hope and anticipate that in a year's time we will see a very substantial reduction in troops' in Iraq. In the meantime a few hundred more troops were sent, including engineers...

I f you vote for the United Kingdom Independence Party you will cheer up Tony Blair. So said Michael Howard on Tuesday, and he is clearly right. The Conservatives are the only...

Devonshire why he liked Eastbourne, and he replied with a self-deprecating shrug that one of the things he liked was that he owned it. The same was true of Heywood Hill, the...

J ust four weeks ago there was a powerful view at Westminster that it would be all up for Tony Blair after next week's elections. This opinion was most widely expressed within...

D-Day was by the late Colin Welch. It appeared in these pages for the 40th anniversary in 1984. Colin, aged 20, had served with the Lincolns in Normandy. He brought out how the...

Simon Heifer says that the military heroics of the D-Day generation were followed by moral cowardice and political appeasement 0 ver the next few days we shall see countless...

Mark Steyn says the so-called realists are wrong about the war on terror, and suggests that 'creative destruction' is the best way to deal with Saudi Arabia New Hampshire H...

Inigo Thomas takes the bus from Broadway to Fifth Avenue, and talks to a Methodist about the Promised Land and to a Baptist about menstruating apes New York I forgot: you need...

your face In Afghanistan more provinces than ever are producing opium. Justin Marozzi watches Britain lose its farcical war on drugs Kabul T he minister had been stood up....

A weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade According to the Hollywood film The Day After Tomorrow, the failure of the world to confront global warming is...

George Osborne says that on the basis of the 'keys' forecasting system George W. Bush will be President next year and Michael Howard will be in No. 10 I n the next few months...

The mighty 747 is on its way to the great hangar in the sky, says Martin Vander Weyer, and Boeing's inept management is to blame C oncorde's last flight provoked tears and...

On The South Bank Show in January 2000 a contributor said excitedly, 'Shakespeare invented a quarter of our language.' Rubbish. I found that reference, and its refutation, in a...

D avid Aaronovitch writes for the Guarrhan. He has suggested ('Why do they hate Blair so much?', 18 May) that opposition to Tony Blair has driven some of us crazy. I fear Mr...

he leader writers' conference at the DaiIv Telegraph 25 years ago was an eccentric occasion. It took place at quarter to four in the – afternoon, and participants were not...

S ir Rocco Forte got the call on his way to go shooting. Derek Wanless got his on the way to the airport. He was heading for the International Monetary Fund's meeting in...

W aged 17 in the autunui of 1946, there were few people of my age at Magdalen. Ken Tynan, who had come up the year before, was 19 but he was unusual. Many were in their...

From Virginia Ironside Sir: Rachel Johnson's article ('Bum rap pinned on parents', 29 May) has exactly the same ring to it as the kind written not so many years ago arguing that...

From Christopher Beale Sir: Peter Oborne's article on the Institute of Directors CA nasty plot in Pall Mall', 29 May) either completely misunderstands or wilfully distorts the...

From Joseph Palley Sir: While I share Sir Crispin Tickell's distaste for George Bush's foreign policy ('The West is like the Great Satan', 22 May), he is wrong to blame Bush's...

From Stephen Schwartz Sir: In his review of Robert 0. Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism (Books, 22 May) Ian Garrick Mason quite incorrectly ascribes invention of the 'colourful'...

From &my Knight Bruce Sir: I am writing the history of Timothy the Powderham Castle tortoise, who died recently at the age of 160. Would any of your readers who knew him, or...

Expect the unexpected in the mayoral elections, warns Steve Norris .1 his second campaign for Mayor ' of London is very different from the first. Four years ago, after the...

Kimberly Fortier I t's ten o'clock on a Saturday night and I am listening to a rock concert. This is making me Victor-Meldrew grumpy, as I am actually in my nightgown in bed....

Ross Clark S ebastian Coe, the new leader of the campaign to bring the 2012 Olympic Games to London, wants some ideas on how to win over the International Olympic Committee...

David Caute KAFKA by Nicholas Murray Little, Brown, £22.50. pp. 440, ISBN 0316724793 'D o you suppose it is true that one can attach girls to oneself by writing?' Franz Kafka...

Inigo Thomas THE ART OF THE STEAL by Christopher Mason Putnam, $26.95, pp. 416, ISBN 0399150935 T he Eighties, you might say, didn't end on time. The speculative financial boom...

Sandra Howard THE MAKING OF HENRY by Howard Jacobson Cape, £12.99, pp. 340, ISBN 0224073524 H enry is a mixed-up old cove before love looks like being the making of him. You...

Anthony Howard JOHN E KERRY: THE COMPLETE BIOGRAPHY by Michael Kranish, Brian C. Mooney and Nina J. Easton Public Affairs, $14.95, pp. 948, ISBN 1586982734 T he 'campaign...

Alberto Manguel MANSFIELD: A NOVEL by C. K. Stead Harvill Press, L1499, pp. 246, ISBN 1843431769 T he poet Philippe Soupault used to write in a café next to his house. One...

Jonathan Cecil SECRET DREAMS: A BIOGRAPHY OF MICHAEL RED GRAVE by Alan Strachan Weidenfeld, £25, pp. 484, ISBN 0297607642 A ctors' biographies, once a comparative rarity and...

Sam Leith VISITS FROM THE DROWNED GIRL by Steven Sherrill Canongate, £10.99, pp. 329, ISBN 1841955094 \/ isits from the Drowned Girl starts out with a gripping idea as old as...

Anthony Daniels MUTANTS: ON THE FORM, VARIETIES AND ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY by Armand Marie Leroi HarperCollins, £20, pp. 431, ISBN 0002571137 O nly someone with the strongest...

Julie Burchill LANDESMANIA by Philip Trevena Tiger of the Stripe, 50 Albert Road, Richmond, Surrey TW 10 6 DP, Tel: 0208 940 8087, email:peter@rigerofthestripe.co.uk,...

Alan Wall SIREN SONG by Robert Edric Doubleday, £16.99, pp. 396, ISBN 0385605765 T he detective thriller offers the satisfactions of what was once called the venatic art, that...

oodness, Rhone wines are popu lar these days, and it's easy to see why. Rich, full, spicy and velvety, they have a warmth and generosity that some allegedly greater wine regions...

Peter Phillips goes to Turkish Kurdistan and finds a land full of early Christian history I t's hard to suppress a feeling of schadenfreude when reading accounts of the...

Giannandrea Poesio Rambert Dance Company Sadler's Wells Theatre Rambert School Linbuty Theatre, Royal Opera House I amglad that the first dance event to mark the centenary of...

Michael Tanner Arabella Royal Opera House A rabella has always seemed to me to be Richard Strauss's most uneven opera, in that it contains a handful of scenes that are among...

Mark Steyn The Day After Tomorrow I2A, selected cinemas D on't be put off The Day After Tomorrow by Al Gore's insistence that we all need to see this important film which...

Lloyd Evans Fuddy Meers Arts Yellowman Hampstead F ddy Meers is the kind of play I love. A ast-moving, tightly plotted, cruelminded and spectacularly unselfconscious farce. But...

Simon Hoggart A t the Hay-on-Wye literary festival, still .t - Von now, I looked in on a masterclass given by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, the sitcom writers who came up...

Michael Vestey T he BBC has been marking the 60th anniversary of D-Day with a plethora of programmes, from documentaries to drama, particularly this weekend. Extracts from the...

Robin Oakley A ceording to a Lithuanian lady friend of mine — well, actually, she's the only Lithuanian female I know — they have a saying in that part of the Battles which...

Tald rro Oxford for a debate on whether England is America's poodle or not, or something like that. Of course she is, and Charlie Glass and I are proposing the motion against...

Jeremy Clarke I found the address in Newcastle — a redbrick Victorian terrace house — and pressed the doorbell. A furious dog came to the door first, then I heard someone tell...

Petronella Wyatt I t'sjust not safe for a girl to walk the London streets any more. Please don't get me wrong. My circumstances are not yet so reduced that I have been forced...

FRANK KEATING A s Nasser Hussain signalled his retirement from professional cricket by bombastically clocking three successive boundaries on a sunlit evening at Lord's,...

the process of uncorking bottles extremely arduous and fear doing irreparable damage to ray aortic muscles. Can you give me some guidance about any of the wines that come in...

and he has still not returned it. I am desperate to have it back but it seems so petty to ask for a book back. How can I do this without appearing pathetically queeny? J.H.,...

often meet rather cheeky young whippersnappers who ask me personal questions along the lines of 'How are your children?' when in fact it is unlikely they have even met them....

of your vowel sounds were rather suspect. Is this an affectation, or are you actually lower-middle-class? N.McA., London W6 A. I rarely get personal inquiries but I am...