'I've got something to tell you. It'll be in the papers tomorrow, anyway, I'm having an affair with Max Clifford.' M r John Major, the Prime Minister, said that the family...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 0171-405 1706; Fax 0171-242 0603 REPUBLICAN FAILURE C arlton's much-publicised television debate on the monarchy...

PETRONELLA WYATT I spent the New Year in the former Aus- tro-Hungarian Empire. It was full of strange spirits of the past. Some of the old families are slowly returning to their...

Max Clifford defends the NHS: Titus Oates masquerading as Nye Bevan BRUCE ANDERSON F amily values' and 'back to basics' are among the most unfortunate political slo- gans of...

Pity he was wrong about the existence of God, because Jesus was so right about compassion MATTHEW PARRIS CC I weep for you," the Walrus said, "I deeply sympathise." With sobs...

Once it was directed at left-wing and liberal ideas. Today it holding firm against it, but he's not sure the BBC will SIR Peter Hall is making a six-part televi- sion series of...

They're a better source of peers, says Conrad Russell. Though a Liberal Democrat, he defends the hereditaly principle ARISTOTLE once remarked that the lot is the most...

Michael Heath

NOW that we have had time to take our Christmas presents back to the shop and change them, perhaps we can settle down for a minute or two with a cup of lapsang souchong and...

New attempts are under way to patch up the Reformation divide, but Anne McElvoy finds Germany has its own plans for Luther Lutherstadt-Wittenberg FOUR and a half centuries...

Alistair Home, an old Paris hand, returns to the City of Light, and finds it rather dark AS everybody knows, Paris is a woman's City, presumptively female herself. To an...

Nicholas Farrell finds Jerry Hayes's Harlow illiberal at first, then not. There's even a 'gay' club next to the Tory HQ THE BELL for last orders rang in the Crown, Old Harlow,...

The Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize is awarded annually to the writer best able to describe a visit to a foreign place or peo- ple. The award will not be for travel writing in the...

How to save yourself 51 trips to the library . . . or over £43 on The Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how difficult it...

Henry Kelly, known to radio listeners for his mild tones, is suddenly enraged by New Labour HOW DARE he? How dare the leader of the Labour Party, Tony Blair, say he doesn't...

In praise of FDR's tweed suit, a pope's giant slippers and other old rags PAUL JOHNSON W hile American immigration officials desperately try to stop Mexicans crossing into the...

A SUPERB period memo from Barclays' head office about left-handedness in bank clerks is among the treasures unearthed by my Daft Memo Contest. Memos are the art-form of office...

WHEN the search was on for someone to rewrite the boardroom codebooks and make sense of them, Sir Ronald Hampel neglected to duck. As a result, his office at Imperial Chemical...

SUCKING up to John Gummer — well, all right, then, aiming to please him — the industry in which I work has gone too far. Every day, newspapers will have to say how much of their...

Champagne takes over where ostriches left off stand clear, and wait for the pop CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he telephone rings, and a woman encourages me to invest in champagne. With...

THE Prime Minister has enough on his plate, and I do not think that he need worry about sterling. It would worry him, he was saying this week, if the pound were outra- geously...

ROY BRIDGE was the Bank's chief dealer who had to defend the pound at $2.80. (This week's rate: $1.69.) Watching him in action, Charlie Coombs of the New York Fed likened him to...

Sir: In Sheridan Morley's as always interest- ing review of the theatrical year (Arts, 14/21 December) he inadvertently allowed himself the easy indulgence of doubting the...

Sir: I greatly enjoyed the course by course, almost glass by glass, account given by Bruce Anderson and Alan Watkins of their recent gastronomic heroics at the Con- naught (`Two...

Sir: Milton Shulman deserves congratula- tions for his sensitivity in allowing a full seven weeks to elapse after Jack Tinker's death before denigrating the reputation of the...

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Sir: Your readers may well find it distaste- ful that Andrew Roberts (Letters, 4 Jan- uary) does not have the grace to admit that he was utterly wrong about the army plan...

Sir: Hard on the heels of a most heart- warming Yuletide message from your liter- ary editor (an exceptional event since, per- haps because he is a first-class card player, he...

Sir: Tony Garrett (Letters, 14/21 Decem- ber) can be as 'inclusive' as he likes with homosexuals, but he really is talking tosh when he suggests that they are 'rejected by...

biography by Alastair Forbes. Could you please satisfy my curiosity as to the identity of Alastair Forbes? Obvious- ly he mixed at a very senior level during the second world...