Afortnight ago we urged David Cameron to raise his game after Gordon Brown's impressively bold start as Prime Minister. In his response to the report by lain Duncan Smith's...

FERGAL KEANE Hong Kong 1 t is very good to be back. So good that I can ignore the horror of the summer weather. The humidity suffocates and is only relieved by sudden and...

ANNE MCELVOY The Conservative leader needs to get his mojo back. At least he had some to start with, mojo not being a quality much associated with his predecessors: 'That often...

By Tamzin Lightwater MONDAY Have drawn up shortlist of potential husbands. It is my Number One Priority to end my single status asap now that Being Married is official...

Fraser Nelson says that Putin's bellicose strategy — spending his oil millions on a deadly new arsenal — is more dangerous than the actions of his Cold War predecessors...

Stephen Pollard, who as David Blunkett's biographer longed to see Alastair Campbell's journal, says it tells us as much about the nation as it does about New Labour Alastair...

Drew Westen's book on the political brain is the talk of Washington. Here, he explains why the path to electoral victory is not governed by reason 1 n the last 40 years, only...

Ross Clark says that our capital has the geographical, economic and social conditions that made the Venetian city-state of the 14th century — but all this is vulnerable When...

'Darling,' I asked, 'In your day did they call them specialities or specialties?' Do you know,' replied my husband, 'I can't remember.' So that's his last useful function gone....

Rupert Everett tells Tim Walker that there is nothing wrong with being a bimbo, that political correctness has been 'a disaster for everyone' and that gay adoption is wrong...

Rod Liddle urges his friend to stand for Mayor of London and demonstrate what modern Conservatism can do — if you let it 1 've voted Conservative only once in my life —...

As globalisation of business and communications grows, to what extent will we see globalisation of values? The experience of the ancient world suggests it could be to quite a...

Sir: Charles Moore's insinuation (Spectator's Notes, 7 July) that following Alan Johnston's release the BBC would now report Hamas more sympathetically is baseless. If he needs...

Sir: So Hywel Williams via Dan Hind damns the efforts of some of the best and brightest life-scientists (The theft of the Enlightenment', 7 July), who inter alia have done...

Sir: Charles Moore's column last week achieved what I had thought was the impossible: it made me long to have been at the Concert for Diana (Spectator's Notes, 7 July). Nelly...

Sir: We wish to correct an error we made in our article 'For the Islamist doctor, terror is healing' (7 July). Abdullah Azzam, the mentor of Osama bin Laden, was not a...

Sir: Nobody wants The Spectator to be con- sistent, or to follow any party line. Its readers expect (and in my case hope) to disagree with many of the opinions expressed in its...

Sir: Nowhere in Fraser Nelson's article on James Purnell (Meet New New Labour's Mr Aspirational', 30 June) is there any mention of precisely which of the public's aspirations...

Sir: I have seldom read such a well articulated and disturbing article as Andrew Neil's 'Memo to Gordon' (30 June). While it does not offer a solution, 'a problem identified is...

HUGO RIFKIND They are both sons of privilege, and by all accounts each had a fairly wild youth. Eventually, both found political conviction. At a certain kind of dinner party, a...

PAUL JOHNSON Retirement, especially for a prime minister, used to being frantically busy in the full gaze of the public, is a melancholy thing. The younger he — or she — is,...

Neil Collins meets John Neill, who turned the spare-parts arm of the sinking British Leyland into Unipart, a world leader in logistics and a model of employee empowerment Ah,...

Robert Beaumont We've all been there: the brain stuck in first gear during an interview; an inappropriate remark to a senior colleague or client; uncontrollable shaking before a...

MARTIN VANDER WEYER Shoppers have spent these past few weeks sheltering from incessant rain, rising interest rates and renewed threats of terrorism. Fueland flood-hit food...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON: THE INVISIBLE QUEST by Conrad Black Quercus, £30, pp. 1,152, ISBN 9781847242099 © £24 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Qne of...

Cressida Connolly THE OTHER MRS JORDAN: A TRUE STORY OF BIGAMY AND BETRAYAL by Mary Turner Thomson Mainstream Publishing, £10.99, pp. 238, ISBN 9781845962876 1 s there anyone,...

William Brett TRAVELS WITH HERODOTUS by Ryszard Kapuscinski Allen Lane, £20, pp. 275, ISBN 9780713998481 £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Ryszard Kapuscinski, who died in...

Adam Nicolson WILD by Jay Griffiths Hamish Hamilton, £20, pp. 368, ISBN 9780241141526 £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Don't imagine this book by a 42-year-old Englishwoman...

George Osborne THE REAGAN DIARIES edited by Douglas Brinkley Harper Press, £30, pp. 767, ISBN 9780060876005 © £24 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Visit the Ronald Reagan...

Blair Worden ROBERT PEEL: A BIOGRAPHY by Douglas Hurd Weidenfeld, £25, pp. 416, ISBN 9780297848448 © £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 There has not been an abler or more...

Patrick Marnham THREE CRIMES by Georges Simenon, translated by David Carter Hesperus, £7.99, pp. 130, ISBN 9781843914211 £639(plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 1 n 1931, a...

Not the primeval cry that comes straight from the gut in that grotesque of notes that curdles you sick — but the saddest of sobs, the silent-bled cry where the face still...

Peter Phillips on Nicholas Kenyon's Proms swansong and a lost masterpiece Nicholas Kenyon's swansong at the Proms this summer is surely the most elaborately complicated, one...

Andrew Lambirth Heath Robinson's Helpful Solutions The Cartoon Museum, 35 Little Russell Street, London WC1, until 7 October Metavisual Tachiste Abstract The Redfern Gallery, 20...

Laura Gascoigne Masquerade: the work of James Ensor (1860-1949) Lady Lever Art Gallery, until 22 September Tt's hard to imagine a more unlikely place for a James Ensor...

Michael Tanner Sweeney Todd Royal Festival Hall Tosca Royal Opera House Le Nozze di Figaro Royal College of Music My first visit to the made-over Royal Festival Hall was to see...

This year celebrates the bicentenary of the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow. William Hunter (1718-83) was an anatomist, teacher of medicine, Physician...

Deborah Ross Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 12, Nationwide Don't care about Harry Potter. Don't care about the children who love him Don't care about the middle-aged...

People power Marcus Berkmann T f this column has any overarching theme, it's that critics know nothing and shouldn't be trusted. (Which obviously applies to me as much as to...

Lloyd Evans Baghdad Wedding Soho Save Your Kisses For Me Baron's Court The Merchant of Venice Globe Theatre people know why America I invaded Iraq. To secure the West's supply...

James Delingpole Great news, guys. Thanks to Live Earth (BBC1 and BBC2, most of last Saturday), recycling is up by almost 6,000 per cent, the icecaps are regenerating,...

Kate Chisholm T 'm not quite sure which of the political weeklies has been the inspiration for His Master's Voice, the new comedy series on Radio Four (Wednesdays) set in the...

Alan Judd Ts Gordon Brown the first prime minister who can't drive since, well, since Asquith? Hard to imagine the 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith mastering a non-synchromesh...

Taki Rome rr hey changed the name of the most famous city in the world, and renamed the place Valentino, or so it seemed last weekend in the Eternal City. What can I say? I know...

Jeremy Clarke rr he moment the announcer stated that the 9.05 to Newquay was leaving from platform four, virtually the entire crowd on the concourse at Paddington station arose...

Richard Sennett T t happened in New York. As I reached for a small basket of 'heirloom tomatoes, Little Compton Farms' I felt my lips curling slightly — was it out of pity or...

Christa D'Souza says fighting boredom is a vital, but endangered life skill Do your children ever complain of boredom? If they do, what is your first response? To drop...

Clarke Hayes goes in search of London's promised lands Ivhat, apart from love, can money simply not buy? What much-coveted treasures lie sprinlded about London, half-hidden,...

Harry Mount visits the grand houses of Ireland's Georgian past The days of lukewarm leftovers and a bed shared with his lordship's cat have long gone from Irish country-house...

Dear Mary Q. The other night, at a quarter to eight, I suddenly realised I had invited a total of 15 people to dinner. Adding to this number my husband and myself, there would...

FRANK KEATING Monty Panesar returns to Lord's next week. The young Sikh continues to be a revelation. In his last Lord's Test match in May, Panesar's six-wicket bag made him the...