1 f a week is a long time in politics, then 13 years is a positive eternity. In 1994 it emerged that the new Leader of the Opposition, Tony Blair, had sent his eldest child,...

CLEMENCY BURTON-HILL The new year is little more than a week old and while everybody else is no doubt still righteously munching lettuce leaves, joining gyms and going teetotal,...

From the moment that the snatched camera-phone footage of Saddam Hussein's execution emerged, it was hideously clear that the sentence had been carried out in a deplorable...

CHARLES MOORE bviously Ruth Kelly is a 'hypocrite', but the hypocrites in her party are more admirable than the consistent ones. At least the former show some human feeling....

By Tamzin Lightwater MONDAY Who would have thought thrift could be so much fun! Am having a ball teaching working people to be careful with their money as part of our 'Live Life...

The Conservative are assumed to be in financial trouble. Fraser Nelson reveals that the truth is just the opposite: the Tory leader has set up a successful fundraising machine...

Matthew Continetti says that the stand-off between the Democrat Congress and the embattled President will be resolved in Baghdad, not Washington Washington n 5 January the newly...

Casket looks as if it will be an early victor in 2007 as a triumphant Americanism. In 2006 it was train station. A letter to the Daily Telegraph noted that even English Heritage...

Business is booming for recruitment agencies which choose candidates for jobs online. But, Tessa Mayes discovers, this crude tick-box process is dumbing down the job market 1 t...

Rod Liddle says that, however objectionable homophobia is, it cannot be abolished by legislative fiat. Better to let it wither on the vine Ihave often thought about opening a...

The country 'needs' more scientists, but no one yet seems able to crack the problem. Ancient attitudes may suggest a way ahead. The earliest Greek 'scientists', c. 600 BC,...

Toby Young has been in fierce competition with his oldest friend, the documentary-maker Sean Langan, for more than a decade. How to stop him winning the Bafta he deserves? Like...

As one of the greats of British cinema, the director Bryan Forbes is entitled to vote in the US Academy Awards. With the 2007 Oscars approaching, he is bracing himself for...

From Alex Bigham Sir: Douglas Davis has clearly been spun a good line by some Israeli military analysts if he thinks the Israeli threat to use nuclear bombs against Iran is more...

From Sir Rowland Whitehead Bt Sir: Julian Brazier puts the case for Thomas More (Letters, 6 January). May I respond? In the clash between two passionate men, More poured...

From Dr Duncan Anderson Sir: Correlli Barnett (Letters, 6 January) declares William Shawcross deluded and the Prime Minister deranged. They are, apparently, the only people left...

From Marlyn Hurst Sir: I enjoyed Irfan al-Alawi and Stephen Schwartz's article on the proposed new mosque for London (Ken's mega-mosque will encourage extremism', 6 January)....

From Ted Nevill Sir: An interesting piece on the modern slave trade by Fraser Nelson (Politics, 30 December) was spoilt by uncritical use of police statistics. The police claim...

From Dr Andrew Lawson Sir: Charles Moore seeks to perpetuate the myth of a 'death threat' for seriously ill patients when going into hospital, alluding to the supposed...

From Paulo Lowndes Marques Sir: I was amused to see in Bevis Hillier's review of a book on euphemisms that chamber pots used to be described as 'articles' by journalists (Books,...

PAUL JOHNSON 1 f I had a teenage child with a passion for serious music, I would not hesitate to give him or her Essays in Musical Analysis by Donald Francis Tovey. This is a...

Matthew Lynn argues that school fees have risen outrageously because the supply of private education has not expanded fast enough to meet parents' demand 1 f you ever happen to...

Edie Lush talks to the entrepreneurs behind Britain's latest high-growth, high-tech industry: mobile porn Suppose you have 15 minutes to while away waiting for the train. Why...

Matthew Vincent Last week, Britons staggered into 2007 more hungover and overdrawn than ever before. According to separate research by Mintel and Creditaction, the average...

STEPHANIE GRACE IN NEW ORLEANS New Orleans always had a split personality. There was the picture-postcard city that visitors enjoyed: lovely, languid, funky, obsessed with food...

Sam Leith TIP AND RUN: THE UNTOLD TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT WAR IN AFRICA by Edward Paice Orion, £25, pp. 488, ISBN 9780297847090 © £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 `G ott for...

Michael Gove AMERICA ALONE by Mark Steyn Regnely Publishing, £15.99, pp. 256, ISBN 0895260786 £12.79 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Between the revolution and the firing squad,...

Graham Stewart TIME TO EMIGRATE? by George Walden Gibson Square Books, £8.99, pp. 233, ISBN 1903933935 © £7.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 hy is no one talking about what is...

Peter J. M. Wayne ESTATES: AN INTIMATE HISTORY by Lynsey Hanley Granta, £12, pp. 244, ISBN 1862079099 VLO (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 Just after dawn on 16 May 1968, on the...

Jonathan Keates THE NATION'S MANTELPIECE: A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY by Jonathan Conlin Pallas Athene, 42 Spencer Rise, London NW5 1AP, Tel: 0207 692 9984, £24.99, pp....

Fiona Maddocks CAGE TALK by Peter Dickinson University of Rochester Press, £25, pp. 296, ISBN 9781580462372 Asked by a journalist whether he went to the opera, John Cage...

Lloyd Evans talks to the director Ed Hall about his latest ventures Here he is. One of Britain's leading young directors. Tall, sturdily built, mid-thirties, with a mop of thick...

Andrew Lambirth Shanti Panchal: In the Mind's Eye Chelmsford Museum, Oaklands Park Moulsham Street, Chelmsford, until 18 Feb/vary Born in Gujarat, western India, in 1951, Shanti...

Peter Phillips Avisit to the Holbein exhibition at Tate Britain last week taught me something new: interest in serious culture has reached epidemic proportions. I don't think...

Marcus Berkmann Uverybody needs a new catchphrase i from time to time, even Sir Cliff Richard. 'I think I'm the most radical pop star around,' he now tells most interviewers (or...

Lloyd Evans The History Boys Wyndhams The Rocky Horror Show Comedy Until last week I was the only person on the planet not to have seen The History Boys. I now rejoin the human...

Deborah Ross The Last King of Scotland 15, Nationwide Tfilm will knock your little socks I off. In fact, it knocked my own little socks off so comprehensively that I'm still...

Kate Chisholm Those pictures of Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker in the House of Representatives in Washington, celebrating her accession to power surrounded by her husband,...

James Delingpole If Sean Langan isn't the bravest, best and most likeable foreign correspondent on TV, I don't know who is. And what a bumper week this has been for his...

Simon Courtauld y grandfather used to enjoy eating ortolans in Biarritz, sometimes in the company of Rudyard Kipling. In London, it amused him to ask for these little birds of...

Jeremy Clarke Winston Churchill's secretary John Colville records that one of the first signs that the great man's phenomenal memory was beginning to fail him, and that dementia...

Taki Gstaad About 20 years or so ago, Tony Lambton, the mother of my children and I drove from Siena to Florence in my brand-new Audi Quattro. Our destination was La Pietra, Sir...

James Delingpole takes offence at those who take offence ne of the things I find most offensive about the modern world is the way everyone so easily takes offence. A friend...

Conn Iggulden heads for the wilds of Mongolia Ivriting a historical fiction series on Genghis Khan was always going to be a challenge. Mongolia is an alien place, with a hard...

Dear Maly Q. When I was a boy men who dyed their greying hair were something of a laughingstock. Now I notice that many 50and 60something politicians, rock stars and television...

FRANK KEATING Ruminating here a couple of weeks ago on those whom the wretched reaper had gaily swiped down last year, Christmas deadlines had a trio of significant...