I n a famous Spectator article of 17 January 1964, Iain Macleod denounced the ‘magic circle’ of senior Conservatives who had engineered the succession of Lord Home as prime...

walk down some dark alley, knock three times and ask for Lulu. Here they come and get you. I dump my suitcase, crack open the mini-bar and pick up the usual hotel spam about...

A silencer may have been fitted on the starting gun, but no one in Westminster can doubt that the Gordon Brown leadership campaign is now fully up and running. Ministers are...

together you can see at once that it is Paisley who has lost. Birthrights and messes of pottage come to mind. Smart-looking, cool-headed, smug Adams has gained respectability...

MONDAY What on earth is going on? Ever since Budget day there’s been a really strange atmosphere around here. Can’t put my finger on what’s wrong except to say — I know this is...

Theodore Dalrymple , who lives in France, says that the presidential frontrunner faces an awesome range of problems — unsettlingly similar to those that will confront the Prime...

James Forsyth deplores the collective indifference to Iran’s act of war, and warns that this episode could badly damage Britain’s standing in the world O ne doesn’t need to be...

Cinematically fascinating, historical tosh, eye-goudgingly tedious and designed for boys of a mental age of about 13 — such was the general judgment of 300 , the film about the...

Gérard Depardieu tells Celia Walden that vin rouge is too heavy before lunch, that he ‘could never accept’ a teetotal woman — and that he admires Cliff Richard ‘P robably best...

The violent death of Bob Woolmer is a savage reminder of the sport’s dark side, says Leo McKinstry . This is not the first time cricket and killing have been embroiled ‘B...

A quarter-century after the war in the South Atlantic, Simon Jenkins says that we have still not learned its lessons for intelligence and ministerial decision-making T...

Alasdair Palmer says that the McCartney divorce case, like so many others, was a victory for the lawyers. Even pre-nuptial agreements wouldn’t thwart the legal profession’s...

Sir: I am sorry that Piers Paul Read (‘The Pope’s anti-liberal revolution’, 24 March) assumes that the English and Welsh bishops have not welcomed the Papal Exhortation...

Sir: Frank Field MP (Letters, 24 March) thinks that giving a one-off amnesty to longterm undocumented migrants (that is, asylum-seekers who have waited for years in limbo on...

Sir: Your correspondents who criticise Tessa Mayes must be living in the past (Letters, 10 March). In our Big Brother society, police are no longer friendly and civil servants...

Sir: We all love Frank Keating but he can’t be allowed to get away with his jolly-goodchap defence of E.W. Swanton (Sport, 17 March), and his not-so-veiled attack on Leo...

Sir: Has Rachel Holmes (Diary, 10 March) read Jane Austen’s novels? From her descriptions of the characters it would seem she knows them only from television adaptations. She...

‘I was much surprised,’ wrote Anthony Trollope in 1873, ‘at the fortifications of Sydney Harbour. One would almost wish to be a gunner for the sake of being at one of these...

N oah was the first believer in climate change. He saw it coming and acted in time. So it’s odd he is not the hero of the greens. But then they are all atheists. The two things...

Edie Lush says competition from digital channels and the internet imperils the financial viability of Britain’s most provocative television broadcaster H ow much do you hate...

No – it was tax-and-spin as usual Allister Heath Gordon Brown’s 11th and final Budget was a masterpiece of spin and obfuscation, with his headline-grabbing reductions in the...

Merryn Somerset Webb meets Lonrho boss David Lenigas, who aims to rebuild a pan-African conglomerate I n Bond Street tube station an ad catches my eye every morning: ‘140...

Bevis Hillier T HE G UARDIAN B OOK OF A PRIL F OOL ’ S D AY by Martin Wainwright Aurum, £12.99, pp. 182, ISBN 9781845131555 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 W hy do the...

David Caute C HIEF OF S TATION , C ONGO : A M EMOIR OF 1960-1967 by Larry Devlin Perseus, £15.99, pp.304, ISBN 9781586484057 ✆ £12.79 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 O ne point...

Eric Weinberger T HEN W E C AME TO THE E ND by Joshua Ferris Viking/Penguin, £14.99, pp. 385, ISBN 9780670916559 ✆ £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T he narrative...

Digby Durrant A CCORDING TO R UTH by Jane Feaver Harvill Secker, £12.99, pp. 216, ISBN 9781846550423 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T his is a book about the failure...

Ian Thomson S OUTH OF THE R IVER by Blake Morrison Chatto, £17.99, pp. 516, ISBN 9780701180461 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 S outh of the River is a stadiumsized...

Lee Langley A T EARDROP ON THE C HEEK OF T IME by Diana and Michael Preston Doubleday, £16.99, pp. 354, ISBN 9780385609470 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T he Moghul...

Michael Carlson VIOLATION by David Rose HarperPress, £16.99, pp. 350, ISBN 9780007118106 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 G OING D OWN J ERICHO R OAD : T HE M EMPHIS S...

Andrew Lambirth G LITTER AND D OOM : G ERMAN P ORTRAITS FROM THE 1920 S by Sabine Rewald Yale University Press, £40, pp. 292, ISBN 0300117884 I f you missed the exhibition of...

Marcus Berkmann T HE E YE : A N ATURAL H ISTORY by Simon Ings Bloomsbury, £17.99, pp. 322, ISBN 9780747578055 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 ‘P opular science’: for...

A uden, discussing Troilus and Cressida , remarked that major writers set themselves new challenges, and so risk failure, while minor ones are content to do the same thing as...

Bryan Rostron follows the trail of this 4th-century BC bronze from sea to museum I n August 1964, after a series of severe storms, Italian fishermen dragging nets along the...

Andrew Lambirth A New World: England’s first view of America British Museum, until 17 June Supported by The Annenberg Foundation Italian Prints 1875–1975 British Museum, until...

Angela Summerfield Callum Innes: From Memory Modern Art, Oxford, until 15 April A bstract art in Britain, in its widest sense, is currently enjoying a revival of interest among...

Michael Tanner Camacho’s Wedding Bloomsbury Theatre Poro London Handel Festival A n opera by Mendelssohn? It sounds unlikely, but not because you can’t imagine him writing...

Deborah Ross Meet the Robinsons U, Nationwide R ight, as I still have to do everything around here, I’m even going to tell you exactly what you should say to the kids when they...

Robin Holloway E very eager collector of books and scores has their special searcher, primed to keep an eye open for long outof-print rarities at reasonable prices. Mine, like...

Lloyd Evans The Lady From Dubuque Theatre Royal Haymarket Europe The Pit Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads Hackney Empire A s soon as she arrives everything falls apart. Dame...

Kate Chisholm I t sounds like a really bad idea — Lenny Henry, the black comedian, devising a set of radio sketches to celebrate (oops, I should have said ‘commemorate’)...

Simon Hoggart I had serious misgivings about Mummy’s War (Channel 4, Thursday), not least because of the cringe-making title, and the fact that, like every other television...

Robin Oakley T here is no cannier, or more careful, man in racing than Sheriff Hutton trainer Mick Easterby, 76 this weekend. If he didn’t exist, Yorkshire would have to hew...

Taki New York T o the nation’s capital for a speech at the National Press Club about the Fifth Columnists among us. Actually it was a conference honouring Sam Francis,...

Jeremy Clarke S ce my boy passed his driving test, just in one month after his 17th birthday, I no longer drive the ten miles to his mother’s house to pick him up at weekends....

Roy Hattersley T he signs that winter is almost over are not all as invariably uplifting as popular lyricists pretend. Last Sunday afternoon, out on my daily walk, I saw the...

Oscar Humphries indulges himself in a simple sartorial pleasure S ince I gave up drinking, my mood has been level — helped in part by my daily dose of Prozac, the patience of my...

Jenny Wilhide can’t wait for her own conservatory — she may never leave home W hen my father w a s director of the RSC at Stratford, we lived in a Regency house that belonged to...

Simon Davis on the growing popularity of the all-inclusive open-plan kitchen S everal years ago a property developer in New York came up with a marketing wheeze. He decided to...

FRANK KEATING T he appalling crime in Jamaica still has the cricket world in shock, and it was harrowingly eerie this week to be coldly attempting to relish Wisden ’s latest...

around India. While having lunch with a friend she showed me a website on to which her son has posted a blog of his gap year. By the looks of it virtually every 18–19-year-old...

attend formal dinners linked to my particular trade. At a recent one I was put on a table where everyone else worked for a trade magazine which, being free, depends entirely on...

I am worried that some of the other children in the resort will be rude about my friend who is going too. What should I say if they say she is a saddo — not realising that I am...