h e Government pressed ahead with a 'paving Bill' for the reintroduction of a Bill to ratify the Maastricht Treaty in the face of determined opposition from Tory rebels. A bomb...

Her Majesty's Government goes on a binge: just one of this week's crises SIMON HEFFER h e list of reasons why public spending has gone out of control reads like a chapter from...

DOMINIC LAWSON h is column, indeed all of this issue of The Spectator, has been written before the Commons vote on the Maastricht Treaty (which dared not speak its name). We go...

Hugh Massingberd, professional obituarist, contemplates his own mortality, and decides there is nothing to be frightened of AS 1 CLAMBERED out of a taxi outside the Royal...

Matt Frei visits Mussolini's birthplace, on the 70th anniversary of Ii Duce's march on Rome Predappio PROFESSOR Franco Ferrarotti has one outstanding recollection of...

THE MINERS of Carmaux have gone back to work, on the advice of M. Cle- menceau; and M. Loubet, as per agree- ment, has consequently pardoned the rioters, most of whom have also...

Marek Matraszek on a case which reveals the moral ambiguities at the heart of post-communist Poland the receiving end of the imperial idea. Poland is indeed at the fag-end of...

persist. . . DR R— CALLED me from the prison last week to ask whether I could do sick parade the following day. I am a busy man, and said it might be rather difficult to fit it...

Stephen Handelman leaves Moscow for New York, and notices very little difference New York IN THE WILDS of the Upper West Side, feeding ground and refuge for New York's...

Christopher Fildes talks to Nigel Lawson about the sad state of the economy, and how we got into it WHEN Nigel Lawson resigned from the Government, I thought that lunch might...

Anthony Sampson says that politicians are obsessed with the media, and the media are obsessed with themselves I HAVE BEEN revisiting the British power structure for a new...

Isabel Wolff reveals that recession is forcing Britain's private schools to sack teachers and chase parents who haven't paid their fees A NEW CRY is to be heard echoing across...

Michael Heath

As the hunting season gets underway, Tabitha Troughton joins those who would sabotage it I HAD RUN up hills. I had run down hills. I had ploughed through bushes, jumped over...

The future trials of the talk-show President F aced with the job of appearing upbeat during the last few days of their dreadful campaign the men around George Bush clung, like...

Maastricht: could Orwell be proved right after all? PAUL JOHNSON W hat the row over the Maastricht Treaty has brought to the surface is the salient fact that Britain's real...

to win the Nobel Peace Prize in the United Kingdom, we were delighted to see Isabel Wolff's piece in this week's magazine. The piece goes some way towards replying to Ambrose...

Sir: The Right Honourable Virginia Bot- tomley, MP, Secretary of State for Health, draws attention (Letters, 31 October) to the error in your traditionally correct but...

Sir: I share Isabel Wolff's horror at the atrocities committed by the Guatemalan armed forces (Not always blessed are the peacemakers', 31 October). But I stand by my claim that...

Sir: We all expect journalists to be objec- tive. We expect them to be cynical. But we also have a right to expect them to be accu- rate. James Buchan's 'Forty years up in...

Sir: John Martin Robinson has been unduly worried about the possible consequences of the Government's leasehold reforms to the townscape of London ('When reform means ruin', 24...

has given no serious thought to the architectural side- effects of 'leasehold reform', nor formulat- ed any practical proposals for the long-term conservation of the historic...

Sir: I do wish the people who prattle on so much about our European 'partners' and 'competitors' could settle for one term or the other. Not to do so is either disingenu- ous or...

life of leasehold (High life, 31 October). As he quite rightly says, many of the long-term residents of the cen- tral London estates have been driven out already, but I feel I...

Sir: Michael Caine may not have spelt the name of Judy Garland's daughter wrongly, but Julie Burchill (Books, 31 October) has: the name is Minnelli, not Minelli. It might also...

Sir: Paul Johnson may well be reminded (And another thing, 26 September) of Ludendorff's verdict on the British Army as 'lions led by donkeys'. But, in fact, the words were...

his wife is not accept- able. Your sloppy editorship permitted the bile to be published; it is your fault, you are to blame and I hope he punches you on the nose. Stuff your...

A robustly English pudding PetroneIla Wyatt CHRISTMAS pudding is the most elo- quent of winter dishes. In an age of Ninten- do games and fluorescent greeting cards, it speaks...

Aretsriet 1: Ampleforth 0 Martin Weyer 'I AM IRRITATED,' the Agriculture Min- ister said, as he opened the Ampleforth Abbey yoghurt factory in November 1990, `by all that...

Sporting times Simon Courtauld IN THE WINTER of 1915, and again in 1940, the pheasant shooting season was extended beyond its normal closing date of 1 February. This was not...

What do you drink before going to bed? Nigel Nicolson The answer is boringly, truthfully, that I drink nothing. Being a divorce-widower, a . born-again bachelor, there is...

For paupers and plutocrats Auberon Waugh IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - one might almost say in celebration - of the depression, both the Christmas cases, for paupers and plutocrats,...

Left, Right, but not wrong Tim Congdon JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES: THE ECONOMIST AS SAVIOUR 1920-37 by Robert Skidelsky Macmillan, £20, pp. 634 T he title of the latest volume in...

is done badly Andro Linklater STEPHEN SPENDER: A PORTRAIT WITH BACKGROUND by Hugh David Heinemann, £17.50, pp. 269 H ugh David's attempt to write an unauthorised biography of...

J.G. Links MUSIC AND THE MIND by Anthony Storr HamerCollins, £16.99, pp. 212 A nthony Storr is concerned with our souls, or psyche, and has explored such matters as aggression,...

Cressida Connolly THE FURIES by Janet Hobhouse Bloomsbury, £15.99, pp. 296 T ime was when half the fun of romans ii clef lay in guessing which real-life persons were the models...

George Melly DALI by Meredith Etherington-Smith Sinclair-Stevenson, £20, pp. 553 E dward James, Dali's early patron and putative lover, dismissed him in the Eight- ies as 'a...

Bryan Appleyard ORIGINS RECONSIDERED: IN SEARCH OF WHAT MAKES US HUMAN by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin Little, Brown & Co, .£18.99, pp. 375 T here are two quite distinct ways...

Noel Malcolm TRANSYLVANIA AND BEYOND by Deryla Murphy Collins, £16.95, pp. 239 I n the misfortune of our best friends, we find something not altogether displeas- ing', said the...

Francis King THE PORCUPINE by Julian Barnes Cape, £9.99, pp. 138 T he blurb describes Julian Barnes's new book as a novel; but, edging only just beyond the 40,000 word mark, it...

Sparkle C.1.11A-1 John Jolliffe THE LAST KING OF POLAND by Adam Zamoysld Cape, £25, pp. 550 h e elected monarchy set up in Poland When the Jagellonian dynasty came to an end...

Allan Massie ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON by Ian Bell Mainstream, £14.99, pp. 295 S tevenson has attracted biographers as he attracted friends in life, and, like the friends, not...

Theatre 1 French without tears Bryan Robertson went to see a dazzling new play at Cheltenham Ladies College M adame de Maintenant with one or two followers walked briskly...

John Sergeant (Maas Gallery, till 13 November) Stanley Spencer (Bernard Jacobson, till 5 December) Louis le Brocquy and Anne Madden (Gillian Jason, till 7 November) Mary...

From page to stage Michael Horovitz on this week's poetry celebration on London's South Bank T his weekend sees the culmination of a ten-day feast of poetry which will have...

Compagnie Bagouet (Royalty Theatre) French farce Sophie Constanti S ome things in life seem unable to offer any reason, purpose or justification for their existence. Like,...

The rappers rapped Marcus Berkmann P op music reflects its time, and no cur- rent genre seems more of its time than rap music. The brutal rhythms, the strutting arrogance of...

Assassins (Donmar Warehouse) A Little Older (Hampstead) Artists and Admirers (Barbican Pit) Bang on target Sheridan Morley T he week of an American election is probably as...

Future shock Martyn Harris I n Doctors to Be this week (Monday, BBC 2, 8 p.m.), medical student Sarah Holdsworth fluffed her first-year viva by mistaking a kidney for a...

Glengarry Glen Ross ('15', Odeon Haymarket) The Crying Game (1 8', selected cinemas) Nasty operators Vanessa Letts G lengany Glen Ross, filmed in six weeks flat and with only...

Temporary hitch Taki W hen the mother of my children Comes to town, I turn to culture. It is no good trying to have a grand old time in a night-club with someone who...

How to be a rebel Nigel Nicolson N ot many people can isolate a single moment which they call central to their lives, but I can. It was at 10 p.m. on 8 November 1956, when I...

Outed at last Jeffrey Bernard F irst the biography, now the backlash. Last week I received my first bound copy of Just the One, a presentable-looking book and one whose...

PURE HIGHLAND MALT " PURE HIGHLAND MALT -____51.011•11 COMPETITION Headlines Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1752 you were invit- ed to write a poem consisting entirely of...

Raymond Keene A s I write Bobby Fischer needs just one more win to clinch his match and the world record 3.35 million dollar prize purse against his old rival Boris Spassky. As...

PORT (GRAHAM'S PORT CROSSWORD 1084: The winner is. . .' by Columba A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution...

Q. My son-in-law, otherwise a dear fellow, makes the most awful 'slushing' noise when he eats. This habit, particularly at the breakfast table, I find most difficult to bear....

Literary cricket Frank Keating THAT WAS a revealing piece by the splen- did Stephen Pile in the Telegraph the other day on James Herriott, the vet-book chap who has sold...