T he investigation of the battle between the BNP and Labour in the local elections by Peter Oborne in last week’s Spectator has triggered a furious controversy about the...

I t’s a sappingly humid Sunday evening, but I decide a suit and tie are in order for Sir Michael Arthur, the British High Commissioner. Bad move. He is in shirtsleeves as he...

T here was a definite gaiety among MPs as they came back from Easter recess this week. The winter has been longer and colder than any in recent memory. Westminster, cheerless...

everyone feel the need to say it so much? Or rather, why don’t people say it about all the other hate-filled organisations in this country, as well as about the BNP? The...

SUNDAY NIGHT Dave’s private office has just rung to say he wants me to accompany him on his earthsaving trip to Norway to highlight global warming — am so excited my...

for a bit but think may now be losing friends. The other press officers are clearly trying to ruin it. Sebastian complaining that we shouldn’t be going on a trip to highlight...

carry one now. It’s part of Dave’s ten commandments. Nigel says he can’t imagine why anyone would want his organs, they’re all pickled. Hope we don’t have to obey all...

and of course my Kate Middletoninspired fox-fur hat. Mummy forces me to take something for evening even though we will be staying in a hut with only huskies and a bloke called...

just aren’t very keen on elections Boris Johnson goes to Beijing on a mission to sell democracy, but finds his hosts — as wedded to authority as they have been for the last...

In the wake of the Tel Aviv bombing, Con Coughlin says that Israel’s patience is being stretched to the limit, and that the new Palestinian government must learn realism —...

Michael Ashcroft , a devoted collector of the Victoria Cross, marks the 150th anniversary of the medal’s creation and salutes its simple beauty T he concept of bravery...

I was about to write ‘Everyone knows the story of James Lind, the Scottish naval surgeon, who conducted the first controlled trial in the history of medicine to prove the...

It is a general rule that public services rarely work properly, if at all. But over the past 60 years there has been one shining exception — grammar schools. Yet New Labour...

Alan Dershowitz says that the pre-emptive assault on Iraq has given a bad name to a good idea — and will leave Iran the most dangerous nation in the world F ace it. Iran will...

I thought my husband had fallen unconscious on the doormat, for I could not push the front door open. But I was mistaken. It was a huge drift of post complaining that I had used...

Rod Liddle meets Shireen Ritchie, the force behind the Tory drive for more women MPs, and wonders if her awesome politeness will do the trick I am wandering the gilded streets...

winning every argument Madsen Pirie says that logic and a few Latin terms can help you destroy any challenger in intellectual confrontation W hen I taught logic at an American...

From John Jolliffe Sir: Richard Dawkins is quite wrong in saying that there is no good evidence for the resurrection of Jesus (‘Did Jesus really rise from the dead?’, 15...

Sir: What surprised me about your survey was the high proportion of respondents who professed to believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead. However, the Bishop of Oxford...

Sir: In your survey Fraser Nelson states, ‘If the verifiable bones of Christ were discovered, you’d have to admit that the Muslims were right, Jesus was a prophet and...

From Charles Thompson Sir: Once again the mainstream political and media establishment gets an attack of the vapours at the prospect of the BNP gaining a few council votes...

From Richard Leigh Sir: Being slagged off by journalists is, by now, a familiar experience for me, as well as for Michael Baigent. One becomes inured to commentators who...

From Jason Boatright Sir: I enjoyed reading Michael Moorcock’s article ‘Why I am becoming an American’ (15 April). However, he referred without comment to one of the...

From Helen Johns Sir: I am a bit fed up with people like Charles Moore (The Spectator’s Notes, 15 April) who admit they are totally ignorant of the science behind climate...

From Hugo de Groot Sir: I agree wholeheartedly with the antimodernist thrust of Roger Scruton’s homage to Quinlan Terry (‘Hail Quinlan Terry’, 8 April). His observation...

From Elly Daw Sir: I write with regard to the Spectator’s Notes of your 8 April issue. Charles Moore writes of witnessing a sparrowhawk in pursuit of a jay, a pursuit which...

From Tom Allen Sir: Michael Vestey might well be right to question whether the BBC has abolished the mile in favour of the kilometre (Arts, 15 April), but his maths is a little...

M any readers will have read The Spectator Easter survey — ‘Did Jesus really rise from the dead?’ — with intense interest. I did. The results of a survey posing the...

T ruly good people have always been rarities, and ours is not an age which nourishes them by attention and respect. When a good person dies, it is not headline news but, rather,...

Sam Leith H OUSE OF S TONE : T HE T RUE S TORY OF A F AMILY D IVIDED IN W AR -T ORN ZIMBABWE by Christina Lamb HarperCollins, £14.99, pp. 290, ISBN 0007219385 ✆ £11.99...

A ged 12 or 13 I copied several poems by Housman into a commonplace book I had been encouraged to keep. An English master had read several Housman poems to us, and I’ve been...

William Feaver A NDY W ARHOL ‘G IANT ’ S IZE conceived by Phaidon editors Phaidon, £75, pp. 624, ISBN 071484540X L ecterns have been installed in some bookshops enabling...

Ben Wilson A M AD , B AD AND D ANGEROUS P EOPLE ? E NGLAND 1783-1846 by Boyd Hilton OUP, £30, pp. 757, ISBN 0198228309 ✆ £24 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T he...

Marcus Berkmann B RIEF L IVES : N EWTON by Peter Ackroyd Chatto, £12.99, pp. 163, ISBN 0701169869 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 A n old biographer friend of...

Alan Watkins C HURCHILL : T HE S TRUGGLE FOR S URVIVAL , 1945-60 by Lord Moran Constable & Robinson, £9.99, pp. 480, ISBN 1845292979 ✆ £7.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655...

Charlotte Moore P ERFECT M ADNESS by Judith Warner Vermilion, £9.99, pp. 327, ISBN 0091907160 ✆ £7.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 ‘C ompetitive and rapacious and...

Saint George has spent years in denial. His image has had a bad press. There’s been, as shrinks say, for some while A problem he needs to address. I suppose it’s not...

Stephen Abell T HE S UNLIGHT ON THE G ARDEN by Francis King Arcadia, £11.99, pp. 192, ISBN 1900850990 ✆ £9.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I t is, if you stop to think...

Emma Tennant T HE C HURCH H YMNARY , 4 TH E DITION Canterbury Press, Norwich, £16, pp. 1100, ISBN 1853116149 T HE D AILY T ELEGRAPH B OOK OF H YMNS by Ian Bradley Continuum,...

Ronald Segal PRIDE by Michael Eric Dyson OUP and the New York Public Library, $17.95, pp. 142, ISBN 0195160924 M ichael Dyson is Foundation Professor in the Humanities and...

Lucy Beresford P OPPY S HAKESPEARE by Clare Allan Bloomsbury, £12.99, pp. 344, ISBN 0747580464 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 C lare Allan won the Orange/Harpers...

The Art Fund is changing direction. Tiffany Jenkins talks to its director T he Art Fund is stepping up a gear. The UK’s leading art charity is launching a series of...

John Spurling Spirit of Trees: Charcoal Drawings by John Hubbard Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, till 7 May, then split between Naughton Gallery, Queen’s University, Belfast, 9...

Andrew Lambirth Modernism: Designing a New World 1914–39 V&A, until 23 July Sponsored by Habitat T he classic Modernist interior familiar to us all is a white cube, minimally...

Lloyd Evans Breakfast with Mugabe Soho Waiting for Godot Barbican Mack and Mabel Criterion H ere comes Mugabe. Very creepy and correct in his sleek double-breasted suit and,...

Olivia Glazebrook American Dreamz 12A, selected cinemas C .R.A.Z.Y. 15, selected cinemas W hat a relief it must have been for Hugh Grant when he realised he could relax and...

Michael Tanner La belle Hélène; Orfeo English National Opera Il re pastore Royal Opera House E NO is having a mini-festival of operas whose plots relate to Greek mythology....

Simon Hoggart N ostalgia is not what it used to be, but then in television it rarely is. For example, Dr Who (BBC1, Saturday) is back with David Tennant as the 10th full-time...

Michael Vestey W ith the government and the opposition flogging peerages to raise money for party funds, Radio Four decided to look back at the 1920s master of this practice,...

Robin Oakley I t was lunchtime at a Church school and there was a large dish of rosy apples. A nun placed a note on the fruit: ‘Take only one: God is watching.’ Further...

Simon Courtauld W hile we are all worrying about the threat to poultry from an alien virus which has now reached these shores, there seems to be little concern at the threat to...

Taki D o any of you remember a film called The Blue Max ? It is about a German flying squadron during the first world war. A working-class German soldier manages to escape...

Jeremy Clarke P reston railway station, Lancashire. Good Friday. Easter sun slanting down through the glass roof warming the concrete surface of platform three, which is...

Susanna Gross I ’ve been on holiday in southern India for the past couple of weeks, and although I had a great time I was alarmed by how much I missed bridge. I hadn’t...

FRANK KEATING L ast two standing. For the muddied oafs of winter, this is the cruellest week. So near, yet.... Defeat in a semifinal, they say, is the hardest to bear. There...

Dear Mary Q. I work in a City office, staffed mainly by young, trendy middle-class males, most of whom like to sport the silly fashion of trousers almost dropping off, exposing...

just come across your advice page from 9 April 2005 regarding the thorny problem of addressing those who are the unmarried others of one’s relations. I like to use the gem of...

who knows that my wife is a gourmet cook and that we appreciate good wines, a guest who has lived much of his life in France, indeed who still does, has astonished us this week...