By the time the next issue of The Spectator hits the news-stands, Tony Blair will have battled his way through his last EU summit; the Labour party will have elected a new...

PENNY JUNOR Ihave long thought there is no analogy quite so perfect for the process of writing a book as childbirth. There is the initial stage when it's little more than a fond...

FRASER NELSON Boris Johnson is being rather coy about his chances for promotion. 'Statistically, I am due to be fired again,' he tells this month's GQ magazine. 'It may be that...

FRASER NELSON Boris Johnson is being rather coy about his chances for promotion. 'Statistically, I am due to be fired again,' he tells this month's GQ magazine. 'It may be that...

CHARLES MOORE Tyranny is most successful when most extreme. Because we all know that North Korea is absolutely foul, we do remarkably little about it. The new report into mass...

By Tamzin Lightwater MONDAY A day of high drama. Heart-stopping parliamentary meeting at which Dave put the party on stand-by for an election in October. . . THIS October!...

Tessa Mayes is the first reporter to have gone undercover in the London Celebrity Centre of the Church of Scientology. It is, she finds, like a pious version of Pop Idol. The...

In the last days of Blair's premiership, Simon Jenkins is struck by the stunning resilience of Thatcherite doctrine: in time, New Labour will be seen as nothing but a change of...

Celia Walden says that the very calculated way in which Segolene Royal announced her break-up with her partner of 29 years was worthy of Diana This week, shortly after the...

Richard Sanders recalls the exploits of Bartholomew Roberts, a swashbuckling 18th-century buccaneer to match Johnny Depp — except that he drank tea, and was probably gay The...

Melanie Phillips says that appeasement by Britain and America has fuelled the Palestinian violence and assisted Tehran's ambition to establish a regional empire Britain gazes...

Rod Liddle, no fan of the honours system, scorns the united front of Left and Right who have expressed horror at the reward given to this brave and remarkable novelist At last...

Sir: In the past few weeks Hamas has shown itself to be a merciless, power-hungry organisation with little interest in the well-being of its own people, let alone that of its...

Sir: Of course the legal wig is an anachronism ('When Harry met silly', 16 June). But then so is the yarmulke, the mitre, the biretta, the bearskin, the mortarboard and all...

Sir: Charles Moore (The Spectator's Notes, 16 June) rightly criticises ITN for cutting Captain Bonzo's admission that his ship did indeed pose a threat to the task force and...

Sir: Irwin Stelzer (Go West, young man', 9 June) writes as if patriotism were an unmixed blessing. It is if it means putting country before self. But when it comes to putting...

Sir: Your leader on the Prime Minister's speech about the media (16 June) is a little unfair. Mr Blair's description of the Independent as 'a viewspaper' is not 'daft'. Anyone...

Sir: Charles Moore's fascination for the past three weeks with lavatory paper prompts me to offer a suggestion as to why two papers might be offered to the discerning — Bronco...

MATTHEW PARRIS presenting Pick of the Week on Radio Four the other day, I was determined to feature (and did) BBC Radio One's Annie Nightingale, and Radio Two's Janice Long —...

PAUL JOHNSON La dy Diana Cooper used to relate that, at a dinner she gave in the British embassy in Paris, not long after the war, Madame de Gaulle was asked what she was...

Martin Vander Weyer says the new Prime Minister's trusted policy enforcer and adviser on business issues has been mistreated by the media because they know so little about her...

Allister Heath /t will come as little consolation to Guy Hands, the financier who complained this week that he must be the last person in Britain still prepared to defend the...

Elliot Wilson meets David Webb, the shareholder activist who challenges the former colony's most powerful tycoons Every city needs a David Webb. Hong Kong, a heaving, sweating...

ROBERT BEAUMONT IN HULL n Wednesday, when John Prescott finally steps down as Deputy Prime Minister, the city of Hull will breathe a collective sigh of relief. Just as Joseph...

Bob Fisher on the 32nd America's Cup n the Mediterranean waters off Valencia in a moderate sea breeze on the afternoon of 23 June, two 80ft yachts will begin a first-to-fivewins...

Taki When my first wife left me back in 1968 I moped around the house feeling sorry for myself until my father took pity and told me to go out and buy myself a boat. My only...

Christopher Howse The sun comes up over the sea at Valencia, and no one shows this better than Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, a painter who reached the height of his powers in the...

Angus Grogono As a child, I spent my summer holidays camped out on Weymouth beach during Weymouth Speed Week watching what looked like big toys being thrown into the big...

Philip Hensher WEST END CHRONICLES by Ed Glinert Allen Lane, £25, pp. 322, ISBN 9780713999006 © £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 At the commissioning stage, this must have...

Richard Beeston SWORDS AND PLOUGHSHARES by Paddy Ashdown Weidenfeld, £20, pp. 338, ISBN 9780297853039 © £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 paddy Ashdown was standing by a muddy...

Spain's brain drain Raymond Carr THE DISINHERITED: THE EXILES WHO CREATED SPANISH CULTURE by Henry Kamen Penguin, £30, pp. 508, ISBN 9780713997672 © £24 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870...

Digby Durrant THE ROAD HOME by Rose Tremain Chatto, £16.99, pp. 365, ISBN 9780701177935 © £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Ive know the pressures the steady flow of...

Andrew Barrow COMING ON STRONG by Joan Rhodes Serendipity, £9.95, pp. 151, ISBN 9781843942283 uring the post-war years, the author of this book was a much-talked about variety...

Sophia Waugh FULFILMENT AND BETRAYAL, 1975-1995 by Naim Attallah Quartet, £25, pp. 796, ISBN 9780704371219 © £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 1 s he a monster, saint, genius...

Anne Applebaum COMRADES: A WORLD HISTORY OF COMMUNISM by Robert Service Pan Macmillan, £25, pp. 547, ISBN 9781405053453 © £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 1 talian...

Stung like a gelding sixteen hands high, spooked, tangled up in my clothesline and horse flies, holding me down behind the barn, spinning yarn, frost, dew and moss, outhouses,...

Edward Harrison MY FRIEND THE ENEMY: AN ENGLISH BOY IN NAZI GERMANY by Paul Briscoe and Michael McMahon Aurum, f12.99, pp. 212, ISBN 9781845132316 £1039 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870...

Francis King THE KINGDOM OF ASHES by Robert Edric Doubleday, £16.99, pp. 400, ISBN 9780385612562 © £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 1 n the immediate aftermath of the last...

M. R. D. Foot THE INNER CIRCLE: A VIEW OF WAR AT THE TOP by Joan Bright Astley The Memoir Club, £12.95, pp. 212, ISBN 9781841041667 THIRTY SECRET YEARS: A. G. DENNISTON'S WORK...

Cups in the midden. Imagine. Made by madmen, nineteen hundred of them In the asylum's heyday. Idle hands, then, idle minds England. Whole institution round the bend....

Lloyd Evans BEETHOVEN CONFIDENTIAL & BRAHMS GETS LAID by Ken Russell Peter Owen, £12.95, pp. 220, ISBN 9780720612790 £1039 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 ELGAR: THE EROTIC...

Christopher Howse THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR by Andrew Keen Nicholas Brealey, £12.99, pp. 228, ISBN 9781857883930 £1039 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 1 n its early days, the...

No doubt Mr Blair will soon be at work on his memoirs; or perhaps his ghost will. Ghosts play a necessary role in the publishing business. Indeed all those firms who rely for...

Henrietta Heald heralds the achievement of a Victorian pioneer of alternative technologies There is a corner of Northumberland, in the valley of the River Coquet, where the...

Andrew Lambirth Mhere is a remarkable project of great enterprise and diligence in progress throughout the land — a plan to catalogue all the oil paintings (as well as those in...

Roderick Conway Morris Venice Biennale Castello Gardens, Arsenale and other venues, until 21 November c 1-lhey order, said I, this matter better in 1 France.' It is the norm at...

Philippe de Champaigne (1602-74), a Flemish-born French painter, may be familiar to audiences this side of the Channel from his magnificent triple portrait of Richelieu in the...

Lloyd Evans The Drowsy Chaperone Novello Gaslight Old Vic The Christ of Coldharbour Lane Soho Midsummer. Holidays loom. Migrations are being pondered and planned. Right now the...

Deborah Ross La Vie en Rose 124, Nationwide Do go see this biopic of Edith Piaf, if you so fancy. Marion Cotillard is excellent as Piaf, and those Piaf songs are as gloriously...

Michael Tanner Don Giovanni Royal Opera House Capriccio Guildhall School of Music & Drama The latest revival of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera, in Francesca Zambello's...

Kate Chisholm minous predictions could be heard on Radio Four on Saturday morning in a programme hosted by Rory Bremner. If by chance you missed it, having already dragged...

Simon Hoggart Sex, the City and Me (BBC2, Sunday) might just as well have been called 'All Men Are Bastards — based on a true story'. Sarah Parish played Jess, a horrible...

Robin Oakley Royalty and racing have long been intertwined. We would not have been racing at Ascot this week were it not for the prodigiously fat Queen Anne, who, when she could...

Taki Well, what can one say except they don't throw parties like this one any more. The dress code was devilishly or angelically black tie. (Think horns and wings and other...

Jeremy Clarke When I was six or seven I went up to London with my father in his car. As we passed through Whitechapel in the East End, he pointed out a pub called the Blind...

Susanna Gross It's been a year since the English Bridge Union launched its BB@B (Better Behaviour at Bridge) campaign. I'm not sure how many players actually call their club's...

Roy Hattersley Tast week — defying the traffic jams , and the most restrictive parking regulations in western Europe — I ventured into Bakewell, our local metropolis and the...

Jenny Wilhide on picking up bargains at the world's funkiest car-boot sale Unless you are desperate to buy a semi-useless kettle for £2, the irresistible lure of a carboot sale...

Nick Foulkes succumbs to the charms of a human storewide search engine Iam a terrible snob when it comes to apparel. I have been having clothes made for me since the beginning...

Ivo Dawnay `chillaxes' with his daughter in Capri The telephone beside the bed bleeped discreetly. 'Excuse me for disturbing you, sir. It is the bar here. After a search of the...

DEBORAH ROSS Iwent out for lunch the other day. Usually, I don't much care for going out to lunch. Too much of a faff — and think of the daytime TV I might miss. I might even...

Dear Maly Q. Please can you enlighten me as to the difference between an actor's agent, an actor's manager and an actor manager? I recently met a famous actor at a party and was...

FRANK KEATING BBC radio's Test Match Special will deservedly be celebrating particularly special champagne moments in a couple of weeks when their tardis settles on Edgbaston...