A grim inevitability hangs over the country as we go to press. Some time over the next week or two the first dead swan of spring will be pulled from the rushes in the south of...

which had been removed from the Terrorism Bill by the Lords, was reinstated when the Bill was passed in the Commons by a majority of 38, with only 17 Labour MPs voting against...

for Lincolnshire in the 1880s and later 12th Earl of Winchilsea, shot an African tracker in the leg while big-game shooting in Kenya. Mortified by what he had done, he rushed...

P rince Charles was low in the water during the early 1990s. The collapse of any marriage is painful. In the case of the Prince the agony was magnified beyond endurance by a...

the best articulation so far of the case against the new leader in the latest issue of Prospect . This attack was inevitable, and some of it is correct. It is wrong, for...

Fraser Nelson says that David Cameron has given up on tax cuts and will now concentrate on advancing the frontiers of the state by matching Labour’s high spending T he secret...

Alasdair Palmer discovers that the dream of localism soon becomes a nightmare when you have to deal with council bureaucrats A ll politicians appear to be in favour of...

Power over People: Classical and Modern Political Theory offers 16 audio or video lectures by one of America’s most prominent scholars W hy is the world the way it is? What...

Why is the sale price for this course so much lower than its standard price? Every course we make goes on sale at least once a year. Producing large quantities of only the sale...

A semantic challenge of the genuine kind comes to me from the distinguished geographer Professor Alice Coleman. She has been responsible for a survey of the whole country’s...

Rod Liddle asks why American prosecutors have been allowed to demand the extradition of three British citizens who have committed no crime on US soil T hings are looking a bit...

Jane Kelly finds that the BBC’s ‘UK Theme Tune’ divides children as much as it does adults T he only time I have ever enjoyed singing was when my class in Staffordshire...

Malcolm Rifkind says that the United States has damaged her cause by using ‘coercive interrogation’ in the war on terrorism T o be fair, extraordinary rendition was not...

Brendan O’Neill discovers that public lavatories are plastered with government propaganda, much of it telling us how disgusting we are U nder the Blair terror, you can’t...

Charles Haviland on the struggle between the King of Nepal and the Maoist insurgents Kathmandu, dawn on Sunday U nder the early sun, a silver disc in a grey sky, candles...

Sir: I expected a more robust defence of our liberty from the Spectator (Leading article, 18 February). Just because a majority of the snivelling puritans who populate...

From Terry Saunders Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 18 February) asserts that Arthur Hugh Clough is only remembered for one poem, ‘Say not the struggle naught...

From Steven Poole Sir: In his review of my book, Unspeak (Books, 18 February) Graham Stewart asks rhetorically, ‘Can it be — as the casual reader might assume — that...

From Peter Hall Sir: Paul Johnson writes that if all the water in the ice caps and the glaciers melted ‘the sea level would not rise much’ (And another thing, 11 February)....

From Bruce van Biene Sir: Your correspondent Richard Laming (Letters, 11 February) believes that airlines benefit from an irrational tax policy since they do not have to pay...

From Arthur Hamilton Sir: David Kidd is wrong (Letters, 18 February). The first world war had to be fought to resist German domination. But once stalemate had arrived on the...

From Michael Henderson Sir: Toby Young wonders (Theatre, 18 February) whether Peter Stein, the great German director responsible for the production of David Harrower’s play,...

From Ruth Chambers Sir: Whether or not the publication of the cartoons of Mohammed was ‘a case of appalling insensitivity and bad manners’ (Mark Glazebrook, Arts, 18...

From Joseph Palley Sir: Tom Walker (‘Render unto Dubya’, 18 February) makes no mention of Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara. Rabat is nakedly imperialist; its war...

From Robert Vincent Sir: Miriam Gross (Diary, 4 February) tells us that we have ‘again become a two-nation state’ because of ‘those who watched Big Brother and those that...

S uppose a public body owned tens of thousands of acres of real estate across England, mostly in prime residential areas. Suppose it showed little inclination to rationalise its...

A sked what he did in the French Revolution, the Abbé Sieyes explained that he survived it. Against all the odds, this has been the London Stock Exchange’s achievement. It is...

T he recent death of Michael Wharton, aged 92, raises the interesting question: who was the most right-wing person who ever lived? Many thought he was. I am not sure he did...

Philip Hensher 1001 B OOKS Y OU M UST R EAD B EFORE Y OU D IE edited by Peter Boxall Cassell, £20, pp. 960, ISBN 9781844034178 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 P...

Frank Johnson T HE A LMOST I MPOSSIBLE A LLY by Peter Mangold I. B. Tauris, £18.99, pp. 275, ISBN 1850438005 ✆ £15.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 ‘Oscillations...

Olivia Glazebrook H OUSE OF O RPHANS by Helen Dunmore Fig Tree/ Penguin, £17.99, pp. 330, ISBN 9780007135080 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 F inland, 1902. The...

Nicholas Fearn P LEASE M R E INSTEIN by Jean-Claude Carrière Harvill/Secker, £12.99, pp. 186, ISBN 18443433044 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 J ean-Claude...

Anthony Daniels C ONTACT W OUNDS : A W AR S URGEON ’ S E DUCATION by Jonathan Kaplan Picador, £17.99, pp. 278, ISBN 0330492586 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 S...

Donald Michie C OLOSSUS : B LETCHLEY P ARK ’ S G REATEST S ECRET by Paul Gannon Atlantic, £25, pp. 562, ISBN 1843543303 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 O ver half a...

Clive Aslet T HE H OUSE BY THE T HAMES AND THE P EOPLE WHO L IVED T HERE by Gillian Tindall Chatto, £20, pp. 258, ISBN 0701175931 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 W...

William Brett T HE N EW H OLLYWOOD by Peter Kramer Wallflower, £12.99, pp. 329, ISBN 0670914517 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T he relationship between Hollywood...

Simon Courtauld W ILFRED T HESIGER : T HE L IFE OF THE G REAT EXPLORER by Alexander Maitland HarperCollins, £25, pp. 528, ISBN 0002556081 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429...

Jonathan Sumption T HE P ERFECT K ING : T HE L IFE OF E DWARD III, F ATHER OF THE E NGLISH N ATION by Ian Mortimer Cape, £20, pp. 560, ISBN 022407301X ✆ £16 (plus £2.45...

Salley Vickers K EEPING M UM by Brian Thompson Atlantic, £12.99, pp. 232, ISBN 1843544970 V £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 M others and memoirs are fashionable at the...

Ariane Bankes on Tsotsi, a film about violence and redemption — in a South African township I t’s a rare thing to find a film subtitled even in its home country, without a...

Andrew Lambirth Americans in Paris 1860–1900 National Gallery, until 21 May Sponsored by Rothschild Winslow Homer, Poet of the Sea Dulwich Picture Gallery, until 21 May W...

Robert Gore-Langton I f you are seriously rich, leaving lavish things in your will must be one of life’s great pleasures. Few writers can match Sir James Barrie’s...

Michael Tanner Der fliegende Holländer Wales Millennium Centre W elsh National Opera’s Der fliegende Holländer is a triumph, despite the considerable irritations of the...

Lloyd Evans Southwark Fair Cottesloe Steam White Bear Other Hands Soho S outhwark Fair by Samuel Adamson. Ever heard of it? Nor me but it sounds like a sprawling comedy of...

Robin Holloway W here have I been all these years? A listed Francophile managing to miss the utter delight of Bizet’s la jolie fille de Perth ! Not averse to Carmen , tickled...

Olivia Glazebrook Capote 15, selected cinemas I t is hard to imagine the author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood as the same man. In 1958, Truman Capote wrote the...

Simon Hoggart W here do the commentators on the Winter Olympics (BBC2) go for the other three years and 50 weeks? I imagine them living in caves. Then, just after Christmas,...

Michael Vestey T he historian Bettany Hughes, presenter of Amongst the Medici on Radio Four this week (Wednesday), seemed in her first programme — one of three — a bit...

Robin Oakley I s there perhaps at the bottom of the Thames, slithering back and forth with the tides, a muddy heap of mobile phones, glowing faintly in the dark, some emitting...

Simon Courtauld I t is some years since I saw, in a Paris bookshop, a translated copy of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit , but I still enjoy recalling the French...

Taki T o Oxford for a Union debate: This house believes that Hurricane Katrina blew away the myth of US racial equality. Naturally, I was against the motion, but, students...

Jeremy Clarke T he coach journey from the airport to the city centre took three quarters of an hour. Slumped in my comfortable seat near the back, I looked glumly out of the...

Susanna Gross A mong the keenest bridge players I know are Harold Pinter and Antonia Fraser. The other day they told me about an extraordinary hand that Harold picked up...

FRANK KEATING S ix Nations’ rugby resumes this weekend. Still all to play for. The first two rounds of the tournament, which ends on 18 March, produced a generally grey show...

Dear Mary Q. A dear friend has been going to Pilates classes. She is very proud of her newly taut torso, but I fear she has been taking the discipline too seriously. She now...

friend who lives in Spain if on his next trip to London he could buy 100 cigars in Gibraltar and bring them to London. The cigars retail in Gibraltar at about one third of the...

they are both within driving distance of home and have cars, I find it very hard to pin them down to coming home for weekends. What do you suggest? O.A., Suffolk A. Take a tip...