As he contemplates the surf on his Breton holiday beach this weekend, David Cameron has an opportunity to reflect on how swiftly the tides of politics can change. Just three...

JEFF RANDALL 1 t was the call that never came. For three hours last week, I sat with my hand hovering over the phone. I had been told that Bill Kenwright would be getting in...

JOAN COLLINS The shiny new 'Vodka Palaces' lie scattered across the bay of St Tropez like the discarded toys of a spoiled child. Each year they seem to grow bigger, as do the...

After Diana's death ten years ago, some doubted that the monarchy could survive. Matthew d'Ancona talks to the Palace officials who were there — some of them speaking publicly...

The Princess was no mere do-gooder, says Patrick Jephson, her former private secretary; nor was she one to pursue celebrity: she took her royal duties far too seriously for...

THEODORE DALRYMPLE Do I grow cleverer with age, or does the world grow more stupid? Today, for example, I read what a police spokeswoman said after a man on a motorbike had been...

James Forsyth investigates the life and death of Ashraf Marwan, a Mossad spy and suspected double agent who recently fell from the window of his flat overlooking the Mall Ivhen...

Ninety years after he went over the top at Passchendaele, Harry Patch, 109, talks to James Delingpole, 42, about the horrors and the humanity of trench warfare Two years ago,...

Jeremy Clarke reports from the dingy 'smoking alley' outside the Custom House club and wonders whether J.S. Mill would have backed the ban Ipressed the buzzer on the wall of the...

I was reading in bed (quietly for a change, since my husband was off on some drugsponsored jamboree in Tallinn) the Oxford BBC Guide to Pronunciation (£14.99) — a work of the...

Douglas Davis says that the US has abandoned its dream of a democratic Iraq and is now aiming for regional stability by wooing moderate Arab states and marginalising Iran More...

The Beeb is desperately strapped for cash, says Rod Liddle. But you can bet it won't be the useless middle managers who'll take the bullet Ashort while after becoming...

EU vs US Sir: Irwin Stelzer can't have it both ways (Now we know: Brown is a European, not an Atlanticist', 11 August). If Gordon Brown is going to have to give up his...

Sir: In extolling Gordon Brown's virtues, Fraser Nelson repeats the myth that creating an independent Bank of England was done at Brown's initiative (Politics, 4 August). In...

Sir: It was interesting to read Francesca Unsworth's boast in her letter about Melanie Phillips's article on Alan Johnston, that the BBC 'is reporting from the region fairly and...

Sir: In his article of over 1,000 words on Afghanistan, David Miliband devotes 12 words to the opium trade ('Why we are in Afghanistan for the long haul', 11 August)....

Sir: From an environmental economist's perspective, Ross Clark's criticism of carbon trading (The West is running a protectionist racket', 11 August) is less an argument against...

Sir: James Joll writes in his review of God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain (Books, 11 August) that Pugin has 'hitherto lacked a considered full-length...

MATTHEW PARRIS Acouple of years ago, trying a freefall parachute jump for the first time and experiencing a new way of hurtling through space, I also discovered that I was a...

PAUL JOHNSON 1 n this age of creeping censorship 'mad' is not a word to be used lightly. It would certainly be unlawful to use it in Kipling's sense when he refers to frontier...

Judi Bevan meets Simon Nixon, founder of Moneysupermarket.com, who floated his online price comparison business on the day the stock market started to plunge Chilling echoes of...

Allister Heath /f only Alan Greenspan had read John Locke more attentively. The 17thcentury philosopher, who doubled as a brilliant economist, was among the earliest exponents...

Raymond Carr COUNTERPOINTS: 25 YEARS OF 'THE NEW CRITERION' ON CULTURE AND THE ARTS edited by Roger Kimball and Hilton Kramer Ivan R. Dee (wwwivanrdee.com), £22.99, pp. 512,...

Michael Hall THE ENGLISH HOUSE by Hermann Muthesius Frances Lincoln, £125 (three vols, boxed set), pp. 788, ISBN 9780711226883 £100 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 1 n 1896...

Rupert Christiansen WINNIE AND WOLF: A NOVEL by A.N. Wilson Hutchinson, £17.99, pp. 361, ISBN 9780091796761 © £1439 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 1 n her infamous five-hour...

Michael Howard GEORGE KENNAN: A STUDY IN CHARACTER by John Lukacs Yale, f16.99, pp. 224, ISBN 97803001221213 © £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 George Kerman died on 17...

Andrew Taylor Since the 1990s, a tartan tide has flooded the coasts of crime fiction, and it still shows no sign of ebbing in terms of either quality or quantity. Broken Skin...

Christian House No ONE BELONGS HERE MORE THAN YOU by Miranda July Canongate, £9.99, pp. 205, ISBN 9781841959306 © £7.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Short-story compilations...

Robert Stewart BASEBALL HAIKU: THE BEST HAIKU EVER WRITTEN ABOUT THE GAME edited by Cor van den Heuvel and Nanae Tamura WW Norton, £11.99, pp. 214, ISBN 9780393062199 © £9.59...

Patrick Skene Catling COWARD ON THE BEACH by James Delingpole Bloomsbury, £12.99, pp. 328, ISBN 9780747590705 £1039 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 1 f you are not the right age...

Anovelist is rarely well-advised to write his masterpiece in his fifties, unless his position at the top of the tree is secure. His themes and style are no longer likely to be...

Robert Gore-Langton wonders why this rundown resort still retains its popularity Whatever happened to poor old Blackpool? The last time I went it was alive, busy and reasonably...

Andrew Lambirth President's Eye Royal West of England Academy, Queen's Road, Clifton, Bristol, until 9 September Variations on a Still Life Redfern Gallery, 20 Cork Street,...

Roderick Conway Morris Venice and Islam: 828-1797 Doge 's Palace, Venice, until 25 November Gazing up at the walls of the Sala dello Scrutinio in the Doge's Palace, at the...

Toby Young The Bourne Ultimatum 12A, nationwide Whatever happened to the good, honest practice of sticking numerals after a sequel's title to indicate what number it was in the...

Michael Tanner Carmen Jones Royal Festival Hall s part of its reopening season the Royal Festival Hall is staging a month-long run of Carmen Jones, the 1943 musical by Oscar...

Lloyd Evans Tony Blair – the Musical Gilded Balloon Tony! The Blair Musical Chambers St Yellow Hands St George's West Jihad: the Musical Chambers St The Bacchae King's Theatre...

Kate Chisholm The hunt is on for the missing first edition of Radio Four's Today programme, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in October. Radio Four has been broadcasting...

Robin Oakley T t is before 7 a.m. in the office at Lambourn's Kingsdown Stables. Trainer Jamie Osborne is on his own but brews fresh coffee from a cafetiere, served in matching...

Taki Gstaad Here, at last, is the Taki plan to save George W. Bush's presidency from the disaster it has been turned into by his neocon advisers. Yes, the Iraq war is a failure,...

Jeremy Clarke hree hours to go before the new season kicks off and I'm sitting in the beer garden in my new claret-and-blue Fred Perry polo shirt. I've got a credit-card-style...

Aidan Hartley Laikipia TTask my neighbours how one fixes a chimney 'Throw a live, flapping turkey down it,' says one. It appears chimneysweeps are unknown in Kenya. 'Or lower...

Roy Hattersley Remember, remember the 24th of August. According to the announcement on the noticeboard next to the bus stop, that is the date on which the next firework display...

Alex Bilmes discusses neckwear with Michael Drake 1 nexplicably — I ask him to explain, he can't — Michael Drake wasn't wearing a tie when I met him at his Clerkenwell factory...

Tim Heald enjoys the quirky charms of Helsinki Snow was falling the only time I visited Helsinki before. I remember a concert in the Finlandia Hall (Sibelius surely?); reindeer...

Spend half an hour or so in front of a television on Saturday when Hampshire are in the field at Lord's in the one-day county cup final. I guarantee some vivid and telling...

Dear Maly Q. When staying with a friend some months ago, I foolishly dropped a small Clarice Cliff dish which broke into several pieces. Knowing his penurious state, one in...