T he arrival of a prominent new figure in national life is always greeted with a period of experiment among the nation’s political cartoonists. It is not yet clear quite how...

politically dominant Shiites; Iranians were accused of supporting Shiite militants. Austria, taking up the EU presidency, accused Britain of being the ‘Sick Man of Europe’....

somewhere I usually try to avoid — I suddenly found myself engulfed by a gang of over-exuberant and oddly menacing adolescents. ‘Hey, you!’ their leader, a wellfed girl of...

Correlli Barnett says that David Cameron should develop an independent foreign policy for Britain and call for the withdrawal of our forces from Iraq by the end of next year I n...

Americans believe their economy is invincible, says Bill Bonner , but an excess of debt means disaster lies ahead A mericans in January 2006 are a fat and happy race. At home,...

Simon Nixon says property prices will continue to hold steady because we’re not building enough new homes Y ou’ve got to hand it to David Cameron. He’s just taken on this...

John L. Allen reveals that Benedict XVI is far from being the reactionary his enemies — and many of his friends — like to believe V irtually everyone knows Stalin’s...

I shall look upon two vegetables in 2006 very differently from the easy regard in which I held them in 2005. The first is the aubergine. I had assumed that it owed its name to...

Lucy Beresford examines the national psyche of 2005, and hopes for a more balanced and self-confident New Year T his year will be remembered as the one in which the...

A year after the tsunami, Michael Millard describes the revival of a devastated island community in the Andaman Sea K huraburi is a small town on Thailand’s Andaman coast, 140...

D o you not find that when a wrong has been done, time may elapse before the wrongfulness pricks through into our consciences? I mean not only wrongs we do ourselves, or which...

175 Years Ago 1 JANUARY 1831 REVOLUTION! In Westminster, clamour for reform; in France, a king overthrown; in Belgium and Poland, uprising. The Spectator cheered them all on....

THE YEAR’S BALANCE-SHEET Three months after victory at Sevastopol, The Spectator assesses the impact of war on trade and national morale. According to the test usually...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR THE COMING ELECTION SIR, — I am a diligent reader of The Spectator and an ardent Free-trader. I am not only conscientiously opposed to Mr...

UNDER YOUR HAT Strix (Peter Fleming) At a party the other evening I listened while a man who holds a position of trust at the centre of affairs gave an entertaining account of...

A Threat to our Culture KINGSLEY AMIS Few people except those concerned in the comicbook trade can have been very sorry when the Children and Young Persons (Harmful...

Shambles RICHARD INGRAMS Any post-Christmas depression was unlikely to be lifted by the sight of the grinning figures of Jay, Frostie, Parky and Anna Ford celebrating their...

The British are about to replace the Americans in Afghanistan. Let us hope they take a good life of Alexander with them — Arrian or Quintus Curtius Rufus will do — because...

31 December 2055 T he deaths of the Earl of Sedgefield, aged 102, and Mr Gordon Brown, 104, brings to a sad conclusion the most remarkable and prolonged feud in British...

Philip Hensher O nly a fool would try to explain fashions and tendencies in novel-writing. Everything can change so quickly, and it only takes one really good novel to rescue a...

And if the world is mad And tied up to success With hope of trading good for bad Dispersed as ‘more means less’ And generations strive To push their children on So one blood...

Richard Shone M AE W EST : I T A IN ’ T N O S IN by Simon Louvish Faber, £20, pp. 356, ISBN 0571219489 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 H ollywood biographies are...

Hugh Brogan D R F RANKLIN G OES TO F RANCE by Stacy Schiff Bloomsbury, £20, pp. 477, ISBN 0747569231 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I n 1967 Claude-Anne Lopez...

Anthony Daniels T HE G REAT B EFORE : A S ATIRE by Ross Clark www.greatbefore.com, £6 (in UK), £7 (in EU), £7.50 (rest of the world) pp. 217, ISBN 0955149908 M an is a...

D. J. Taylor M OTHER ’ S M ILK by Edward St Aubyn Picador, £12.99, pp. 279, ISBN 0330435892 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T hough the relentlessness of its...

Hugh Massingberd T HE R EGENCY C OUNTRY H OUSE by John Martin Robinson Aurum, £40, pp. 192, ISBN 1845130537 ✆ £32 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 U ntil reading this...

Grey Gowrie T HE O DE L ESS TRAVELLED by Stephen Fry Hutchinson, £10.95, pp. 357, ISBN 009179661X ✆ £8.79 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 S ome years ago, answering...

Anita Brookner A lthough it was set up as a contest between a flagrant outsider and a more traditional intimist there was little doubt that Michel Houellebecq would lose out in...

We caught the Number Five from Marco Polo to Piazzale Roma for the waterbus. Bellini, Tintoretto, Tiepolo slumbered nearby. The cold affected us, a raw low-season haar rising...

Andrew Lambirth believes 2006 will be a great year for exhibitions E ven though museums have got themselves into the very strange position of no longer simply purveying...

Robin Holloway M emory Lane circa 1900, revisited by moonlight without cars, let alone speed cameras: not since Thorsten Rasch’s hommage to late-romantic/early-modern idioms...

Mark Steyn I see Nigeria now has the third biggest film industry in the world, after Hollywood and Bollywood. In the showbiz capital of West Africa, you can make a feature for...

Michael Tanner Il barbiere di Siviglia Covent Garden T he Royal Opera’s new production of Rossini’s supreme Il Barbiere di Siviglia affords one of the few evenings of...

Simon Hoggart Y ou may remember when families watched television together. The Forsyte Saga was on, you drew the curtains if it was light outside, and you all sat on the sofa...

Michael Vestey T he good end-of-year news was that Home Truths on Radio Four (Saturdays) is to be taken off the air in the spring. Unfortunately, it seems likely to be replaced...

Robin Oakley T here was only one word to describe jockey Richard Johnson on Double Honour after the Tim Molony Handicap Chase at Haydock: knackered. Richard is a supremely fit...

Taki F or the end-of-the-year issue, the joke to end all jokes: a few weeks ago I wrote about my acquaintance from White’s Bar, Osama (Harry) bin Laden, and how he had been...

Jeremy Clarke I ’ve got a big change coming in the New Year. In January 2006 I will cease being a motorist and become a pedestrian. Two reasons. One, I wish to save the...

FRANK KEATING N o mistaking the centre of sport’s universe in 2006. Found the flags of St George in the loft? Ordered the white van on which to display them? Ingerland!...

and solutions, may I briefly insert my neat response? Gentlemen should obtain comfortably large pairs of Directoire ladies’ knickers in acetate fabric. Discreet shops do have...

Club because she was wearing jeans might be interested to know that my club in Pall Mall made the great mistake of allowing in women who were wearing trousers, with the result...

but of late he has asked me if I wish to indulge in such activities. I consented to drinking as a common courtesy, but now the matter of smoking has arisen. I have never smoked...