Home Secretary, announced plans to set up a Serious Organised Crime Agency, which was likened to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, to replace the National Criminal...

T here could be no clearer example of human exploitation and its tragic consequences than the recent events in Morecambe Bay. Nineteen Chinese workers, who had paid a small...

and director-general of the BBC. Now that I am past being even a joke candidate, I will confess that I once told my old friend Christopher Bland I regretted not having been D-G....

T his year's dominant theme has been the domestic legacy of the war against Iraq. It has hung over British politics like a cloud of mustard gas, foul-smelling and ubiquitous....

at the moment, is Lord Ryder, the former Tory chief whip who — not, apparently, content with seeing both chairman and director-general toppled and the systematically mendacious...

Depressives are one of the largest special interest groups in Britain, says Jeremy Clarke, a depressive, and their numbers are growing by the day L ast Monday afternoon...

A weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade A question for students of European Union studies at the University of Neasden: why did the ten new members who...

Mark Steyn on Conrad Black's heroic virtues as a publisher — and the small-minded vices of his enemies New Hampshire Q uestion: What is Hollinger? Answer: It's a man called...

Brian Walden on why resignations tell us a lot about politics — but little about why politicians quit R esignations and demands for resignations are dominating the news. That's...

'We need closure,' said Mr Greg Dyke after resigning as director-general of the BBC. 'Not for you or me but for the benefit of everyone out there.' Over the past couple of...

It is natural (and flattering) for doctors to suppose that even a single encounter with them is of such importance in their patients' lives that, once consulted, they are never...

Mary Wakefield attends a service to mark the tenth anniversary of the ordination of women, and has a sudden attack of Doubt L ast Saturday must have been a difficult day for St...

Private enterprise is all very well, says Theodore Dalrymple, but big banking is an even greater menace than public service E veryone knows that private enterprise gives better...

Edward Heathcoat Amory says forget devolution: the market, supervised by central government, can best provide local services A fter a fortnight in which the Establishment has...

The law on the oldest profession is to be liberalised. This is a tricky one, because the feeling that it poses an intolerable threat to that vital civic institution, the family,...

Nv hen a smart German photographer died recently, all the obits referred to him as a 'genius'. So far as I could see he had the usual talent of his kind for picturing female...

From Nicolas Groffman Sir: Max Hastings ('How to lose the battle for Britain', 7 February) mentioned the threat of Russia, saying that 'Whitehall apologists' suggest we need to...

From Andrew Lambirth Sir: I am grateful for your correspondent's remarks about the imagery of Philip Guston (Letters, 7 February), for it allows me to stress a point which I had...

From Andrew Neil Sir: Stephen Glover's entirely speculative article (Media studies, 7 February) about what might happen to the Daily Telegraph under the Barclays was remarkably...

From Eleanor Mills Sir: I read with surprise Barbara Black's account of my eviction from her house, where I had been invited to dine but was asked to 'skedaddle' by Conrad...

From Dave Johnson Sir The Trumpington woman you profiled (Cigarette Lady', 7 February) is a prime example of how tobacco use damages the brains of the people who use it. Indeed,...

was as refreshing as a deep drag on a Rothman's accompanied by a glass of vintage champagne. Smokers are hounded with a ferocity that would have been unthinkable in more...

T he obvious can be so obvious that we discount it, supposing that other people must have thought of it already. There is an obvious candidate for chairman of the BBC governors....

0 ne of the most brilliant myths fostered by Alastair Campbell is the idea of our nihilistic media attacking the government morning, noon and night. It is utter bunkum. Until...

oised on the Bank of England's line, Mervyn King, its Governor, I ' stands ready to save us from the penalty goal of inflation. He has been heard to grumble that Gordon Brown...

Philip Hensher CLOUD ATLAS by David Mitchell Sceptre, 116.99, pp. 529, ISBN 0340822775 D avid Mitchell has fast established himself as a novelist of considerable authority and...

John de Falbe THE MAZE by Panos Karnezis Cape, £12.99, pp. 364, ISBN X0224069764 S et in Anatolia in 1922, The Maze describes the retreat of a Greek brigade to the sea. Under...

Peter Clark PAINFUL EXTRACTIONS by John Henniker Thorn ham Books, £20, pp. 174, available from The Red House, Thornham Magna, Eye, Suffolk IP 23 8 HH D iplomat, soldier,...

P. J. Kavanagh THE POEMS OF EDWARD THOMAS introduced by Peter Sacks Handsel Books, $17, pp. 180, ISBN 159051064X T he story of the emergence of the poet from the prose writer...

Charles Mitchell D an Fesperman's first book, Lie in the Dark, was a fine debut: set in Sarajevo during the civil war, it had homicide detective Vlado Petrie struggling to...

Stephen Abell THE FLOOD by Maggie Gee Saqi, £12.99, pp. 341, ISBN 08635631555 1 n this, her ninth novel, Maggie Gee has determinedly sought — like God in the beginning — to...

Jonathan Keates DICK TURPIN: THE MYTH OF THE ENGLISH HIGHWAYMAN by James Sharpe Profile, £15.99, pp. 258, ISBN 1861972989 C rime is a species of performance art. Acts of...

Diqby Durrant BUENAS NOCHES, BUENOS AIRES by Gilbert Adair Faber, £10.99, pp. 151, ISBN 0571206069 A t first si g ht Gilbert Adair's new book seems like shameless porno g...

Robert Stewart THE MURDER OF DR GREBBEL by Paul Kleber Monod Yale, £25, pp. 294, ISBN 0300099851 I n1743 John Breads, a butcher, stabbed to death Allen Grebell in the declining...

Andrew Lambirth urges everyone to go to the El Greco exhibition at the National Gallery S omething extraordinary and rare is happening in London: we have an incomparable El...

Charles Spencer T used to hate those smug, middle-class 1 couples who would proudly announce: 'Oh we never watch television — it's all rubbish and frankly, we haven't got the...

Toby Young The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? Almeida One Minute Bush The Dice House Arts I s there a pill that does for the brain what Viagra does for the libido? If so, Edward...

Mark Steyn Looney Tunes: Back in Action PG, selected cinemas I ooney Tunes: Back in Action marries i I the septuagenarian Warner Bros megastars Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck with...

Michael Tanner Family Matters The Bndewell La Traviata Opera North, Leeds Mete a Tete is a small company, founded 1 in 1997, which commissions very short operas, on the...

/.... .i ast year we ran a splendidly successful mini-bar offer from The Vintry, the co-operative gathering of oenophiles who sell wine from their homes. Theirs is a cunning...

Michael Vestey I t's always a pleasure to hear the smooth, fruity voice of Leslie Phillips on the radio. He was in fine form presenting the first of a two-part series on Radio...

Simon Hoggart A t F the start of the new series of ootballers' Wives (ITV), Chardonnay was buried with her name spelled out on the ground in front of the coffin, so the aerial...

Charles Moore S till injured, I find myself like Sir Walter Elliot in Persuasion, finding 'occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one' in only one book....

Robin Oakley R acing folk aren't famed for literary ..tastes. One owner described to his trainer how another stable patron had lost the library wing of his rather tastelessly...

Taki The Macomber Affair is a 1947 black/ and-white film based on the Hemingway short story The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. I read it when I was still at school and...

Jeremy Clarke W hen my grandmother died, a family legend grew up that, as she was breathing her last, her son, my Uncle Frank, the proverbial black sheep, was seen sitting...

Petronella Wyatt T'm sorry but I just don't get the idea of 1rm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! I do get the idea in one sense. It must have come from those Japanese game...

S o, at last, off to The Wolseley, which is, according to Michael Winner in the Sunday Times, 'unquestionably the most important new place for decades . . . the best dining...

MICHAEL HENDERSON O ur senses have been diminished,' said Tom Allen (or Sir Thomas, if you prefer) last year. He was not talking about the enclosed world of opera, which he has...

patronising remark 'My goodness, you've got him well trained!' This whenever my husband serves, clears (and has often prepared) a dinner party. Such behaviour is still obviously...

dinner party by a shrill female television producer who said I shouldn't have jumped the queue by going privately for a small operation I have just had. At the time! couldn't...

woman, cannot resist meddling in every aspect of our lives. She has a skin like a rhinoceros and is impervious to pleas to keep her distance. The final straw came when, two days...