Burning the midnight oil at Millbank. M r Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had his spending plans leaked before explaining them to Parlia- ment; he said he would...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 0171-405 1706; Fax 0171-242 0603 TEST FOR THE TORIES J ust over a year ago, Britain chose New Labour. At the time,...

A budget Derek Draper would have been proud of BRUCE ANDERSON G ordon Brown had a presentational triumph. There has been only one other occasion in this Parliament when the...

DEREK DRAPER H ere goes my big mouth again; I have a confession to make. Usually when writing this Diary one has to rack one's brain to come up with half a dozen interesting...

Ulster isn't 'ours' — it's another country MATTHEW PARRIS E very year or two I write a Spectator article suggesting that Orangemen might grow up if in the backs of their minds...

A new socio-economic class is in the ascendant. Simon Brocklebank - Fowler identifies it and explains how it came about THE CURRENT bankers' bonanza in the City signals a...

FRANK Sinatra had it and so did Hitler. It is charisma, and we have just celebrat- ed its 51st birthday. I hope it does not live much longer, because it has become one of those...

Black separatists in the Nation of Islam are working with white racists, reveals Robert Singh FOUR YEARS ago in Chicago Louis 1- ar- rakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, was...

Ruth Dudley Edwards explains why, despite being a Catholic, she admires the Ulster marchers `EVEN if King Billy himself told the Por- tadown Orangemen they wouldn't get down...

Michael Heath,

The former prime minister followed the Third Way. So why is she attacking it, asks Terence Kealey `THE THIRD WAY only leads to the Third World,' Margaret Thatcher claimed...

How to save yourself 51 trips to the library . . . or over £41 on The Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how difficult it...

the Spectator Wine Club, especially at Christmas. In celebration of the (final?) arrival of summer we would like to present this eclectic selection of interesting wines from...

The great outdoors Katie Dashwood E verything tastes better outdoors, and August, the weathermen promise us, will finally throw up opportunities to indulge in the pleasures of...

My kind of place Joan Collins 0 rder an iced tea at certain restau- rants in Los Angeles, and such a colossal container arrives at the table that you half expect a mop to be...

The real thing Gina Thomas W hen our Georgian and Victorian forebears got itchy feet they were able to satisfy the urge to see different places by visiting a Panorama. They...

In the best tradition Minette Marrin T he thought of a cold British lunch in the middle of a cold British summer does not usually inspire much enthusiasm. Too many people have...

Something to dream about Victoria Mather The answer is to stick firmly to the great indoors, savage central heating and Corney & Barrow's Château de Tracy. The sad truth is...

The world of women columnists: folies-bergere, ballerinas and cloggies PAUL JOHNSON T here are too many columnists in English-language journalism, for the simple reason that...

Leaking, planting, manuring, Gordon Brown's gardeners end up by getting their feet wet CHRISTOPHER FILDES N ow that the dirty water is lapping at the Treasury's doorstep, the...

THEY and their patron have all had to learn. In opposition, they had to compete to be noticed, and developed a line of their own in attention-seeking behaviour, or showing off....

THE DEPARTMENTS have been here before. They will start from where they have been told to finish. If necessary they will use the Beggar's Sore technique, putting on a show of...

THE CHANCELLOR'S biggest deal of all is now before us. We have his spending plans for the rest of this Parliament, and they look like a rout for the Treasury. Deep in his...

ONE MORE piece of Treasury folklore must now be making the rounds of those circular corridors. If the Chancellor is, by his job's definition, at war with the spenders, it...

Sir: Your correspondent Christian Hurel's unconditional Anglophilia (Letters, 4 July) seems in fact to be, in a characteristically haughty Gallic manner, rather conditional. I,...

Sir: Sion Simon's vision of the 2020 political scenario (`The 2020 tops', 4 July) makes too many assumptions and ignores too many possibilities. He takes it for granted that...

Sir: 'The poor little Greek boy' is evidently not poor financially. Will he please tell us in what respects he regards himself as poor? And at what age does he consider one...

Sir: Michael Harrington's dismissal of sci- ence fiction (Books, 4 July) betrays such selective and dated knowledge of the genre as to be a pretty bad piece of fiction itself. I...

Sir: I find the 'Country life' column in your issue of 30 May offensive. To describe the ladies who supported the Army Benevolent Fund Collection as looking 'thin-legged and...

The will to lose Philip Hensher THE ORIGINS OF EMPIRE edited by Nicholas Canny OUP, £30, pp. 440 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY edited by P. J. Marshall OUP, £30, pp. 650 N ow that it...

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Simon Blow STRANGERS by Emma Tennant Cape, £12.99, pp. 183 W hy do families quarrel? Why is there invariably so little of that disinterest- ed love which we are brought up to...

intend', announced Walter Pater, `To advertise for a live-in curator. A work of art such as myself Shouldn't be left undusted on the shelf.' James Michie

Cressida Connolly RESTITUTION by Maureen Duffy Fourth Estate, £15.99, pp. 247 T he nature versus nurture debate makes as compelling a subject for fiction as it does for science...

Rupert Christiansen AS I SAW IT: BASIL DOUGLAS, BENJAMIN BRITIEN AND THE ENGLISH OPERA GROUP, 1955-7 by Maureen Garnham St George's Publications, 8 St George's Terrace, London...

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BookoftheWeek The Oxford History of the British Empire The Origins of Empire Volume I by Nicholas Canny Reveals how and why Eng- land became involved with transoceanic...

Katie Grant THE GOOD TIMES by James Kelman Secker, £14.99, pp. 246 I t was the management consultants McKinseys, William Hague's erstwhile employers, who in 1985 concluded that...

Patrick Skene Catling LOST MAN'S RIVER by Peter Matthiessen Harvill, £16.99, pp. 539 P eter Matthiessen is a distinguished American septuagenarian literary ecologist, a lot...

Francis King BREAKFAST IN BRIGHTON by Nigel Richardson Gollancz, £16.99, pp. 221 L ike the Ritz, Bath Olivers and the plays of Alan Ayckboum, Brighton is one of those British...

Jane Gardam RIVER BOY by Tim Bowler Oxford, £5.99, pp. 135 T he Carnegie Medal, the highest prize for children's fiction, has gone this year to an intense little book about the...

Tony Gould THE STORY OF BLACK BRITAIN by Roy Kerridge The Claridge Press, £5.95, pp. 72 O n the back cover of this slender paperback is a quotation from Darcus Howe of Race...

Nicholas Harman MY WARRIOR SON by Mary Anne Fitzgerald Michael Joseph, f16.99, pp. 341 P eter Lekerian was brought up in Nairobi's fearful sprawl of slums, and is Maasai, those...

Alethea Hayter THINKING WITH HISTORY by Carl E. Schorske Princeton, £16.95, pp. 256 If we locate ourselves in history's stream, we can begin to look at ourselves and our men-...

A long way from Utopia The Eyre Report is an anodyne document which ducks the real questions, says Michael Tanner An yone who isn't able to give at least a rough account of the...

Keith Cooper explains why he is making a follow-up programme on the Royal Opera House I 've been watching Grant Mitchell close- ly. You might think the EastEnders occa- sional...

Chagall: Love and the Stage (Royal Academy, till 4 October) Rare delight Andrew Lambirth T he expectant visitor arriving in the Royal Academy's Sackler Galleries should...

Beatrice Cenci (Trinity College of Music, Spitalfields) Incitement to murder Michael Tanner I t may sound perverse to say so, but Spi- talfields Market is a most attractive...

La Bayadere; Swan Lake (Royal Ballet, Coliseum) Number crunching Giannandrea Poesio W ithin the ballet world, the number 32 is a special one. In Swan Lake, the evil black...

Godzilla (PG, selected cinemas) Loser lizard Mark Steyn A few weeks ago in the New Yorker, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jnr noted that what America calls `globalisation' the...

After Darwin (Hampstead) Shakespeare's Villains (Haymarket) What You Get and What You Expect (Lyric Hammersmith) Poisoned chalice Sheridan Morley I f you are thinking of...

Watch out Michael Vestey D uring my years at the BBC, I devel- oped numerous theories about the nature of the corporate beast. I decided that whenever an editor, head of...

Dizzy heights Susan Moore T his summer season in London has seen exceptional objects, important discov- eries and fabulous prices. The great thrill — still — of the saleroom...

Under threat James Delingpole T he other day my wife told me she was trying to write a novel. Of course I did what any man would do in this sort of situ- ation: I had a glance...

Less is more Robin Oakley J eremy Noseda did not have long to talk after saddling Indian Warrior to finish a promising second to Godolphin's Ishtihar at Lingfield. He had...

Balancing act Gavin Stamp A s luck would have it, 'Motoring' rather than 'Not motoring' coincided with The Spec- tator's 170th anniversary issue. A pity, per- haps, for while...

A perfect pair Taki Gstaad h ehe silly season arrived earlier than usual this year, and it was the eclipse of Tina Brown that brought it on. Yes, yes, I know, she resigned and...

My friend Trigger Leanda de Lisle I t was a bit of a shock discovering that Roy Rogers has died. I'd assumed he'd been dead for years — it being almost impossible to imagine a...

Losers first Andrew Robson SOME problems at the bridge table require meticulous deductive reasoning a chess player's forte. Others, perhaps more appealingly, require a sudden...

opened a huge new restaurant with Italian cooking and a sartorial theme — Sartoria — just opposite West End Cen- tral police station, and is due shortly to unveil another,...

Short shrift Raymond Keene CLEARLY STUNG by his fall in compara- tive British rankings, Nigel Short has struck back with one of the best performances of his career. By winning...

Soccerspeak Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 2042 you were invited to provide a parody of either a World Cup television commentary or a `pundits" post-mortem (imaginary match)....

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I have just seen a blurb for a novel which begins, 'As the sun set over Manila, Sean began to crack. . . . ' It occurs to me that these words would make a rousing two opening...

A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's Six Grapes Port for the first correct solution opened on 3 August, with two runners-up prizes of £20 (or, for UK solvers, the...

Cup runneth over Simon Barnes LEAVE 'em wanting less. That has been the triumphal effect of the World Cup on the watching world. The final saw Brazil in a state of mental...

Q. One of my friends in California has been sending me unsolicited shaggy dog stories by e-mail. Sometimes they go on for several pages. I have attempted to put her off with...