the Trades Union Congress when he heard news of the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York; he made a short speech instead. 'This mass terrorism is the new evil in...

T here is no moral difference between the destruction in America and a bomb in a fish-and-chip shop in the Shankill Road. In intention, the two sets of actions are the same: to...

back to England from our house in France, I had a spirited argument with my 28-year-old daughter about sexual morality. It centred on a man of my age who, since the 1970s. had...

PETER OBORNE I was sitting with a group of political journalists in the Brighton conference centre waiting for Tony Blair to deliver his speech to the TUC when word spread...

Mark Steyn says that the terrorists who this week killed thousands of Americans were not cowards. It is going to take the sort of courage lacking in the Clinton years to defeat...

Matthew Bishop on the courage of ordinal); people in a city that has changed for ever New York PEOPLE walk a lot in Manhattan. Its streets are always crowded. But never before...

Bruce Anderson says that America must deal with the rogue states as well as with the terrorists SUCH an attack was not unexpected, nor was America unprepared, yet the...

English football fans have a shock in store when they visit South Korea next year says kin Overton Seoul IN just over eight months' time, South Korea is to co-host with Japan...

Simon Nixon on the unscrupulous merchant bankers who destroyed a great company IT is one of the oldest scams in the book. An elderly couple are befriended by an apparently...

I TRY to live on an elevated moral, intellectual and aesthetic plane, but I am continually dragged down into the mire of modernity by everyone around me. For example, last...

THE Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, obviously thrilled by Robert Mugabe's policy of nationalising productive white-held farms by burning and wrecking them before handing them...

David Lovibond on the passions and lunacies of village cricket — which is now part of the 'forbidden language' of England IT is evening in the village. The last tractor has...

Alan Cochrane says that everyone in Scotland from lairds to ghillies is threatened by the new political correctness Edinburgh HARDLY anyone blinked at the report last weekend...

at Berry Bros & Rudd's famous shop in St James's Wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd ain't what it used to be: it's better. I worked for the company several years ago, and when I...

Don't knock do-gooding. Martin Vander Weyer says the volunteer principle could make this country a better place ONE of the sharpest criticisms of the Conservative leadership...

changing before my eyes, like a chameleon that has fallen into a bowl of borsch. The change occurred to the word cynic. I had seen it coming, because of the gathering number of...

Diana Mosley remembers the eccentricity and wit of the writer Harold Acton and his brother William WHEN the Prince and Princess of Wales visited Harold Acton, the Princess was...

PAUL JOHNSON S heep may be more useful animals to mankind than goats, but they are less interesting. I have been watching eight goats on a sunny meadow high above Lake Como:...

STEPHEN GLOVER those who are old enough remember what they were doing when President Kennedy was shot, so we will all recall what we were doing when we heard about the attack...

From Mr Lionel Slier Sir: DJ. Taylor (Bastard liberalism', 8 September) touches on a word which is of great interest here in South Africa. Since 1994 the meaning of the words...

From Mr James N. Docherty Sir: Ross Clark's plea for freer immigration (The land of opportunity', 8 September) was heard 40 years ago: 'Who will staff our factories and...

From Mr Clive Kaye Sir: Like many liberal commentators Matthew Parris (Another voice, 8 September) dismisses all thought of identity cards without considering the ancillary...

From Professor Kader Asmal, MP Sir: The South African parliamentarian Tony Leon is selective in his facts and tendentious in his views ('Who are they calling neoNazi?', 25...

ram Mr C.D.C. Armstrong Sir: Leo McKinstry's description of our old school, Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, as a sectarian establishment (The triumph of the pygmies', 23...

From Margaret Currey Sir: I hold no brief for Zambia's President Frederick ChiJuba, whose party is mired in charges of corruption, but he is not just the comic-cuts character...

From Mr G.N.W. Locke Sir: In his article ('What's wrong with mission creep?', 8 September) Bruce Anderson declares that all the surrounding states, including Serbia, 'dispute...

From Mr Christopher Maunder Sir: Reading Simon Barnes (Sport, 1 Septem ber) reminded me of my uncle's experience in the first world war. Just before the start of that war my...

From Mr Andrew Wilton Sir: Lucinda Lambton (Diary, 8 September) might be interested to know of a recent celebration at Kensal Green Cemetery which was more visual than literary:...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES A nyone who did not believe that we live in a dangerous world knows better now. Anyone who thought that danger could be kept in watertight compartments, well...

Philip Hensher IRIS MURDOCH: A LIFE by Peter J. Conradi HarperCollins. £24.99, pp. 736, ISBN 0002571234 A ny feeling reader will confess, I think, to distinct ambivalence...

The Salisbury Review has been Britain's leading journal of serious conservative thought since 1982. The Autumn issue includes: Roger Scruton on The Idea of a University. Ray...

Fiction: The Alphonse Courrier Affair by Marta Morazzoni, Harvill, £6.99 Death in Holy Orders by P. D. James, Faber, £12.99 The Anglo - Irish Murders by Ruth DudleyEdwards,...

Henry Hobhouse THE ORIGIN OF PLANTS by Maggie Campbell-Culver Headline, £25, pp. 260 ISBN 074727214X T his is a handsomely produced, well illustrated book that will be looked...

Jane Gardam FIVE BOYS by Mick Jackson Faber, £10.99, pp. 248 ISBN 0571206131 M ick Jackson has waited four years before publishing his second novel, the first being The...

Nicholas Harman IN RUINS by Christopher Woodward Chatto, £12.99, pp. 280, ISBN 070116896X W ith youth and beauty gone I had given up hope of inspiring poems. But only last year...

D. J. Taylor THE DEVIL'S LARDER by Jim Crace Viking Penguin, £12.99, pp. 193 ISBN 0670881457 W hatever else may be said of Jim Crace's novels, he does at least have the merit...

John Grigg THE VERDICT OF PEACE by ComeHi Barnett Macmillan, 420, pp. 732, ISBN 0333679822 L ike the Book of Jeremiah itself a contemporary jeremiad can be stimulating, and...

Jonathan Keates A POOR MAN'S HOUSE edited by Christopher Scoble Halsgrove, £19.95, pp. 233, ISBN 1841141259 A n Italian author, whose name I now maddeningly forget, once...

Roger Lewis TREVOR HOWARD by Terence Pettigrew Peter Owen, £18.95, pp. 279, ISBN 0720611245 F rom Olivier's fire and ice to Marlon Brando's turning into a real-life Kurtz on...

Charles Allen IMPERIAL BODIES: THE PHYSICAL EXPERIENCE OF THE RAJ, 1800-1947 by E. M. Collingham Polity, £15.99, pp. 239, ISBN 0745623700 P ublished doctoral theses rarely...

Anita Brookner ATONEMENT by Ian McEwan Cape, £16.99, pp. 372, ISBN 0224062522 T he scene is reassuring, even familiar: a substantial house in Surrey, set in extensive...

Leaving the car beside the road we trudged the track Through trees; now and then like shots the crack Of trodden twigs. No going back on going back. We reached the clearing:...

Michael Tanner on the compulsions that drive a collector 0 f the innumerable ways of dividing people up into two kinds, one of the less investigated is into collectors and...

Katharina Fritsch (Tate Modern, till 9 December) Eerily enigmatic Martin Gayford I n 1987 the citizens of Miinster, a city in Westphalia, were astounded and scandalised by a...

Milton Avery (Waddington Galleries, 11 Cork Street, London Wl, till 6 October) Colour is the key Andrew Lambirth M ilton Avery (1885-1965) is a painter who stands up...

Swan Lake (Birmingham Royal Ballet) I SAID i (Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker/Rosas) Gratuitous effects Giannandrea Poem G atMa Samsova and Peter Wright's staging of Swan Lake,...

Mother Clap's Molly House (National) Sliding with Suzanne (Royal Court Upstairs) Sex and seduction Sheridan Morley G iven that he is now widely if informally tipped backstage...

Shudders of recognition James Delingpole I s it really crap of me to admit to liking The Six Wives Of Henry VIII (Channel 4, Monday)? I just have this suspicion that somewhere...

Isn't one Paxman enough? Michael Vestey W hen it was announced earlier this year that Radio Two's increase in audience had made it the most listened-to radio station in...

Tales of the Expected Robin Oakley T here are several rules you should always obey on a racecourse. Don't get too close to the back end of a frisky two-yearold. Don't ask...

Time and terror Taki T Rougement here's a whiff of autumn in the air, and I don't like it. At 65, every day is precious as hell, or heaven for that matter. After all, have you...

James and jams Leanda de Lisle M y husband complains that I have nothing in my head these days but sex and violence, and James VI and I. Since he is absolutely right I am...

I was wrong Petronella Wyatt 0 nce I wrote a polemic about Italian men, prompted by a meeting with a young Roman aristocrat who told me that his compatriots were no longer...

placement' novel? Well, I know what I think. Indeed, if I were ever to meet Ms Weldon I would say. 'Shame on you!' Which happens, by the way, to rhyme nicely with JIMMY CHOO. I...

Simon Barnes THE whole point of women's tennis, of course, is that it clears the way for all kinds of wild sexist speculation, opening up a thousand avenues for discussing the...

lock in the centre of a country town last week, surrounded by the usual small crowd of onlookers. To see them there was not surprising as the scene is colourful and interesting....

appeared for breakfast wearing only a small towel. While she and I both found this suitable attire when we were university flatmates many years ago, it is rather inappropriate...

forgotten his school motto (`Manners Maketh Man'). He presented his wedding-present cheque but failed to acknowledge receipt. What course of action, if any, would you suggest?...