M r Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, told the Labour party conference in Bournemouth that 'the class war is over. But the struggle for true equality has only just begun.' He saw...

I n a dull political landscape it is an odd fact that it's hunting that has provided a welcome touch of drama. The pro-hunting march at Bournemouth contained thou- sands of the...

He was repulsive, he was fascistic and above all he was wrong BORIS JOHNSON T here must be quite a few natural Tories who have found themselves halfway seduced, over the past...

Park Lane would be all fake furs and fake purrs MATTHEW PARRIS 'Here, come sit beside me on the sofa,' she purred. But of course women do not purr. Humans can't. If the lady...

Forget the talk about nerds and anoraks: Dan Conaghan says a new flotation means there are fortunes to be made on the Net BOY, oh boy, I say to myself as every day I rise a...

IT is funny what bits and pieces of grammar stay caught up in the memory like burrs on a woollen stocking. A reader wrote in to chide me for having written: 'He told me it is...

Mark Steyn says Ross Perot's Reform party is split by an exotic power struggle over who should run for president New Hampshire BACK in 1992, Texas billionaire Ross Perot...

Patrick Buchanan says 360m rich Europeans don't need 260m Americans to defend them from 160m impoverished Russians BY 1945 Germany had been destroyed and Churchill could poke...

Michael Heath

Ludovic Kennedy says Jill Dando's memorial service struck a false note I WENT to Jill Dando's memorial service at All Souls, Langham Place, on Tuesday because years earlier,...

Andrew Roberts exposes the real reasons behind the mass deaths of Boers in British concentration camps THE Boer War, which broke out a century ago next month, is today best...

There is no longer anything worth buying, says Eric Bailey SUDDENLY Michael Buerk has a head the shape of a pumpkin. Carol Smillie has put on an awful lot of weight and become...

Rachel Johnson reveals the top-secret Commission document on Europe's eternal divide Brussels SCOOP! At last, with trembling fingers, I take the document, here on the ninth...

The German Chancellor's desire to follow Mr Blair's Third Way has led to his recent electoral defeats, says Andrew Gimson Berlin WHEN I hear a man talk of Sound Finance, I know...

Norman Lamont's friends were right to urge him to keep his peace, says Max Hastings LATE one night, a few months after Nor- man Lamont was sacked as chancellor, he worked...

There's a lot to be said for art galleries, and a lot to be said against them PAUL JOHNSON E ngland no longer, alas, has a journal of record, and anyone who wants to see what...

Why is the government persecuting a decent, patriotic man? STEPHEN GLOVER T hings grow stranger and stranger in the Tony Geraghty affair, which I wrote about on 6 March and 22...

From The Revd Paul Bland Sir: If any of us (man or beast) go to Heav- en, it is a matter of God's grace; ultimately it is a mystery 'that passeth all understand- ing' ('Barking...

From The Lord Hamilton of Dalzell Sir: I have no doubt that someone from Font and the National Trust will respond to Ross Clark's contribution ('Housing benefit for aristos', 25...

From Mr Patrick Green Sir: Robbie Millen thinks that excuses given for railway delays are a reminder of man's capacity for stupidity and pride ('Heard any good excuses lately?',...

From Mr F. Gygax Sir: It is difficult to understand Petronella Wyatt's scandalised response to Mr Brown's tax-relief scheme favouring mid- dle-class employers of domestic labour...

. Preference and prejudice From Mr Chris Patten Sir: If Bruce Anderson (Politics, 18 September) had read my Commission's report on policing in Northern Ireland as carefully as...

Could it be that the blacks who mugged Talci were high on cocaine and, not having the financial resources of a Greek tycoon, needed the wherewithal to buy their next fix? Alas!...

From Mr Robert Ponsonby Sir: John Parry's piece about' spoken English on radio and television (Arts, 25 September) should be compulsory reading for all producers, controllers...

From Mr Alastair Forbes Sir: I must admit to having feared the worst on reading the new young editor's recent, rather premature, praise of The Spectator's demi-mondainites. The...

From Mr James McDonald Sir: I have just read Paul Johnson's review of John Cornwell's book Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (Books, 25 September). The tenor of this...

Alas, the Tory Toby Belches have disappeared PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE D ining last week in the company of the clean-cut, youngish headmaster of a highly regarded prep school, who...

The secret of Germany's failure as a military power FRANK JOHNSON L ast week, discussing the subject of skil- fully commercial book titles, I mentioned that I had recently...

Has the market broken the laws of economics? JAMES GRANT B New York esides unconditionally opposing Rus- sian corruption and world poverty, the gov- erning bodies of the...

The common touch Jonathan Bate SHAKESPEARE'S KINGS by John Julius Norwich Viking £25, pp. 381 T he Duke of Marlborough is supposed to have remarked that his knowledge of...

Hugh Lawson-Tancred GENOME by Matt Ridley Fourth Estate, £18.99, pp. 344 T his is a spectacular book. The amount of new information yielded by modern genetics is going through...

Kenneth Rose LOUIS AND THE PRINCE: A STORY OF POLITICS, INTRIGUE AND ROYAL FRIENDSHIP by Geordie Greig Hodder, £20, pp. 332 T he Court Circular of 5 July 1915 announced that...

Nigel West THE SECURITY SERVICE, 1908-1945: THE OFFICIAL HISTORY by Jack Curry PRO, £50, pp. 442 A t the end of the second world war MI5's Director-General, Sir David Petrie,...

Frank Egerton INCONCEIVABLE by Ben Elton Bantam, £15.99, pp. 272 T his novel about infertility may have faults, but it proves a radical new departure for Ben Elton. One might...

Richard West ONE FOOT IN LAOS by Deryla Murphy John Murray, £18.99, pp. 284 T hroughout the second Indochina war, as Deryla Murphy calls the time of the US involvement, the...

Helen Osborne GLENDA JACKSON by Chris Bryant ThaperCollins, £16.99, pp. 292 I magine, if you have the bottle for it, a teenage Glenda Jackson swinging naked and unadorned from...

Miranda France BEING DEAD by Jim Crace Viking, £16.99, pp. 209 J im Crace's new novel features two zool- ogists who are, literally, consumed by their subject. Celice and...

Petronella Wyatt THE SINGING LINE by Alice Thomson Chatto, £16.99, pp. 304 I n 1855 the authoress's 18-year-old great- great-grandmother decided to marry a man she hardly...

Victoria Glendinning THACKERAY by D. J. Taylor Chatto, £25, pp. 494 D ickens and Trotlope are, as it were, alive and well, sustained by circles and soci- eties of devoted...

Hugh Massingberd THE HIGH ROAD TO ENGLAND by Ian Fraser Michael Russell, £24, pp. 382 S ir Ian Fraser, the author of this astrin- gent and far from amiable autobiography, has...

Francis King A CLOSED BOOK by Gilbert Adair Faber, 0.99, pp. 258 T he older, Paul, of the two male antag- onists in this short, intellectually resource- ful thriller is a...

America Caroline Moorehead 'TIS: A MEMOIR by Frank McCourt Flamingo, £1Z99, pp. 384 A ngela's Ashes — three million copies sold and a Pulitzer and a Royal Society of...

Knowers through feeling Michael Tanner on why we are no longer required to think about works of art W here once people who had just encountered a powerful work of art, whether...

James Ensor (Musees Royaux des Beaux - Arts, Brussels, till 13 February) Flights of fancy Martin Gayford H owever globalised we become, there remains a connection between...

Anna Reid visits the newly re- opened Western and Oriental Art Gallery in Kiev F rom a gallery wall in one of the poor- est cities in Europe, a five-year-old glances out,...

The waiting game Marcus Berlanann T hese are anxious weeks for Steely Dan fans — those of us, that is, who haven't died of old age. Nineteen years we have been waiting for the...

Katya Kabanova (Scottish Opera, Glasgow) Fear and trembling Michael Tanner T he fundamental fascination of Janacek's art is its limitless capacity for cel- ebration in the...

Juno and the Paycock (Donmar Warehouse) Life is a Dream (Barbican) Gumboots The heart of the matter Sheridan Morley uno is still the great one: certainly of all O'Casey,...

on 23 September I n 1995, I saw George C. Scott on Broadway in Inherit the Wind, and I count myself lucky. He spent the first part of the run fighting off the flu, the second...

Golden oldies Michael Vestey O ne thing that surprised me the other night when I went to see Peter O'Toole in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell at the Old Vic, ten years after I'd...

Made in Britain James Delingpole ne of the problems with being a TV critic is that it gives you an excuse to watch too much TV. I'm quite sure that if I didn't, I'd be...

Two of a kind Robin Oakley Party conference regulars are much like racing folk. They tend to search out their own kind and huddle with them in a kind of group therapy. They...

Hope and glory Christian Hesketh I n rugby terms this season is special in that it offers to all fans the prospect of see- ing national sides, drawn from all over the world,...

Too old to move Taki New York W hen I first began this column in 1977 all I did was describe my wild partying at Annabel's and Tramp, plus my regular forays on: a) Bushido, my...

Spoilt behaviour Leanda de Lisle L arge farms are not necessarily man- aged in less environmentally friendly ways than small ones. However they are per- ceived as being the...

Cracking up Petronella Wyatt M y house is falling down. If only this was the start of a nursery rhyme. But it isn't. My house is falling down. It started with the reading of...

Know-all Andrew Robson STUDY this week's hand — a goulash deal from a high stake game — and decide which is the key card that should have decided the fate of the contract....

Fun for under a fiver Auberon Waugh ENRAGED by ever-increasing wine prices at a time when the pound is supposed to be so strong, I brutally ordered Simon Wright- son to...

Conduct unbecoming Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 2104 you were invited to write a poem deploring the ungentlemanly behaviour of Major James Hewitt as an ex-lover of the late...

Anglophilia Raymond Keene EARLIER this year in this column I expressed surprise that grandmaster Daniel King was apparently writing a book on the English Defence for both...

A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's Six Grapes Port for the first correct solution opened on 18 October, with two runners- up prizes of £20 (or, for UK solvers, the...

IF, like me, you are an unconfirmed but unattached bachelor, reviewing restaurants has its hazards. The benefits are obvious. What other occupation gives one the chance to take...

Angelic intervention Simon Barnes IT is a phrase that has always rather haunt- ed me. It comes from Exodus, in the Jerusalem Bible. It reads: 'The angel of the Lord changed...

Dear Mary. . . Q. As a London dog-owner, I frequently find myself in the position of waiting alongside my dog while he performs his expurgations in the gutter near my flat in...