H ow much better it might have been if Alistair Darling had heeded the advice of the director-general of the CBI, Richard Lambert, and kept his first budget speech to no more...

stuck. In fact I love it! To view your world from a distance is interesting, hearing news slightly delayed, the anchors of life breaking until it is inevitable that your inner...

I t says much about Alistair Darling’s predicament that he used his first Budget to win back a title once used to insult him — being the most boring man in British politics. His...

easily against the Chancellor in the Budget battle. He was crisp and effective. But Alistair Darling did not attempt thrust and certainly will not cut. The fact that his Budget...

By Tamzin Lightwater MONDAY Is anyone paying attention out there? Where on earth did people get the idea that we would be offering tax cuts during our first term of office? We...

Tired of Euro-Sloane bores in Chelsea, Venetia Thompson tours the clubs of Harlesden, the UK’s ‘gun capital’, and experiences a world where a firearm is as normal a status...

The government claims that the private sector will meet the costs of new nuclear plants, says Irwin Stelzer . But there is every risk that the public will end up footing the...

Paul Boateng, our man in South Africa, dismisses comparisons with the American presidential contender. But Tim Walker says he has unfinished business in Westminster Cape Town I...

Geert Wilders, the controversial Dutch politician, says that the Koran should be banned but his film attacking it must be seen. He makes his case to Douglas Murray D ebate about...

Rod Liddle says these tokenistic programmes demonstrate that the BBC’s view of the vast majority of people in this country remains appallingly patronising. The Corporation has...

Tessa Keswick marvels at the quality of care she received in Beijing when she found herself unable to walk. Painful though it was, the acupuncture was cheap and highly effective...

I f you would like to see the kind of outat-elbow tweed jackets once beloved of schoolmasters before they discovered the joys of earrings and the like, and still by far my...

Charles Glass pays tribute to the man who was his measure in all things, and whom he thought, like all sons, would be there forever W hen the sun lowers itself into the Pacific...

Sir: In his article about his film of the Haditha killings (‘The burden of guilt at Haditha’, 8 March), Nick Broomfield subscribes to the tired cliché that, in war, ‘everyone is...

Sir: Do any of the editorial staff read Taki’s outpourings prior to publication? This week’s rant (High life, 8 March) about the NHS should have received closer scrutiny before...

Sir: Many of your Christian readers will respond to Martin Rowson (‘I could never believe in God’, 8 March) not by trying to pick holes in his atheist ramblings, as he seems to...

ngraved – or die-stamped – printing, in which the text is printed from a copper die and raised from the paper, is the very best type of printing there is. From shops in Bond...

Sir: At a recent Westminster Abbey memorial service I was invited to read a passage from the New Testament. Despite an expressed preference for the King James Authorised...

// Sir: I deeply regret having written in a column a fortnight ago (‘Boris’s most brilliant wheeze’, 1 March) that Bea Campbell, one of the signatories to the letter endorsing...

Sir: Lord Adonis says (Letters, 8 March) that ‘it doesn’t need the Conservatives to “bring the Swedish education revolution to Britain”’ because Labour reformers have already...

E very now and again — and we have had two recent instances of the phenomenon — somebody in local or central government has a good idea for making the nation more sensible about...

T he Letters of Lytton Strachey , which I have just been reading, are a mixed joy. Odd that a writer supposedly so fastidious in the use of words should have produced effusions...

A masterclass with the adventure capitalist Jonathan Davis talks to globetrotting investment guru Jim Rogers about the bull market in commodities, China’s rise to superpower...

Christopher Fildes Forget Cheltenham. That was just a warm-up. The big meeting next week is at Newbury, and it will have everything — fierce contests and driving finishes and...

Dominic Prince says grouse shooting attracts the super-rich — and demand will keep estate prices rising G rouse shooting and grouse moors have historically been the preserve of...

Neil Collins has become addicted to alphaville’s interactive forum for stock-market watchers T here are thousands of websites for anyone interested in markets. You can spend...

Elliot Wilson explores how investors can back ventures that lend to the world’s poorest entrepreneurs P rathminda Kaur is the modern version of the Little Match Girl, only with...

Ian Cowie If you think pensions are boring, how exciting do you think poverty in old age will be? I only ask because conventional attitudes to this problematic topic are not...

P hiladelphia got a new mayor in January and most residents couldn’t be happier. After being sworn in, Michael Nutter gave a rousing speech about all the great things he planned...

Philip Hensher O THER P EOPLE ’ S D AUGHTERS : T HE L IFE AND T IMES OF GOVERNESSES by Ruth Brandon Weidenfeld, £20, pp. 303, ISBN 9780297851134 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429...

And this is the sea, of course scrawling by moonlight in its room, not quite getting the line right where it meets the shore. The earliest hours still find me thinking of you;...

Matthew Parris PANICOLOGY by Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey-Williams Penguin/Viking, £18.99, pp. 304, ISBN 9780670917013 ✆ £15.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I first met...

Digby Durrant A P ARTISAN ’ S D AuGHTER by Louis de Bernières Harvill Secker, £16.99, pp. 212, ISBN 9781846551413 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I was astonished by...

Juliet Townsend T HE L ORD -L IEuTENANTS AND THEIR D EPuTIES by Miles Jebb Phillimore, £25, pp. 216, ISBN 9781860774515 O ne of the glories of British public life is the way in...

Alexander Masters T HE I NDIAN C LERK by David Leavitt Bloomsbury, £16.99, pp. 485, ISBN 9780747581680 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Any proof pleases me: if I could...

I cannot wholly decide about my father’s resolve not to speak or seek out texts or make arrangements except perhaps to the pillow and the blankets. Was it for him, or for us,...

David Crane W HAT s PORT T ELLs U s A BOUT L IFE by Ed Smith Viking, £14.99, pp. 190, ISBN 9780670917228 ✆ £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I t would be hard to imagine a...

Andro Linklater H EROES : F ROM A LEXANDER THE G REAT TO M AE W EST by Paul Johnson Weidenfeld, £20, pp. 286, ISBN 9780297851899 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I n the...

Christopher Ondaatje B EYOND B AWA : M ODERN M ASTERWORKS OF M ONSOON A SIA by David Robson, with photographs by Richard Powers Thames & Hudson, £39.95, pp. 224, ISBN...

Anthony Daniels M AD , B AD AND S AD : A H ISTORY OF W OMEN AND THE M IND D OCTORS FROM 1800 TO THE PRESENT by Lisa Appignanesi Virago, £20, pp.541, ISBN 9781844082339 ✆ £16...

Simon Baker N OTHING TO B E F RIGHTENED O F by Julian Barnes Jonathan Cape, £16.99, pp. 250, ISBN 9780571239337 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 S ome non-fiction books...

Caroline Moorehead I TALY ’ S S ORROW : A Y EAR OF W AR , 1944-45 by James Holland Harper Press, £25, pp. 606, ISBN 9780007176458 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 H e who...

Rosemary Hill T HE E NGLISH C OUNTRY H OUSE C HAPEL : B UILDING A P ROTESTANT T RADITION by Annabel Ricketts Spire Books, £45, pp. 348, ISBN 9781904965053 Special offer price:...

Frederic Raphael S CENES FROM A R EVOLUTION by Mark Harris Canongate, £20, pp. 490, ISBN 9781847671028 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T he subtitle of this account of the...

Lloyd Evans on the trend among British authors to sell their archives to the United States P erhaps it’s greed. Or is it greed laced with betrayal? Certainly it’s unseemly. As...

Andrew Lambirth Pompeo Batoni 1708–1787 National Gallery, until 18 May T he first impression offered by the Batoni exhibition in the Sainsbury Wing is one of dullness. I tend...

Michael Tanner Falstaff WNO Paradise Moscow Royal Academy of Music V erdi’s last opera Falstaff is also for many people his greatest. I went to see it in Cardiff this week,...

Deborah Ross Water Lilies 15, Curzon Soho and key cities I did consider seeing this week’s big highconcept film, Disney’s Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds...

The story of old Mrs Foster, who lived in the village where I was brought up, and who contracted lockjaw whilst cutting her raspberry canes, has remained with me since...

Charles Spencer M rs Spencer had to spend five days in Paris during half-term observing ballet classes, so my son Edward and I tagged along too, on the strict understanding...

la p top Peter Phillips T ouring the more rural college campuses in the United States with Victoria’s Requiem is a very modern challenge. To be sure, the inmates of these...

Lloyd Evans The Vortex Apollo Plague Over England Finborough Major Barbara Olivier L ike a footballer’s wife on a shopping binge at Harrods. That’s how Felicity Kendal lashes...

Giannandrea Poesio Insane in the Brain Bounce, Peacock Theatre A n upbeat, street-dance version of Romeo and Juliet , presented by Rumble, was one of the hottest tickets at...

Simon Hoggart I t was a fine week for nostalgic people of a certain age, like me. Rivers of Blood (BBC2, Saturday) was an excellent, and not entirely unsympathetic, filleting...

Kate Chisholm H as anyone else begun to suspect that The Archers ’ scriptwriters have been taken off Prozac? Maybe it’s something to do with the recent bad publicity about the...

Taki A round 15 years or so ago I was fast asleep late in the morning when I got an ear-splitting telephone call from Greece. It was Vicki Woods, a Telegraph writer, and she...

Jeremy Clarke I have a recurring nightmare. I’m driving or walking or cycling, I’m not sure which, up a winding, muddy country lane. At a sharp, uphill bend, I’m overwhelmed by...

Melissa Kite T he tuner who delivered the news could barely look me in the eye. After prodding at the keys of my piano for ten minutes he called me back from the kitchen where...

Nick Foulkes applies for a card which will do him credit W e read that Britain is a nation in debt; indeed debt is one of our cherished national characteristics — nothing like...

Geordie Greig travels to an obscure Malaysian island to fulfil a child’s dream W here do we find Nemo, apart from on the big screen? That was our holiday quest, and the answer...

F or the past 200 years or so, Englishmen who aren’t faring too well in the home country have had the option of moving to the States. Thanks to their inferiority complex, our...

I’ve found the origin of the football cliché ‘over the moon’. Or I thought I’d found it. In a speech written in 1857 for W.E. Gladstone by Lord Lyttelton, his brotherin-law, in...

T wo dismal showings by England teams in less than 24 hours make the strongest hand reach for the Paracetamol. What on earth are England playing at? Stuffed by the Scots in a...

Dear Mary Q. Somewhat fortuitously I was recently a guest of an eminent London picture dealer in an excellent restaurant in the West End. Among the assembled were various...

us. As great foodies we like to buy ourselves treats — passion fruits, expensive chocolates, roasted macadamia nuts and artisan cheeses. These cost a fortune. In the past our au...

taxi drivers (8 March) were marred by your misuse of the expression ‘the exception that proves the rule’. The black taxi rapist of recent weeks is the exception that proves the...