of military action would pass to the Iraqi government after 30 June. Speaking at his regular monthly press conference, he said, let me make it a hundred per cent clear: after...

A mong the many organisations which donors to Comic Relief have generously helped to support is Tar Isteach, a Dublin-based group of former IRA terrorists led by Tommy Quigley,...

, feel I've certainly seen England from every angle in the past three months while touring in Full Circle, and it has surprised me how gorgeous the English countryside still...

T _ he bidding war for the Telegraph Group may be drawing to a close. Many lies have been told and much disinformation spread. Even now it is difficult to discern the final...

list their recreations. These tend either to be bland like lonely hearts ads — 'reading', 'travel', 'theatre' — or self-congratulatory — `the company of my family', 'the...

Acts of brutality are carried out in the name of 'reasonable chastisement' but, says Rachel Johnson, banning smacking will only encourage children to believe that they have a...

Act should be amended so that battery of a child could no longer be justified as lawful punishment. This would only, she argued, bring children the same protection from assault...

Andrew Gilligan says that the intelligence services have a chronic tendency to make mistakes T he government may have fallen out with some of its new friends — the CBI is...

The word whom, as we have all noticed, is dead on its feet. The proof is that we don't know when to use it. Of course, as wellbrought-up Spectator readers, we know in theory....

Owen Matthews goes on patrol with American soldiers in Afghanistan's 'Indian Country' and sees them capture and interrogate suspects I t was one of those wonderfully luminous...

Last week we considered a number of the arguments that ancient Greeks and Romans deployed to prepare themselves for death. Once dead, however, they had to be buried, and — more...

John Laughland talks to the Czech President, Vaclav Klaus — Thatcherite, Eurosceptic and much loved by the people 0 n the night of 1 May, a grand party was organised in central...

Philip Delves Broughton meets Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the French Premier, a man who challenges the snobbery and piety of his country's political establishment J ong ears, in the...

the pilots Omar Malik says that the Board of Inquiry into the Chinook disaster was manipulated to excuse serious failures in the system T en years ago, on 2 June 1994, RAF...

When one has been in the service a long time, as I have, one begins, even if one is not very clever, to recognise certain patterns. For example, when it is announced that a part...

Peter °borne reveals the Blairite capture of the loD, the only mainstream business organisation to speak out forcefully against the euro, regulation and tax 0 ne important...

iterary papers do not take novels seriously as a rule. But they don't ignore them either. The Times Litermy Supplement and the Literary Review, for instance, each review a dozen...

From Tom Saekville Sir: Many people who have been tricked into joining pseudo-religious cults, and their families, will have been appalled by Damian Thompson's eccentric...

From Chris Baxter Sir: James Delingpole's article on the necessity of supporting the current occupation of Iraq is compelling ('Cursed are the peaceniks', 22 May), but it...

Sir: It is dispiriting to those who from the outset have regarded the invasion of Iraq as an error of judgment, for your distinguished defence expert James Delingpole to suggest...

From Stewart Slater Sir: I was touched by Janet Bush's faith ('Bring back Keynes', 15 May) in Keynesian economics as a panacea for recessionary ills. Here in Japan (where, pace...

From Christopher Scanlan Sir: Peregrine Worsthorne (Letters, 22 May) makes two extraordinary claims: firstly that 'every country needs a political class', and secondly that...

Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 22 May) gives a wonderful example of Margaret Thatcher's wit when she found herself as the last speaker following ten verbose males. This...

From Robert Melson Sir: Norman Stone's review of Peter Balakian's book, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide (Books, 24 April), is a diatribe against the author and a...

puts up a brave case for Marks & Spencer's frilly knickers, etc. (Singular Life, 22 May), but this in no way ameliorates my disgruntlement at the firm's recent lapse in the...

M ay I wish all my readers a happy, albeit belated, Tax Freedom Day. On Sunday 30 May — Whit Sunday — we can stop working for the Chancellor and work for ourselves for the rest...

A merica's neoconservatives have a lot of explaining to do, and they are trying to do it. We hear them on our own airwaves. Presumably, their line on American radio and...

Nicholas Harman S talin's admirers wanted it sooner, to help our Soviet allies. Others wanted it sooner, to give us a chance of beating the Russkies to Berlin (as we didn't)....

Katie Grant You HAVE TO BE CAREFUL IN THE LAND OF THE FREE by James Kelman Hamish Hamilton, £12.99, pp. 437, ISBN 0241142334 W hen James Kelman's novel, How Late it Was How...

Simon Courtauld JUAN CARLOS: THE PEOPLE'S KING by Paul Preston HarperCollins, £25, pp. 614. ISBN 0002556324 p rofessor Preston has done his subject proud. This is a better...

Hugh Massingberd ON AND OFF THE FIELD by Ed Smith Viking, £16.99, pp. 259, ISBN 0670914819 T hose of us who spend our summers watching county cricket often feel a beleaguered...

Stephen Abell THE IRRESPONSIBLE SELF: ON LAUGHTER AND THE NOVEL by James Wood Cape, £16.99, pp. 312, ISBN 0224064509 F or a critic as seriously intelligent as James Wood, a...

James Delingpole ALL OIKS NOW: THE UNNOTICED SURRENDER OF MIDDLE ENGLAND by Digby Anderson Social Affairs Unit, .0.95, pp. 95, ISBN 1904863000 T he Spectator's literary pages...

Saul Kelly THE SECRET LIFE OF LAZIO ALMASY: THE REAL ENGLISH PATIENT by John Bierman VikinglPenguin, £16.99, pp. 288, ISBN 0670914177 J ohn Bierman, the co-author of a recent...

Lowry like a drink? Do bears prefer to make alfresco toilet arrangements? The latest edition of the admirable literary mag Arete seems to help us with at least one of these...

W ith the giant letters MUSEUM OF LONDON flow dominant on the Barbican's walkway high above St Martin's Le Grand, and additional modern escalators at No. 1 London Wall leading...

Andrew Lambirth Edward Hopper Tate Modern, until 5 September (sponsored by American Airlines) F m . the first time in more than 20 years, we have in Britain the chance to see...

Angela Summerfield Diirer and the Virgin in the Garden .\",//i(»wl Gallery, Sunley Room, until 20 June W hile Albrecht Darer is an Old Master name familiar to most, this German...

Mark Glazebrook William Packer Piers Freetham Gallery, until 72 June Elor 30 years, William Packer has been l' the principal art critic of the Financial Times. Less well known...

Rachel Halliburton The Shape of Things New Ambassadors The History Boys National Theatre N eil LaBute's The Shape of Things is a poison-pen letter to a superficial age. It's...

Mark Steyn Shattered Glass 12, selected cinemas I can remember the exact moment when I stopped reading Stephen Glass. It was June 1997 and he'd written the cover story for the...

Michael Tanner Djamileh; The Seven Deadly Sins Opera North, Leeds Die Zauberflote Glyndeboume T he last two pieces in Opera North's excellent short opera season — whatever one...

Robin Holloway I 'd come to Charleston, South Carolina, drawn not so much by its fame in the annals of the Civil War or its reputation for beauty as for the connection with...

James Delingpole T his week, for a change, I've decided not to review a single programme about war. No — just kidding. For a start, how could I possibly not mention the History...

Michael Vestey political tensions in times of war often I make good drama, and the Saturday Play, Playing for Time — Three Days in May 1940, on Radio Four last week did not...

Taki W hy are the phrases "honest journalist" and "free press" so often greeted with a snicker?' asks Tom Fleming in Chronicles magazine. Well, most of us exempt ourselves from...

Jeremy Clarke N ow doctor is telling me my anti depressant is possibly addictive, Instead of broadcasting them around the depressive community like seed, as in the good old...

Aidan Hartley London D ouglas Hurd is stalking me. Some time ago I wrote a story in a book about the British army contingent that deployed in Rwanda after the genocide ten...

Petronella Wyatt s I was sitting in the car the other day, I looked to my right and saw a billboard depicting a pair of giant legs. Glancing up, I noticed, for what must be the...

You have to look closely to pick it out, the shot - fish vertical orange line to the right-hand side of the Tube map that starts promisingly at Shoreditch then comes to a...

T . he lavish publicity material came in the shape of a glossy gatefold folder. Think a Supertramp double album, only this one didn't feature platforms and jump-suits but photos...

FRANK KEATING T est matches come and go, and a handful of us at Lord's this week raised a flute of fizz to the most memorable cricket happening of the summer so far — Ireland's...

an unusually large postbag of personal letters. In order to open these with speed and efficiency, and without inflicting repetitive strain injury on thumb and forefinger, I have...

have much time available in which to work. Have you any tips, Mary, as to how one can generate a bit of pocket money without going to too much trouble? A.S., London SW8 A. Why...

meet extremely wealthy people who now reside in London. I find it quite surprising that almost all of these mega-wealthy people, having originated abroad, seem now to wish to...

mistakenly added to the problem from C.P. of Shepherd's Rush, who was worried about getting a lift in the private plane of a mutual friend of ours to a house party to which the...