M r Peter Mandelson, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, in a briefing to fellow ministers at Chequers, warned that there would be more job losses as the effects of...

Telephone: 0171-405 1706; Fax 0171-242 0603 THE ENGLISH QUESTION T he Spectator is sponsoring a Media Society discussion at the end of the first day of this year's...

The unions will pay for making Mr Mandelson fetch the pudding BRUCE ANDERSON I t was not a Blairite plot, but it might as well have been. Unusually for a general sec- retary...

T he Reverend Barry Shucksmith, of Cosham, Hants, in an interesting letter in the Daily Telegraph, points out that God allowed King David to remain in office, despite that...

Still, the Starr report changed my mind about one thing. I now believe that Mr Clinton didn't inhale. Just as, for the most part, he doesn't ejaculate. Just as, in Hillary's...

Douglas Johnson exposes a possible miscarriage of French justice against a Muslim Paris THIS AUGUST, in the Black Mountains of western Brittany, I came across a creperie that...

UNLESS some latter-day Edward Gibbon gets in quickly with the Decline and Fall of the British Empire it will be time for him to turn his mind to a much more topical theme: the...

THERE are two kinds of people: those for whom time hangs heavy, and those for whom there is never time enough. In the circumstances, would it not be right for the government to...

IN ALL the verbiage swelling in waves over us during the Clinton hoo-ha I was interested by a sentence from Charles Wheeler, the suave correspon- dent who now acts as an elder...

Irwin Stelzer offers an American free-marketeer's view of the route taken by President and Prime Minister Washington NEXT WEEK the Third Way will find its way to New York....

Stephen Bayley should be — and was - a New Labour supporter. He explains why he no longer is. BORN in the Fifties, grammar school, provincial university, job in the media,...

When Ian D. Shaw went with his wife to watch the elephants `LOOK,' said my wife Gudula, waving our local newspaper, La Tribune de Geneve, at me. 'Look, the elephants are going...

Michael Heath

Sion Simon says the Prime Minister's plot to keep the Left off the Labour National Executive will fail EVENTS are under way which cast light on the Prime Minister, the Labour...

Frederick Forsyth supports Mr Hague against the Euro-fanatics (and Matthew Parris) I HABITUALLY read the articles of Matthew Parris with attention and respect, but regret to...

Happy with either, were t'other dear charmer out of office PAUL JOHNSON R eflecting on the sad position in which President Clinton finds himself, and the prospect that the...

CAPTAIN Threadneedle, my racing corre- spondent, buttonholes me in a state of high excitement. He wants us to buy a race- course: Windsor, he thinks, or if we can't run to that,...

FROM THE ivy-mantled tower of the Fed- eral Reserve, the odd hoot reassures us that Alan Greenspan still has one or both eyes open. His wisdom has not been called into question,...

STUDENTS of John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great Crash — and I observe that there are, suddenly, a lot of them about have seen it all before, seventy years ago. A great boom in...

IT IS a long time since Jim Callaghan came to Blackpool, to tell his party's conference that we could not spend our way out of trouble any more. This week saw Eddie George there...

Something must be done. Let's think of something. Then we can say that we did it CHRISTOPHER FILDES I t could be worse. The markets have tumbled, Russia has defaulted,...

Sir: I read with interest the article written by Stephen Glover (Media studies, 12 September) and I would like to clarify a few points. Mr Glover refers to redundancy pay- ments...

Sir: I much appreciated most of Jonathan Sumption's review of Vol. X of The Letters of Charles Dickens of which I was editor (Books, 5 September); but I must bring up one point,...

Sir: Maybe it is Bruce Anderson not Chris Patten who has detached himself from real- ity over the single currency (Politics, 12 September). Chris Patten has not plumped (any...

Sir: Clare Short (`No, better than the previ- ous 500', 5 September) misses the point of Peter Bauer's and Cranley Onslow's article, which is that foreign aid bolsters the power...

party yet (Another voice, 12 September). It should be obvious to anyone but the most blinkered Euronutter that Tony Blair and New Labour will never lose an election over the...

Sir: In his interesting article 'Who (or what) was Georgi Markov?' (12 September) Mark Honigsbaum suggests that the motives for the assassination of Georgi Markov were the need...

Sir: In answer to A.E. Dale (Letters, 5 September), I had no real suspicion that my table at the Ecu de France was bugged, even though I knew that my home tele- phone number...

Sir: Martin Davidson, producer of the BBC documentary Maria Callas: A Big Destiny, claims (Letters, 15 August) that my con- tention that it was full of inaccuracies 'sim- ply...

Sir: Lewis Jones's comparison of the morn- ing after the death of Queen Astrid with the morning after the death of Princess Diana (`Just like Diana', 5 September), is...

Sir: Much as I admire and enjoy your maga- zine, I can't help feeling sad for Alexander Rae of Nottingham who claims (Letters, 12 September) that reading The Spectator is the...

Where were these grand papers when America needed them? STEPHEN GLOVER Strong words — but it was not ever so. Only since January, when Monica Lewin- sky's relationship with...

Bull in the China shop Henry Keswick EAST AND WEST by Chris Patten Macmillan, f22.50, pp. 340 F uture historians would do well to read in tandem Chris Patten's East and West...

SPECTATOR BOOKSHOP Tel: 0541 557 288

Kate Grimond THE DEPARTURE PLATFORM by Violet Powell Heinemann, f20, pp. 240 I t was obvious,' writes Violet Powell, `that in our country home we would require a motor car.' An...

John Lukacs HITLER, 1899-1936: HUBRIS by Ian Kershaw Allen LanelPenguin, £20, pp. 758 T he long-awaited biography of Hitler by Ian Kershaw — or at least its first volume — is...

John Colvin CUNNINGHAM: THE GREATEST ADMIRAL SINCE NELSON by John Winton John Murray, £25, pp. 432 h e formation of a professional naval officer before the last war is little...

BookoftheWeek

Katie Grant CASANOVA by Andrew Miller Sceptre, £14.99, pp. 277 T his full-bodied yet razor-sharp novel begins, like many of Casanova's attempted conquests, with a recognisable...

David Gilmour ARMS FOR SPAIN: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR by Gerald Howson John Murray, £25, pp. 354 S ixty years on, the Spanish civil war still generates...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY- RATES 12 Months 6 Months ( 52 issues) (26 issues) UK ❑ £97.00 01 £49.00 Europe ❑ £109.00 CI £55.00 USA ❑ US$161 CI US$82 Australia ❑ Aus$225 0 Aus$113 Rest...

Norman Lebrecht MY LIFE WITH JANACEK: THE MEMOIRS OF ZDENKA JANACKOVA edited and translated by John Tyrrell Faber, £25, pp. 278 I first heard of the existence of this...

Francis King THE LAST KABBALIST OF LISBON by Richard Zimler Arcadia, £11.99, pp. 318 T his is one of those historical novels which begin with the fictional premise that the...

Paul Binding HANNA'S DAUGHTERS by Marianne Fredriksson, translated by Joan Tate Orion, £16.92, pp. 283 N othing's ever comprehensible,' thinks Anna, confronting, in late...

Julian Mitchell DENNIS PO 1 1 ER: THE AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY by Humphrey Carpenter Faber, £20, pp. 672 O xford, autumn 1956. The Suez Canal' has been running through Clarissa...

Charlotte Mitchell RETROSPECTIVE ADVENTURES: FORREST REID, AUTHOR AND COLLECTOR edited by Paul Goldman and Brian Taylor Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, £14.95, pp. 112 I n 1946 the...

Renoir's generosity of spirit Michael Tanner has seen the new print of La Grande Illusion. Some say it is the best film ever J ean Renoir's La Grande Illusion has sometimes...

Remembering the greats Mark Steyn A nong the more illustrious name- drops in 'You're The Top', Cole Porter also found time to rhyme 'Gifted humans/ Like Vincent Youmans'...

Alarms and Excursions (Gielgud) Phedre (Albery) Via Dolorosa (Royal Court Downstairs) Gadget phobia Sheridan Morley H aving reinvented postwar British farce with his classic...

Michael Kallenbach went to Bayreuth and was horrified by the lack of sartorial elegance I t might come as a surprise to the follow- ers of German fashion icons such as Jill...

Otello (Coliseum) Persisting in perversity Michael Tanner T he first ten minutes of Verdi's Otello are among the most exciting in opera, cli- maxing in the hero's entry and...

Mirror Image: Jonathan Miller on Reflection (National Gallery, till 13 December) Reflecting on reflections Martin Gayford W e live in the age of the exhibition as multi-media...

John Dubrow (Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York, till 26 September) Animating warmth Roger Kimball I n the second act of The Tempest, when the King's shipwrecked party...

£14 Plain £15 Initialled The Spectator 1999 Diary, bound in soft red goatskin leather, is now available. Laid out with a whole week to view, Monday to Sunday, the diary is 5" x...

Copping out Marcus Berkmann A id still those crime dramas keep coming. A mere three have started in the past couple of weeks, with another half dozen due before Christmas,...

The importance of planning Ursula Buchan G ardening pundits grow prematurely old and querulous impressing on readers and viewers the importance of planning what they want in...

Out-wriggling Houdini Michael Vestey idst the extensive coverage on radio An of the Starr report on President Clinton, most of it excellent, one outstanding matter puzzles me....

Dem bones Robin Oakley Y ou don't often see Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum at Lingfield on an iffy Tuesday afternoon in September. But his presence last week was duly explained...

Universal harmony Taki Athens To the birthplace of tragedy, comedy, science, philosophy, physics, biology and selective democracy for the 40th-day memorial of my mother's...

What a boar Leanda de Lisle O ur small outdoor pig unit is being moth-balled. In the last two months sow prices have fallen from 95 pence a kilo dead weight — at which point a...

Undaunted Andrew Robson JUST because an opponent advertises great strength in the auction does not mean that you should maintain a disci- plined silence. Quite to the...

New York designer eating Sion Simon My wife and I had an excellent view of this engaging folly because we were seated next to one another on a strange banquette for two so...

CLASSIFIED CHRISTMAS BAZAAR FROM OCTOBER 3 TO OUR CHRISTMAS DOUBLE ISSUE ON DECEMBER 19-26 THE CLASSIFIED PAGES WILL BE BRINGING , COLOUR TO THE FESTIVE SEASON. C RACKERS...

Mind sports 2 Raymond Keene FOR THE SECOND Mind Sports Olym- piad, which took place in the final week of August at the Novotel Hammersmith, over 2,250 competitors from 50...

COMPETITION Pen(al) colony Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 2051 you were invited to provide extracts from the diary of someone undergoing the ordeal of a stay at a 'writers'...

I have just read this sentence in a novel: `Hideous Sunday, enemy of humanity!' You are invited to write a poem (maximum 16 lines) on this theme, using these words as either the...

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A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's Six Grapes Port for the first correct solution opened on 5 October, with two runners- up prizes of £20 (or, for UK solvers, the...

The lost empire stripped Simon Barnes AS the Commonwealth Games continue in Kuala Lumpur, my mind flies back to the time when I ran my pan-Asian freelancing practice from the...

Q. Some 12 or so years ago I began to notice that a certain woman, whom we had met socially on numerous occasions, had started to make a great show of cutting me and my husband...