T he Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Pre-Budget Report (PBR) was one of the most arresting political events of modern times. Alistair Darling’s delivery was as flat as ever, but...

the social component implied in the overarching concept of networking? Can you have unsocial networking? Or antisocial networking? Isn’t networking itself by definition a social...

MONDAY Tremendous excitement after the PBR. Dave called us into The Cauldron, our inner sanctum, for a top-secret briefing. Felt v privileged to be there, just me and 150 other...

that he was going to put up the top rate of income tax to 45 per cent from 2011, because he wanted the burden to be borne by ‘those who have done best out of the growth of the...

Fraser Nelson says that the Pre-Budget Report killed off New Labour without landing a punch on the Tories. It has paved the way for a new Conservatism, in which Cameron woos...

The American model of lightly regulated capitalism may be in disrepute, says Irwin Stelzer . But the French President’s ambition is deluded F rench presidents/emperors are given...

Nancy Dell’Olio makes an impassioned case for Keynesian economics as the necessary remedy for the global crisis. It is to the Cambridge economist that we should turn once more...

Michael Wolff reveals how he secured Rupert Murdoch’s co-operation for his biography and discovered that this media titan has no interest in posterity. He is, at heart, a city...

Dylan Jones is astonished to find in Sofia that the former communist country has embraced his guide to the mores of modern life — and that not everybody looks like Borat T o...

Matthew Castray looks back on the Australian Prime Minister’s first year in office and audits an administration which has reviewed much and done very little F ederal elections...

Rod Liddle says that something has gone wrong when 15 South Lanarkshire social workers are sacked over a dodgy Gary Glitter joke while none of their counterparts in Haringey has...

S cratch the surface and there is always tragedy, mixed, of course, with wickedness. Because of the economic crisis, I was waiting at the bus station: £2.80 for a bus instead...

Sir: Michael Nicholson’s story of a boat-owner finding contraband aboard from the previous owner (Letters, 22 November) reminded me of being compromised in Paris. As leader of a...

Sir: The figures for national insurance that you published in your leading article (22 November) are incorrect. Unfortunately, employees have not paid a rate of 4.85 per cent on...

Sir: As one of the apologists for the BBC cited by Robert Solomon (Letters, 15 November), I must confess that I did indeed fail to pick up on Mrs Finching’s crude speculations...

Sir: Jeremy Clarke describes himself (Low Life, 22 November) as the worst hack in the history of British journalism. Can I assure you that in our opinion he is the finest...

Sir: I do not seem to have read the same book as Philip Zeigler (Books, 15 November) although both title and author — My Three Fathers by Bill Patten — are identical. I read a...

Sir: Theodore Dalrymple (Global Warning, 15 November) is not alone in being annoyed by incomprehensible acronyms. A perfect example appears on the page facing his article. There...

Sir: Although Charles Moore’s supposed spotting of Oleg Deripaska in the Wolseley last week (The Spectator’s Notes, 22 November) provides a fascinating insight into Mr Moore’s...

Sir: Taki from time to time likes to dwell on the brilliance of the Prussian officer corps (High Life, 22 November); a fair enough point, and one which it is difficult for...

I know that the Iranian regime is famously confused about quite a lot of things, but if they are right about David Miliband being a member of a shadowy Zionist conspiracy, I’ll...

T here are all kinds of reasons for objecting to Percy Bysshe Shelley. Selfish and often indifferent to the feelings of others (especially young women), while hypersensitive to...

The International Monetary Fund was beginning to look like a has-been, says Elliot Wilson , but in the aftermath of the current crisis it may find an important new role I n...

Elisabeth Jeffries T here’s a modern myth that food miles are bad. But measuring the carbon footprints of food items produces surprising results. We discover, for example, that...

Matthew Lynn argues that Barack Obama would be wrong to rescue this dinosaur of 20th-century capitalism T here is probably no company in the world as iconic as General Motors....

Philip Hensher S TATE BY S TATE : A P ANORAMIC P ORTRAIT OF A MERICA edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey HarperCollins, £16.99, pp. 608, ISBN 9780061470905 ✆ £13.59 (plus...

David Crane F ROM THE F RONT L INE : F AMILY L ETTERS & D IARIES , 1900 TO THE F ALKLANDS & AFGHANISTAN by Hew Pike Pen & Sword, £19.99, pp. 237, ISBN 1844158128 ✆ £15.99 (plus...

Previous Brigade not gone. Temporary quarters Clean and spare of any comforts. Journey here ok Domestic flight fully loaded, Latest films, online catering. Military spur from...

Roger Lewis J AMES R OBERTSON J USTICE : W HAT ’ S THE B LEEDING T IME ? by James Hogg, with Robert Sellers and Howard Watson Tomahawk Press, £12.99, pp. 208, ISBN...

Raymond Carr T HE B RITISH IN F RANCE : V ISITORS AND R ESIDENTS SINCE THE R EVOLUTION by Peter Thorold Continuum, £30, pp. 273, ISBN 9781847252340 ✆ £24 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870...

Bevis Hillier W hat might seem an obviously Christmassy book is Robin Laurance’s Just What I Always Wanted: Unwrapping the World’s Most Curious Presents (Quercus, £9.99); but...

smokers, a boy from Ballylongford, coughed up blood, black clots of it. We stood on the sidelines, clear of the awful mess. This was the time O’Hare, the Border Fox, was on the...

Margaret MacMillan T HE P OLITICS OF O FFICIAL APOLOGIES by Melissa Nobles CUP, £19.99, pp. 214, ISBN 9780521693851 ✆ £15.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 G eorge W. Bush,...

Edward Harrison T HE T HIRD R EICH AT W AR , 1939-1945 by Richard L. Evans Allen Lane, £30, pp. 926, ISBN9780713997422 ✆ £24 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 A ny historian...

Andrew Taylor W hen does a novel stop being a novel and become a crime story? It’s often assumed that there is an unbridgeable gap between them, but that’s not necessarily so....

Michael Howard T HE E CONOMIST B OOK OF OBITUARIES by Keith Colquhoun and Ann Wroe Profile Books, £20, pp. 409, ISBN 9781846681973 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 D e...

‘W hen young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of Hate, Suspicion and Despair, all the Love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge.’ This is the...

T ilda Swinton is undoubtedly one of the great artists of her generation, although it is only relatively recently that she has become more conspicuous with mainstream films such...

Andrew Lambirth Byzantium 330-1454 Royal Academy, until 22 March 2009 Supported by the J.F. Costopoulos Foundation, the A.G. Leventis Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos...

Stephen Pettitt T his year, on 11 December — and I wish more people knew about it than actually do — the American composer Elliott Carter celebrates his 100th birthday. At a...

Lloyd Evans B reak out the bunting. Crack open the champagne. Spit-roast the capon and prepare to party. Or, come to think of it, don’t bother. The fourth centenary of John...

Robin Holloway C aught by chance on Remembrance Sunday, the broadcast of the composer’s celebrated recording of War Requiem kept me hooked, listening with half an ear, half...

Lloyd Evans Treasure Island Theatre Royal Haymarket I Caught Crabs in Walberswick Bush Theatre Imagine This New London Theatre D uality, yin and yang, twin-tub theatre. Call...

Deborah Ross Changeling 15, Nationwide C hangeling , produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, is a most melodramatic melodrama starring Angelina Jolie and her totally amazing,...

Michael Tanner Hänsel und Gretel Royal Academy of Music Jenufa Birmingham Hippodrome Pelléas et Mélisande Sadler’s Wells H umperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel loses none of its...

James Delingpole T he TV programmes you watched as a child are like acid flashbacks. You never fully understood them at the time and you understand them even less now that...

Kate Chisholm T alking to my dentist, as one does, we discover a mutual enthusiasm for Radio Three’s Composer of the Week (Monday to Friday) and especially its presenter,...

Robin Oakley E at your heart out, Stubbs. Wrong century, Sir Alfred Munnings. After Nicky Henderson’s Jack the Giant had won the Carey Group Handicap Steeplechase at Ascot last...

Taki New York W hen I heard about it, my own inchoate feelings were confused. A party for Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Muammar Gaddafi, and the caller was Nat Rothschild, son...

Jeremy Clarke O ne day last week I woke up slightly bonkers: a stranger to myself. I couldn’t think consecutive thoughts. Even my vision was blurred. I get days like that now...

Aidan Hartley The Kenyan Highlands T he Great Depression hit Kenya hard. European settlers were often as poor as the ordinary Africans they were supposed to lord it over. When...

Alex James S o cold: I tried lighting a fire, but smoke just kept blowing back down the chimney, setting off the fire alarms. It’s a design fault with that fireplace. It...

Charlotte Metcalf meets the inspirational brothers whose exclusive watches are dedicated to their father W hen it comes to reviewing products for these pages I am not prone to...

Joseph Connolly SHOPPING T is the season for all those smug or withering articles by women insisting how very useless men are at shopping: it’s nonsense — they can do it, but...

James Delingpole LUXURY GOODS W e’re sliding into the worst depression in the history of mankind but Mayfair hasn’t noticed. George, the private members dining-room, is so...

Matthew Dennison SLOE GIN N ever gamble your pension on a food fashion. Last year sloes were everywhere. Even Waitrose sold them, handpicked at a fiver a pop, in branches from...

James Leith luxuriates in the contrasting beauties of South Africa F or some it’s mountains, for others the sea; but for me the desert does it every time. Where there is water...

A ccording to Ferdinand Mount, a revolution has taken place in upper-class manners in recent years. Where it was once socially acceptable to be openly snobbish, drawing...

‘What?’ said my husband, coherently, thrashing with his stick at a blackboard on the pavement. It said: ‘Quarter chicken with two regular sides, £5.90.’ This was no geometrical...

Rory Sutherland I am a great fan of Richard Dawkins the brilliant geneticist Richard Dawkins, that is, not the amateur theologian of the same name. The Selfish Gene and...

has brought great happiness to men of a more traditional, and red-blooded, disposition. To what extent should one be permitted to address admiring glances at a well-presented...

RSA for a talk and reception introducing a new TV series, I now find myself in a social dilemma: the party was fun, I saw some old friends, and now subsequently want to ask one...

the female member of which is a doctor (1 November). When I was young we were told that you should address an envelope to one person only as only one person could open an...