F or all its stunts, vacuities and plain deceptions, there was something undeniably compelling about Gordon Brown’s conference speech in Manchester. Here was an old stager,...

the Old Country should we ever come back to England. My effort to begin the process of toughening them up for the rigours of the British education system (uniforms, etc) met...

that everyone — or at least everyone sensible — is confused. I do not mean the basic, widespread confusion about terms and processes — about what is shortselling or a...

Mrs Spelperson to lead us in prayer at an inclusive service for all faiths and none at Birmingham’s historic yet modern town hall? (Some of us need to pray harder than others of...

Fraser Nelson says that the Tory leader must not be tempted by a ‘safety first’ strategy at his conference in Birmingham. The global financial crisis has transformed the...

John Redwood joins the Coffee House team for the Conservative Party Conference. For the latest news and analysis from Birmingham, log on to: www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse...

Andrew Tyrie says that root-and-branch reform of the Treasury will be needed when Brown is gone, including weekly minuted meetings. Past friendship is not enough T he Treasury...

Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell unveil their plan for radical reform to decentralise power, make voting count and challenge apparats from Brussels to town halls I n theory,...

Rod Liddle is outraged by the Foreign Secretary’s alleged comparison of himself to Michael Heseltine: like comparing a Big Beast to a stumpy little Muntjac deer. Where have all...

There is no reason to disallow the phrase aside from (instead of apart from ), but I know I shall never use it. Hearing it, with slight annoyance, set me wondering why people...

Fraser Nelson meets the shadow schools secretary and finds him bracingly radical and disarmingly polite: a recipe for success in government T here are two reliable tricks which...

Anthony King T he Conservatives last won a general election in 1992. That was also the year when the opinion polls met their Waterloo. The results of 50 nationwide surveys were...

Rowan Williams , the Archbishop of Canterbury, says that the financial world needs fresh scrutiny and regulation. In our attitude to the market, we run the risk of idolatry R...

Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say the Marriott bomb in Islamabad shows how weak the new Pakistani President is in the face of the Talebanised sectors of this failing state...

After a gripping week of political theatre in Manchester, James Forsyth invites readers to submit nominations for a new category in our Parliamentarian of the Year Awards: the...

Sir: Your leading article (20 September) calls for a ‘kick up the backside’ to the banking industry. That kick should be aimed elsewhere. The British and American governments...

Sir: If the problem with removing Brown is that Labour’s front bench don’t want the responsibility (Politics, 20 September), and if the scale of Brown’s financial duplicity is...

Sir: Tom Parfitt’s article (‘Moscow’s secret war in Ingushetia’, 13 September) is a grim yet wholly accurate description of the techniques used by the Russian leadership to...

Sir: John Kampfner (Diary, 20 September) relates an anecdote suggesting the Labour party might suffer the same fate as Canada’s Conservatives in the early 1980s, which dropped...

Sir: Toby Young’s piece on how he came to be admitted to Brasenose is, like most of his writings, a beautifully elegant piece of fiction (Status anxiety, 20 September). He was...

Sir: I am besotted by Dot Wordsworth, but you and she have let me down. Does nobody in your office check the copy that is sent in? You allowed her to open her piece (Mind your...

Sir: It was refreshing to read Adam Nicolson’s review of Philip Hoare’s book Leviathan (Books, 20 September). Of course, the whale is no more gentle or mysterious than any other...

Sir: In his review of Mary Beard’s Pompeii (Books, 20 September), Raymond Carr is incorrect to describe ‘a burning lava, flowing at great speed’. To the best of my knowledge,...

D id you see David Miliband’s fridge? It was massive. I saw it in a photograph in a Times magazine article about the brainy young Foreign Secretary. The pictures were intended...

‘D amn! Another bishop dead!’ said Lord Melbourne in 1834, adding, ‘I think they do it to vex me.’ The departure of one bishop meant he had to make a new one, and that involved...

Edie Lush attends the record-breaking Sotheby’s sale of Damien Hirst’s artworks, and wonders whether it is all a metaphor for the recent madness of financial markets L ast...

credit-crunch cant Simon Nixon challenges the new conventional wisdom that all bankers are greedy, share traders are spivs, governments know best and capitalism is doomed W e...

the assurance that the author has been made to feel exceptionally ‘humble’ exactly at those points where someone ordinary might expect to feel smug and triumphant — a...

Philip Hensher J UST M E by Sheila Hancock Bloomsbury, £18.99, pp. 288, ISBN 9780747588825 ✆ £15.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 M Y W ORD IS M Y B OND by Roger Moore Michael...

Graham Stewart MUNICH by David Faber Simon & Schuster, £20, pp. 528, ISBN 9781847370082 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 D avid Faber’s account of the Munich crisis has...

diversification S ince 2000, the Dubai economy has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 13%. Despite this success, Dubai has recognised the danger that oil price...

Charlotte Moore T HE S TEPMOTHER ’ S D IARY by Fay Weldon Quercus, £16.99, pp. 265, ISBN 9781847242044 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 ‘T hese modern, all-inclusive...

Simon Baker INDIGNATION by Philip Roth Jonathan Cape, £16.99, pp. 233, ISBN 9780224085137 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I ndignation , Philip Roth’s 29th book, is...

Judith Flanders S TRANGER IN THE H OUSE : W OMEN ’ S S TORIES OF M EN R ETURNING FROM THE S ECOND W ORLD W AR by Julie Summers Simon & Schuster, £18.99, pp. 363, ISBN...

Jerome de Groot T HE A CT OF L OVE by Howard Jacobson Cape, £17.99, pp.306 ISBN 9780224086097 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 F rom ‘Readers’ Wives’ to Molly Bloom, the...

Lucy Hughes-Hallett T HE W HITE W AR : L IFE AND D EATH ON THE I TALIAN F RONT 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson Faber, £25, pp. 454, ISBN 9780571223336 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870...

Gary Dexter U SING THE O XFORD J UNIOR D ICTIONARY (1979) by Philip Pullman B efore Lyra, before polar bears and His Dark Materials , and before his first children’s book,...

Veronica Lee profiles the playwright as the Old Vic revives his best-known work A lan Ay e ckbourn, so theatre lore has it, is the scond-most performed British playwright after...

Andrew Lambirth Cold War Modern: Design 1945–1970 V&A, until 11 January 2009 I t’s difficult not to admire the ambition of the V&A in mounting exhibitions which summarise and...

Deborah Ross Taken 15, Nationwide T aken is the latest film from the French film-maker Luc Besson and is about American, ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) who turns Paris...

Lloyd Evans Ivanov Wyndham’s Theatre Now or Later Royal Court Rain Man Apollo G reat directors have the power to alter taste. Michael Grandage’s avowed aim with this revival...

Charles Spencer A lthough I waste a lot of time these days gazing longingly at advertisements for luxury cruises in the Daily Telegraph , I don’t think I could ever leave...

Michael Tanner Otello Welsh National Opera, Cardiff La fanciulla del West Royal Opera House O tello , for me the most perfect though not the greatest of Verdi’s operas,...

Robin Holloway T here was no space in my report last month, on a first visit to the Bayreuth Festival, for what was in retrospect its most exciting quart d’heure , a privileged...

Simon Hoggart T here was a sad moment in The Family (Channel 4, Wednesday) this week when Dad, the very long-suffering Simon Hughes, is inspecting his daughters’ bedroom, and...

Alan Judd T he first Rolls-Royce I drove was a 1960s Shadow, across the Cairngorms on the glorious A939 to Tomintoul. It was a memorable drive, clear skies, snowcapped...

Taki The party’s over, it’s time to call it a day. They’ve burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away. It’s time to wind up the masquerade. Just make your mind up, the...

Jeremy Clarke T he bride was several minutes late arriving at the church. Her side of the congregation were farming people, and while we waited, and the choir sang, the bloke...

Melissa Kite Q uite out of the blue, the insurance company rang to say that the Polish driver has admitted liability and my car is to be fixed. This came as a shock and forced...

Janet de Botton W ednesday nights have begun to loom large in the London bridge calendar. TGR’s has just started a weekly ‘Super-League’ where ten invited teams are battling...

James Waldron investigates the new fashion for buying your own hotel room W hen I was ten, one of my classmates invited me to his birthday party at the Dorchester. Nothing...

Andrew Roberts is moved by the battlefields of southern Italy and the sacrifices made there I suspect that most Spectator readers want more from a holiday than simply a beach...

T o my astonishment, the tsunami that swept through the global financial markets last week actually affected one of my neighbours. When the credit crunch extends as far as...

A group of 200 pagan worshippers gathered recently at the Parthenon to beg Athena not to allow material to be removed from her temple and relocated in the new, specially...

when he was talking to the media about his European Ryder Cup team’s meeting with Muhammad Ali on the Valhalla course at Louisville, Kentucky? He doesn’t strike one as the...

often, brings a girlfriend to stay for the weekend. As I live in the country and have a septic system, I would like to remind him not to flush prophylactics down the lavatory. I...

country estate for the last two summers at an enormous cost to them — four weeks one summer and five weeks the other. Bizarrely they (my parents) have not had a word of thanks...

very fond, but who has the unfortunate habit of perpetual name-dropping. She is intelligent, highly educated, rich and wellconnected, but it seems is still socially insecure. If...