in the general election, securing 356 seats (of the 645 contested), 47 down, with 9,556,183 votes, 35.2 per cent of the total; the Conservatives won 197 seats, 33 up, with...

T hey are Achilles and Patroclus. They are David and Jonathan. They are Wallace and Gromit. Not since the emergence of the youthful Blair and Brown has there been a pair of...

unhealthy. Where I used to walk to the Tube I now take the car. Where I used to go out and see friends I now ruin my eyes watching television. After 20 years in Leicestershire I...

T here has never been such a dramatic political decline. Three months ago, Tony Blair was full of plans for his third term. Now, he is a corpse waiting for a coffin. Three...

England (see last week’s Notes). The Conservatives won more votes than Labour in England and, as before, managed only one seat in Scotland. Labour has 41 seats in Scotland,...

Peter Oborne reports on how power has flowed invisibly but irrevocably from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown A peculiar arrangement prevailed in 8th-century France, during the final...

Mark Steyn says the Tories should follow the Republican lead and make Conservatism romantic — and conservative New Hampshire T he day after the election, the BBC reported...

Boris Johnson says the Tories failed to convince the electorate that they were ready for government N ow that there is not much chance of Michael Howard ever becoming prime...

‘What does SIM mean?’ asked my husband, looking up like a sulky sunset from a mobile-phone instruction booklet. Well, I knew what it was, but not what the acronym stood...

Julian Evans on why the EU supports the US in its drive for freedom in Belarus I f you listen carefully, you can hear the drums of revolution beating once more in Washington....

Angelina Jolie tells Alex Bilmes about her enthusiasm for the hottest economist on the block R ecently I found myself idling away an afternoon in Angelina Jolie’s Winnebago....

Rejoice, says Rod Liddle . Last week we rejected the status quo and voted for nutters, outsiders and misfits T he scariest thing about the election, the thing that really...

Douglas Hurd notes that the sensational increase in the prison population has not been accompanied by a sensational reduction in crime T hey have changed Armley Prison since I...

From Stuart Baran Sir: Simon Heffer tells us that what the Conservative party now needs, above all, is ‘stability’ (‘The way ahead for Conservatives’, 7 May). But it...

From Julian Joyce Sir: There is a simple solution to Susan Hill’s problem (‘Sorry, the doctor can’t see you now’, 7 May). She needs to move to the city where, as she...

From Jessica Johnson Sir: I sympathise with Nicola Horlick’s horror at the unappetising and unhealthy victuals she witnessed being consumed at a picnic on Bank Holiday Monday...

From David Harcourt Sir: There is nothing new about the distortion of truth into a coherent ‘narrative’ which encourages popular adherence to a particular world-view (Peter...

From Dr James McEvoy Sir: I enjoyed Frank Johnson’s analysis of the recent papal election (Shared opinion, 23 April), but it is a pity he repeats the canard that the Catholic...

From J.L.A. Hartley Sir: Peter Phillips (Arts, 7 May) wonders why there should be such a gap between the standards of the Sistine Chapel choir and the average English cathedral...

From Jeffrey D. Sachs Sir: Tim Congdon’s review of my book The End of Poverty (Books, 7 May) is repeatedly incorrect. Here is a sampling of his errors. ‘But the blunt...

From Manuel Escott Sir: Taki’s column in which he hails the election of Pope Benedict (High life, 30 April) is one of his most richly comic to date. The German Holy Father...

T he late Peter Campbell, sometime professor of politics at the University of Reading, would have enjoyed the irony. He died just before the general election. His funeral was...

W hen is the big crash going to come in China? Various indicators suggest trouble but perhaps the most significant one is the Skyscraper Index. First formulated by Andrew...

V ows made, speeches finished, champagne quaffed and we’d done it. We were married. Our car swept us away from the Palace of Westminster, where we’d plighted our troth in...

Jane Kelly T he rain was very annoying, especially for the old people, standing next to me on the pavement with their bad coughs and wheezing chests. At 3 p.m. the doctor was...

Victoria Lane can neither eat or sleep for thinking of you my dearest love, I never touch even pudding... Last night I did nothing but dream of you altho’ I woke 20 times in...

Clover Stroud W hen I was a child I was scared of the dark. My sister Nell and I shared a room, and after the lights went out I’d make Nell promise to tell me when she closed...

Mark Palmer T here was an unfortunate incident the other morning during breakfast at a smart hotel in central London. A middle-aged man asked a waitress for some English...

James Leith K emble Airfield in Gloucestershire, formerly RAF Kemble, was once the home of the Red Arrows. City commuters from Kemble station nearby would return of an evening...

Damien McCrystal I n the next month or so, several thousand people will be retrieving dusty top-hat boxes from attics and above wardrobes. The hats are to be given their only...

Jonathan Ray M elbourne looks a lot more spruce than when I was last there. Handsome Flinders Street Station has had a bit of a clean and Federation Square a complete facelift....

Philip Ziegler PÉTAIN by Charles Williams Little, Brown, £30, pp. 568, ISBN 0316861278 ✆ £28 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T o be successful, biographers must possess...

Deborah Devonshire P ETO ’ S P ROGRESS by Nick Peto Long Barn Books, £12.99, pp. 175, ISBN 1902421116 N ick’s progress takes us at a gallop on his trusty hunters, Willie...

Caroline Moore C URIOUS P URSUITS by Margaret Atwood Virago, £17.99, pp. 413, ISBN 1844081494 ✆ £15.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 C urious Pursuits is a collection of...

P. J. Kavanagh T HERE Y OU A RE : W RITINGS ON I RISH AND A MERICAN H ISTORY by Thomas Flanagan New York Review of Books, £16.99, pp. 488, ISBN 1590171063 ✆ £14.99 (plus...

Anthony Daniels T HE E LEMENTS OF M URDER : A H ISTORY OF P OISON by John Emsley OUP, £18.99, pp. 421, ISBN 0192805991 ✆ £16.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 I n his...

Elfreda Pownall G RAND L IVRE DE C UISINE by Alain Ducasse Stewart, Tabori & Chang, £159, pp. 1080, ISBN 2848440007 T HE N EW E NGLISH K ITCHEN by Rose Prince Fourth Estate,...

Robert Stewart T HE A WFUL E ND OF W ILLIAM THE S ILENT : T HE F IRST A SSASSINATION OF A H EAD OF S TATE WITH A HANDGUN by Lisa Jardine HarperCollins, £12.99, pp. 175, ISBN...

Jonathan Mirsky F ORTRESS B ESIEGED by Qian Zhongshu [Ch’ien Chung-shu], translated by Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K. Mao Penguin, £18.99, pp. 426, ISBN 02265345316 ✆ £16.99...

Francis King DESERTION by Abdulrazak Gurnah Bloomsbury, £16.99, pp. 262, ISBN 0747577560 ✆ £14.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T he bitterness of the immigrant...

Andro Linklater R ED S TRANGERS : T HE W HITE T RIBE OF K ENYA by C. S. Nicholls Timewell Press, £18.99, pp. 349, ISBN 1857252063 I n 1892 Frank Hall, who was building a road...

Justin Marozzi T HE H ALL OF A T HOUSAND COLUMNS by Tim Mackintosh Smith John Murray, £20, pp. 318, ISBN 0719562252 ✆ £18 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T im...

Philip Mansel I STANBUL : M EMORIES OF A C ITY by Orhan Pamuk Faber, £16.99, pp. 288, ISBN 0571218326 ✆ £14.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T his magnificent memoir...

Michael Prodger on possibly the greatest equine picture in the history of art I n painting, as in music and literature, artists whose work in old age is comparable to that of...

John McEwen Andrzej Jackowski Purdy Hicks Gallery, 65 Hopton Street, SE1, until 6 June A s a former winner of Britain’s most prestigious award for painters, the John Moores...

Andrew Lambirth Leonard McComb: Drawings, Paintings and Sculpture Wolsey Art Gallery, Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich (tel: 01473433554), until 17 July L eonard McComb (born...

Lloyd Evans Henry IV, parts 1 and 2 Olivier If Destroyed True Chocolate Factory S ummer on the Southbank kicks off with both halves of Henry IV. Many an elderly ham has gone...

Patrick Carnegy Twelfth Night Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon The American Pilot The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon T welfth Night deals in our susceptibility...

Michael Tanner 1984 Royal Opera House Tamerlano University Music School, Cambridge T here has been a lot of tut-tutting about the Royal Opera being ‘bought’ by Lorin Maazel...

Ursula Buchan T he British have developed a number of garden styles over the centuries but none more unexpected than the ‘woodland garden’. No one in 1800, when the first...

Giannandrea Poesio Aterballetto Sadler’s Wells Theatre T here are basically two types of Italians living abroad: those who respond over enthusiastically to any...

Marcus Berkmann ‘A rt for art’s sake,’ sang 10cc in 1976, ‘Money for God’s sake.’ And promptly split in half shortly afterwards. It’s a conundrum every new young...

Mark Steyn Kingdom of Heaven 15, selected cinemas L et’s say you were setting out to make a parody of contemporary Hollywood’s inability to make a film on any historical...

Simon Hoggart C hannel-hopping on Sunday night, I caught a brief moment from BBC1’s celebration of VE Day, A Party to Remember . Eamonn Holmes was co-presenting. The camera...

Michael Vestey I t’s always useful to be reminded of the remarkable stoicism and bravery of the generation of people that lived through the second world war. It’s hard to...

Robin Oakley H ow to keep sane during an election which Labour’s Austin Mitchell aptly described as ‘like a funeral but without so many cars’? My way was to spend ten...

Taki I Married a Princess is among the most embarrassing reality shows to have appeared on American television, which makes it unique in view of the garbage which fill the...

Jeremy Clarke O n Election Night I went to the pub, then on to two parties and finally ended up round at Trev’s playing Round the Clock darts on amphetamines with a part-time...

evening, Mr Dom, whom I shall call only that, as his surname (Joly) might give him away. Mr Dom has to be one of the funniest, coolest blokes ever, if you discount Les Dennis,...

FRANK KEATING W ith a clamour of various cup finals due to close out the winter’s activities — and with anniversaryitis so fashionable — I am surprised to have read...

Dear Mary Q. A man I cannot avoid at drinks parties is now sixtysomething and, after years of having been highly sought after by women, now lives without a woman and so has...

Foster (whom I have known for nearly 50 years) and whose ancestor commanded the Charge of the Light Brigade, has seen fit to exclude me from a private view of his paintings at...

16 April) a liking for Kilner jars. In this part of the world, southern Spain, they provide a refuge from insects. If, once opened, rice, biscuits etc. were not safely stored in...