'Tony is angry! One of you must have spoken to the press!' M r Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, apologised to the Irish for the effects of the potato famine in the late 1840s;...

Herr Kohl is in trouble good news for Messrs Clarke, Blair and Brown BRUCE ANDERSON C hancellor Kohl has been compared to Alberich, the malevolent dwarf who steals the...

BARRY HUMPHRIES A n Australian periodical, G'day, is at present being sued for vast sums by my client, Dame Edna Everage, because it recently published the confessions of Dame...

This month is the 50th anniversary of the sighting of the first flying saucer — or alleged sighting. Michael Harrington says that, as The X Files prove, we earthlings have come...

That's why we lost. But I'm no federalist and I did read that Treaty, Kenneth Clarke tells Petronella Wyatt ON my way to Kenneth Clarke's new office I could not help but feel...

James Hanson gives his verdict on the first month of New Labour FOR the first time since 1979 we have a Labour government, set to continue for the next five years. So, after a...

THE kindly and learned librarian of the London Library, Mr Alan Bell, was for some reason leafing through a jewellery catalogue from the fashionable Wempe of New Bond Street...

Anne McElvoy does the rounds of the party HQs on election night in France's capital Paris THE platter of squishy regional cheeses was just being unveiled by a team of chefs in...

The answer could be the National Front without M Le Pen, warns Douglas Johnson Paris THE NEWS in the background was never encouraging. A man in Versailles was sen- tenced to two...

After Mr Blair's 'apology', Paul Bew explains the new historians' debate about the Great Famine THE Irish historical debate about the Great Famine of 1845-50 — in which one...

Michael Heath

Andrew Gimson says the reason for the German crisis is that politicians, as well as voters, are cushioned by welfare Berlin THE atmosphere in Bonn grows more hys- terical by...

Alistair Horne tells of his ordeal at the hands of a foreign power's London agents DOES the bonhomous United States ambassador Admiral Crowe (pronounced like Slough) have, I...

. . . and even some bankers don't think its journey is necessary, reports Christopher Fildes Interlaken THE BANKER enthuses. Europe, he says, is heading for monetary union like...

Daubers and barbarians rush in where Hogarth feared to tread PAUL JOHNSON W hen I first visited the Royal Acade- my in the 1940s it was the heyday of Sir Alf Munnings, the...

know, surely, that the first world war was fought by a British army of lions led by donkeys'. Do we all know? And does Bruce Anderson mean to tell us that he accepts this...

Sir: Bruce Anderson's article on pardons for first world war soldiers executed for cowardice (Politics, 31 May) makes no dis- tinction between those unjustly convicted and those...

Sir: Peter Lilley tries to separate the ques- tion of how he would oppose New Labour in Parliament from the question of how 'to reunite, rebuild and renew the party' in the...

Sir: Neither Merlin Holland nor George Melly, both of whose letters criticising me (31 May) scored palpable hits, addressed my central objection to a statue in the mid- dle of...

Sir: Nicholas Farrell in his article 'Ma Cherie' (24 May) cites the police as saying that the Crown Prosecution Service is 'not interested' in threat-to-kill situations. Threats...

Sir: Brian Glanville (Letters, 24 May) claims that Cyril Connolly's aphorism, 'Imprisoned in every fat man a thin man is wildly signalling to be let out', was 'bor- rowed' from...

Sir: Alan Watkins wonders whether Tom Driberg's churchmanship was sincere ('Anyone for Tom', 24 May). I remember Lord Boothby telling me that on one occa- sion he and Driberg...

Sir: David Damant (Letters, 31 May) would have done better to consult the Almanach de Gotha rather than pester the good Dr Moritz Graf Strachwitz of Deutsches Adelsarchiv....

Sir: In his chess column of 17 May Ray- mond Keene rightly points out that Deep Blue's recent win is too small a sample of its prowess for IBM to declare a victory over the...

Sir: Barry Humphries has asked a ques- tion,Was Alfred Hitchcock blind?' (Diary, 31 May) which far too many people have left unasked for, surely, far too long. We go in our...

Tory press gets Tory leadership election wrong (in 1975) STEPHEN GLOVER I t is generally agreed that the Tory lead- ership election doesn't present the party with much of a...

So long as there are more sinners than saints, there's hope for the Tories PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE I nclusion' is what New Labour is all about. I have this on the best authority,...

Coming to, smelling of roses David Gilmour THE END OF THE LINE by Richard Cobb John Murray, £20, pp. 229 M y subject is chaotic,' wrote Richard Cobb in the introduction to one...

John Michell KING ARTHUR IN LEGEND AND HISTORY by Richard White Dent, £25, pp. 512 I n response to my complaint that children nowadays are brought up in an atmosphere of...

Max Egremont VISITORS by Anita Brookner Cape, £15.99, pp. 236 M rs Dorothea May is a widow of 70 who lives in a ground-floor flat in a smart district of London. She has the use...

Teresa Waugh KISS AND KIN by Angela Lambert Bantam, £14.99, pp. 299 H arriet Capel, the heroine of Angela Lambert's new novel, Kiss and Kin, is a recently widowed grandmother...

Jonathan Cecil A TROUSER-WEARING CHARACTER: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF NANCY SPAIN by Rose Collis Cassell, £25, pp. 318 F ew people under 50 will have heard of Nancy Spain; the...

Jane Ridley LORD MELBOURNE by L. G. Mitchell OUP, £.25, pp. 349 W hen William Lamb, the future prime minister Lord Melbourne, was a boy at Eton, he fought a boy who pummelled...

Mark Bevir THE FIRST MODERNS by William R. Everdell University of Chicago, £23.95, pp. 473 P aris, 29 May 1913, the opening night of Stravinslcy's The Rite of Spring, three...

Anthony Rouse THE LAST PINK BITS by Harry Ritchie Hodder, £17.99, pp. 231 E dward Gibbon famously had the idea of writing his Decline and Fall in Rome 'while the barefoot...

Jonathan Keates ENGLAND IS MINE by Michael Bracewell HarperCollins, £18, pp. 245 E nglishness is up for grabs. Everyone nowadays wants to give you their version of it, not...

Richard West THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES, VOLUMES I-III by John Buchan, edited by Andrew Lownie Thistle Publishing, £20 each L ike many people who early on in life were...

Norman Tebbit I COULDN'T POSSIBLY COMMENT by Matthew Parris Robson, £14.95, pp. 264 T ying to read this anthology of Matthew Parris's sketches is like trying to make a meal of...

Patrick Skene Catling THE OPEN CAGE: THE ORDEAL OF THE IRIAN JAYA HOSTAGES by Daniel Start HarperCollins, £16.99, pp. 338 D aniel Start's wanderlust was the initial cause of...

Emma Tennant CONSERVATORY AND INDOOR PLANTS, VOLUME I by Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix Macmillan, £19.99, pp. 286 h e British Isles are famous for their gardens. They are made...

Thomas Blaikie SEAHORSES by Bidisha Flamingo, £9.99, pp. 210 T wo years ago, when she was 16, Bidisha was a pupil of mine. I was under the impression that I was teaching her...

Anita Brookner DORA BRUDER by Patrick Modiano Gallimard, FF95, pp. 147 P atrick Modiano, haunter of vanishing suburbs and old newspapers, writes novels which take place in a...

Exhibitions Summer Exhibition (Royal Academy, till 17 August) London's gigantic village fête Martin Gayford T hese are heady days of reform. The House of Lords is to be...

Swan Lake (Royal Albert Hall) A surfeit of swans Giannandrea Poesio S wan Lake, like any other 19th-century ballet, is not an ideal work to stage in a space that is not a...

Crash (18, selected cinemas) The cars have it Mark Steyn L ike a Number 73 bus, Crash has finally turned up. In Canada, it played unobtru- sively at art-houses for months; in...

Katya Kabanova (Royal Opera House) Simon Boccanegra (Royal Opera House) Pity and terror Michael Tanner T he revival of Katya Kabanova is one of the Royal Opera House's...

The pick of Broadway Sheridan Morley L *eber and Stoller's anthem to the Great White Way, currently to be heard at the Prince of Wales in Smokey Joe's Cafe, has seldom in 30...

With an eye for beauty Alistair McAlpine on the late Terence Donovan, whose camera collection is coming up for sale T erence Donovan was a perfectionist. He believed that it...

Proms challenge Peter Phillips F irst things first. The Proms prospectus recently published contains some revolu- tionary items. Not only are some of the concerts to be held...

No waiting place Marcus Berkmann N ew albums come and new albums go, often with bewildering speed. Say what you like about the pop industry, but it doesn't hang around....

Comic creativity Michael Vestey W e tend in Britain to take comedy and satire for granted. After all, there is and has been so much of it, in literature going back to Chaucer,...

Playing patball Simon Hoggart L e Chair with Peter Mandelson (BBC 2) was a disgrace. Something has gone badly wrong with the BBC's quality control. It's like the Jaguar...

Leave it with me Alan Judd S pectator readers are part of the process of natural selection and in their case species differentiation has produced a bio- logical need to know...

Sue Ellen to the rescue Robin Oakley L ast year the Derby clashed with the European Cup. This year, those seeking to restore the premier Classic to its former glory have been...

Turning a blind eye Taki L ast week Greek terrorists murdered yet another Greek businessman, Costis Peratikos, father of three. A poll taken immediately after the foul killing...

Kind hearts and baguettes Jeffrey Bernard I was quite staggered last week on my birthday by the amount of cards and the kindness shown by readers of this column. I even had...

Flower power Leanda de Lisle O n Friday morning I was on guard duty in the church for the NSPCC's Flower Festival. 'You should take a book along,' the local jeweller had...

Change of plan Andrew Robson DICEY Grand Slam ventures are rarely profitable, especially in a four-three trump fit. This week's declarer, Goli Radji, did not panic. She...

I MUST confess to some satisfaction with my choice of subjects for this article about three of London's successful new restau- rants. Just before I settled down to write it I...

IN-THE-STRAND SIMPSON'S IN-THE-STRAND Golden age Raymond Keene THE ENGLAND team has performed a feat that would have been unthinkable in former times, capturing the gold...

URA 1111 Shat WALT SCOTCH •HisTi COMPETITION Come and gone Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1985 you were asked to imagine that Beckett added a last act to Waiting for Godot in...

A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1991 Port for the first correct solution opened on 23 June, with two runners-up prizes of £20 (or, for UK...

Winning is all Simon Barnes STEVEN Redgrave was back to doing what he does best last weekend: winning. As an athlete, he has grown beyond mere excel- lence. Being good at your...

Dear Mary. . . Q. I live in a central London square and, since I am a member of the square's garden committee, I frequently come across stolen bags which have been chucked over...