Secretary, visited Sudan, seeing some refugees in one of the better camps in Darfur, and meeting the Prime Minister and minister for foreign affairs; he confirmed that British...

T he impeachment of Tony Blair would form a fitting end to a prime ministership which opened with the promise to be 'purer than pure', but ended in the arrogant deception of the...

T his is America's heartland, the 'flyover country' usually seen by British visitors only from an aeroplane window as they head west for the coast. It's a land of other...

me for a reason which most economists and politicians would despise: it would create a larger class of people free to do nothing without being a charge on the state. Although...

F or the Tories, it seemed as if August would be the cruellest month. Earlier in the year, much of the party had embarked on a perilous undertaking. It had decided to allow...

misdemeanours All the evidence shows that the Prime Minister misled Parliament and the people on the eve of the Iraq war. Now, as Peter Oborne reveals, a group of MPs are...

Is evidence obtained under torture admissible in this country? Yes, argues Lord Justice Laws, as long as it comes from a state where Home Secretary David Blunkett has no powers...

Mark Steyn says the Democratic contender has made a big mistake in campaigning on his Vietnam war record I have no views on whether one or more of John Kerry's bemedalled...

The term 'Middle England has been drifting a bit in the last few years, but never so far, so fast as under the impulsion of Mr David Miliband, a young minister in the Department...

William Shaw says that young boys are running up big gambling debts between classes 'T he game, gentlemen, is Texas Hold 'Em. Antes are £1. Raise limit: £20. No table limit....

There is still a lot of camaraderie on the road to Santiago de Compostela, John Laughland discovers, but serious Christianity is being replaced by New Age 'self-discovery' A s...

Che Guevara, subject of a new film, is likely to remain a cult figure. But, says Daniel Wolf, the man was a thug and a fool, and he helped ruin Cuba A ccording to Jean Paul...

do Conservatives E ton apparently taught Matthew Pinsent very little. It is all well and good to be able to row a small boat very quickly, but nothing excuses blubbing like a...

From Nick Reeves Sir: Rod Liddle is both right and wrong (Tees go nuclear', 21 August). It is true that our voracious and unsustainable consumption of hydrocarbons has caused...

From Dennis L. Bird Sir: Celia Walden (It sure beats The Priory,' 7 August) writes that the Reverend Nicholas Gumbel 'started the Alpha course' at Holy Trinity. Brompton. It is...

From Odile Taliani Sir: I am in the reverse situation to Mrs Powell's (`Basta Italia!', 14 August). My late husband was an Italian ambassador for 15 years. We met and married in...

From Roger Munson Sir: Sam Leith notes (Books, 14 August) that the Sykes family showed 'an admiration of pigs worthy of Lord Emsworth himself. But there is much, much more. The...

From Matthew Leeming Sir: In her otherwise admirable discussion of American feeding habits ('American food sucks', 21 August), Ella Windsor missed the most sensational...

From Torbforn Loef Sir: Greece is not the smallest nation to host the Games (High Life, 21 August). Finland is, i.e., Helsinki 1952, only seven years after the second world...

Iv est Somerset is notorious for narrow roads, which meander over the hills and down into the deep combes. The high hedges make them seem even narrower than they are. Some of...

ut your left foot here, into this stirrup' — I glanced down at a decorated steel half-shoe hanging on a leather strap — 'and grip this stubby thing with your left hand. . '...

I once drafted a short book called How to make money out of life assurance: 'Don't buy it, sell it.' The obvious winners, I thought, were the salesmen from Doorstep Armlock,...

Philip Hensher WODEHOUSE by Robert McCrum Penguin/Viking, £20, pp. 530, ISBN 0670896926 £.18 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 A mong the great works of art written in the...

Clemency Burton-Hill A SHORT RHETORIC FOR LEAVING THE FAMILY by Peter Dimock Methuen, 0.99, pp. 128, ISBN 04137741 LIARS AND SAINTS by Maile Meloy John Murray, £14.99, pp....

Kevin Jackson BARTLEBY & CO by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated from the Spanish by Jonathan Dunne Harvill Press, £12, pp. 178, ISBN 1843430525 ill (plus E2.25 p&p) 0870 800...

Harry Mount BRIEF LIVES by Alan Watkins Elliott & Thompson, 27 John Street, London WC1N 2BX, £10.99, pp. 223, ISBN 1904027164 D enis Healey will never be the same, once you...

James Delingpole BLENHEIM: BATTLE FOR EUROPE by Charles Spencer Weidenfeld, £20, pp. 365, ISBN 0297846094 t £18 (plus /2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 BLENHEIM, 1704: MARLBOROUGH'S...

Philip Manse! JOHN 3RD EARL OF Bum: PATRON AND COLLECTOR by Francis Russell Published by Francis Russell, Tel: 020 7389 2073, £95, pp. 279, ISBN 0951259512 p arliament has so...

Kate Chisholm SUSANNA, THE CAPTAIN & THE CASTRATO: SCENES FROM THE BURNEY SALON, 1779-80 by Linda Kelly Starhaven, 42 Frognal, London NW3 6AG, £9, pp. 139, ISBN 0936315210 S...

John Michell DOOMSDAY JUST AHEAD by Ian Niall Rankin The Book Guild, £16.95, pp. 152, ISBN 1857768094 r £14.95 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T he end of the world is nigh....

Byron Rogers COLLECTED LATER POEMS, 1988-2000 by R. S. Thomas Bloodaxe Books, 5'.95, pp. 368, ISBN 1852246480 SELECTED POEMS by R. S. Thomas Penguin Modern Classics,...

Lloyd Evans selects and discards a sprinkling of plays in the Festival and on the Fringe p unishment. That's what I thought when I first picked up the brochure for the...

Michael Tanner T he Edinburgh International Festival has been musically rather subdued so far this year. It's been dominated, though that doesn't seem quite the right word, by...

Robin Holloway T he extraordinary travel book (for want of a better term) that Henry James produced late in life, after a long absence, about his native America, abandons the...

Andrew Lambirth Saul Bass Design Museum, Shad Thames, SE1, until 10 October O n the first floor of the bright Thamesside Design Museum is an exhibition devoted to the work of...

Russell Chamberlin The Vision of G.F. Watts: Centenary Exhibition The Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey, until 31 October T he Watts Gallery is in the village of Compton in...

Mark Steyn Dodgeball 12A, selected cinemas cur umour,' said James Thurber, 'is 1 lemotional chaos remembered in tranquillity.' Today's movie comedies prefer to reverse the...

Simon Hoggart EIvery four years we plonk ourselves on , I ' the sofa to chew our nails in front of sports we don't even think about for the other three years and 49 weeks....

Michael Vestey W hen Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the Provisional IRA just off the coast of County Sligo, he'd had an impressive life by any standards: a great grandson of...

Robin Oakley S ometimes life just doesn't go your way. On a plane to Glasgow the other day I cautioned Mrs Oakley, 'Watch out for that instant-milk container. The last time I...

Talu Athens T et's face it. Unless you were at the j I Athens Olympics, you could not feel the unmatchable gravitas and pure joy. One of the great appeals of the Games was that...

Jeremy Clarke "Vou've got no idea — no idea — what 1 it's like not being able to read or write,' said Trevor. Oh dear, I thought. Here we go. He's going to work himself up...

Aid an Hartley Laikipia T watched tribal warriors invade private 1 farms on Kenya's Laikipia plateau this week, driving vast herds of cattle before them. The phalanxes of il...

Petronella Wyatt A l i my life I have striven. Many things ave eluded me: renown, greatness, godlike wisdom and, more importantly, the world's most handsome and sensitive man,...

Susanna Gross BROWSING through the latest issue of English Bridge magazine, I came across a letter from Hugh Tarran in Stroud complaining that the membership at his village...

1 of the greatest of all iv ../iBordeaux châteaux, was 150 years old last year. So belatedly the mini-bar is celebrating Rothschild wines, which are now grown in family...

FRANK KEATING S weat and tears. For Brits the two most enduring images of Greece's compelling Olympics of 2004 will be the weeping cascades of he-man colossus Matthew Pinsent...

of the 'quiet' carriages on trains are too often confronted with? How does one get compulsive talkers to shut up and observe the companionable silence which 95 per cent of the...

part of France that I had written some poetry, I was asked if I would conduct a reading for a group of international ladies. As they are obviously desperate for someone to...