Let battle commence N o more Conservative MPs died or defected, but continued squabbling caused the Prime Minister, Mr John Major, to warn that the Party would lose the next...

Michael Portillo could still have a future, perhaps as leader; but doubts are growing BRUCE ANDERSON O n the night that John Major was re- elected as Leader of the Tory Party,...

ANNA FORD W e all remember our parents embar- rassing us. But how could we, so sensitive and thoughtful, ever cause embarrassment when we become parents? It comes as a shock to...

The unwelcome possibility that it might all be explained by the food AUBERON WAUGH Many will find themselves increasingly sceptical about these health scares, but there is...

It used to be enough for business to be green. Now it is supposed to solve the world's problems as well. Anne McElvoy on the selling of ethics Calm down the teenage-Marx- ist...

Michael Heath

Pre-war right-wing rioter? Vichyite? Faker of his own attempted assassination? Charles Williams ponders the unanswered questions `MITTERRAND, comme Talleyrand.' That was the...

Charles Powell, who spent more time with him than any other Englishman, on the private President I SUPPOSE that, during the first decade of M. François Mitterrand's...

Simon Blow, great-great-nephew of Margot Asquith, says there is only one trouble with being a poor aristocrat everything THERE ARE the noticeably poor, as still found on...

Jane Robins says that Singapore's prosperity owes more to capitalism than Confucianism IN 1988, in glorious Canberra, I inter- viewed the man who was then 'the world's greatest...

`OH DEAR,' I said to my husband over the breakfast-time post, 'I think we're m for another OK.' `What are you talking about?' he asked in what I thought was a surpris- ingly...

Peter Jones describes what it was like to teach Latin to the readers of a national newspaper FOR the last 15 weeks of 1995, I wrote a column introducing readers of the Sunday...

We may not like Middle Eastern kings but the alternative is horrific PAUL JOHNSON A great deal of nonsense has been writ- ten about the British tradition of giving sanctuary...

A Gucci bag, a Cartier brooch, a PM and two policies — the legacies of Mitterrand I and II CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he markets could find Francois Mit- terrand hard to read. One...

Sir: It seems to be an obsession with the Crusades that has caused Mr Anton La Guardia to write such an extraordinarily misleading article ('Where the Crusades live on', 30...

quoting Mr Major's remark about Trol- lope's characters. I can well believe it. For- tunately, those Radio Four listeners who voted Mr Major 'Man of the Year' second only to the...

Sir: Was there in fact an argument buried somewhere in Mr Paul Johnson's raving against the Prime Minister (`And another thing', 6 January)? If so, I must have missed it. I am...

erratic genius. His historical books are a wonderful one-man achievement. His journalism delights me when I agree with him and has the opposite effect when I dis- agree....

me of the late John Osborne's Damn You England in its shrill ,silliness but for sheer spite it was in a class of its own: a poor offering from somebody who can claim to have...

xenophobia and a touch of reverence to Churchill: was Paul Johnson's article intended for publication in The Harrovian — or was it just a hearty (if offensive) exer- cise in...

that The Spectator had turned over a new leaf by publishing Matthew Par- ris's defence of the Prime Minister), you will understand my relief that you do not necessarily...

hope' (Letters, 6 January) which must have been dashed by Paul Johnson's article in the same issue. However, one can always ignore Mr Johnson's invective, which looks set to...

a mere PPS-ship to a mere Minister of State — which is not a govern- ment job. I believe that he would have accepted such a job had he been offered one in the late Eighties, as...

Norman Henry 29 Inglefield Avenue, Heath, Cardiff, Wales

Nicholson, not least for her adoption of an Iraqi orphan after we bombed the hell out of the Iraqis five years ago. Lucian Phipps 31 Chepstow Villas, London, W11

Sir: Sir Ludovic Kennedy asks at the end of his article whether honours matter and, if so, to whom? (`Thatcher stopped my knighthood', 6 January). Presumably to Sir Ludovic...

Sir: I am glad The Spectator now has a radio critic. Like him, I don't mind Mr Paul Gambaccini on Radio Three (Radio, 6 Jan- uary). What I do dislike are the thin, colourless...

Sir: I am writing to you today because I am surprised and, I have to say, extremely dis- appointed that The Spectator published Mr Mr Bruce Anderson's article without checking...

accepted the K as more fitting to his status than the C! Dr J.F. Hare 18 Kent Avenue, London W13

My mother said Mr Portillo didn't know the date of Waterloo; I'll speak up for him, though PETRONELLA WYATT W ho will speak for Mr Portillo? The smart-alecs would say that Mr...

Let us now praise obscure men Philip Hensher NO PASSION SPENT by George Steiner Faber, £19.99, pp. 421 THE DEEPS OF THE SEA by George Steiner Faber, £12.99, pp. 393 H as...

Andrew Barrow THE SHRINE by Cristina Odone Weidenfeld, £15.99, pp. 248 T he publication during the panto season of this high-spirited and upbeat novel seems rather appropriate....

Many, in the way of things, have been broken or lost — where and how I can't remember; yet they were all my darlings: each one in its time a rare companion and comforter. For...

Edward Lucas BURY ME STANDING: THE GYPSIES AND THEIR JOURNEY by Isabel Fonseca Chatto, £18, pp. 304 N omadic entrepreneurs and commu- nism do not mix. There is little room for...

Eric Christiansen KING ALFRED THE GREAT by Alfred P. Smyth OUP, £25, pp. 744 I n 1901 a grateful and self-confident nation saw in Alfred of Wessex the genius of Anglo-Saxon...

D. J. Taylor HEM AND MAXINE by Nalinaksha Bhattacharya Cape, £10.99, pp. 327 H em and Football (1992), Nalinaksha Bhattacharya's first novel, outlined to a mostly indifferent...

Edward Chaney CHELTENHAM BETRAYED by Timothy Mowl Redcliffe Press, f7.95, pp. 95 ARCHITECTURE WITHOUT KINGS: THE RISE OF PURITAN CLASSICISM UNDER CROMWELL by Timothy Mowl and...

David Pryce-Jones SECRET CHANNELS: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE ARAB-ISRAELI PEACE NEGOTIATIONS by Mohamed Heikal HarperCollins, £20, pp. 572 T o the young Mohamed Heikal it was an...

Old friend, most dear, what do you ask of me? Dreams have, we know, their own economy entire unto themselves; but you were there behind a coffee-stall with some young Mimi,...