I n an unexpected plot twist, David Cameron and Gordon Brown are fighting over a woman: not, we hasten to add, as suitors, but as public moralists. The Prime Minister has long...

child and then a sickly teen, I spent games lessons hiding behind a piano with a book. Odd then, that this week I completed (half of) one of the toughest marathons in the world....

FRASER NELSON Labour needs someone with the guts to tell the party what it must do to avoid disaster G ordon Brown is not used to being spoken back to in Cabinet, which made a...

CHARLES MOORE I t is probably just as well that the Ray Lewis fiasco happened to Boris Johnson as Mayor, because otherwise it might have happened to David Cameron as Prime...

Roger Took was a pillar of academia, with an enviable Chelsea address. He was also a vicious paedophile. Charlotte Metcalf shows how the veneer of social respectability can...

Tristan Garel-Jones I was once kidnapped and held hostage by political terrorists in South America. My ordeal only lasted about an hour — but it was rather frightening. Like...

Rod Liddle is impressed by David Cameron’s speech in Glasgow and the Tory leader’s call for greater personal responsibility. Antisocial behaviour needs to be stigmatised,...

In the second of an occasional series, Martin Rowson interviews Neil and Christine Hamilton. To his alarm, the arch-satirist finds himself warming to the disgraced couple S...

Digital technology has made us a society of mass archivers, says Charles Leadbeater . Far from rotting our brains, the web enables us to preserve all our memories A rchiving is...

Don’t believe the Lord Chief Justice any more than the Archbishop of Canterbury, say Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi A senior establishment figure has once more raised the...

Sir: I dealt for 30 years with hundreds of Muslims, at first in Mr Doyle’s organisation, so I am not ‘ignorant’ of Islam (as he claims, Letters, 5 July), which seeks to...

Sir: Rod Liddle’s ‘How to get stabbed’ (Liddle Britain, 5 July) was perceptive and spot on in all respects. The last three homicides I attended involved multiple stabbings...

Sir: I would like to think that it did not occur to you for one moment that the front cover of your last issue would be deeply offensive to Russian, Greek or any other Orthodox...

Sir: I am surprised that Roger Alton (Sport, 5 July) fell, like most of the media, for the obvious over Alla Kudryavtseva’s claim that ‘I don’t like her outfit’,...

Jerusalem A s ever, the great disappointment of Jerusalem is the lack of swivel-eyed loons wandering around believing themselves to be Jesus. Or Solomon or David or Mohammed. Or...

PAUL JOHNSON The truth little Red Rum can teach those clever dons O ne of the most moving stories in the history of animal life is the racing career of Red Rum. This little...

Good news for the prudent: we’re heading for recession Richard Northedge says those who did not overspend during the boom years will soon be able to buy whatever they want at...

Merryn Somerset Webb T he credit crunch is taking a terrible toll on the middle classes. They’ve started to give up their organic boxes (sales are down 10 per cent at some...

S hell and Barclays were the two highest-profile British companies in South Africa during the apartheid era. Both pursued nonracial business practices as far as they could, but...

THINGS TWO GOOD SHORT STORIES ONE 2300 WORDS AND 1800 BOTH TYPED AND READY FOR AIR MAIL STOP WOULD LIKE TO GIVE YOU FIRST LOOK AND AT SAME TIME TOUCH YOU FOR 100 WIRED TO BANK...

Andro Linklater T HE i MPORTANCE OF B EiNG TRiviAL by Mark Mason Random House, £12.99, pp. 304, ISBN 9781847945174 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 N o book can be...

Jonathan Mirsky T HE C HINA P RICE : T HE T RUE C OST OF C HINESE C OMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE by Alexandra Harney Penguin, £15.99, pp. 336, ISBN 9781594201578 ✆ £12.79 (plus...

Raymond Carr T HE A ssAssIN ’ s A CCOMPLICE by Kate Clifford Larson Perseus Group, £15.99, pp. 263, ISBN 9780465038152 I n the spring of 1865 Washington was celebrating...

Victor Sebestyen H AMMER AND T ICKLE : A H ISTORY OF C OMMUNISM T OLD T HROUGH C OMMUNIST J OKES by Ben Lewis Weidenfeld, £14.99, pp. 354, ISBN 9780297853541 ✆ £11.99 (plus...

Molly Guinness WARRIOR by Allan Mallinson Bantam, £17.99, pp. 337, ISBN 9780593058145 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 A llan Mallinson’s hero, Lieutenant-Colonel...

Olivia Cole T HE R ETURN by Victoria Hislop Headline, £17.99, pp. 420, ISBN 9780755332939 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 M arried to a permanently welllunched...

S. E. G. Hopkin H OUSE OF M ANY W AYS by Diana Wynne Jones HarperCollins, £12.99, pp. 327, ISBN 9780007275663 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 M agic and fantasy...

‘I t was a pity,’ Walter Scott wrote in his Journal (22 November 1825), ‘that nothing save the total destruction of Byron’s Memoirs would satisfy his Executors — But...

James Walton suggests reading George Orwell in order to understand the appeal of Carry On films R ecently, we’ve been hearing quite a lot about how the winds of revolutionary...

Andrew Lambirth Margaret Mellis: A Life in Colour Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich, until 31 August Constructed: 40 Years of the UEA...

Matthew Dennison Masterpiece Watercolours and Drawings Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, until 9 November E ven passion has its limits. The first Lord Leverhulme — that...

Lost portraits Martin Gayford C riminals can turn into detectives: consider the career of Eugène-François Vidocq, thief, convict and subsequently head of the Paris Sûreté....

Michael Tanner The Cunning Little Vixen Royal College of Music Candide English National Opera J anacek’s wonderfully unsentimental and warm-hearted opera about animals and...

Charles Spencer M y body aches, my bones creak and I have a nagging headache that paracetamol won’t shift. It’s a bit like having a hangover again, but mercifully without...

Lloyd Evans On the Rocks Hampstead In My Name Trafalgar Studios All Nudity Shall Be Punished Union U h oh. Writers writing about writers writing. Amy Rosenthal’s new play is...

Deborah Ross Mamma Mia PG, Nationwide M amma Mia has to be the most fun you can have with your clothes on. Or is it off? When you get to my age, it’s such a struggle to...

Peter Phillips M y interest in ridiculous sacred words began with a Victorian edition of Verdi’s ‘Requiem’, which I met at school. At the unbelievably splendid, and...

James Delingpole M y favourite part of Banged Up (Channel 4, Monday) — the new reality show in which juvenile delinquents get to spend ten days in fake prison so they’re...

Robin Oakley I heard from a Nato general not long ago the story of two hot air balloonists in the US who got lost. They descended to check their bearings from visible landmarks...

Taki I ’m afraid that Pug’s Club ‘Turd of the Year’ award went unanimously to the ghastly Andy Murray, he of the centre court primal screams and primate fist pumping....

Jeremy Clarke I ’ve not been to Pamplona’s famous weeklong ‘running of the bulls’ and bullfighting fair of Saint Fermin since 2002; but every year since, on 6 July, at...

Alex James I wasn’t planning to take the family on holiday. We live on a farm and there’s always something happening. It gets harder and harder to drag oneself away. Claire...

SIMON HOGGART T here is something wonderful about this time of year, when fairly often the sun is shining. We make British, mock-rueful remarks to each other: ‘Yesterday was...

Cocoa heaven Peter Grogan samples top of the range chocolates C hocaholism is one of the few ‘holisms’ that has left me unscathed — workaholism being another. I’ll...

John Torode seeks the best of Barcelona T he invitation to spend a few days at the swish, new, family-owned Grand Hotel Central included a ‘partner’. My son the photographer...

L ast Saturday, I was due to attend a garden party being hosted by one of my oldest friends, but I did not have time. After picking up four-year-old Sasha from swimming I had to...

Longfellow, in the middle of writing ‘Hiawatha’, complained to his diary one hot day of ‘Chamber-maids chattering about — children crying — and everything sticky...

A longside the vast fuel tank which powers the Space Shuttle into orbit are two spindly tubes known as Solid Rocket Boosters (or SRBs). Their shape is not ideal: their...

Dear Mary Q. While staying in Gascony a local grandee, with a formidable brain and a château of great historical importance, was invited to dine. As dinner proceeded one of...