of terrorism and held illegally at Belmarsh prison should be let out but somehow put under restriction. Four British citizens held in America’s prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba...

L ast week the Conservative party unveiled an extremely good policy: to cut government waste to the tune of £35 billion and to pass £4 billion worth of it to the public in tax...

the same taxi firm as the BBC, and in the days when I was lucky enough to be driven to my office at Canary Wharf, I made friends with several of the firm’s regular drivers. In...

M ichael Howard is a Powellite, at least in one respect. Talking about immigration, Enoch Powell said that numbers were of the essence. Mr Howard would agree, although his...

Belt governments have to permit it and they have to try to restrict it. This is because the interest of those already present — the indigenous population, the nimby houseowner —...

Damian Thompson says that young people of all races and political persuasions are lining up to give multiculturalism a good kicking M ulticulturalism is in crisis. By that I...

It was a grand inaugural speech, says Mark Steyn . By the time the President leaves office four more dictatorships will have gone New Hampshire ‘I t is the policy of the...

Do I, asks Mr Peter Andrews, who lives romantically at the New River Head, know the origin of the phrase ‘the man on the Clapham omnibus’? Does anyone know, really? One can...

Rod Liddle on the case for requiring refugees to leave Britain once the threat they faced at home has been removed I met a Kurdish chap the other day, a man called Abbas who...

The government ardently denies that its proposal to allow 24-hour drinking will lead to streets filled with drunks. It then legislates to, er, deal with streets filled with...

Simon Heffer outlines the general principles the Tories should embrace if they are to avoid shameful defeat at the election I n the last ten days the Conservative party seems to...

Mary Wakefield meets Sir Denis Mahon, the historian and collector who rediscovered a lost century of Italian art S ir Denis Mahon arrived at The Spectator 40 minutes before he...

Ross Clark wonders whether celebrities are cashing in on the tsunami disaster with their fund-raising parties and TV specials I t was not until the first week of January that...

This year 20 music events are being organised (up six on last year) and UK Trade & Investment will allocate nearly half a million pounds to promote the industry overseas in key...

If the turnout is above 50 per cent, says Richard Beeston , the Americans and the British can declare victory — but the violence will continue Mosul I never did find out if...

From Ben Bradshaw Sir: Jeremy Clarke’s rattle through the draft Animal Welfare Bill (‘Animals don’t have human rights’, 22 January) was entertaining but bore little resemblance...

Sir: Jeremy Clarke is rightly critical of this ridiculous Animal Welfare Bill. It will just be yet another very bad Act of Parliament. I believe it was the philosopher Bertrand...

From Jason Pearlman Sir: Anthony Lipmann includes Fallujah and Jenin in his list of atrocities (‘How I became a Jew’, 22 January). Can he be serious? Does he really equate the...

Sir: In his column (And another thing, 22 January) Paul Johnson writes with reference to Auschwitz, ‘There is no possibility of the public ever being in danger of forgetting...

From Alistair Fall Sir: Matthew Parris’s article ‘Kill a goat if you want to save the planet’ (Another voice, 22 January) is absolutely correct in every respect. The goat is...

From Chris Cramer Sir: If Andrew Gilligan spent more time reporting on the tsunami and less time trying to get cheap laughs off the back of a terrible tragedy (‘The littoral...

From Robert Triggs Sir: May I add a personal footnote to your editorial about Robert Jackson, MP (Leading article, 22 January)? Nearly 40 years ago, in the first week of...

From Henry McDonald Sir: Your esteemed media commentator Stephen Glover is absolutely correct in pointing out that the Guardian was almost alone among UK quality papers in...

L ord Saatchi, the Conservative cochairman, and Mr Lynton Crosby, the Australian who has been brought in as general election campaign director, are reported to have quarrelled....

E very morning, when I am faced by my pile of newspapers, almost the first thing I do is to turn to the obituary page of the Daily Telegraph . Obits in all the serious papers...

M y grandfather used to say, ‘Learn to like art, music and literature deeply and passionately. They will be your friends when things are bad.’ It is true: at this time of year,...

Philip Hensher R OBERT L OUIS S TEVENSON by Claire Harman HarperCollins, £25, pp. 503, ISBN 0007113218 ✆ £23 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T he biographers, like eager heirs...

Derek Scott B ROWN ’ S B RITAIN by Robert Peston Short Books, £14.99, pp. 369, ISBN 1904095674 ✆ £12.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T his book illuminates Brown and his...

Jane Gardam M ARY W OLLSTONECRAFT : A N EW G ENUS by Lyndall Gordon LittleBrown, £25, pp. 576, ISBN 0316728667 ✆ £23 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T he writer William Mayne...

Richard Ollard T O R ULE THE W AVES by Arthur Herman Hodder & Stoughton, £20, pp. 648, ISBN 0340734183 V £18 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T he subtitle of this large history,...

Robert Edric A BOUT G RACE by Anthony Doerr 4th Estate, £15.99, pp. 401, ISBN 0007146973 V £13.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 A bout Grace is about David Winkler, a man...

Eric Christiansen T HE B IRTH OF EUROPE by Jacques Le Goff, translated by Janet Lloyd Blackwell, £20, pp. 274, ISBN 0631228888 W elshmen will know what Le Goff’s name means. To...

Anita Brookner SATURDAY by Ian McEwan Cape, £17.99, pp. 279, ISBN0224072994 ✆ £15.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 A s a foreword to this excellent novel Ian McEwan quotes a...

A new fox has come. The last one lingered long after a righteous but ill-placed bullet. Our case was airtight, forty chickens, fifteen ducks, one ancient goose. We had...

For many tens of thousands of grown men and women worldwide, the names Tucker, Zammo and Mrs McCluskey are enough to induce an instant rapture of nostalgia: the mind’s ear fills...

Andrew Lambirth on a triumphal exhibition of work by Anthony Caro at Tate Britain S ir Anthony Caro celebrated his 80th birthday last year, and this slightly belated but...

Philippa Scott Turks: A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600–1600 The Royal Academy, until 12 April. ‘T he Terrible Turk’ was a threat made by mothers to recalcitrant children in...

Sheridan Morley ‘T o die will be an awfully big adventure,’ says Peter Pan, and the line has suddenly come back across a century to haunt me, not because of Neverland or any...

Mark Steyn Meet the Fockers 12A, selected cinemas T here’s a shot about two-thirds of the way into Meet The Fockers when the Fockers and their son’s soon-to-be in-laws are...

Alan Powers T his year marks the 70th anniversary of Penguin Books, a company that has done more for design in Britain than any other commercial or government organisation. The...

Michael Tanner The Knot Garden Scottish Opera A Child of Our Time English National Opera M ichael Tippett’s centenary year is being celebrated chiefly, so far as one can see...

Robin Holloway J ennifer’s Diary: wild flows the Don. Who says we’re a lazy bunch of sinecure-holders? Much of this first week of a new term at Cambridge has been spent...

Toby Young Whose Life Is It Anyway? Comedy Losing Louis Hampstead King Lear Albery O ne of the cardinal rules of theatre reviewing is that you’re not supposed to talk about the...

James Delingpole T he thing five-year-olds most dread on their first day at school, according to Child of Our Time (BBC1, Tuesday), is using the dirty, smelly, alien toilets. I...

Michael Vestey I used to take the sentimental view that the many dialects across Britain demonstrated the richness of our speech, that such diversity was a good thing and that...

Simon Courtauld T here is plenty of life, as well as recent death, in a fish market. For its colour and noise and atmosphere the market by the Rialto bridge in Venice is as...

Taki Gstaad S ir Roger and Lady Moore braved a snowstorm but made it on time driving from Crans-Montana. Sir Peter Tapsell flew in from Britain, snow or no snow on the...

Jeremy Clarke I knew I would take a drink at the lunch. I hadn’t had one since The Spectator Christmas party and it was now 20 January. Since The Spectator lunch, I’d also...

Petronella Wyatt M y 17-year-old niece recently won a place at Trinity College, Oxford. Although she is one of the brightest girls at her private school, and often works...

FRANK KEATING O nce again, soccer’s top-flight League contests in both England and Scotland seem condemned to be unchallenging two-horse races. The respective managers of...

university. While I had thought that I would at least be engaged to be married by now, the truth is that I find it almost impossible to date girls. It seems to me that girls of...

in September. I do not expect a huge audience, but there will certainly be a degree of interest shown in Scotland and by the sort of people who buy books in John Sandoe and...