one...

Sir: I rather enjoyed reading Tessa Mayes’s anxious tirade about the imminent arrival of Big Brother (‘Big Brother is coming’, 3 March), although perhaps not for reasons...

insidious erosion of freedom and privacy in Britain. However, she omitted to mention the army of spies presently gathering to be unleashed on the public on 1 July — the smoke...

Sir: It is a joy to be mentioned by the magnificent Taki (High life, 3 March) — even if only for my peanut-eating in Saigon in 1972. Alas, I still do like nuts, whereas I know...

Sir: I am grateful to Charles Spencer for drawing my attention to the Jazz radio station (Arts, 3 March). If his worst fears are realised about it descending towards a jazz...

Sir: A normally reliable friend of mine who lives in Kensington tells me that, contrary to what Anthony Browne suggests (Politics, 3 March), she and her well-heeled fellow...

Sir: In ‘America: you’ll miss it when it’s gone’ (3 March) Irwin Stelzer gives a fair imitation of a rejected child picking up his toys and leaving the nursery. The...

Sir: Congratulations to Jeff Randall for his cutting satirical rendition of Ko-Ko’s ‘Little List’ (‘The Clunking Fist’, 3 March). This Chancellor and the rest of the...

S ir Flinders Petrie, who did more than any other scholar to bring Ancient Egypt and Palestine alive for us, once remarked that the perpetual joy of being a historian is that,...

Richard Orange says the EU is desperate to secure energy supply routes from the Caspian region — but Russia is equally determined to control the flows of oil and gas ‘W...

Ross Clark N ext month the Office of Fair Trading will produce its longawaited report into parking fines. It is expected to rule that charging motorists £60 for overstaying...

Matthew Lynn tracks the career of a transport tycoon and luxury hotelier whose businesses have hit the rocks B efore the number-crunchers of private equity and the hedgefund...

T he Shah is Dead. Long live the Shah — and I don’t mean Reza Pahlavi, the 45-year-old pretender to his late father’s Peacock Throne, whom many in Washington would like to...

Tom Stacey STANLEY: T HE I MPOSSIBLE L IFE OF A FRICA ’ S G REATEST E XPLORER by Tim Jeal Faber, £25, pp. 545, ISBN 9780571221028 L ove can drive a man to his grandeur. H....

Giles Waterfield B URNING B RIGHT by Tracy Chevalier HarperCollins, £15.99, pp. 390, ISBN 9780007178353 ✆ £12.79 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 E arly in 1792 the simple...

P. J. Kavanagh T HAT N EUTRAL I SLAND by Clair Wills Faber, £25, pp. 502, ISBN 9780571221059 I t will be news to nobody that England (or ‘the Crown’) and Ireland had been...

John Casey T HE R IVER OF L OST F OOTSTEPS : H ISTORIES OF B URMA by Thant Myint-U Faber, £20, pp. 361, ISBN 9780571217557 V £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T hant...

Michael Carlson A SK THE P ARROT by Richard Stark Quercus, £10, pp. 352, ISBN 9781847240392 R ichard Stark’s Parker first appeared in 1962, in The Hunter . Double-crossed...

Frederic Raphael R OME AND J ERUSALEM by Martin Goodman Allen Lane, £25, pp. 656, ISBN 9780713994476 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 ‘H ep, Hep, Hep!’ was the...

Marcus Berkmann H OW T O B E R IGHT by James Delingpole Headline Review, £12.99, pp. 182, ISBN 9780755315901 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Y ou have to admire...

Neil Clark Y O , B LAIR ! by Geoffrey Wheatcroft Politico’s, £9.99, pp. 154, ISBN 9781842732067 ✆ £7.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 H ave two words ever said so much?...

Jonathan Bate H AZLITT IN L OVE by Jon Cook Short Books, £12.99, pp. 214, ISBN 9781904977407 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 W illiam Hazlitt — sometime painter...

D. J. Taylor A C URIOUS E ARTH by Gerard Woodward Chatto, £12.99, pp. 290, ISBN 9780701179083 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 A ldous Jones, the hero of Gerard...

Jonathan Mirsky T HE C HINA F ANTASY : H OW O UR L EADERS E XPLAIN A WAY C HINESE R EPRESSION by James Mann Viking, $19.95, pp. 127, ISBN 9780670038251 H ere is a first-hand...

Francis King G ROWING U P IN A W AR by Bryan Magee Pimlico, £17.99, pp. 390, ISBN 9781845950873 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T his book takes up the story, told...

James Delingpole M AN OF W AR by Allan Mallinson Bantam, £17.99, pp. 349, ISBN 9780593053423 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 W eevils, sodomy and flogging or Baker...

Zenga Longmore T HE H OTTENTOT V ENUS by Rachel Holmes Bloomsbury, £14.99, pp. 239, ISBN 9780747577768 ✆ £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 S aartjie Baartman, who...

Clive Aslet B LACK D IAMONDS by Catherine Bailey Penguin/Viking, £20, pp. 518, ISBN 9780670915422 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I opened this book expecting to find...

Henrietta Bredin talks to Joanna Lumley about messing around with the playwright’s text J oanna Lumley bears a distinct resemblance to the delectable Mrs Algernon Stitch in...

Andrew Lambirth William Roberts: England at Play Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, until 18 March Martin Bloch: A Painter’s Painter Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts,...

Michael Tanner Orlando Royal Opera House La Bohème Coliseum H andel’s Orlando , apparently one of his greatest operas, is much more impressive in the first revival of...

Lloyd Evans The Unconquered Arcola and touring The Tempest Novello Whipping It Up New Ambassadors ‘H ow I hate!’ is the first line of Torben Betts’s new play. Not a...

Deborah Ross Becoming Jane PG, Nationwide M y dearest readers, I scarcely know how to begin to write to you, but as I appear to have begun with that, I am hoping you will allow...

Peter Phillips O ne of the most persistent and tiresome misunderstandings about how sacred music was performed in the past is that boys’ voices were always involved. In any...

Marcus Berkmann T oo much of my ‘research’ for this column is undertaken while washing up. The other day, listening to Radio Two while scraping a particularly recalcitrant...

James Delingpole J ust to remind you, this is the week my splendid anti-Left polemic How To Be Right is published and if you Speccie readers aren’t its natural constituency I...

Kate Chisholm ‘K eep your angels about you,’ was the inspiring advice given by William Blake in Peter Ackroyd’s Drama on 3 (Sunday), based on ‘the story’ of the...

Taki Gstaad I saw her standing there giving me the once over. Or I thought she did. She was young and pretty and was smiling. Not for the first time I felt confident. The...

Jeremy Clarke S upporting West Ham this season has been so full of drama and surprise, it’s been like living in the Book of Revelation. A brief summary. Last season the newly...

Aidan Hartley Katanga I ’m nursing a beer on my hotel balcony, watching the Congolese scamper for cover as an electrical storm crackles over Lubumbashi. I’m with a chap...

the modern fashion, FromVineyardsDirect.com. It’s been set up by David Campbell, who is the publisher of the Everyman Library, and Esme Johnstone, one of the founders of...

Lloyd Evans welcomes the Hollywood ‘bombshell’ back to Soho E ver been lap-dancing? Oh, it’s great. You and a bunch of City bankers can gather in a sweaty Soho basement...

James Waldron takes the family on a working-farm holiday T his year I’m eschewing all luxury holidays. It’s true that I will be helped in my resolve by the fact that I...

Bella Pollen falls in love under the waters of the Galapagos Islands I don’t like fish. I don’t like their scales and bones. I don’t like the way they eyeball you from a...

Christopher Howse finds the smell of the country has changed radically S pain doesn’t smell the same any more. At the airport, the very first impression used to be of bitter...

Christina Patterson ‘E xcuse me, madam, you are writing for a Buddhist priest?’ For a moment, I was confused — but then enlightenment struck. No, I assured the waiter,...

Harry Bucknall T aking a gap year at 40 did not initially seem like a very sensible idea. I had a good business, a nice flat and everything was relatively rosy — so it still...

P.A. Greenwood S ydney is an opium den for lifestyle junkies, a hotbed of food-loving, sunseeking sport enthusiasts. I realised this the first time I went to Bondi Beach....

FRANK KEATING S ix Nations rugby musters for its last convulsive heaves this weekend and next. Today (10 March) in Edinburgh, the appealing Irish XV should confirm their latest...

work as a tutor, which I understand is very well paid. The key months for Common Entrance, ASand A-level revision are almost upon us and, although I have my details up on the...

London last week and ate mutton there. It was apparently a great success and I would like to have a go at giving mutton to my own guests, but none of my local butchers can...

Christian names they allot? A writer friend has given my name to a peripheral, unsympathetic, victim-like character in her latest work. Should I be offended? Should I be...