'It's another one of their shocking images.' M r Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, allowed Mike Tyson into Britain to fight in Manchester, despite legislation that because of the...

The Prime Minister's plan for health: bullying, lying and inoperative statements BRUCE ANDERSON Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair need to learn a lesson from this miserable...

STEPHAN SHAKESPEARE I begin my first week as director of a Mayfair art gallery — now called Shake- speare Fine Art — with Jeffrey Archer as my chief backer. This is interpreted...

The night Arthur nearly caught me in Boobtropolis BORIS JOHNSON 0 h flip. The door was open. The door to my office was open and Arthur the care- taker was still there,...

Britain's independent nuclear deterrent is neither independent nor a deterrent, says Andrew Gilligan, so now the PM wants to share it with France PERHAPS one of our...

Julian Manyon on how the Chechen war has become a series of personal vendettas Chechnya IF something is strictly forbidden in Russia it normally just means that the price goes...

MY husband has been huffing and tut- ting, rather than puffing, almost every time he reads the word product used in a financial context. It is certainly true that product pops...

RUN FOR COVER Charlotte Edwardes exposes the cowardice of those who sold us the Greenwich puffball NOW isn't that odd? Before 1 January there were, by the organisers' own...

TO whom does one turn for enlighten- ment about what is rather grandly known as the human condition? To priests, politicians, philosophers, psychologists or psychiatrists? I...

Mayor Giuliani has a way with dogs but, wonders Philip Delves Broughton, can he beat Mrs Clinton in the Senate race? New York WHEN New York's Mayor, Rudolph Giu- liani,...

John Dodd charts the remarkable political success of one landowning family on both sides of the Atlantic AN act of considerable historical curiosity took place in America last...

A weekly survey of the things our rulers want to prohibit CONTRARY to what many people suspect, prohibition in a democratic society such as ours is rarely imposed without...

Michael Heath

Quebec separatists bring much-needed light relief to Canada's bruised psyche, says Mordecai Richler SEVENTY-SEVEN per cent of Canadians, according to a recent poll, believe...

Better the cult of saints than the worship of pop singers and puppets PAUL JOHNSON I t is an uncovenanted blessing to discover a great painting you did not know existed. It...

From Mr Geoffrey Matthews Sir: To Mr Raymond Keene (Letters, 15 January); yes, yes and no, Yes, by 1785, when he wrote the 'Ode to Joy', the young Schiller had clearly voiced —...

From Mr Martyn Gregory Sir: That Steve Anderson and Richard Belfield, the producers of ITV's deeply flawed Diana: Secrets Behind the Crash, ignored all the serious criticisms of...

From Mr David S.M. Williams Sir: The cult of William Tyndale goes from strength to strength. Some months ago Sir Rowland Whitehead claimed, in the Salisbury Review, that the...

From Mr Tom W Johnson Sir: May I humbly point out that Frank Johnson's list of Johnsons (Shared opinion, 11 December) is still incomplete. I am Doc, your crossword compiler and...

From Mr Charles FitzGerald Sir: Fine and beautiful rhetoric from the Revd Peter Mullen (`Jesus wept', 15 Jan- uary); but I fear he is on a loser. And why should I be so...

The Independent has many virtues but independence is not one of them STEPHEN GLOVE R 171m ost everyone agrees that the Inde- pendent is much improved since Simon Kel- ner took...

Gordon wants to make us more competitive but finds odd ways of going about it CHRISTOPHER FILDES H ere's another surprise in the taxman's brown envelope: the government wants...

The confidence of a lone wolf Anita Brookner MARCEL PROUST: SELECTED LETTERS VOLUME IV, 1918-1922 edited by Philip Kolb, translated by Joanna Kilmartin, foreword by Main de...

John Grigg A TALE OF TWO GRANDFATHERS by Owen Lloyd George Bellew, f25, pp. 220 T his unpretentious but lively and easy- to-read book is really the tale of a grand- son. The...

Philip Ziegler WAR, RESISTANCE AND INTELLIGENCE edited by K. G. Robertson Leo Cooper, £19.95, pp. 262 F estschrifts are of uncertain quality. At their best they can illuminate...

well as inter- views with friends and neighbours, the Whole embellished with a few recent pho- tographs by Adrian Boot. The production has an amateurish flavour, and it is a...

T he post — which in our part of Clapham arrives in the early afternoon, as if its delivery involved a lame horse cross- ing a rope bridge swaying above a fathom- less canyon on...

Jane Ridley WILFRED BLUNT'S EGYPTIAN GARDEN/ FOX-HUNTING IN CAIRO The Stationery Office, £6.99, pp. 114 T he Stationery Office, now privatised and shorn of its dear old H M,...

David Nokes JANE AUSTEN AND LEISURE by David Selwyn The Hambledon Press, £25, pp. 352 I declare,' cries Miss Bingley, 'there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one...

Benjamin Yarde-Buller THE RETURN AND OTHER STORIES by Andrey Platonov Harvill, £9.99, pp. 215 F or a number of reasons, none of them relating to the quality of his writing,...

Nicholas Fearn SHIFTS by Adam Thorpe Cape, £14.99, pp. 239 W hen today's graduates enter the so- called 'real world', the first difference they notice is the divergence of...

Fiction: The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie, Vintage, £6.99 The Tin Can Tree, Celestial Navigation and Morgan's Passing by Anne Tyler, Vintage, 6.99 each Home...

Confronting a chaotic jumble Martin Gayford on a fascinating but indigestible exhibition at the Royal Academy G enerally speaking when one goes to an exhibition one sees art...

Gawain (Covent Garden) Romeo et Juliette (Barbican) Strong impressions Michael Tanner T he Royal Opera's revival of Birtwistle's Gawain got under way four days later than...

Stigmata (18, selected cinemas) Limbo (15, selected cinemas) Losing faith Mark Steyn S tigmata is godawful. Directed by Rupert Wainwright, a British film-maker with all the...

at the Robert Sandelson Gallery, 5a Cork Street, London W1 until 5 February. Reeve, who has lived in Mexico since 1988, is showing some 50 pictures, including 'La Puestera...

The MacMillan Inheritance (Royal Opera House) Celebrating MacMillan Giannandrea Poesio T he MacMillan Inheritance, the Royal Ballet's new triple bill, is a superb and...

Frank's fame Ursula Buchan T hese have not been good times for the famous. Many a VIP must have rued the day they were flattered into leaving their fireside to pass the last...

Viewing for the weary Simon Hoggart went to the preview of Gormenghast I (BBC 2) at the huge Imax cinema in Lon- don, and it made me buy a new television. The phosphors which...

Why aren't we all on diesel? Alan Judd H e was born in 1858 and died in mys- terious circumstances in September 1913. His invention, known to colleagues as his `black...

Speech stranglehold Michael Vestey G ood grief! Can it be possible? Is Radio Four going to be run by someone who knows about programmes rather than structures, someone who...

Drastic reduction Robin Oakley After such a regime most of us would be too weak to lift a tennis racket, let alone `Oh, hello . . . Im staying in. I've got the grandchildren.'...

In the swim Jeremy Clarke I 'm swimming again, as well as running. Three, sometimes four times a week, I drive ten miles to this newly opened indoor swimming pool and swim up...

Army camp Taki Athens Here, in the birthplace of selective democracy, philosophy, astronomy, epic and lyric poetry, science, drama and occa- sional buggery (I kid you not, it...

Loving a loser Leanda de Lisle S earch as I may I'm finding it difficult to find any good news in the new year. The mice that eat my new suede cushions are now out of the...

Key to survival Petronella Wyatt T here we were, my mother and I, wait- ing on the tarmac while technicians lamely studied some equipment in the cockpit. The plane had left...

Danger signal Andrew Robson ONE OF the essential tools of co- operation between defenders is the Suit Preference Signal. In this country it is often referred to as 'McKenney'...

Grisly task Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 2119 you were invited to supply an imaginary government advertisement bravely attempting to attract recruits to an unappealing job....

The U ltimate Islay Malt. Rdbeq www.ardbes.com CHESS 1066 and All That Raymond Keene THE Hastings Premier has been won by grandmaster Emil Sutovsky of Israel. It was a...

A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's award-winning, Late- Bottled Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 7 February, with two runners-up prizes of £20...

With fans like these MPs... Simon Barnes MARGARET THATCHER had the right idea about football. She tried to ban it, and came quite close to succeeding. Her dream was to...

Dear Mary.. . Q. I recently became socially acquainted with a disturbed young woman who, it tran- spired, had previously been engaged to a friend whom I know from different...