A return to decent schooling, high moral values, that is what we want L abour said, through Mr Robin Cook, the shadow Foreign Secretary, that it might not let Britain join a...

Chancellor Kohl says he wants a flexible Europe. But he does not mean it BRUCE ANDERSON he most interesting recent political development has gone largely unnoticed. It has...

things: revive the fashion for knee- breeches and cutaways and make publish- ers reissue the not-so-poor man's Jane Austen, that pillar of Regency England fic- tion, Georgette...

The first step towards ending deprivation is to understand that there's not a lot of it about MATTHEW PARRIS The video footage our television team had collected was just what...

Michael Vestey explains the way in which President Clinton's expected re-election is because of rather than despite, his tendency to touch women Washington DC THERE is only...

`TCHRUMPHH!' said my husband when someone on Radio Three referred to the 'protagonists' in a play. We all have our pet hates. (Yours might be pet hate.) They come flooding in...

A Clinton win will please Mr Blair. But Hugh Brogan says that Mr Major's the one whom it should really comfort WRITING some days before the Ameri- can elections, I make one...

. . . which is why, at election time, he'd rather be known as Ireland's. Charles Mosley unravels the President's ancestry PRESIDENT Bill Clinton famously told the Boston...

Whatever the result next week, John Casey says it won't matter to us. He favours isolationism — ours from America TRY as I might, I am not able to take this American election...

Michael Heath

DID HELP MAC But he didn't plan it so as to replace Eden. Alistair Horne on what Macmillan really did in the great Anglo-American crisis 40 years ago . . . if Nasser 'gets...

Anne McElvoy talks to a candid Grosics and an evasive Puskas — legendary footballers — about what they did in 1956 BURDENED by a history of defeats and compromises, Hungarians...

Also frightful, ridiculous and Puritanical; that is what A.A. Gill thought about the Good Food Guide A SURVEY published last week claimed to prove that London was a better...

David Carlton says a Yorkshire by-election could tell us whom Sir James really threatens, and it may not be Mr Major FREDERICK Forsyth, the thriller writer, after attending...

The Guardian, Mr Jordan and a simple case of mass murder PAUL JOHNSON T he Guardian, a paper specially written for people who hate England and the English — who hate...

Lloyd's man gets instant beatification it's a game of two halves CHRISTOPHER FILDES I t is nice to know that someone made £170 million out of Lloyd's of London, if that is...

Sir: Last Sunday I watched Andrew Neil being interviewed by Frost on his morning television show. The 'peg' was of course Andrew's new book. When asked by Frost which he...

Sir: Douglas Johnson raises the possibility (Innocent, but still a traitor?', 12 October) that because an elderly French anti-Semite was 'right' about the authenticity of a...

Sir: If Neil Hamilton (Fayed paid me noth- ing', 18 October) was so convinced by the criticisms of me in the DTI report on House of Fraser, why, five days after the report was...

Sir: Andrew Roberts distorts history with his claim that it is a 'myth' (Danger! new myth ahead', 26 October) that Britain threw away a great opportunity of ending the second...

why not? — for the impersonator, for that is undoubtedly what he must be, of Alastair Forbes in your review pages to declare him- self, for Mr Forbes, without any question,...

Sir: Although I was of course pleased to see the name of the widow of one of Britain's very best post-war journalists (Patrick O'Donovan) figuring in your post-bag (12 October),...

on Lee Radziwill. Your magazine, to our delight, can be everything, but never vulgar. Why use the platform for such badly written and unnec- essary drivel? Alexandra...

Sir: Readers can make up their own minds about Stephen Glover's hostile verdict on my 11-year editorship of the Sunday Times (Media studies, 26 October), though they should keep...

Sir: Richard Moore appeared to be saying (`No new insight', 12 October) that because Jeremy Thorpe was acquitted at the Old Bailey in 1979 of conspiring to murder Nor- man Scott...

Sir: Your contributor Anne McElvoy (`Britain's multi-party system', 26 October) claims to have seen me at the Goldsmith Massenversammlung in Brighton. She may have confused me...

and respectable to feature in Taki's upwardly- mobile columns must be grateful for a guest appearance via the tradesman's entrance, even as bald and envious hacks skilled mainly...

Sir: I see that Paul Johnson has called me a silly, rancorous Welsh Leftie (And another thing, 26 October). May I point out that I am not Welsh? Robert Harris The Old...

To become famous by being killed, be a rich man in football (not even a player) STEPHEN GLOVER N o man knows how people will treat his demise, but in the next world Matthew...

Cook's guided tour Bevis Hillier SOMETHING LIKE FIRE: PETER COOK REMEMBERED edited by Lin Cook Methuen, £16.99, pp. 269 Y ears ago there was on the Times a woman — let us call...

Michael Carlson CHARLES IVES: A LIFE WITH MUSIC by Jan Swafford Norton, £22.50, pp, 525 harles Ives' music can make people uneasy, musicians as well as audiences. In 1982 I...

Jane Gardam WORST FEARS by Fay Weldon Flamingo, £16.99, pp. 196 A s usual, Fay Weldon has written a very moral book; that is to say a book that takes a good look at sin and...

Hugo Vickers THE SEWING CIRCLE by Axel Madsen Robson, f16.95, pp. 240 T he Sewing Circle is a book which suggests that a great number of Hollywood stars were lesbians. It does...

Alasdair Palmer LIVING ON THE LOTTERY by Hunter Davies Little Brown, £15, pp. 340 Y u have to hand it to Camelot. It may not take a great deal of wit or wisdom to make millions...

Helen Osborne LEAVING A DOLL'S HOUSE by Claire Bloom Virago, £16.99, pp. 274 I s it something in the water? Actresses have started throwing their ids over their shoulders,...

Anthony Howard FIGHTING WITH ALLIES: AMERICA AND BRITAIN IN PEACE AND WAR by Robin Renwick Macmillan Press, £25, pp. 315 B ooks nowadays often tend to come with what Sheridan...

Sophia Watson STIFF LIPS by Anne Billson Macmillan, £14.99, pp. 375 A nne Billson's new novel has the most disgusting and irrelevant title of any book ever published. Even Will...

Stephen Gardiner IN THIS DARK HOUSE by Louise Kehoe Viking £17, pp. 230 T he mystery surrounding the sudden disappearance of Berthold Lubetkin from the architectural scene at...

Philip French STONE by James Riordan Aurum, £19.95, pp. 574 S ubtitled 'The controversies, excesses, and exploits of a radical filmmaker', James Riordan's slack, over-extended...

reviewed last week by Anthony Storr, is The Age Heresy. The last sentence of Michael Scott's review of Titta Ruffo's My Parabola should have read: 'The orbit of his career was...

Myles Harris THE ISLAND OF THE COLOUR BLIND by Oliver Sacks Picador, £16.99, pp. 293 D arwin when he saw his first kangaroo wondered if the Pacific might not hide 'a second...

Philip Glazebrook CONGO JOURNEY by Redmond O'Hanlon Hamish Hamilton, £18, pp. 472 T his book describes a perfectly awful journey: the horrors of African travel load each page....

never talk to that woman again' Julie Kavanagh, the biographer of Frederick Ashton, reveals how she almost ruined their friendship F airly early in our acquaintance, Fred-...

Ines de Castro (Scottish Opera) Conflict of duty and passion Michael Tanner S cottish Opera's production and musical performance of James MacMillan's first full-length opera,...

The winner of an urban design competition has been announced. Alan Powers reports A sodden leaves mark the transition from St Martin's Summer to mid-autumn, London assumes...

Javier De Frutos (Purcell Room) Romeo and Juliet (Royal Opera House) Compagnie Cre - Ange (Queen Elizabeth Hall) Baring all Giannandrea Poesio A Ramsay Burt writes in his...

Inside the Music (Jermyn Street Theatre) Smokey Joe's Café (Prince of Wales) A Doll's House (Playhouse) Mrs Warren's Profession (Lyric Hammersmith) Come to the cabaret ......

The Glimmer Man (18, selected cinemas) A mellow maverick Mark Steyn Y ou're from New York. You cracked the De Marco case. Well, this ain't New York, and this ain't the De...

Memoir appeal Ursula Buchan W riting a book about your garden, how you made it and how you look after it, seems a peculiarly Anglo-Saxon pastime. The list of authors who have...

Crashing times ahead Michael Vestey I f you are 100 years old in the year 2000, you might receive threatening letters demanding to know why you aren't at school and accusing...

The lure of the tedious James Delingpole I f you ever listen to Radio Five Live, you might have heard me being horribly inartic- ulate last week as I tried to explain the...

I agree with Mr Poole Gavin Stamp though I cannot bring myself to vote either Conservative or Labour at the next election, the Referendum Party did not appeal to me until I...

Sheer style Robin Oakley O ne thing which politics and racing have in common is that sheer style can do a lot for you in both. The then Norman St John Stevas once asked...

Spoiling tactics Christian Hesketh H ere we are at the start of what is or should be a season of dazzling rugby. Although the whistle has blown and nation- al squads are...

Reviewing the past Jeffrey Bernard I was taken out to lunch one day last week by an old friend who spends as much time as I do in the past and we remem- bered old faces, old...

Poor old Ben Taki ally Bedell Smith is an American biog- rapher who did to Bill Paley what Bomber Harris did to Dresden. Mind you, she was fair. Paley's only weakness was —...

Bitter and twisted Leanda de Lisle S ome people like to claim that feminism has killed off gentlemen, but I see no evi- dence for this. On the contrary, it has done much to...

BRIDGE Table feel Andrew Robson HAVING been pushed to an uncomfort- ably high level, as a result of some spirited competitive bidding by the opposition, the declarer Petar...

IN a recent article, a Mr Adam Edwards complains about the lack of English food in London. Another journalist writing in the same vein blames Elizabeth David for hav- ing spoilt...

IN-THE-STRAND SIMPSON'S IN-THE-STRAND CHESS Resurrection Raymond Keene FROM the late 1970s onwards the Dutch town of Tilburg became celebrated in chess lore as the site of...

j III. SI, LE VAIT Sc iT(H IISLE OF SI;Lt MALI SCUICH %MAI HA, u RA COMPETITION Velvet melody Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1956 you were invited to write a rhymed poem...

A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1990 Port for the first correct solution opened on 18 November, with two runners-up prizes of £15 (or, for UK...

In all seriousness Simon Barnes IT is the enduring image of a book, of a sport. Fifteen men in shorts all together in a single hug. Behind them, coat-hangers and kitbags;...

Dear Mary.. . Q. How does one deal with men who swap place cards at formal meals, thereby wreck- ing carefully devised seating plans and mor- tifying those whom they shun? Some...