j ' / _1 _J M r Andrew Smith resigned as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. This added interest to a Cabinet reshuffle by Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and provoked...

A ndrew Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, resigned this week, so he says, in order to spend more time with his family. Or maybe he was peeved at some of the comments made...

A s somebody who loved model trains as a kid, and who took a year off school when he was 20 to work as a lineman for the Canadian National Railway, I got on the GNER train at...

BRUCE ANDERSON 1 t is easy to botch reshuffles, although it is unusual to do so twice in succession. as Tony Blair has now managed. But when they change their governments, all...

T hrce years this week after the twin towers fell, one senses people's longing to believe that it is all nothing to do with us — the dreadful, late-1930s illusion that...

appease the Kremlin Russia's continuing brutality in Chechnya is the root cause of the Beslan massacre. So why does Blair grovel to Putin? The answer, says Simon Heifer, is oil...

Mark Steyn says that three years after 9/11 the West remains in denial over Islamic terrorism e is sedated,' said Bill Clinton's heart surgeon on Tuesday. 'But he is...

In my opinion,' said Doris Eades, 74, 'the council has so much money it doesn't know what to do with it and comes up with hair-brained schemes like this.' So said a newspaper...

Frances Osborne on how her great-grandmother fought Beijing for 30 years and finally won, aged 100 L ittle old ladies with bottles of ink, mounds of writing-paper and firm hands...

General Sir Mike Jackson turns his guns on Bruce Anderson, whose hostile analysis of Britain's defence arrangements appeared in this magazine last month N eedless to say, I was...

If Christianity is not the one true religion, why be a Christian? Why not be a Buddhist? Mary Wakefield puts the question to Keith Ward, the liberal theologian A t nine in the...

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge say that the Republicans, unlike the Tories, believe in the future, not in the past c oufrom England?' asked the Arizona delegat e in the...

Today's rich are not, apparently, giving enough of their wealth to good causes. The ancients would have known why. Euergesia — 'benefaction, philanthropy' — had always been...

STEPHEN GLOVER T he Prime Minister has enjoined us to be 'in complete solidarity with Russia and the Russian people', and invites us to draw a parallel between the terrorist...

From Edward Gamier QC MP Sir: As one of the (so far few) Conservative MPs to have publicly supported the proposal to debate the Prime Minister's impeachment, I was not...

From Ian Taylor Sir: You write (Leading article, 28 August) that in the run-up to the war Chirac and SchrOcler were looking for 'excuses to do nothing' (as though this was...

From David Miliband Sir: Peter °borne raises a number of issues to contend with my assertion that the rise in A-level grades is the product of higher standards of teaching and...

From Dr Jeremy Stocker Sir; Martin Vander Weyer ('Regional forecast', 4 September) is right to draw attention to the stealthy advance of regional government. Here in the...

From Dennis Outwin Sir: Anthony Daniels's review of Dr Mayhew's book The Reconstruction of Warriors (Books, 4 September) omits to mention Sir Archibald McIndoe's most famous...

From Diana Gould Sir: I am the 'Gloucestershire housewife' James Delingpole describes in his review of the Channel 4 documentary Secret History: Sink the Belgrano as outraged...

From John Reynolds Sir: Corrupt, vicious and incompetent — the President of Equatorial Guinea may well deserve all of these epithets ('Help me, wonga', 4 September). But 'a...

MATTHEW PARRIS A t Cerro de Pasco, we found a bus for Huanuco. Cerro is a mining town in the high Andean plain, and feels like it: stark, cold and treeless, thin air, thin...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES New York B ack from the hills and the Hamptons comes the workaday population of Manhattan, returning to something like business as usual. Last week the...

PAUL JOHNSON S uccessful businessmen who try to rise socially too far and too fast are sure to come a cropper. This has been true of all ages but never more so than at present....

Sam Leith PENINSULA OF LIES: A TRUE STORY OF MYSTERIOUS BIRTH AND TABOO LOVE by Edward Ball Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 420, pp. 277, ISBN 0743235606 118 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800...

Andra Linklater FATHERS AND SONS: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FAMILY by Alexander Waugh Headline, £20, pp. 472, ISBN 0755312546 f18 (plus 12.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T his is a very...

Jonathan Mirsky LILLA'S FEAST: A STORY OF LOVE, WAR AND A PASSION FOR FOOD by Frances Osborne Doubleday, £18.99, pp. 325, ISBN 0385606664 £16.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800...

Jonathan Cecil ARGUMENTS WITH ENGLAND by Michael Blakemore Faber, 120, pp. 404, ISBN 0571224458 C18 (plus 12.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T he least satisfactory feature of Michael...

Simon Hefter ELGAR: CHILD OF DREAMS by Jerrold Northrop Moore Faber, £14.99, pp. 224, ISBN 0571223370 £12.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T wenty years ago Jerrold Northrop...

Caroline Moorehead BERLUSCONI'S SHADOW: CRIME, JUSTICE AND THE PURSUIT OF POWER by David Lane Allen Lane, £18.99, pp. 352, ISBN 0713997877 £16.99 (plus E2.25 p&p) 0870 800...

Anita Brookner AUTHOR, AUTHOR by David Lodge Secker and Warburg, £16.99, pp. 389, ISBN 0436205270 £14.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 H enry James might be gratified by the...

D.J. Taylor PARADISE by Al. Kennedy Cape, £16.99, pp. 344, ISBN 0224062581 £14.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 A century ago, Paradise might have appeared in the stout...

Hilary Mantel THE FALLS by Joyce Carol Oates Fourth Estate, £17.99, pp. 481, ISBN 0007185146 e 115.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 1 ‘ 'm a bride who has become a widow in...

Diana Hendry A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS by Amos Oz translated by Nicholas de Lange Chatto & Windus, £17.99, pp. 517, ISBN 0701174218 rt £15.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848...

Robert Edric CHERRY by Matt Thorne Weidenfeld & Nicolson, f12.99, pp. 256, ISBN 0297829092 111.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 m att Thorne's new novel might have been more...

Patrick Skene Catling How TO BE IDLE by Tom Hodgkinson Hamish Hamilton, £12.99, pp. 286, ISBN 0241142512 £11.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T am Hodgkinson is a...

Michael Kennedy champions the case for Delius, who, he believes, is unfairly neglected O ne of the many 'themes' in this summer's Promenade concerts was the 70th anniversary of...

Andrew Lambirth Julian Perry: Testament Guildhall Art Gallery; Guildhall Yard, London EC2, until 21 November uor the past two years, working with the 1 benefit of an Arts...

Lloyd Evans Gompers Arcola Two Step 1/meido The Elephant Vanishes Barbican M eet my new friends. Molly is pregnant but wants to abort. Finn is a psycho. So is Steve. Mrs...

Marcus Berkmann E verYrecord collection has them. They are the Cool Records That No One Actually Listens To. Many of them are among rock's acknowledged classics, and yet,...

Mark Steyn Wicker Park 12A, selected cinemas I wonder if the old scrambled-narrative formula might not have run its course — or, more aptly, be running round in circles...

Michael Tanner PeIleas at Milisande; II Trovatore Hanover State Opera, Edinburgh T he Hanover State Opera visited Edinburgh this year, bringing three of their productions with...

Charles Spencer H elp! Stop, Thief! Call the cops! My byline's been pinched by a toff. Boris Johnson, the editor of this magazine and a man who contributes so generously to the...

Simon Hoggart n American friend of mine, based in London, was quoted in the business pages of a national newspaper the other day. She proudly sent the clipping to her mother,...

Michael Vestey I really must stop listening to Straw Poll on Radio Four. The feebleness of some of its contributors, and members of the audience and listeners emailing and...

Robin Oakley J 've always doubted that all publicity is good publicity but headlines about his midweek arrest along with 15 other people brought at least one dividend for...

Talc' Gstaad I t's been a busy and much too quickly gone-by summer. New sailing boats, the Olympics in Athens, judo and karate seminars, lotsa writing, and not much time left...

Jeremy Clarke W e wandered around the impressively ancient and well-preserved town of Bergerac, looking for somewhere to post a banal postcard. Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were...

Petronella Wyatt H ow thoughtful of David Mills, the Post Of fice's chief executive, to remind us how much we love queueing. In order to justify the Pinteresque waits at post...

L ast week someone published a list of the best-selling 'brands' of wine in the UK, and depressing reading it made. At No. 1, Blossom Hill, from California; at 2, Australia's...

that is September and the local newspaper headlines suggesting I haven't missed too much — 'woman dies, 87'; 'little evidence for [sic] fear of yobs, say police' — as well as...

Jaspistos In Competition No. 2357 you were given some opening and closing words and asked to supply words to fill in the gap in the story. The original story was Melville's...

ATING C live Woodward's resignation as manager of England's World Cup rugby winners was delightfully cranky and typical of his oddball free spirit. No one who knows him was in...

Q. Some time ago I introduced a friend of mine to a very distinguished journalist. Their friendship has clearly blossomed, because in a recent article the journalist glowingly...