Exchequer, arranged for greater state revenues on the pretext of improving the National Health Service. The underlying annual inflation rate rose in March to 2.3 per cent, from...

T he entire Dutch cabinet has resigned over the publication of the official report into the failure of Dutch troops to prevent the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in...

0 ne of the several advantages you have over me is that you know what was in the Budget. The best insight I can offer is a glimpse just an hour ago of the man of the moment. I...

As your organisation becomes more and more reliant on technology, confidence in your ICT suppliers becomes critical. Playing trust games is an option. But if you'd rather see...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he City editor of the Times awaited the Budget with apprehension: The expression "Equality of sacrifice" has an ominous ring for the investing classes.'...

the painful conclusion that the Chancellor is out to get him THIS Friday a triumphant Gordon Brown flies to New York for a business conference. The Chancellor and his...

IT has become the practice of this government, when faced with a law that is clearly not working, to increase the level of punishment in the vain hope that criminals who happily...

Andrew Alexander argues that the Cold War was fraudulent — and jeopardised our security LIKE others of my generation, I hugely enjoyed the film Dr Strangelove when it came out...

Nicholas Farrell says that Berlusconi is a moderate liberal in a nation where the Left rules the roost Predappio THE Italian Prime Minister and media tycoon, Silvio...

Amrit Dhillon on the colossal self-importance of Arundhati Roy, the Booker Prize winner and 'green martyr' Delhi 'BRAVE' leapt off the page as the most preposterous adjective...

DAVID TRIESMAN, New Labour's general secretary, is complaining that the BBC's Today programme not only insists on asking all sorts of 'howwid', hard questions, but also expects...

Ben Bradshaw is agreeable, hospitable and kind. Andrew Gimson wonders whether he can also be an empty sycophant UNDERSTRAPPER, scullion, crawler, Blairite soundbite machine,...

Melanie Phillips says that the Israelis are victims of terror but are being portrayed as cold-hearted, fascist thugs IT has come to something when the Sun becomes so alarmed...

KNEELING on the drive and pulling up bits of chickweed that have needed little encouragement from the sun to devour the gravel, I heard Veronica, having been asked to pop into...

PAUL JOHNSON A mazing, isn't it, that the London theatre survives at all, let alone that it is the wonder and envy of the world? The theatres are mostly old-fashioned and...

FRANK JOHNSON I n between the Venezuelan President's overthrow and return to power last weekend, Mr Denis MacShane, the British Foreign Office minister in charge of our...

From Dr Jerome Linsner Sir: As a former combat infantryman, I know all too well that house-to-house fighting is definitely not the most efficient way to destroy an enemy force...

Hitler there was no limit to their doing what they felt necessary to save themselves: Dresden, Frankfurt, Berlin. And the British press was not filled at the time with sad...

Sir: Emma Williams seems to have accepted as fact the propaganda about 'occupation, occupation, occupation' being the root cause of Palestinian anger. Terrorist attacks on...

the tolerance of your proprietor that he permits excellent and illuminating articles like Emma Williams's to he published at all. However, it is a pity that his ownership seems...

From Daniel Kofman Sir: Mark Steyn (`Say goodbye, Yasser Arafat', 6 April) makes much of the Israel Defence Force's having found in Arafat's compound a lot of armaments,...

From Mr Victor Barker Sir: I read Fenton Bresler's article ('Don't privatise justice', 13 April) with some interest. I agree to some extent with what he says, but after two...

From Mr Michael Pfauth Sir: Jasper Griffin's article (The jealousy of God', 13 April) is very interesting and informative, but he omitted some vital facts. What point of...

From Mr Ken Gosling Sir: Sadly for the noble Lord Mancroft (Letters, 13 April), we do live in a democracy, and the undeniable fact is that the majority of the people in this...

From Mr Robert Triggs Sir: A.N. Wilson's observations ('In her own words', 6 April) that the Queen Mother may not have been as familiar with T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land as she...

From Mr Daniel Neades Sir: Dot Wordsworth asks about the connection between `few' and 'eight' (Mind your language, 13 April), following a reported claim that the word 'few' is...

From Mr Michael Henderson Sir: Having been challenged by Mr Anthony Malcolm (Letters, 13 April) to defend my estimation of Wagner as the greatest composer after Beethoven, it is...

From Mr Nick Strange Sir: It would indeed be pretty silly if we in Germany greeted each other by saying, 'How goes it to them?', as Geoffrey Wheatcroft would have us believe...

STEPHEN GLOVER V ery successful papers may tinker but they do not generally relaunch themselves. Relaunches are really a sign of weakness. Of course most of them pass without...

Simon Sebag Montefiore BERLIN: THE DOWNFALL, 1945 by Anthony Beevor Viking, £25, pp. 528, ISBN 0670886955 n 1 February 1943, as the German Sixth Army surrendered to the...

William Trevor LADY GREGORY'S TOOTHBRUSH by Co1m Toibin Lilliput, £12.99, pp. 128, ISBN 1901866823 T he great house she found herself in charge of, following her husband's...

Julie Burchill MARGARET: THE LAST REAL PRINCESS by Noel Botham Blake. £16.99. pp. 370, ISBN 1903402646 T he details of the Princess Margaret Story are as familiar as those of...

Salute me! I have tamed my daughter's face With hot oil, and my honour has been saved. It's not to be defied that I have slaved. She talks a lot less now she knows her place....

John Mortimer MUCK, SILK AND SOCIALISM: RECOLLECTIONS OF A LEFTWING QUEEN'S COUNSEL by John Plaits-Mills Paper Publishing, 128, pp. 687, ISBN 0953994902 R emember. The Labour...

Alan Coren THE ELIZA STORIES by Barry Pain Prion, £9.99. pp. 360, ISBN 1853754722 0 ccasionally, when — by surfing accident or hacking duty — my television screen clogs up with...

Hilary Mantel YOUTH by J. M. Coetzee Secker & Warburg, pp. I69, ISBN 0436205823 I t must have been hard to grow up in apartheid South Africa: how do you acquire the...

Karl Miller AGAINST OBLIVION by Ian Hamilton Viking, £20, pp. 320, ISBN 067084949X I an Hamilton died on 27 December, to the great grief of those who knew him or cared about...

Anita Brookner ANY HUMAN HEART by William Boyd Hamish Hamilton, £12.99, pp. 492, ISBN 024114177X L et it be said at once, this is an excellent picaresque novel, written in a...

John Bayley AFTER SHAKESPEARE by John GTOSS OUP, £17.99, pp. 384, ISBN 092142682 W hen I stopped actively teaching a few years ago I had the impression that students and young...

Oliver Bernard A MAVERICK EYE: THE STREET PHOTOGRAPHY OF JOHN DEAKIN by Robin Muir Thames & Hudson, £36, pp. 208, ISBN 0500542449 R obin Muir is a model of faithfulness both to...

Robert Cranborne DENIS HEALEY by Edward Pearce Little, Brown, £39, pp. 634, ISBN 0316858943 W ell, Denis, I think we might go now. I don't think there's anyone you haven't...

Stephen Pettitt goes in search of the true festival spirit I mpertinent it would be in the extreme were Ito tell music lovers where to go. It is a matter of horses for courses,...

Lobby Hero (Donmar Warehouse) Malignant impulses Toby Young W atching a good play is a totally different experience from watching a bad one. With a had one, you remain...

Shocking moments Charles Spencer F rank Sinatra wasn't exactly overjoyed about the arrival of rock and roll. 'Rock 'n' Roll smells phoney and false,' he raged in 1957. 'It is...

Carmen (Royal Opera House) Seductress with a difference Giannandrea Poem S ome consider him as a desecrater who likes to tinker with ballet classics; others think he is a...

The Count of Monte Cristo (PG, selected cinemas) Swashbuckling romp Mark Steyn I f memory serves, the last Alexandre Dumas I saw was the 1998 Man in the Iron Mask, which...

Club bores James Delmgpole F or some time now I have had this embarrassing problem which I sometimes tell friends about in the hope that they'll go, 'Oh, that's OK. It's...

Silent majority Michael Vestey A few years ago a former colleague told me that one of the then royal correspondents at the BBC only continued in the post because he hoped to...

Attention seekers Simon Courtauld I think I am losing the battle against eating fruit and vegetables out of season. By 'season' I mean, of course, the time for gathering...

Conversion update Alan Judd I n The Spectator of 28 October 2000 I reported on the conversion of my 1993 Range Rover to a bi-fuel vehicle, so that it now runs on either petrol...

French follies Robin Oakley M essages home from France cannot always be guaranteed to provide a generous response from their readers, a prime example being the missive from...

To London with dread Taki N New York icky Haslam sure got it right a couple of weeks ago, when writing in the diary he remarked: 'There's a depressing drift across the...

Boiled alive Jeremy Clarke 'H ow do I kill it?' I said. 'Stab it in the mouth with a long knife,' said the lad in the apron. 'Push the knife in all the way and wiggle it...

Blots on the landscape Neil Collins I t is ultimately futile, which is why flyfishing is like life. At first sight, to stand waist-deep in cold water, thrashing the pool as...

Improving notes PetroneIla Wyatt I was watching a video of The Al Jolson Sto,y the other day. Larry Parks who played Jolson, and won an Oscar for it, was later brought up...

Sue Mott WE are looking for a minor sports celebrity to open our village primary school's fête and, boy, what a window into the soul of sport this enterprise is proving to be....

I was confused by the air-conditioning controls and did not like to disturb my sleeping companion by ringing down to reception for illumination. Now that I am back in England,...

of about six years' standing that risks making me seem both churlish and ungenerous. This friend is to be married later in the year, and I shall have to contend with both his...

claims that 'every single other person at school eats with their mouth open'. (She attends a top public school.) While we do not wish to blight every family meal with nagging,...