I n Nineteen Eighty-Four , when the Party said ‘peace’ it meant ‘war’, and when it said ‘freedom’ it meant ‘slavery’. Listening to Gordon Brown’s tenth and...

began with my partner sounding very excited on the telephone. ‘At last a chance to make some money,’ she said. ‘The Independent has a story about dodgy dealings by...

I n the last month Gordon Brown has made two personal gestures to David Cameron. The first was to send flowers to congratulate the Conservative leader on the birth of his son,...

not the same as the state’ is the best of the David Cameron soundbites. The row about the funding of political parties offered the Tories an opportunity to put this belief...

MONDAY Panic and frenzy. Nigel is calling it Dave v. Goliath. Sebastian says if the first draft of Dave’s budget response is anything to go by it will be more like the...

Budget week was a presentational triumph for the Chancellor, says Peter Oborne . Blair is mired in the ermine-for-loans scandal and Cameron has spectacularly failed to rise to...

Martin Vander Weyer says that this Budget did not resolve the fundamental conflicts in the Chancellor’s approach to business I have never met a red-blooded businessperson who...

Christopher Fildes says that the Chancellor has done nothing to solve the problems he has created, and will regret his stubborn refusal to try another Cabinet job O h, please,...

Rod Liddle says that the case of Mary Ann Leneghan is just the latest instance of a disastrous collapse in the criminal justice system Y ou may, by now, be losing track. The...

Matthew d’Ancona recalls a very odd meeting with the two men who have dared to take Dan Brown to court — and their spooky theory about the European Community M uch the...

As Israel goes to the polls, Irwin Stelzer says that we should have learnt the lessons of Africa: unconditional aid destroys economic growth and infantilises its recipients M...

Frances Osborne says that the death of a dictator and a terrorist atrocity do not speak as powerfully to the human heart as a single image L ast week my four-year-old son...

The EU trade commissioner tells David Rennie that life in Brussels is more fun than a Cabinet job and broods on his possible fate under Prime Minister Cameron Brussels A lmost...

receive formal endorsement from a Conservative government. But he says, ‘His commitment is to fair trade. I wouldn’t say there is any great clamour among Conservatives to...

A ll my life I have wanted to fly. Fly, not be flown. I’ve been flown in aeroplanes since boyhood but that isn’t flying, any more than travelling in a ship is swimming....

From Correlli Barnett Sir: Surely Con Coughlin (‘A bittersweet birthday’, 18 March) is in error when he states that it was only after the fall of Saddam that Washington...

From William Shawcross Sir: Rod Liddle may blithely assert that ‘of course, for the vast majority of Iraqis life was much better’ under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein...

From Lindsey Hilsum Sir: No, I was not just having a bad hair week. Charles Moore asks (The Spectator’s Notes, 18 March) why I wore a headscarf while reporting from Tehran...

From Nick Hurd MP Sir: Lord Lawson (‘Climate of superstition’, 11 March) tells us that the threat from climate change is ‘less certain and less urgent that is commonly...

My husband lives almost entirely in the past, generally finding it a more agreeable place to make his habitation as, often, do we. To sustain him, the television has recently...

From Cllr Ron Forrest Sir: Kenneth Clarke’s belief (‘We must turn to the Liberals’, 18 March) that the Tories should prepare for coalition with the Liberal Democrats will...

From Douglas Carswell MP Sir: David Rennie supposes that Britain has had to ‘sign away great slices of national sovereignty in the hope of prising open other nations’...

From Pamela Hill Sir: I wonder where Paul Johnson got his measurements for Mary Queen of Scots of only 5ft 10in (And another thing, 18 March)? She may possibly have lost height...

From Richard Hills Sir: I think it worth pointing out that Michael Tippett was carrying on a tradition of enterprise and innovation begun by Gustav Holst on his appointment as...

From Michael Henderson Sir: Perhaps your guest pop critic (‘Dark Side of the Hoon’, 18 March) should return to those red boxes. Phil Manzanera is not, nor has ever been, a...

From John McDermott Sir: Even scarier than the Virgin Birth, Resurrection, Ascension and all that stuff is the lack of evidence that Jesus (Books, 11 March) ever laughed. John...

T his month I spent a weekend in Bruges, travelling most of the way by Eurostar, which for this kind of trip easily beats air travel for speed and is, of course, incomparably...

the Good Book Philip Hensher T HE S ELFISH G ENE (A NNIVERSARY E DITION ) by Richard Dawkins OUP, £14.99, pp. 360 ISBN 0199291144 ✆ £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655...

Clive Aslet R ETURN TO A KENFIELD by Craig Taylor Granta, £14.99, pp. 228, ISBN 1862078874 ✆ £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 W hen Ronald Blyth’s Akenfield was...

D. J. Taylor T HE G OOD L IFE by Jay McInerney Bloomsbury, £17.99, pp. 354, ISBN 0747580901 ✆ £14.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 L ooking back at the reviews of his...

Lee Langley L IFE , E ND O F by Christine Brooke-Rose Carcanet, £12.95, pp. 119, ISBN 1857548469 ✆ £10.36 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 T HE C HRISTINE B ROOKE -R OSE O...

Judith Flanders T HAT S WEET E NEMY by Robert and Isabelle Tombs Heinemann, £25, pp. 624, ISBN 0434008672 A French journalist writing in 1999 was succinct: ‘The English hate...

Olivia Glazebrook T HE S UNDANCE K IDS : H OW THE M AVERICKS T OOK B ACK H OLLYWOOD by James Mottram Faber, £16.99, pp. 480, ISBN 0571222676 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870...

Jonathan Sumption T HE G REAT T RANSFORMATION : T HE W ORLD IN THE T IME OF B UDDHA , S OCRATES , C ONFUCIUS AND J EREMIAH by Karen Armstrong Atlantic Books, £19.99, pp. 444,...

Byron Rogers MENCKEN: T HE A MERICAN I CONOCLAST by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers OUP, £19.99, pp. 672, ISBN 0195072383 ✆ £15.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I once received...

Peter J. M. Wayne NEWGATE: L ONDON ’ S P ROTOTYPE OF H ELL by Stephen Halliday Sutton Publishing, £20, pp. 234, ISBN 0750938951 T ucked away behind the concrete fretwork of...

Bevis Hillier R UDYARD K IPLING : T HE C OMPLETE P OEMS with a foreword by M. M. Kaye Kyle Cathie, £12.99, pp. 702, ISBN 1856266699 ✆ £10.39 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655...

Brian Masters S TATELY P ASSIONS : T HE S CANDALS OF B RITAIN ’ S G REAT H OUSES by Jamie Douglas-Home Michael O’Mara, £20, pp. 264, ISBN 1843171546 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45...

Christopher Woodward C ANDIDATES FOR F AME by Matthew Hargreaves Yale, £40, pp. 244, ISBN 0300110049 ✆ £32 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 O n 12 November 1759 London’s...

Sara Wheeler expresses the frustrations and joys of tackling a biographical subject without any material ‘B iographies,’ wrote John Updike, ‘are just novels with...

You glorious twenty-six, not equal In purport, short straws of words, Come with me to the night-time squall, My hurricane of verbs. My chiefest pegs to hang fear on — Don’t...

Josie Appleton deplores the use of advertising gimmicks to promote museums and galleries I t took me a few seconds to realise that the two adverts on Holborn Tube station were...

Andrew Lambirth Sickert’s Bath Victoria Art Gallery, Bridge Street, Bath, until 2 April Paula Rego: Prints (Part Two) Victoria Art Gallery, Bridge Street, Bath, until 4 May...

Giannandrea Poesio Cinderella; Triple Bill Scottish Ballet S ce 1945, Prokofiev’s music for the in ballet Cinderella has seduced many dance-makers. Not surprisingly, for the...

Olivia Glazebrook Transamerica 15, selected cinemas I n the movies, when men dress as women, they never behave like women in the real world. They become terribly prim and...

Robin Holloway B ack yet again in the dentist’s chair last week, where time compresses, yet elongates, into infinite present as if there were no events or memories in-between...

Lloyd Evans Resurrection Blues Old Vic The Leningrad Siege Wilton’s Music Hall Period of Adjustment Almeida R esurrection Blues is one of the silliest things ever written by...

Michael Vestey S ce I first became aware of it, I’ve in always loved Broadcasting House in Portland Place. The first time I started work there I had to sit in a café down...

Simon Hoggart D eal or No Deal (Channel 4, weekday afternoons and Saturday) is the quintessence of television, in that it is remarkably boring, mildly hypnotic, and stars Noel...

Simon Courtauld I wonder whether the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, will eat quail again after the shooting incident in south Texas last month, when he ignored the most basic...

Robin Oakley D ean Close, the old sourpuss, declared of Cheltenham Races in 1827: ‘It is scarcely possible to turn our steps in any direction without hearing the voice of the...

Taki Gstaad T he end of another perfect season where skiing is concerned. Wonderful powder snow, beautiful sunshine, plunging temperatures at night and empty slopes once the...

Jeremy Clarke I think I’ve got that Seasonal Affective Syndrome business, or SAD, otherwise known as Winter Blues. The symptoms, says my medical encyclopedia, are despair,...

James Delingpole Captain J.R. Gower joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1926 and served for 36 years, ending up as captain of the boys’ training academy HMS Ganges. He served...

FRANK KEATING A nthem is as anthem does. What with the rugby internationals last weekend and the ongoing Commonwealth Games, a mad medley of various national anthems has been...

house, a little terrier, happened to behave impeccably, but in the past I have opened the doors to a variety of hounds from hell who have climbed on furniture, left messes and...

taken home for the weekend by a helicopter which landed on the school’s playing fields. Totally unfazed by this unusual transport, the girl explained that Mummy had taken the...

answer the door of her (comparatively) grand house in Kensington? It is safe to say that in most Western capitals anyone who, unannounced and unwelcome, knocks on your door or...