(which was only 11 minutes late), said that economic stability was a great consideration, and someone threw tomatoes at him, one of which spattered his coat. Mr Ken Livingstone,...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 020-7405 1706; Fax 020-7242 0603 ITALIAN LESSONS N o one is suggesting that depleted uranium is the ideal stuff to...

BRUCE ANDERSON W illiam Hague has a problem. The man is just far too reasonable. The Tories' new posters — 'You paid the tax, so where are the teachers/trains/policemen?' — are...

A ccording to one of those studies, British women are among the weightiest in Europe. 1 refer not to the size of their brains, but to that of their bums. Only the Greeks are...

MATTHEW PARRIS 0 f the many knock-down arguments against Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss's attempt this week to provide lifelong anonymity for the killers of James Bulger, the...

Andrew Duncan voted Labour in 1997. But they let him down with a new tax scheme that can take up to 25 per cent from your net income. Now he hopes that the Tories will abolish...

If we want to stop bullying, says John Dodd, we must make schoolchildren share responsibility for school discipline IN Tom Brown's Schooldays East, Tom's pal, says: 'Why,...

SOMEONE asked me a question at a party the other day, much as people tell my husband their symptoms in lieu of small talk. The someone in my case was Mr Kim Fletcher, formerly...

Devolution has been a failure, says Tim Luckhurst, who believes that the Conseivatives can succeed by opposing it FOR Scottish Tories the general election of May 1997 offered...

Martin Mears takes Boris Johnson to task for having deviated from a right-wing orthodoxy on the Lawrence report FOR the liberal Left the Macpherson report is a sacred text,...

PHILOSOPHERS Anthony Gottlieb answers the facile writers who dismiss the work of WV Quine and other thinkers 'THE point of philosophy, Bertrand Russell mischievously wrote in...

Digby Anderson says that most people make a dog's dinner of salmon — whether it is farmed or wild SUPPOSE you were given the opportunity to pelt, say, Mr John Prescott with...

EMAIL is causing all sorts of problems for business employees who 'misuse' it. This raises many questions about the meaning of the term 'misuse' — particularly who defines it —...

A weekly survey of the things our rulers want to prohibit WHEN the Prime Minister suggested last summer that drunkards might be marched to the nearest cashpoint and made to pay...

Mark Steyn bids farewell to Bill Clinton with an alphabetical list of the President's ups and downs in office SO here we are. The Clinton administration is finally reaching,...

than fiction; more painful too PAUL JOHNSON I enjoy Evelyn Waugh's novels too much to watch television adaptations. No one, not even Jane Austen, had more skill in getting...

STEPHEN GLOVER W hat do we feel about anonymity for criminals? Obviously it is a bad thing. All of us must live with the consequences of our actions. A murderer who is given a...

From Mr Oleg Gordievsky Sir: It is easy to answer Chapman Pincher's question about money (Letters, 6 January) because I have done so in my numerous interviews and my books,...

From Susan Panikkar Sir: I work as a trained nurse, specialising in the care of elderly people. I do not ride or hunt. I am at a loss to understand why the government deems it...

From Mr David Craine Sir: Matthew Parris (Another voice, 9 December) is surely too negative about the prospects for many African countries, and far too susceptible to the...

From Mr Anthony Furse Sir: Regarding the excellent article by Bunny Smedley (The forgotten patriot', 30 December) about her American Loyalist cousin, Joseph Galloway, your...

From Mr Tom Burkard Sir: Thank you, dear Boris, for showing me the error of my ways ('In defence of Sir William Macpherson', 6 January). Like any good Telegraph reader, I had...

From Mr Ronald Irving Sir: The gracious Christmas greeting by the Queen to her subjects refers to 'the Bible, the Koran and the sacred texts of the Jews and Hindus'. Her...

From Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones Sir: Mr Peter Jones (Ancient and modern, 16/23 December) finds E.V. Rieu's translation of the Iliad to be 'brilliant'. The gifted American scholar Adam...

From Mr Geoffrey Cone Sir: Stephen Glover (Media studies, 9 December) objects to pornography because it is 'liable to damage the human spirit' and it suggests that women 'want...

From Mr John Oliver Sir: Bruce Anderson (Politics, 30 December) states 'if there had been no incentive for farmers to conserve foxes over the last four centuries, the fox might...

From Mr Stewart Trotter Sir: In the woodcut that Paul Healey writes about (Letters, 6 January) Queen Elizabeth I is not about to kill the stag, nor has it 'fallen exhausted at...

From Lt Col (Retired) J. C. Wakerley OBE Sir: In my pensioned-off wisdom, I felt much obliged to James Delingpole for what I initially considered to be an instructive,...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES G oldfinger said it: 'Mr Bond, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but the third time is enemy action.' He could say as much to Mr Greenspan. One...

Philip Hensher CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH by Werner Hofmann Thames & Hudson, £39.95, pp. 304 I n some ways, German romanticism is very different from what we like best about works...

Harry Mount THE RAYMOND CHANDLER PAPERS: SELECTED LETTERS AND NON-FICTION, 1909-1959 edited by Tom Hiney and Frank MacShane Mulish Hamilton, 120, pp. 267 t the height of his...

John de Falbe TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG by Peter Carey Faber, £17.99, pp. 354 I stayed up all night to read Oscar and Lucinda. None of Peter Carey's subsequent books has...

Charles Allen THE GREAT HEDGE OF INDIA by Roy Moxham Constable, f14.99, pp. 207 T his is the intriguing story of what is known in India as a shauq — an obsession or magnificent...

William Waldegrave CAPTAIN MARRYAT: SEAMAN, WRITER AND ADVENTURER by Tom Pocock Chatham, £19.95, pp. 208 I t is not surprising that, since the popular novel emerged as a genre...

Patrick Leigh Fermor I t was on 12 September 1934, in Sofia, that Steven and I first met. He was 31 and I was 19, and I was trudging across Europe, heading for Constantinople....

Mark Archer MAESTRO: GREENSPAN'S FED AND THE AMERICAN BOOM by Bob Woodward Simon & Schuster, £17.99, pp. 270 A lan Greenspan has been Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board...

Robin Simon visits two fascinating exhibitions in Venice W hen I lived over a brothel in Verona. I met the assistant restorer of one of the great North American museums, who was...

Broadway 2001 Sheridan Morley reviews the new shows on the block A year ago at this time, there was only one straight play running on the whole of the Great White Way....

The Ben Uri Story (Phillips, till 25 January) Creative contribution Bruce Boucher I s there a distinctly Jewish art? This question has never met with a straightforward...

Clothes maketh musicians Peter Phillips I recently went to a symphony concert which featured two female vocal soloists. Our party consisted of some professional musicians on...

How now brown cow Simon Hoggart R ather norrrrtily,' said Graham Norton, his vowels hopelessly twisted, possibly clockwise, and thus in the opposite direction to Loyd...

Ambridge addiction Michael Vestey A bout 15 years ago while doing a stint at BBC television news I was summoned to the newsdcsk and asked, apologetically, if I would mind...

The slippery slope Robin Oakley I don't know how many others were like me at Lingfield for the all-weather racing on Saturday because the jumping meetings at Sandown and...

Rocket relaunched Simon Courtauld W e have been cutting wild chives by the river here since before Christmas. They were under water again last week, but don't seem to have...

Fear of extinction Taki IRougemont n my last column of the year past, I ventured into dangerous territory by asking why two of the most powerful countries of the 19th and 20th...

Old dogs and Sea Lords Jeremy Clarke 0 n Saturday we made the most of the incandescent sunshine by going out for a walk and staying out all day. There was me, my 11-year-old...

Jonathan Ray JUSTERINI & BROOKS will be a familiar name to many readers, if only through acquaintance with their excellent pale whisky, J&B Rare. Based in London's St James's...

Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 2169 you were invited to supply extracts, in modern parlance, from a diary kept by a character in Hamlet during the action of the play. This was...

Simon Barnes SO Michael Knighton has left Carlisle United and, with Carlisle, football — at least for now. Football is the lesser game without him. It has lost one of the great...

Q. I face an intolerable dilemma and wonder if you can help. My spirits soared when friends invited me to fly out on their private plane and join them on their yacht for a...